Whole Lotta Stitchin’ Goin’ On

Thursday, September 27 PM

I’ve been stitching and been stitched on in the past 24 hours! Maybe I should back up a little.

Monday, September 24

When I was at the laundromat the other day, I practiced a few TAST Week 38 Drizzle Stitch.  I was glad to hear that this Brazilian Embroidery stitch is often stitched with rayon threads.  I just happen to have some rayon floss and some metallic floss that I hate stitching with.  While it is pretty and shiny, it is unruly and knots and slips about and is hard to keep threaded.  I was thinking about giving it away.  But that seems kind of cruel.  I thought about sending it to Fireside Stitchery so they could sell it on their E Bay service, but I kept thinking that is the coward’s way out.

Thanks to the Drizzle Stitch and other Brazilian Embroidery stitches, I have found a way to use these threads and take advantage of their lovely sheen and sparkle!  Unfortunately, the sampling I did at the laundromat, was not exactly “pretty,” so I didn’t photograph it to present in the weekly TAST review over at Pin Tangle.  I thought maybe I would just incorporate it into a sample I work up for other TAST challenges.

Who knew the opportunity would come so quickly!

Tuesday, September 25

Every Tuesday Sharon Boggon announces the new stitch challenge, hence the moniker “Take a Stitch Tuesday!”  This week was no different.  The Week 39 challenge is the Knotted Buttonhole Stitch.  And, like every week, I start thinking about where I might see a similar shape or pattern in nature or in general.  I think about where it might have fit into previous stitching I’ve done.  I consider what colors and thread textures would really stand out with this stitch.

Wednesday, September 26

I’ve found a button that would go very nice with the thread I want to use for the Knotted Buttonhole Stitch.  I’ve been enjoying using the DMC Color Variations perle cotton and will use it yet again.  I had just finished hand stitching the lining of Katie’s Stocking to the stocking and was about start working with the Knotted Buttonhole Stitch when I went outside to try to catch my neighbor before she closed up for the night.  Almost immediately I found myself slanting towards the ground and hugging the propane tanks to avoid falling to the ground. It felt like my leg was wedged into the trailer hitch.   The pain was incredible.  The fact that I could stand suggested the leg was not broken.  But the amount of blood I could feel pouring down my leg suggested this was more than a bit of a boo-boo.  Jeff had a good description of the wound, it looked like someone took an ice cream scoop and dug out most of the front of my leg.  All the ER doctor would say is, “this is really a challenge.”  He said it more than once.  It took over two hours for him to stitch the leg back together.  There are 35 stitches on the inside and I don’t know how many on the inside just to try to get the top closer together.   Luckily, Dr. McClung was up for the challenge.  He even listened to my stupid jokes/stories.  Knowing some are sensitive to such images I’m not posting the pic, but if you want to see the Doc’s wonderful stitching, you can click on the last hyper-linked text.

Vintage button surrounded by Knotted Buttonhole Stitch and Drizzle Stitch fringe all attached to grey fleece.

So, Knotted Buttonhole stitch.  I ended up making a badge for myself.  It is a combination of my attachment series and my patch series of stitch samples.  It has not only the Knotted Buttonhole stitch, but also the Drizzle stitch to make the little fringe at the bottom of the button.  It’s to congratulate myself on surviving what was akin to surgery without anesthesia or pain medication until the actual stitching began and Lidocaine  was injected into raw tissue.

It’s about all I can accomplish at this point.  It’s taken me three days just to write this post.  And I’m ready to go back to bed now.  I’m not supposed to be up and about as there is every danger that the stitches will tear through the thin skin, especially since quite a bit of the subcutaneous tissue sloughed away during the injury.

So, I’m going to bed.  You may not hear from me for a couple weeks.

Pistil Stitch Pomander Patch

TAST 2012 Pistil Stitch Patch with Pistil Stitches, and French knots on Organza and muslin

Pistil Stitch Pomander Patch—say that five times real fast!

(Aside:  I do love alliteration!)  The Pistil Stitch is this week’s TAST challenge where one can learn the stitch or, if familiar with it, go crazy using it.  As you can see I didn’t get crazy with it, but I did mess around a bit.

You will not see the Pistil Stitch in a lot of my work.

Mainly because I don’t love making French knots.  And as you know (or can see), the Pistil stitch is basically a straight stitch which is finished in a French knot. Fancy name for two not so fancy stitches.

But patches…you will begin to see more of.

From me, at least.  It is my latest way to make my TAST samples functional.  (The other two—so far—are the TAST 2012 Sampler and the TAST Attachment Quilt Blocks.)  For me, it is important to have an end product.  I don’t need any more bit and pieces of stuff to collect.  I know!  What are patches but more bits and pieces?!  But these are bits and pieces with a future.

I have been making some clothing and sorting through fabrics in storage.  As I find a piece that is too small to do something useful with, I consider if it would make an interesting background for an embroidery stitch of some sort.  If the answer is, “yes,” then I have added the piece to my trailer embroidery fabric stash.  If the answer is, “no,” then I ditch the piece of fabric.  All part of my seasonal reorganization for on the road crafting.

When I have collected a few patches I will begin to stitch them together to make a patch-worked wall hanging.  I already have two patches.  The background fabric in the following is a scrap of leftover binding I made for a kaftan I made for Jeff.  (One day I’ll get him to model it for a photo!)

Poppy Field–Cast on stitch poppies and sheaf stitch stems

The patch I did this week has a scrap of muslin leftover from the lining of Katie’s Christmas stocking.  The bow is made from a scrap of ribbon that my best friend used on a birthday gift she gave to me years ago.  The orange organza is a remnant that I couldn’t pass up at JoAnn’s.  I mean, really—it was on sale and I had a card for 10% off the sale price, too!  I picked up a couple other remnants the same day.  You’ll see them sometime in the future I’m pretty sure!

TAST 2012 Pistil Stitch Challenge

Closer view of the Pistil Stitches

When the wall hanging is completed, I will assemble the posts that tell about the provenance of the “bits and pieces,” the patches.  That might make I nice little gift-y, or even a blog give-away.

Or maybe I should just make the individual patches blog give-aways?  What do you think?

Theft of Copyrighted and/or Confidential Internet Materials on the Rise!

http://www.copyrightauthority.com for more info on copyright!

Do you have a copyright statement on your blog or website?  Something like this:

“Copyright Notice:

Copyright © Julie J. Castle 2012 – 2013 Please contact author for permission to use material from The Shop Sampler, including pinning images.”

According to the article I received from The Blog Herald today, more and more people are reading these statements and saying, “So what?!”

 According to this article, close to 6 million requests were sent to Google to have information removed immediately from search results.  This represents an increase of over 1.3 million in the same time period compared to data from last year.

Amanda DiSilvestro writes: 

“What This Means to Online Marketers

This spike in requests is significant because it proves that copyrighted or confidential information is being used improperly. This means that online marketers need to be on high alert about when their company is mentioned online. “

Amanda DiSilvestro suggests some safeguards, too:

“This means that online marketers need to be on high alert about when their company is mentioned online. You can do this by setting up virus tool such as McAfee and Copyscape, and even creating a Google Alert for your company name to screen for any potential duplicated content.”

What’s your take on this?  Does it concern you?  How do you protect your creative property rights?  Does your concern keep you from sharing your art online or otherwise?  I would really love to hear what you think and I’m sure others would, too!

Attachment to Guilt Can Kill Creativity

Poppy Field

I’ve been feeling pretty guilty these days.  I don’t like feeling that way.  And why do I feel guilty?  Because I committed to participating in Sharon Boggon‘s Take A Stitch Tuesday at the beginning of the year and back on Week 24, I got hung up and have not been able to catch up.  Look at this list of stitches!  There are 12 of them!  Do you get overwhelmed looking at it?  I do!

• Week 24: Buttonhole Wheel
• Week 25: Cable Chain Stitch
• Week 26: Palestrina stitch
• Week 27: Bonnet stitch
• Week 28: Up and Down Buttonhole stitch
• Week 29: Basque stitch
• Week 30: Oyster Stitch 
• Week 31: Algerian Eye stitch
• Week 32: Cast on stitch
• Week 33: Pekinese Stitch
• Week 34: Linked Double Chain
• Week 35: Sheaf stitch 

(Note:  Click on the stitch name to go to Sharon Boggon’s Tutorial page for the stitch)

Not only that, I’ve started yet two more projects which means I’m adding insult to injury! (Project 1 & Project 2)
And then there’s all those UFOs!

It’s no wonder I’m having “bad food days” and “bad brain days”!

So how does one get past this block?  Well, my Mother, the inveterate no-nonsense Vermonter, would simply say, “Knock it off!”  The Buddhist translation is: “become free from your attachment to suffering!”  Begin by accepting that you have this feeling.  Then you are free to release it.

I’m releasing the guilt by taking action—by considering what I have accomplished and determining what I CAN do to accomplish what is left to be done.

First:  I have color coded the word “Week” in the following list.

RED= Completed, yea!
GREEN= Completed & posted about earlier
Black= Yet to be done

• Week 24: Buttonhole Wheel…..Image below
  
• Week 25: Cable Chain Stitch……Posted here
• Week 26: Palestrina stitch
• Week 27: Bonnet stitch…..Image below
• Week 28: Up and Down Buttonhole stitch
• Week 29: Basque stitch
• Week 30: Oyster Stitch 
• Week 31: Algerian Eye stitch…..Posted here (a variation on Algerian Eye with satin stitches border)
• Week 32: Cast on stitch…..Image below
• Week 33: Pekinese Stitch…...Posted here
• Week 34: Linked Double Chain…..Image below
• Week 35: Sheaf stitch…..Image below 

Here are photos of what I have been doing with the exception of a Caftan that I created for Jeff, a dress I’ve cut out for myself, and Blackwork Lessons details some of what I’ve been up to as well.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And Second:

Wow!  There are only four more stitches to go on the list and I already know where I’m putting them.  I’m going to layer three of them along the Linked Double Chain at the bottom of the TAST 2012 Sample.  The Up and Down Buttonhole stitch will become the rays on the sun in the “Sunshine and Lollipops” piece.  How about that!

Finally, Third:

There!  No longer attached to guilt!   I feel so much better!  How about you?!

I don’t really like the idea of “reblogging,” but when I read this article I’m thinking I may have been wrong. I could never say what this young man says so well. He deserves to be not only read by everyone, but followed, too! I know I am!

Ort

I read what Mary Corbet writes everyday.  Today’s post on Copyright in Embroidery is most excellent.  I’m putting a link to it in my blogs’ reference section.  If you’ve ever had a question about copyright, you should read it!