I have migrated all my posts over to my wordpress blog and any future post will be at Puddle of Dreams 

I am going to start a new blog  My Studio Bookcase.  Join me there :)

Where have all the months gone

Cannot believe its 5 months since I last wrote.  In that time I have continue sporadically with the TAST challenge, visited Scotland and France, enjoyed the company of my daughter with her husband and baby, plus Christmas and New Year has gone by! Wow :)

Must admit I have not felt very creatively inclined these last few months and I really couldn't put a finger on it until I ordered a copy of   Beading Artistry for Quilts: Basic Stitches & Embellishments Add Texture & Drama  by Thom Atkins
  
As I was devouring the pages and relishing the images, I remember the sense of satisfaction I got from beading my pictures and the way I would meditate as I worked.  For some reason embroidery just doesn't give me that same sense of satisfaction.  It  might be the restriction I gave myself at the start of the project, not the embroidery itself,  that has really caused me the problems - no theme and no beads.  With no theme I could not relate to the project, it was just an exercise and without the beads I wasn't able to explore the full extend of the embroidery.

Anyway, I have committed to completing the 2 panels with the 52 stitches for the year and have about 10 stitches to complete. One panel is almost complete.   

 Hopefully from the last picture you can see I have attached the piece to another of fabric with a  Beaded Hedebo Edge stitch
  
Once it is complete (nearly half way around now) I will attach  it to stretchers and possibly frame with it. A very plain frame as the stitching is fancy enough. 

Once I have completed this project, I will explore how I can combine painting, beading and embroidery together.  

Cast on stitch

Knitting is not my forte but I can cast on OK. So this is  basically  like casting on with a  sewing needle instead of a knitting needle.  However like knitting, tension is the key and that is where I come undone. Sometimes it was too tight, sometimes it was too loose and a lot of times, there were knots. However I persevere and came out with a semi decent flower shape. 
The orange small floret was my first try and then I went BIG  with french knots in the middle to create a big Sunflower.

After that I decided I would try it as an individual stitch but I could never get the neat curve shape, Sharon had on her blog.  With the individual stitch I decided to play with the length and number of cast on stitches.  I think if I had used a thicker thread I could have got a nice spiral shape as  I could vaguely see it in some of the samples I created where I increased the stitches to a maximum.- up to 14 for one.   I enclosed the first few with a detached chain stitch and liked it so much I continued with as I went along.  All in all, I think if I worked with this stitch, I could get some interesting effects from it.

Up and Down buttonhole, Basque, Oyster and Algerian Eye Stitch

Hadn't realise it was 3 weeks since I last posted, so much has been going on in other parts of my life, so painting and stitching have both taken a bit of a back seat as a consequence.

So I am now back on Panel 1 although, the up/down buttonhole should have been on panel 2.  As you might remember I wasn't too happy with this panel as I thought I had messed up with the number of colours I used. Now I just think its the material I used as the pattern and colours are so strong. So the aim is reduce the blue and the pattern with a steady progression of stitches.

First up is a sample of the up/down button hole and Basque stitch.  I have already said I like the updown stitch a lot  and I liked the Basque stitch equally as well. Its a very decorative stitch and the colours I chose reflect the way I have see  it being used before, in the hippy clothes of the early 70's, very mellow and laid back. 

Up next the Oyster stitch. So all the brown curves in the pattern are used up so now to tackle the overwhelming blue of the material I chose.  I honestly thought it would work well but didn't really think about the domination of the blue, (this particular blue which seems very cold and dark, despite being a mid blue).  As I worked with the oyster stitch I saw a bough of autumn leaves appearing and I just went with it.  

 Finally, the Algerian eye stitch, this was a perfect stitch to break up the blue and I could have quite happily of covered the whole piece with them.  I used a blue and cream cotton for the first patch and then blue on blue with the second section.  .

It was interesting seeing the effect of white on blue, blue on white, mid blue on dark blue and finally dark blue on mid blue. You would think it wouldn't make much difference but it does completely change the stitch.  I chose to do them as completely random individual stitches, varying the shape and size as I went along

So there are now 17 stitches on this panel and finally I am beginning to like it as it begins to coalesce.  Fingers crossed there are more individual stitches to come.