A walk with my camera

It’s been a very busy weekend. Our daughter is moving from a one room apartment to a 2 room apartment, so there’s a lot of work to do. Of course we needed a break from time to time, so I could take a few nice photos on our lunch walk. We found a nice path with lovely trees . . .

 . . . blackberries . . .

. . . and a tree face.

At the end of the path we turned to the right and saw a building with a lot of glass, this is the entrance.

We took a right turn to go back to the new apartment. When I photographed this building we spotted . . .

 . . . a cat with a mouse! The cat heard me zooming in. He just dropped the mouse when I started taking a video.

You can see what happened here, I think the mouse escaped!

Blue pincushion

Remember the hexagons and squares I shared last week? I turned them into this pincushion.

First I made a layout for the top and the strip for the side.

Then the layout for the bottom. These photos helped me remember where to put each hexagon and square!

First I stitched the top and bottom and the strip for the side.

Sorry, I forgot to take photos of the next steps. I sewed the strip for the side to the top piece and closed the strip to a circle. Then I sewed the bottom piece to the strip. I stuffed my pincushion when I had about ¼ of the seams left and stuffed it a little more before closing the last seam. I used glove stitch or boerenhemdensteek in DMC 80.

Jenny's lovely pincushion was the inspiration for my pincushion.

My fabric books

After finishing my TAST 2012 fabric book I just had to take a photo of my fabric books with samplers. From top to bottom:

PLOS fabric book

TAST 2012 fabric book

TAST 2010 fabric book

TAST 2007 fabric book

These links will bring you to a video for each book.

Work In Progress Wednesday - June 25

Last Sunday I finished my TAST 2012 fabric book. The size is 7 x 7 x 2 inch. 

I made a slideshow, which you can watch here.

You can read about the making of this fabric book in my posts about TAST 2012.

Work In Progress Wednesday is a support group to encourage people to complete languishing projects, Works In Slow Progress or UFO’s. 

More info at Pin Tangle.

Boerenhemdensteek

This is the stitch I used to sew my hexagons and squares together. I have no idea how it’s called in English. Just whipstitch twice in the same holes.

update June 24, 2014:
Queenie told me the name of the stitch, it's called Glove stitch.

Bullion VanDyke stitch

TAST stitch 117 is bullion VanDyke stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

I stitched one row in blue perle 5 and added a normal VanDyke stitch in Caron Watercolours. It was nice to give it a try, but I’m sure this is one of those stitches I just forget.

Hexagons & squares

For a new project I prepared 20 hexagons and 6 squares. I hope to share the finished project later this week. What do you think it’s going to be?

Work In Progress Wednesday - June 18

It took me more time than I expected, but I managed to finish the cover of my TAST 2012 fabric book. I needed a little bit of fabric at both sides of the spine on the inside, to sew my pages to the cover. This is a detail of those ledges.

The inside of my cover. The green fabric was a scrap from my quilt 

Pot vol blomme.

The outside of my cover. I hope to share a finished fabric book next time!

Work In Progress Wednesday is a support group to encourage people to complete languishing projects, Works In Slow Progress or UFO’s.
More info at Pin Tangle.

Crazy White block 4 finished

This is the second finished block for my tone on tone CQ. After patching the block I added knotted feather stitch and a cross stitched butterfly in the bottom left corner. Next I added beaded triangular buttonhole stitch and alternating buttonholed cable chain. For the finishing touch I added bugle beads to the knotted buttonhole stitch, secured the doily with transparent seed beads and added 2 stacked buttons.

All stitches except the cross stitch are part of Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

Beaded VanDyke stitch

TAST stitch 116 is beaded VanDyke stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

I stitched my samples on 14 count Aida. Of course I started with Sharon’s first sample. The thread is perle 8.

Here I stitched Sharon’s second sample in wool.

This is a combo of the previous rows, I alternated the beads in the centre and the arms. The thread is wool.

Here I stitched a small row in perle 8. I added one bead to the arms every 4^th stitch.

In this row I added the beads to the arms on one side and alternated left and right, the thread is perle 12.

My last row is almost the same as the previous, I only added an extra stitch between the beaded stitches.

Take a closer look at my complete sampler here.

Pretty fabric

The size of this pretty fabric sampler is 9 x 9 inch. I’m planning to embroider it in matching colours, you can take a look at my first stitches here.

Whipped beaded long tail chain stitch

TAST stitch 115 is beaded and whipped long tail chain stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

I stitched this sample on my new fabric with a pretty design. It’s the same as the inside of my new etui or pen holder. First I stitched 5 beaded long tail chain stitches and then I whipped them 3 rounds on both sides of the beads. The thread is Stef Francis perle 5. I also added French knots with stranded floss at the edge of the star design. Just click the photo to take a closer look at my sample.

Long tail chain stitch

TAST stitch 114 is long tail chain stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

Sharon’s square sample was the base of my experiment on Gingham. The threads are cotton a broder size #16 and #25. The green long tail chain stitches are woven, it’s just a woven detached chain stitch with a long tail.

Cross stitched cake

This cake was one of the patterns in a cross stitch kit. I finished it weeks ago, but forgot to take a photo.