Beyond TAST

 Beyond TAST is a season of 4-6 weeks that allows time to explore an aspect of a design, technique, style, or family of stitches. The second challenge is to explore isolated stitches. I’m stitching on an old Gingham TAST sampler with 9 squares.

On the third square I stitched star stitch in Caron Wildflowers.

On the fourth square I experimented with isolated zigzag stitch, which was a Sunday Stitch School stitch. The thread is Caron Wildflowers.

On the fifth square I made a pattern with isolated Chevron stitches in 2 threads of stranded DMC.

365somethings2018

In January I started a new challenge: 365somethings2018. For me this is playing with paint, markers, pencils, (hand carved) stamps, clippings, etc on paper. This can be collaging in an altered book, drawing on index cards, doodling or drawing in a Moleskin, painting on watercolour paper, etc. I also hope to participate in the zentangle challenges at I am the Diva from time to time. To get started I used the January prompts of Drawriotdaily. Maybe I do that again later this year. Sometimes I’ll share a few of my 365somethings2018 here. These are a few examples of the first weeks.

4/365: a new hand carved stamp for the green prompt

9/365: a grey elephant

13/365: an orange mandala

19/365: Mondrian meets Vermeer in Delft blue for the pearl prompt

21/365: playing with hand carved stamps from Carve December for the sable prompt

26/365: a collage in one of my altered books for the tan prompt

32/365: the new tangle Rumpus for zentangle challenge 349 at I am the Diva

36/365: a doodle in my Moleskine, it’s the third of a series

41/365: zentangle challenge 350 with the tangles Rimana, Poke Root and Slurp

54/365: yesterday’s collage with a quote

Beyond TAST

Beyond TAST is a season of 4-6 weeks that allows time to explore an aspect of a design, technique, style, or family of stitches. The second challenge is to explore isolated stitches. This reminded me of an old Gingham TAST sampler with (woven) detached chain stitch, fly stitch and sheaf stitch. First I devided it in 9 squares with chain stitch, which was the 6^th TAST stitch. The thread is perle 12.

my 9 x 9 inch Gingham sampler

a close-up of the old stitches

The first isolated stitch I wanted to use was cross stitch. The thread is cotton a broder #25. I like the way these stitches change the Gingham.

Australia sampler

Years ago my mother started this Australia sampler for my father. She got a poor eyesight over the years, so now I’m going to finish it for my parents. I share a weekly update to keep me going.

The last 2 weeks I finished 2 the kangaroo . . .

. . . and another Mimi spirit.

And this is how my sampler looks now.

Rooie finished!

In December I finished the cover for my altered book Rooie. I wrote about it here. The cover shrunk more than I anticipated, so I had to paint the edge of my original cover red. All I had to do was glue the cover to the original cover with mod podge for fabric. When it was dry, I only had to take photos, but with a very busy December I forgot all about it. Luckily Sharon started Beyond TAST with running stitch to explore for the first challenge. It’s a bit cheating, but this embroidery fits perfectly, especially because I had no time to start something new. All I do the last months is cross stitching the Australia sampler for my parents, which I hope to finish in a few months.

the frontside

the backside

the spine

I didn’t share all pages from this book, some are just too personal. It’s my first finished altered book and I’m very happy with it.

colourful pages