Sunday 8 January 2012

TAST and Embroidery Journal Updates

Good morning ladies.  In all my excitement about my new found fame, I forgot to tell you about my entrepreneurial mum.  We opened our Folksy shop about 6 months ago and I sold a couple of things, but over the past 4 days, mum has sold 6 scarves!!  She really needs to get her knitting needles out and stock up!  I never usually do this on my blog, but it's time for a little self-promotion, so if you fancy checking out her brilliance, the link is here.

OK, so on to the stitching!

I'm joining in with

I'm joining in with Sharon B's TAST challenge.  Week 1 was the fly stitch.  It's a stitch I've recently been doing with crewel wool for my secret project, so wasn't too unfamiliar.  I think I had visions of me producing gorgeous, unique pieces of work with this challenge.  Nah, just some random stitches!


I had a go at single flies, chains of flies, flies with a lazy daisy or french knot at the bottom, flies with long stems and short stems, flies with 2 or three stems.


Next I tried some leaves.  I'm quite chuffed with the one on the right.  I'm stitching on linen by the way, with 2 strands of embroidery floss.



Then I thought I'd try a little scene.  I only did the grass.  I might add to this with future TAST stitches.  Or maybe not!

Next up I did some stitching for the The Floss Box's Embroidery Journal challenge.  Again, I had visions of gorgeous pieces of work, all exquisitely stitched.  I think I expect too much of myself.   I had stitching block with this as Emily said we should try to stitch without a pattern and I couldn't think of the perfect thing to stitch.  In the end I realised that didn't matter and I just had to stitch something.

I have a vision of a circular pattern, going through the colours of a rainbow.  So far I hate what I've done, but I'm going to finish it anyway.  It's supposed to be a learning process, not a work of art and I think I'm being too hard on myself.


Here I've used several shades of red to do a line in fly stitch, a line of chain stitch, herringbone stitch and chevron stitch.  The dirty marks are my fade away pen which I used to draw out the central circle and divide the hoop into 7.  I've tacked along the lines as the fade away pen tends to fade after about 5 minutes - unless I want it to of course! 

I'll show you more progress on this as and when it's made. 

8 comments:

faith76 said...

Well done your stitches look very neat x

Christine said...

Nice idea this rainbow stitchery !!

The Dotty One said...

Hurrah - well done to your mum! Selling things on folksy is HARD so 6 scarves in 4 days is amazing. I'm gonna have to check out these magic scarves...
I've not seen either of the embroidery challenges you are taking part in but its seems like a really good idea - I might take a look. I really like your grass :o)

Sparklyjools said...

I think you are doing really well with your stitching! And well done to your mum - fantastic!

bluemuf said...

very nicely done

Karen

Kathleen said...

Great Job Kathy http://kathysnest32.wordpress.com/

Allie said...

You are doing GREAT with your stitching, girl, don't worry about a pattern, you're practicing the stitches....and doing a great job!

Thearica said...

Your fly stitch work is great! I didn't get started this week due to being out of town for the holidays and cannot wait to get home and start!

I also want to take a moment to invite you over to my blog to read about a quilt show I am hosting live on my blog beginning Feb 1. The show is called Crazy Quilts Are Quilts Too. The show is designed to bring awareness to all of us crazy quilters and the work we do! There are a host of fantastic prizes to be won! Hope you will come check out the information and hopefully participate!

www.pigtalesandquilts.com