Tast 2010 Fabric Book

At last it is finished. I have completed my Tast 2010 adventure.  Not all the stitches are here because I produced them on a couple of other projects, but the first  photos are of the front and back covers.  I would like to thank Shirley from Shade Tree Art for her advice on how to join the pages together.  Next time I attempt something like this, I will make sure that I do sew the names of the stitches as I go.  I have photocopied the pages and written the names of the stitches onto the copies which will be with the book.

Front cover

Back cover

Although  I have posted  of the  stitches under the label "A Tast Adventure" I have only re-posted the pages made up into the book.  Below, on the right of the first picture are the final stitches for  2010 which I have only recently finished.

Fabric Book on the way

I have been talking about my fabric book for ages, and here is the proof that the fabric pages of my Tast Stitches are under way to becoming a book.  My Book is not as structured as it could be, because I had just worked the stitches in random designs.   I am terrible at sewing names in backstitch, so gave that a miss and will just add a list of the stitches inside the cover or something like that.

i had a bit of a rocky start, e.g. sewing the wrong pages together, forgetting the facings etc, so didn't get as far as I would have liked...but am ready to  roll now.

Haven't worked out what I will use for the cover yet, but that will come no doubt.

  

Back to Stitching

This week I have been concentrating on finishing an embroidery from one of my digital images. I have called it Carnival because it reminds me of exploding fireworks.  The digital image is on my other blog called Maggie's Moments which you can access from the button on the sidebar or from the link.

When I printed the image on to the linen I forgot to change the settings on the printer to colour, so that is why the background is in grey, and I like to think that is the dark of the night against the colour.

The other picture is of my Picot Chain for this week's Tast Stitch.  I have mixed this with other chain stitches to go onto my Stitch File page for the chain stitch family. The Stitch Files can be found on Sharon B's page

Tast Picot Chain and The Stitch Files

Carnival

Week 36 and 37 Turkman Stitch and Kiko's Flower Stitch

I have realised I have not posted my recent Tast stitches so thought I had better catch up. I enjoyed working the Turkman Stitch in week 36, and used it in two different ways...to couch the edge of a piece of lace, and for the body of a butterfly.  I don't have and "Orts" jar, but the wings show how I have used my bits of threads, fused under organdie.

Kiko's Flower is a lovely stitch, which I have no doubt will come in handy for lots of different things.  These stitches and more  can be found on Sharon B's Pintangle. 
Thank you Sharon for these lovely stitches.

By Joves I think she's got it!!!

At last! thanks to advice from the ladies on SF.  and Flicker. Well, it sort of looks right anyway.  I found I kept making Eiffel Towers, and the dark green one looks like some cobblestones on a garden path I used a fine Brazilian thread for that one..  I used a Caron thread for the red, and another stranded silk beside it.  

Just had to post my pathetic efforts as well...I see I almost had it at one stage. But there are all sorts of shapes that could be in the eye of the beholder.

Above is my "duck" stitch,Week 35 Spiked Knotted Cable Chain...I sort of stitched it a bit freely because I am using it on my Greyscale Novas piece.  Can't remember the name of the thread, thicker version of flower thread. I have stitched the rows back to back.  These are going to have something else in between them but haven't decided yet.

Lock Stitch

These are my two samples of the Tast Week 33 Lock stitch.  I have used this on the circles for my grey novas project.  Thank you sharon for this stitch is was just what I needed.

Weeks 31 and 32 Tast 2010

Week 31 in Silk Ribbon can be a flower like a hyacinth. It is behind my triple chain stitch as a fence.

This is just a short post dont trust Blogger in case I have offended him  so here are my stitches for weeks 31 and 32 of Tast.  As you can see it is part of the Fabric Page "Crab Gone Wrong"

Eastern Stitch

Well it is back to stitching.  I have completed this week's stitch for Tast which is called Eastern Stitch.  I found I just wanted to keep going with it hence so many photos. 

I have also enclosed a photo of the Fabric Page I have added these to.  It has a lot of earlier stitches and I can still see spaces to fill.

Tast Weeks 28 and 29 Raised Chained Band and Variation

First of all, I wonder how Sharon could have known that I was waiting for a stitch to fill out those half circles.

I decided that the page I thought was finished needed something else so drew these circles to try to balance the half circle on the other side.  You can imagine how happy I was on Tuesday to see this stitch.  

First of all I worked the rows going the same way, and then I did one row in one direction and came back in the opposite direction.

I wanted to see if twisted chain would work on a raised band and it looks quite good.

I quite like the week 29 variation but it does need the ground stitches to be closer together.  It does not work as well if they are too far apart.

I have used this stitch before to make tree trunks.

Really like this stitch so perhaps that is why I went crazy with it.

Ready for a New Stitch

Tast Week 27 Woven Trellis Stitch on Fabric Book Page.

A Group of Woven Trellis Stitch Flowers

Decorating a guipure flower with woven Trellis stitch flower

Here is the fabric page they are worked on.  I still have a couple of little things to do to this.

I am a bit late posting these because I have been busy playing.  I have to take the time to read up on the instructions on my camera because I tried to upload to SF today and they photos were all blurred so I have been trying to correct that.  Never mind I will put a link up on the pintangle page to here

Finished pages

These are the first two pages of my fabric book of stitches which I think I will leave, unless I get a flash of inspiration on something else to add, or someone can see something that could be added and make a suggestion

Have had another look at this one and decided I would leave this as is too. I don't want to overdo it.

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Found It!

How could anyone forget they had washed a piece of embroidery....well I did. I had made some guidelines on the other end of this page which did not turn out very well so had washed them out. Found it eventually drying on the clothes hoist in the laundry.....so the little ginger bunny did not come in the middle of the night and steal it. Should that be telling me something about my age of dotage arriving.

Decided to do some reverse sewing and here is what I did. Still not clear, but have now used the last of that thread so it stays this time. Only had a small amount of thread left on a card which was a Caron Watercolours.

Week 26 Chained Cross Stitch

Does anyone else ever "lose" as many things as I do. I took these photos of what I had done this afternoon, and was not particularly happy with them so thought I would re-do the photos....no can do....cant find the fabric page I worked on anywhere. It must be here...have not left the house. Earlier today it was the outer circle of my embroidery ring....aaarrrggghhhh!!

This is my first try of the basic stitch using firstly a crochet cotton, then a Perle No 8, and then 6 strands of stranded cotton. I like the perle No. 8 the best.

I am still trying to work my stitches onto the fabric pages, and the sample below is from one of the pages... I had stitched a piece of lace onto one corner and drew some loops for this stitch.
Unfortunately I drew the loops a little wonky. They did not look that way then, but the variegated threads changed them somehow. Perhaps I could have worked them in 3 different colours. I used a variegated watercolours thread for this.

This stitch has many uses particularly for geometric patterns on evenweave linen. There are some really good examples on Flicker and the instructions for the stitch can be found here on Pintangle.

Tast Week 25 Vandyke Stitch

Tast Week 25I did not mind this stitch, I thought it would be just a basic line stitch, but it can be broken up to make patterns or stitched into curves. It could also be used to say couch some cord as i have done with the first steps on the edge of the lace. It will be interesting to see all the different versions. You can find instructions for this stitch on Sharon B's Pintangle

Tast Week 25 Vandyke Stitch Samples.

After completing the above stitches decided to add it to the fabric page I have for sea things and this is what I came up with.

The last photo is a sneak peak at the whole sea things fabric page so far.

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Siennese Stitch Week 24

These are my attempts at the Siennese stitch...I dont know what has happened to the colours on my camera, but they are not coming out very true at the moment. This stitch can be found on Pintangle Take a Stitch on Tuesday. There are lots of lovely samples on the Tast Group site on Flicker

With the stitches in the top photo I used a turquoise wool, and a thicker variegated thread in a circle, which I have forgotten the name of for the minute.

In the second photo three buttons sitting on one of my fabric pages needed stems. I used two strands of stranded cotton. It actually shows up better in real life.

I had trouble finding any inspiration for this stitch, and I am sure when I see some of the other ladies samples I will think "why didn't I think of that". The stitches in this photo also look much better in the flesh. I used a blue Minnamara variegated thread for the top and bottom row, and a pale apricot for the centre and for the three random stitches.

I played round with with my Gimp photo editing programme, and below is more the true colour of the thread, but the background is darker than it should be.

The braid is really this nice lime green, and this is the colour of the Minnamara thread in bright orange/yellow tones. Below is a picture of the same thing scanned through the printer. The fabric is a truer colour.
Probably need to read my camera manual again.
Not very straight but I cant even walk a straight line let alone sew a straight line.