TAST Week 21 and Week 22

Just didn't make it in time for TAST Week 21, so I decided to combine it with Week 22. Week 21 was something called the Butterfly Chain stitch and this week's, #22, is the Knotted Cretan stitch. Now, I love knots in embroidery, but I did not like this stitch! Very strange stitch and not enjoyable. 

The outer ring of the hexagon is the Butterfly Chain (I did mine a little differently than the original way) and the inner hexagon is the Knotted Cretan. I used a Cebelia 10 thread that I dyed myself for the big stitch quilting that I did for Michael's quilt 12 years ago. Sorry the link inside that post for that quilt doesn't work anymore. There is another link available, but I can't find it right now.


Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 20

This week's TAST is the Bullion Knot stitch. Another lucky week for me! First of all, it's one of my favorite stitches. It's really not anywhere as difficult as some people make it out to be. Secondly, in a week that I barely have time to do any embroidery, I have something from the past to show.

I wrote about it in this blog post over a year ago. My daughter had a baby a few days ago and I'm not home until Sunday. I couldn't find any of my original photos for this project on my laptop, so I tried to get you a closeup of the bullion section using the Picassa online image. If you click on the link for the original blog post, you can see the whole piece and the photo I copied it from. 

Don't forget to notice the French Knots in the center! :) I'll try to amend with a better photo when I get home on Sunday.

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 19

This week's TAST is the Half Chevron stitch. I had fun doodling a sort of scribble as I did with the TAST of Week 17.

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 18

This week's TAST is the Crossed Buttonhole stitch. I don't know if you can tell, but the overall view of the piece I made is supposed to resemble the stitch itself.

Have a good weekend,

Debbie

Heads up! Sew Embellished Book Blog Tour

Today is the start of the blog tour for Cheryl Lynch's "Sew Embellished" book! There are 12 blogs participating in the next 12 weeks. Each one will have a review of the book AND will be giving away a copy of the book to one lucky winner. 

We start this week with Cheryl's blog, Cheryl Lynch Quilts. Drop by there for a chance to enter her giveaway! 

Make sure to stop by each week at the other blogs for their giveaways and come back here on June 11 for my turn:

April 30 Cheryl Lynch www.CherylLynchQuilts.blogspot.com

May 7 Kelly Meanix www.pinkadotquilts.blogspot.com

May 14 Bea Lee www.beaquilter.blogspot.com

May 21 Lisa Quintana www.michigoose-life-quilts.blogspot.com

May 28 Margarita www.margascrafts.blogspot.com

June 4 That Patchwork Place http://blog.shopmartingale.com/.

June 11 Debbie www.debbiesfiberwork.blogspot.com (My turn!)

June 18 Diane www.yarngoddess.wordpress.com

June 25 Kathy Loomis www.artwithaneedle.blogspot.com/

July 5 Darlene www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

July 9 Karen Musgrave www.connectionsbyKaren.blogspot.com

July 16 Cheryl Sleboda www.muppin.com  


Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 17

I enjoyed working on this week's TAST, the Wheatear stitch. Actually, I'll be doing it again so I can have it on my sampler. I will be placing the first one in my Limited Edition version of the Sketchbook Project book that needs to be postmarked by April 30 (!). 

The samples of the first four weeks of the TAST, I included in the 2012 Sketchbook Project book, so I don't have those anymore. But, I haven't done them over. I intended to post here about that, with photos of the pages in my book, but never got around to it. One of these days.


If you are interested, they started taking orders for participation in the 2013 Sketchbook Project. I haven't ordered mine yet. 


Have a good weekend,

Debbie

TAST Week 16

Sharon B calls this the "stitch is one that some people find difficult", but this week's TAST, the French knot, has ALWAYS been my favorite, along with the Bullion knot! I have many things to catch up on, so instead of stitching something new this week, I'll show you something I made probably over 35 years ago. It hangs in my parent's home and my daughter was visiting there last week, so I had her photograph it for me, with the chance that the French knot will be coming up soon. Who knew!

I don't remember exactly, but I think it might be about 8" x 10" with the frame.

Do you recognize where I got the pattern from?

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 15

 
This week's TAST, Week 15, is the Stem stitch. No time for stitching this week, so I'm going to show you some redwork (or what I like to call reverse redwork) that I made a few years ago. Redwork uses the stem stitch or the outline stitch. They're part of a UFO quilt. This is the label that gets you to all the blog posts that I wrote about this quilt.

 

Enjoy! 

Debbie

TAST Week 14

What happened to week 13? Week 13 was designated as a catch up or time off week. We've been so busy with Passover preparations the past few weeks, so that time off for me was good! 

So, this week, Week 14, is the Satin stitch. 

Well, this fabric (Osnaburg) is certainly not an appropriate fabric for Satin stitch.. I did the grass with a thick, cheap, cotton yarn I had laying around, the leaves, stems, and highlights in the grass with crewel yarn and the flowers with perle cotton and a flower thread.

Happy holidays to those who celebrate in this season,

Debbie

Time to Vote!

I have a quilt in this week's hexagon themed contest at the Quilt Gallery site. Please go and vote for my quilt named "HexFifteen". I first wrote about it here.  You may vote for two different quilts.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Debbie

TAST Week 12

This week's TAST is the Barred chain stitch or the Alternating barred chain stitch. I mentioned a few weeks ago that the running stitch was very uninspiring for me. Well, I thought the same when I saw this stitch. I checked all my crazy quilting and embroidery books and none of them had any reference to it. I searched online and found only a few sites with tutorials, including Sharron B.'s, who hosts the TAST. 


I still don't like the stitch. In fact, I think it's ugly, excuse me! But, I managed to make something out of it. It looked so boring to me, so I had to add some beads AND some French knots.

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 11

This week's TAST is the Whipped Wheel stitch. I have no story or explanation to go with it. Just the photo.

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 10

Karen of Sew Many Ways recently posted a great piece with advice for bloggers and their readers about commenting issues. Please read her tips for making it easier for your readers to comment and for making sure that when you leave a comment on a blog, the blogger will be able to reply to you. Karen writes a ton of great tutorials on crafting and blogging. It is very worth your while to spend some time exploring her blog.


This is another lazy TAST stitching week for me. The TAST this week is the running stitch and I was very uninspired by it. While looking through my crazy quilting books, I was struck by this variation which Judith Baker Montano calls a laced running stitch. I thought about using beads to fill the half moon shapes, but I was too lazy to take them out, so made French knots instead.

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 9

Before I get to the TAST, I want to share with you the blog of an amazing Israeli needleworker. Yoola of Design with a Crochet Needle, does the most unusual crochet work with wire. Check out her blog and her Etsy shop to see that she's also having a giveaway of one of her online workshops.


Now to the TAST. The stitch this week is couching. I didn't do any stitching this week. Instead, I'm going to show you things that I've done in the past with couching. I love couching, but I only have machine couching to show you. I don't remember if I've ever done any by hand.

Here's one I made for one of the Journal Quilt projects several years ago. Those wavy things on the lower section are all couched yarns. 

I once made a bunch of these for a postcard swap.

And, a bunch of these for another postcard swap.

And, now for the big news! We've got snow! The last time there was any serious snow here was in 2008.

It's coming down even heavier now since these pictures were taken. That's one of my son's.

 Enjoy your weekend,

Debbie

Meeting Cheryl

One day last week, early in the morning, I went to a hotel in town to meet Cheryl Lynch. She was visiting from Pennsylvania, on a tour of Israel with a group from her synagogue. We had a wonderful time showing each other our work and getting to know each other. 

You must check out Cheryl's blog, Cheryl Lynch Quilts, and her website. Cheryl was once on The Quilt Show (episode #811) to teach about the Mexican tiles piecing technique that she wrote about in her book "Quilt Fiesta!".  

And, now, Cheryl has another book coming out in April called "Sew Embellished". The link will take you to Amazon where you can see examples of some of her pieces that she shows in the book. I was lucky to actually hold those very creative and adorable pieces of work in my hands last week. Everything Cheryl makes is so much fun!

Stay tuned, because the publisher and Cheryl are planning a blog tour for around the time that the book is being released.


Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 8

A member of a small, private email list of quilters that I belong to had a stroke a couple of weeks ago. We and other quilter friends of hers are having a "block shower" for her and sending her blocks to cheer her up while she is going through all kinds of therapy. The rules are to make hearts and/or elephants (she collects anything elephant),  use a cream background and make the block either 6, 9, or 12 inches. I have images that I downloaded some years ago of many old and public domain embroidery patterns. I found this cute elephant. Isn't it adorable? The block is 9 inches.
 
When Sharon announced the TAST Week 8 a few days ago, I had just finished the flowers, which, incidentally, use last week's lazy daisy/detached chain stitch. So, when I saw that this week's TAST is chain stitch, I decided to stitch the elephant with it, rather than a plain stem stitch. The background is unbleached muslin.

Enjoy!

Debbie

TAST Week 7

Really quick and short post just to report in with a photo of the TAST 7 stitching that I did this week. The stitch is the detached chain stitch, sometimes known as the lazy dazy stitch.

Have a good weekend.

Debbie

TAST Week 6

This week's TAST 6 stitch is the chevron stitch. I decided to spend less time on it this week and make just a short experiment. Here's what I tried this week. It came from the Embeadery book in my list below.

I've been going through my crazy quilting books to see different things done with the stitches in the TAST. I was surprised to find that I have nine different books on the subject! Here's a list:

Crazy Quilt Stitches(1981) by Dorothy Bond
The Crazy Quilt Handbook (1986) by Judith Montano
Elegant Stitches (1995) by Judith Baker Montano
The Magic of Crazy Quilting (1998) by J. Marsha Michler
Crazy Quilting (1998) by Christine Dabbs
Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches (1999) by Carol Samples
Motifs for Crazy Quilting (2002) by J. Marsha Michler
Embeadery-Using classic embroidery stitches in beadwork (2005) by Margaret Ball
Embellishing Crazy Quilts (2011) Kathy Seaman Shaw

I have a good number of other embroidery and beading books, but these are the ones that focus on crazy quilting. 


Enjoy!


Debbie

TAST Week 5

Here's my version of the herringbone stitch for TAST Week 5. 

This time I used a template from Kathy Shaw's book, Embellishing Crazy Quilts. First I drew the zig zag line and then added the dots on either side for the stitching from the template. Actually, I printed the template from images that I had saved of templates that Kathy shares on her yahoogroup, Shawkl Blog Files.

When the TAST began, I started to look through some of my crazy quilting stitches books. I was surprised to find (so far) that I have seven books on the subject! I will make a list of them to post with next week's TAST.


Debbie

TAST Week 4

Here's my piece for this week's TAST. I paged through Judith Baker Montano's Elegant Stitches book to find a stitch combination using the cretan stitch.

Here's a leaf shaped motif, using the cretan stitch, on a crazy quilting project I made maybe fifteen years ago.

Got some questions for my fellow TAST participants. This is my first Take a Stitch that I'm participating in. So far, I've been keeping up. Yay! If you don't have a chance to do a week, do you just skip it? Or do you just keep continuing when you can and catch up? Do you have an idea what you'll be doing with these little samples yet? If you participated in previous years, I'd love it if you would send me a link to see something you made from your stitching then.


Have a good weekend,


Debbie