Randje 9-10

The borders of the 4^th week. It’s stitched with 2 threads of stranded purple Anchor on 28 count linen.

More info about this SAL at Randje per week.

Work In Progress Wednesday - January 29

Not much progress this week, I only added 3 pages to my fabric book.

Peter the friendly dragon made by Helinä

Mermaid made by Janny

The Griffin made by Juliette

More info about Work In Progress Wednesday at Pin Tangle.

Old shell chain stitches

TAST stitch 97 and 98 is shell chain stitch and beaded shell chain stitch. 
TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

I didn’t plan to blog today, because last week we got 2 new stitches from Sharon. But I think you’ll like my old shell chain stitch samples, so here they are. These rows are part of my TAST 2010 sampler, which I stitched in November 2010. The first row is perle 5. The second row is a buttonholed variation with perle 8. My thread wasn’t long enough to stitch the complete row, but I left it that way, so I could see what I had done. The third row is beaded shell chain stitch in perle 12 with 2,6 mm beads. The bottom row is Stef Francis perle 5. It's a bit difficult to see, but I alternated the second chain stitch from left to right.

At the time I had no idea what to stitch on the remaining part of my sampler, so I made a cup of tea and watched my husband gathering his supplies for our new bathroom radiator. One of his supplies was a bundle of hemp! He had enough of it, so I could use some in my embroidery. I couched it with shell chain stitches in blue perle 5 and brown perle 8 and added some beads. When I showed it to my husband, he told me I made sushi! Take a look here if you would like to see my complete TAST 2010 sampler.

My last old sample is part of the last sampler I stitched for TAST 2010 with a repeat of many TAST 2010 stitches. I used the shell chain stitch as a filling in perle 8 and added a buttonhole wheel cup and 2 drizzle stitches.

There are more old samples of shell chain stitch from other participants in the Flickr TAST group.

Linked chain stitch

TAST stitch 95 is linked chain stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, 
an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

Last week I prepared a new 14 count Aida sampler to use as  a doodle cloth. The linked chain stitches are my first experiments on it.

These are the first rows in yellow perle 5 and green perle 8.

Here I used 2 different colours of stranded floss in 2 needles and alternated them to stitch the linked chain stitch. This would have looked much better in thicker thread like perle 5 or 8.

Two rows in perle 5. The green row is pushed in, so there’s no space between the backstitch links. In the bottom row I whipped the backstitch links with a fancy embroidery thread.

This is a progress photo of the green row. Every chain stitch is stitched around 2 touching backstitches. It produces a nice bulky line, great for sumptuous surface embroidery!

In my last row I experimented with an open chain stitch. It needed 2 backstitch links, which I stitched in a triangle shape. As usual I took some step by step photo’s as a reminder.

The first step is the same as the normal open chain stitch.

The first backstitch link.

And the second backstitch link.

Take a closer look at my complete Aida sampler here.

Randje 7-8

The borders of the third week. It’s stitched with 2 threads of stranded purple Anchor on 28 count linen.

More info about this SAL at Randje per week.

Work In Progress Wednesday - January 22

Last week I shared the finished front and backside of the cover for my fabric book. This week I started adding the pages by hand.

I managed to add the first 2 pages from Catherine and Evi.

Sharon of Pin Tangle wrote about Work In Progress Wednesday today:

Work In Progress Wednesday started out at Pin Tangle to encourage people to complete large and/or languishing projects. But you can also include things like UFO’s, de-stashing or any stitching project you want to share. Going public and sharing does help people push themselves to complete a project or reach a stitching goal.

Read all about Work In Progress Wednesday at Pin Tangle.

Birthday cards for Masha

I used selvages for Masha’s first birthday card and decorated it with an organza yoyo flower.

Unfortunately it didn’t arrive, so I made her another fabric card. This time I used felt to make leaves. It was inspired by this tutorial at Craft Snob.

I stitched fly stitch leaves with stranded floss.

The circles are attached with buttonhole stitches and beads.

Randje 4-6

The borders of the second week. It’s stitched with 2 threads of stranded purple Anchor on 28 count linen.

 More info about this SAL at Randje per week.

Work In Progress Wednesday - January 15

This week I finished the front and backside of the cover for my fabric book. 

I found the pattern of the unicorn here.

There’s a pocket on the inside of both for all letters and cards that accompanied the fabric book pages.

More info about Work In Progress Wednesday at Pin Tangle.

Birthday cards from Ati and Masha

Ati

I’ve got 2 pretty birthday cards from the Fibre Fever girls during my blog break. Take a look at the other cards I've got here.

Masha

Thank you Ati and Masha!

Koning Willem-Alexander

I made this ATC for Wilma for the January swap at Fibre Fever. 

Work In Progress Wednesday - January 8

It was time to continue my Fantasy fabric book. Last year I stitched the unicorn 

for the cover, but now I wanted to add the theme too. I liked the bold letters, but 

I didn’t like the look of my cover this way.

Much better! Here I’m stitching cross stitches on waste canvas. It’s not necessary to use a hoop, but it works better for me.

All done, it didn’t take much time.

Now I had to remove the waste canvas.

Then I had to damp stretch it for the second time.

More info about Work In Progress Wednesday at Pin Tangle.

Randje 1-3

The first 3 borders. It’s stitched with 2 threads of stranded purple Anchor on 

28 count linen. I still have to finish the backstitch border.

More info about this SAL at Randje per week.

Page 97

Another page in my altered book Een stem van papier. The background is painted with acrylic paint. I found the picture of the cute cows in a magazine. The border was inspired by Teesha’s videos about collage. You can find them here.

The proverbs came from this book, which I found in a second hand shop a few months ago. There were enough proverbs about koeien (Dutch for cows) to fill the background.

Birthday cards for Evi and Ritva

for Evi

I made these card from the scraps of my quilt Pot vol Blomme.

for Ritva

Randje per week

These are the threads I’m going to use for my new project, the SAL 
Randje per week.

Every week there will be 1 or more borders to stitch. You can read all about it on the blog Randje per week.

The project is designed for a long strip of embroidery fabric, but I don’t like that. I’m going to make double pages for another fabric book. I’m using the same kind of fabric as suggested, 28 count linen. This will be my first double page.

Of course I had to zigzag the edge. 

The green running stitch is temporarily, it’s the marking for the stitching space. I’m stitching backstitches around them with 2 threads of stranded black floss.

The borders will be online every Saturday, you can find the first 3 here.

Welcome 2014

Today I want to tell you about my creative plans for 2014. I hope to finish 3 fabric books and write Work In Progress Wednesday-posts about my progress. I will continue my Fantasy fabric book first.

Of course I’ll stitch the TAST stitches, which will not be weekly anymore. I don’t mind, it gives me more time for a new project. I’ll introduce it to you tomorrow.

 And that’s all for my creative plans,  I’ll just wait and see what inspires me in 2014!