TAST: French Knot & Pistil Stitch

TAST: French Knot & Pistil Stitch

I’m still filling in my doodle cloth. It’s become kind if a free form sampler–a combination of practice stitches and experimenting. Pistil Stitch Generally speaking, I really like knot stitches and this is no different. This pistil flower is one of the experimental stitches. I like how these flowers turned out, generally, but will do at least two things differently next time. 1) I won’t use variegated thread for the petals because the individual flowers are not distinct enough. At…

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Kiwi Chicken

Kiwi Chicken

Was going to finish the den today. It’s after 3 and I haven’t been in there yet. I may get in there, but it’s not likely I’ll get finished today. Oh, well. This is my normal. Three hours later . . . I got distracted. Again, my normal. I was going to write about my stitching last night, but I saw another picture and wanted to play with it. So this (kiwi skin with one last scoop of fruit) ….

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I’m not very good at keeping up. With anything, really. Since Friday, I’ve been cleaning out my den. I got some new-to-me bookshelves from my sister last Monday. I’m still double shelved, but books are off the floor. She has more bookshelves for me, so I decided to do a thorough deep cleaning to see if I have room. I do. It’s involved getting rid of a lot of junk. What I have left to do is sort and empty…

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How I Spent My Day

How I Spent My Day

[edit] The first part here is my worksheets. There’s a first draft poem at the bottom. Poetry assignment: Sonnet ‘21/03/02 Shakespearean Petrarchan Spenserian Miltonic Modern/Contemporary A A A A 14 B B B B lines A B A B usually B A B A free C A B A verse D B C B C B B B D A C A E C/C/C C C F D/D/D D D E C/E/E C E F D/C/E D D G C/D/D…

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Last Week

Last Week

So…. at 3:30 am on February 13 the ice storm in progress at the time took out our power. Half the city’s, I think. My brother and sister-in-law have had their move to Oregon baptized in fire and ice, not to mention not being able to get out and meet new people because of covid. And they haven’t been here a year, yet. Obviously, I didn’t get my laundry done. I spent a few hours at my sister’s on two…

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Iqbal’s Blanket

Iqbal’s Blanket

It started out as a Big Cloth à la Spirit Cloth. It’s still inspired a bit by Jude’s style of stitching, but is ending up a lot less freestyle stitching. This is partly because it’s being made to Iqbal’s wishes, since it’s for him and partly because I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m learning, though. So, it’s partly traditional and just a wee bit free spirit. I finally got it pieced last month. Piecing before embellishing is one of…

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TAST Week 5 & More

TAST Week 5 & More

 The stitches for this week were feather stitch and feather and chain stitch. (Stitch links go to Sharon’s Stitch Dictionary on Pintangle.) I’ve been doing the TAST stitches on an old doodle cloth I started with TAST a few yeas ago. I don’t really have a project for TAST this year and at some point last fall I decided I want to fill this cloth as densely as possible. The feather stitches are in the lower right corner. The dark…

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Thread Solution

Thread Solution

I have a lot of hand embroidery threads. Mostly this is a good thing because I have a lot of options when I stitch. I had them all neatly organized in drawers by color . . . for maybe a minute. The thing is, the drawers are all downstairs in the studio. My studio is great for all my arts and crafts and machine sewing. I just don’t do hand embroidery down there. What I ended up doing, is putting…

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Sunny

Sunny

It’s funny. I was just thinking how “it’s not summer” = rain because it’s the Pacific Northwest after all, but it’s blue skies and sunshine right now. . . . And now it’s not. Yeah, it’s February My mood is rainy though. Stormy. I’d just like to wake up not hurting/aching and more tired than when I went to bed. Maybe I can get Iqbal to the mattress store this week. That would help, if not cure the problem. Okay/…

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TAST WEEK 4

TAST WEEK 4

I thought I knew how to do Portuguese stem stitch so I didn’t review Sharon’s how-to description carefully. I had these three flowers already stitched so I used it to make the stems. Then I read several posts that questioned if the poster had done their stitches right, so I followed a link to a Mary Corbet video. Nope! I had not done it right at all! So I practiced doing it correctly. As you can see, I also played…

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