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?

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.

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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?!

Prayer Flag Project Announcement

I know that many of you  who check in on this site work with a variety of creative media.   Given that, you may be interested in participating in a special event recently announced by the Prayer Flag Project:

CALL TO ARTISTS

PRAYER FLAG PROJECT

Give visual voice to your prayers by creating a prayer flag and submitting it to OMA’s Prayer Flag installation on view at Oceanside Museum of Art October 14 through December 31, 2012. Artists are invited to design a unique flag made of fabric and other materials that reflects their current and future hopes and dreams. Flags should be approximately 5” x 8” with a 3” sleeve on the top-backside of the quilt and must arrive at Oceanside Museum of Art by September 21. Please include your name, date and the desired prayer on the back of the Flag. It is suggested that the artist uses an iron on fabric label for this information.

Please address or deliver Flags to following address

OMA Prayer Flag Project

Oceanside Museum of Art

704 Pier View Way

Oceanside, CA 92054

Artists are responsible for mailing and/or delivering their prayer flag. Flags will only be returned if the artist includes a self-addressed and stamped envelope. All other flags will become property of the museum.

Basic principles I try to keep in mind

I am trying to think what I wish to focus on in the flag I’m going to make for this .  Since Prayer Flags are a part of Buddhist tradition and since that is how I am so inclined, that is the direction I will head in.  Will keep you posted!

Drop a line if you are going to participate in this, too!

A Chain Stitch Sampler

Chain Stitch Sampler or Ribbons, Ruffles, and Chains

This past week TAST 2012 is taking a “catch up” or get crazy creative break.  I focused on my Attachments Quilt Blocks (and UFOs) to create a sweet little sampler. Something I call Ribbons, Ruffles, and Chains.

I’ve been pretty good about keeping up, sometimes at the expense of other projects.  But I have no other serious obligations.  And, I see the TAST Challenge as well as the Stitchers’ UFO Challenge as a means to reestablish  discipline that has waned since leaving the Social Services Rat Race.  I’m looking at it as “practice,” as in meditation or spiritual practice.  I really want to create my own designs and stitch them instead of always enjoying the fruits of other people’s’ creative endeavors.  As a follower of “The Artist Way” for decades, I know there are many ways to get to the creative source in one’s self.  One of them is to engage in play.  Another is repetitive activity that frees the mind from clutter.  A very important way is to lose one’s attachment to perfection or preconceived notions of what is good or bad, pretty or ugly, worthwhile or useless, and so on.

I am learning a lot about that through the TAST Challenge.  Taking the Studio Journal As A Designer’s Workhorse really helped, too.  There are a lot of ugly images in my journal, but the images represent something quite beautiful in my mind’s eye.  I don’t draw well, nor do I have a whole artist’s studio at hand.  So my journal is full of reMINDers of things I want to stitch.  And some of my embroidery is not necessarily pretty either.  Case in point is the TAST 2012 Attachments Quilt Block I did with safety pins.  Even though no one will say, “Oh, that is so gorgeous, I must have it!,” the piece communicates exactly what I meant to say about attachments to unhealthy things.

Same thing with my Ribbons, Ruffles, and Chains sampler and/or Attachments Quilt Block. It is a reminder to myself that an abiding affinity to ribbons and ruffles and a pretty world is not only living with blinders on, but will keep your heart chained from the experience of compassion and the opportunity to relieve any suffering in the world.  Attachments make it hard to have a heart that is open to full life including true love.

A schematic of the stitch layout
(click for larger view)

This block is also about practicing a stitch in an array of its variations. The Chain Stitch.  I had A LOT of fun with this.  And learned a great deal.  I even have a couple new favorite stitches.  I especially like the stitches in the lower right corner of the sampler.  Overall I used 11 chain stitch variations:  chain, twisted chain, barred chain, butterfly chain, wheat ear stitch, braided chain over one stitch, braided chain over two stitches, open chain, heavy chain, raised chain, and cabled chain.  I especially liked the tutorials at Sarah’s Hand Embroidery.  She has a section of nothing but change stitches that you can find in the right sidebar.  I’m thinking I’ll do another sampler with the variations that are not on this block.  Here is a schematic of the stitches I did use.

I hope these close-ups help you pick a few variations you might like to try.

Close up of upper left corner of my Chain Stitch Sampler

Lower Right Corner of my Chain Stitch Sampler

My favorites are the raised chain, the braided chain, the cable chain, twisted chain, and wheat ear stitch.  Which do you especially like?  Which one have you never done but will now try?

Stitch Challenge: TAST OR Math?

There are a few stitches that challenge me more than others.  And Sharon Boggon from Pin Tangle’s Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) has included more than one in her weekly challenges.  This week in fact!  The Knotted Cretan Stitch is lovely.  I love the texture.  I don’t love the math.

I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if I drew lines on the fabric rather than counted threads.  But the threads ARE lines so it really shouldn’t matter.  Actually a basic line of Cretan (or chevron or herringbone) stitches isn’t a problem.  The problem is when I try to layer them.  The second layer takes a few minutes to figure out my new count and placement.  But the third and fourth are killers.  It feels like I’m using my left hand instead of my right.  Is this a Right Brain vs. Left Brain thing?  Can anyone tell me how to make this easier?

I can fold egg whites into a batter without loosing a molecule of air, but I struggle beyond belief with multiple layers of these stitches.  I can take the sugar out of a recipe and make the item taste like a thousand calories.  I love the texture of  layered stitches.  And when I look at other peoples’ work, it all seems so lovely and effortlessly layered.

I know it’s about multiples.  That’s kind of like permutations—right?  Could someone please write a blog about this for we mathematically challenged stitchers and send me the link?  Or will this not really matter when I pull my antique crazy quilt out of storage and start the embellishments that were never done?

One thing I have learned this week with the Knotted Cretan is about when to end the thread if you didn’t start with enough.  End at either far end of the stitch (A or D per Sarah’s pictorial tutorial.)  Bring the new thread in at the point where the stitch will be bisected, the middle point, the C point if you use A-B-C-D notation for a stitch.  If you end your thread in the middle, you have to introduce the new thread in the same space and it looks messy.  Thank goodness I DID learn something.   Everything else was kind of accidental!  But I DO like what I did and think I could recreate it.  What do you think?  How would you further embellish this?

Knot sure what I did here!

Oh, and I played with threads.  This is the first weekend for picking strawberries here so I was thinking about fruity colors.  Colors related to cherries for the bottom two rows.  Grape and watermelon for the top two.  I was going to add something for blueberry, my favorite, but pooped out.  There’s a variety of silk, stranded cotton, and perle cotton in this sample.  Here’s the cast in order of appearance:

• DMC Perle #5 3042
• Weeks Dye Works floss #2262 Watermelon
• Caron Wildflowers #081 Black Cherry
• Caron Waterlilies #149 Cherry Cordial

Butterfly Chain, A Real TAST Challenge For Me

This is not exactly how I envisioned this would go, but it is a sampler!

I may alienate many people with this statement, but I have to take the risk:  I don’t like butterflies.  I used to like spiders because of the Greek mythology connection and because they eat other insects.  But then I found out that they are cannibals.  Now, I must simply say that while I respect the place of insects in Nature, on the whole I simply am not interested in sharing space with any of them, no matter how delightful the coloring.  Butterflies are too much like moths.  Bottom line they are creepy, crawly, wormy things before they mature.  I’m really more of a flora than a fauna person!Consequently, I was not thrilled with the idea of a stitch that is called Butterfly Chain.  But as I have committed to this year-long challenge offered by Sharon Boggon at Pin Tangle, this “little” thing called Take a Stitch Tuesday, I must tackle this stitch.  BUT, I have a re-frame, good little strategic therapist that I am!  My little chains are not creating the lovely body of butterflies out of my straight stitches, they are instead gathering together stalks of corn or wheat or some other grain that looks like liquid gold in a field!Ahhh, relief.  Now I can stitch!

And stitch I did.  Except…

When Jeffrey looked at the work I had done, he said, “Oh, are you stitching a fence?”  I said, “Oh, yeah,  that’s just what it is!”

Wisteria Fence

I didn’t start with a sketch this time.  I just kind of had an idea in my head.  It’s better to start with a sketch as it’s much easier to erase on paper than it is on fine, 32 count linen!  (That’s what my 2012 TAST Sampler is stitched on.)  The following slide show reveals the evolution of what I’m calling Wisteria Fence.  You’ll see why as the pics progress.

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More Satin Stitch Images

This gallery contains 7 photos.

I didn’t want to overload you the other day with a plethora of photos of projects with Satin Stitches.  So, I’ll overload you today!  During the following slide show you can click on the buttons at the bottom of the … Continue reading →

A Tisket, A Tasket, A Satin Stitch Easter Basket

I had so many ideas for what I’d do with Satin Stitch, the 13th stitch in Sharon Boggon’s Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge.  First I was going to do some musical notation for the song “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” but found it was copyrighted.  Then I was going to make a band of bunny ears in various states of awareness.  But that seemed kind of boring.

I also thought about not stitching at all because I have so many projects that have Satin Stitch in them.  But, this is not just about learning the stitch, it’s about challenging one’s self.  And truth be told, I hate Satin Stitch.  I’m always worried about coverage and pulling too tight.  I want it to be perfect.  I like using it in needlepoint on canvas or congress cloth because I use a laying tool.  For some reason using a laying tool seems kind of heavy-handed on linen.

Satin Stitched Easter Basket

So, I challenged myself.  I tried to do a design that was 100% Satin Stitch.  I almost did it.  But then the handle and rim of baskets are often different in texture than the basket (or so I rationalized.)

I used DMC 3858 (2 ply) for the basket.  I wasn’t happy with the coverage so I increased it to 4 ply for the rim and handle.  The eggs were done in four different Caron Waterlilies.  The two furthest back I’m not sure which Waterlilies—leftover threads from other projects done long, long ago.  The one on the right front is 013 Peach Sherbet.  The one to the left of that is Tropic Seas.  The directions for Waterlilies says to use 1 ply for 22 count linen.  Since the Sampler is done on 32 count linen, I used 2 ply for the first egg I stitched, the one in the very back.  I didn’t like the coverage, so I used 4 ply on the egg in the front right.  That seemed kind of puffy, so I used 3 ply on the remaining eggs.  I think that was the best coverage.

What do you think?  What would you do to improve this little design and my Satin Stitch?  Please do leave a comment as I think I need to do more work on this, but am not sure what exactly is needed.  Help!

Take A Stitch Tuesday Catch Up

Sampler effective March 24, 2012. Looking good!

Now that the Studio Journal as Designer’s Workhorse class is done, I’ve taken the time to catch up on my TAST stitching.  I’ve combined five weeks into the sampler band I’ve done this week.  So what stitches did I use?

• Week 7  Detached Chain
• Week 8 Chain Stitch
• Week 11 Whipped and Woven Wheels (never had much luck with this one before)
• Week 12 Alternating Barred Chain (first time stitching this one)

Spring is definitely happening here in Southern Alabama and this inspired me to create a little fantasy flower garden and fresh, feathery, green garland.  I tried to follow an idea put forth by Mary Corbet to given my flowers a kind of raised center, but I did not have much success with this.  Guess I’ll have to keep on trying.  But I’m not disappointed with my results.  There is a lot of texture to my flowers.  And I had fun while learning two new stitches!

Padded Center DMC 3821 Detached Chain “spokes” DMC 3814 Whipped Wheel DMC 3835 Detached Chain surface petals DMC 3607	Padded Center DMC 3821 Detached Chain “spokes” DMC 3814 Whipped Wheel DMC 353 Amethyst 11° seed beads around center iridescent Amethyst bugle beads outlining flower	Padded Center DMC 3821 Running Stitch/Straight Stitch spokes DMC 3814 Whipped Wheel DMC 3607

Garland wrapping three Fantasy Flowers

• Alternating barred chain interspersed with chain DMC 3814 (1 strand) and DMC 3813 (2 strands)
• Detached Chain DMC 3821

So what do you think?  Which is your favorite Fantasy Flower?  Or do you like the Garland best?

TAST 2012: Week Six Chevron Stitch with Bamboo and Sea Grass

My TAST Sampler to date

It’s been a very busy week, but I managed to stitch a few Chevrons…and more!  We are preparing to move to our next camping location.  Doing so is kind of like tying off loose ends, weaving in bits, and getting a finished piece ready for framing.  Yup—nitpicking chores!  But there was some fun, too!  I have a new grandniece named Peyton Marie born to the little boy I helped deliver too many years ago (who I’m proud to say is now a not so little member of the U. S. Navy)!  I started Sharon Boggon’s Online Class Studio Journal as a Designers Work Horse.  I went to New Orleans to visit the Garden District Needlework Shop where I spent too much money but had so much fun!  (I’ll be doing a full write-up about this incredible shop once we get relocated.)  I used some new to me threads in stitching the TAST Week 6 Challenge:  the Chevron Stitch.

Sea Grass by The Thread Gatherer

I have seen Sea Grass by The Thread Gatherer in catalogues, but not in a shop.  The Garden District Needlework Shop had a supply, so I picked up a packet to try it out.  It was very nice to work with.  In some situations I could see using a laying tool, but in this case I simply used my needle to smooth the flat thread out.  The texture reminded me of the shredded paper type of grass  for Easter Baskets (as opposed to the plasticky stuff.)  The colors are nice, too!  I can definitely see a stash of Sea Grass in my future.

Foundation Chevron in Pink Ribbon, Top in Turkey Red Sea Grass

Another thread new to me was Rainbow Gallery’s Bamboo thread that is sold under the moniker, “Mandarin Floss.”  Just looking through the bobbins on the stand, this color popped out at me.  While I had no idea what I would do with it, I knew it would fit somewhere in my color world.  I was right.

Mandarin Floss in M294 a Bamboo thread by Rainbow Gallery

Using the Sea Grass over the pink ribbon Chevrons and not being sure what the next stitch would be, nor what colors would be most fitting, the variegated bamboo thread provides a really nice bridge to just about anything! Wanting to use previous stitches to offset the Chevrons, I used the Mandarin in Fly Stitch to underline the Chevrons.

I haven’t even mentioned the beginning of the Chevron sample.  The pink ribbon chevrons were tied with layered Herringbone in a Caron’s over dyed cotton.  Not really sure which one—it was pretty and went well with the pink!  That set of Chevrons was framed with Buttonhole Stitch

TAST Week 6 Chevron Stitch Sample

Tell me!  What would you do differently?  Be tough.  I can take it!  Should I do something other than bands?