TAST fabric book page 7

These are the stitches for weeks 25-29 of the TAST 2010 challenge. My fuchsia was inspired by Maureen's fuchsia. I wrote about how I made the raised chain circle here. There are photo's with more info about each stitch in my TAST album at Flickr.

Little Pear

A few weeks ago I bought an amigurumi book called 'Lieve knuffels zelf haken'. This is the Dutch translation of Ana Paula Rimoli's book Amigurumi World. This cute little pear is the first pattern I tried. Cindy wanted to have a look too, she told me she likes my pear!

Hearts

Look what I found, a completed block for my Groninger blanket! I used the pattern of the hearts on page 7 of this pattern. Now I only have to knit one more block and I found my notes for that one too.

New ATC's in my mailbox

I've got some lovely ATC's in the last few weeks. The first one is a fabric ATC made by Carolyn. Debra knew I like sunflowers. I hope the ones in my garden will be as pretty as this one.

This lovely peacock is made by Joyce. The photo doesn't do it justice, it has a lot of bling.

Gobelin filling

It's almost 2 weeks since I wrote about my needlepoint vase. But there's some progress. I used a gobelin filling with 4 threads of blue stranded DMC for the wavy lines. At the left side you see a part of the diamonds I made for the background. At the right the chevron for the vase. I'm not done yet, I'll post a photo of the complete embroidery when it's finished.

Kutchwork

Last week I was flipping through the pages of my studio journal and found a half finished design for my red CYL (colour your life) collage. Now I finally knew how to finish it, I only needed an embroidered sample of kutchwork. This is the same Gingham fabric as my chicken scratch experiments. I used stranded DMC for my first trial. Then I tried a perle 5. This was the look I wanted! I like the different colours of the holes.

I attached them both in my studio journal with the notes about the threads I used.

I used Deepa's very detailed tutorial for kutchwork, you can find part 1 and part 2 on her blog.

Asparagus Verdigogh

This week's zentangle challenge was fun! We could only use 2 patterns: Dex and Verdigogh, two totally different tangles. I have admired Verdigogh, but never tried it until now. Dex was totally new to me. It was not difficult to decide what to draw, but I had no time to practice the tangles first. I called my plant Asparagus Verdigogh, because it looks like Asparagus fern.

Texas Rangers

. . . is the last block I made for my Civil War Diary quilt. I made it over a year ago and forgot to post it on my blog. In fact, I forgot all about the quilt too! Now I'm sorting out my stash and found it again. I'm pretty sure this will be my last block, so I have to think about what to do with the 18 blocks I made.

New old books!

Yesterday I visited a second-hand store. I never walk out empty handed! This time I found 2 great books from the 70's. A small one about needle lace with some lovely full size patterns. The rose on the cover is one of the patterns. This is a big book, half embroidery - half macrame.

I'm sure I never make this bag, but this book is filled with lots of patterns.

It was fun to flip through the macrame part of my book. I did some macrame in the 70's and recognized a lot of the things in this book.

This is something I actually made in the 70's. Not as a hanger, but I covered a lot of bottles with macrame!

Zentangled X

The zentangled ATC alphabet continues. I made this X for Deeno . . . . . . and Laura made this purple X for me.

Janine made me this funny U, because I didn't receive my zentangled U from my swap partner.

Hitchhiker

It took me 7 weeks to knit my Hitchhiker shawl. This time Cindy came to see what I was doing.

She was kind enough to make way for a photo.

I finished it a few days ago and I'm already missing the rhythm of knitting a few rows in the evenings. Time to finish my Groninger blanket before it thinks it's an UFO instead of a Work In Slow Progress!

Hairpin lace spiral

Yesterday's zentangle inspired me to try some spiral hairpin lace. I already had a large strip of 2 cm wide hairpin lace in my stash. It took me several trials to figure out how to get the curve I needed. The size is about 14 x 12 cm (6,5 x 4,75 inch).

This is the hairpin lace I made for Suz. I used the hairpin lace patterns I developed last year to see if I could inderstand my own pattern writing after so many months. The circle is about 1,5 inch or 4 cm.

Spiral

This week's zentangle challenge is called 'Spiral Out, Keep Going'. I only used 3 patterns: Barberpole, Shard and Artoo. The leaves are a tangelation of Shard.

Glue and watercolour paint

Suz showed a great experiment with glue and watercolour paint a few weeks ago. She made cards from it and I recieved one of them last week. I just had to try this technique too. I used PVA glue and watercolour paint in red, yellow and purple. At the bottom left side I mixed the yellow and red. I took lots of detail photo's and had fun with them on my computer.

Here I played with a part of the spiral.

This one is my favourite!

I'm going to experiment with these photo's in my studio journal too.

TAST fabric book page 6

These are the stitches for weeks 21-24 of the TAST 2010 challenge. You can watch the slipped detached chain grow in a slideshow here. There are photo's with more info about each stitch in my TAST album at Flickr.

50

I made this ornament for my husband's birthday. The text is Dutch and says: 18 with 32 years experience.

Diamonds & Chevron

Today I stitched the last diamonds at the background of my vase design. The vase is done in chevrons. I already removed the blue water-soluble lines, but a wet embroidery doesn't photograph well. I already showed some details of the stitches here and here. Now I need to think about what to do with the wavy lines.

Tangled vase

After finishing my appliqued vase and starting on my needlepoint vase it was time to try a tangled one too!

Zentangled W

The zentangled ATC alphabet continues. I made this W for Janine . . . . . . and Stephan made this pretty W for me.

He also sent me a piece of paper towel he used to clean his brushes. He covered it with Mod Podge when it was dry. I think I try some embroidery on it.

Chevron

I'm still working on this design in needlepoint. After stitching half of the diamonds it was time to try a new stitch, the chevron. The thread is a variegated Stef Francis perle 5. I filled the vase with chevrons and now I'm stitching the remaining diamonds.

In my mailbox

This lovely card from Suz was in my mailbox a few days ago. She wrote about the making of it here. I'm going to try this technique soon! A close up of the painted part of the card. The photo doesn't do it justice, it's much prettier in reality.

Yesterday, Suz showed all the cards she made on her blog.

Alphabet zentangle G & H

This was a swap were you had to use at least one zentangle pattern starting with G and one with H. I decided to go for simplicity again. First I drew Hollibaugh and filled the background with Gingham. Unfortunately this ATC got lost in the mail. I made another one for Lisa, but totally different this time. I used 2 patterns with G, 1 with C and 3 with H so I called it G2CH3.

The patterns Cross view, Gewurtz and Herald (in Totally Tangled) were new to me.

This is the gorgeous ATC Melissa made for me . . .

. . . with the notes of the patterns she used.

She also surprised me with some ATC backgrounds. She told me that she created them using alcohol inks and shaving cream!

After a quick search I found a video with this technique here. It looks easy and the result is beautiful. Maybe I'll give it a try.

TAST fabric book page 5

These are the stitches for weeks 17-20 of the TAST 2010 challenge. The up and down feather stitch was inspired by the floral spray on my first encrusted CQ block. The buttonhole wheel cup was very addictive, I couldn't stop until the square was filled with stitches! You can watch it grow in this slideshow. There are photo's with more info about each stitch in my TAST album at Flickr.