TAST Week 9: Couching

The TAST stitch for this week is couching.  I couched a small snail using Edmar boucle and soy silk.  I added pearl cotton flower stems, detached chain flowers and seed stitches in ribbon.

Menagerie parts 3 and 4

I completed two more squares in the Menagerie sampler.  One is eyelet stitches, the other is herringbone and tied stitches.  I am enjoying making up the patterns in the squares as I go along and trying out different combinations of red white and blue threads.

TAST Week 8: Chain Stitch

The stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge this week is chain stitch.  I used it to create a flower motif based on an old rhinestone brooch.  My motif was stitched free hand so it is not exactly like the brooch but it is similar.

Instead of stitching a new sampler section, I am sharing part of a sampler that I started many years ago.  There are a couple types of chain stitch in this square which is Walsh silk on linen.

For more chain stitch, take a close look at the bark on the tree.  It is all chain stitch in Needle Necessities and Medici wool.  It is a Sundance canvas with stitch guide and it depicts Telaquepaque in Sedona, AZ.  I remember going there with my parents for lunch when we visited friends in the area or stopped on the way to the Grand Canyon.

The shirt is a high school souvenir.  I had friends sign it and then embroidered over their signatures and drawings.  It includes local high school friends and people I met at French Language camp.  A lot of the outlines were done in very small chain stitch.  This photograph shows most of the back.  About 75% of the writing on the shirt has been embroidered.  There is one sleeve and a couple of other places left to embroider.  

 

 

TAST Week 7: Detached Chain

This week the TAST stitch was detached chain.  I skipped the evenweave sampler this week and just created a free embroidery piece.  These abstract flowers are based on the design of my coffee thermos which is orange and white polka dots covered with brightly colored chrysanthemums on it.

There are examples of detached chain in the motif rows of several of the evenweave sampler sections, to add additional texture to the weekly stitches.  Go back and take a look.

TAST Week 6: Chevron Stitch

I continued my TAST sampler and free embroidery experiments this week with the Chevron Stitch.

Kimono sections 1 to 13

I am working on a needlepoint Kimono that was originally designed by Maggie Lane.  John Waddell is offering a colorful version as a course through the Shining Needle Society.  Although I really want to make one that is black, red and gold on black canvas with the color spacing like the one Teresa Frank entered in the exhibit at the 2004 ANG Seminar in Reno.  I would like to use red in place of the blue and black for the cream portions, but I have been seduced by all of the colors that everyone is posting.  So I selected colors from my stash:

The threads include two colors of Caron waterlilies, a couple of skeins of Walsh silk and wool, some Needle Necessities, quite a few Gumnuts "buds", some stranded metalics, a couple of rayon threads, and some other stranded cottons.  I added DMC to expand the range for each of the main colors and to give me more stranded fibers to work with.  Using John's random color selection method, I stitched the first 13 sections of the Kimono:

I am delighted with the results.

Cyberpointers Menagerie

The year long project for 2012 at Cyberpointers this year is a sampler project called Menagerie.  I started mine this weekend and stitched the first two blocks.  I have a bag full of red, white and blue fibers that will provide a perfect assortment of threads and textures for this project in a limited color scheme.  I also had a piece of 18 count tan canvas that was large enough for a 12 x 18 sampler which will allow for twenty four 3 x 3 squares.  The first two squares are shown here.  They are Hilton stitches and Rhodes variations.

TAST Week 5: Herringbone Stitch

This is week 5 of the Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge.  I have two new pieces and one old one to share.  I think that I stitched the first piece for a previous challenge.  It is closed herringbone with french knot accents. It contains a variety of different sizes and orientations of the stitches. 

 I also created a new free embroidery sample using herringbone, straight stitches, and a wrapped spider web for the eye.  A group of photographers went to take pictures of eagles last weekend.  I went to a high school basketball game instead.  The photos that they shared inspired this bird -- based on the colors of the threads it is really a Phoenix, not an eagle.

I continued with my stitch variation sampler this week using some new threads, adding beads, and using new combinations of stitches to show different herringbone variations.