Chicken Little # 97 - Feather & Chain

Another chicken closer to the end of this round of TAST.  This weeks stitch was Feather and Chain, which as the name suggests is a mix of both Feather and Chain stitches.  The link to the tutorial on Pintangle is here.

I love the look on her face, you can almost hear her gasp.

I'm often asked where I get all these chickens from and I'd love to be able to taken credit for them, but alas I can not.   I have squirrelled away a ridiculous amount of chicken clipart over the last 18 months and I just browse through my 'chicken folder' until I find something that either fits or I can adjust to fit the current stitch.  

While a magician won't tell you their secrets, I'm not a magician so I've also included a shot of the original clipart.  As you can see I've only really used half of her, and I've used a mirror image to get the whole chicken.  Or there abouts anyway.  I really wanted a good expanse of belly to show the feather & chain stitch and that other wing was just in the way mostly.  😀

The Dyeing & the Fabric Book

The other day I was busy playing with tea, coffee, paint and some lemon juice to see what kind of colour results I could get.  Well lets just say its probably just as well I only used some small swatches to play with.  😁

The coffee by far gave a much deeper colour than the tea, I love the drip effect.  The paint came out well, I especially love the bubble wrap pieces.  The lemon juice was a total bust which was disappointing, but not unexpected.  The Tumeric produced a vibrant lemon yellow colour, the paprika and cinnamon, not so much.

Needless to say I ended up going shopping.  Yes I know I said I wasn't going to, but I'm weak.  

I can't say I'm too much closer on the idea for my fabric book.  But I do have some ideas for my next project, I think my sticking point now is that I don't want to hide the results away in a book that will probably just end up in a drawer somewhere.   Which is ridiculous considering I have 97 chickens siting in a shoe box haha.

I ordered some frames & mats this week for a few pieces that I've done recently (like my tree and the encrusted work) and I think I want to continue to frame up some bits, maybe create a wee montage above my sewing table.   So do I use my idea for the book or for the wall - ugh dilemma!  Although I guess I could start with a small version for the book and if that works out go larger for the wall.

Anyway so in short, progress on the fabric book idea, not much.  Plenty of options but nothing I deem worthy so far of sharing with the group.  The dyeing, meh, so so.  Will try and use the bits I dyed, you never know they might be just the thing.

Mess or Masterpiece?

I've joined a new Facebook group about fabric books and while its only been running a couple of days I must say I'm feeling totally out of my league.  So I need to pull something out of my proverbial hat.   I, like so many others, have Pinterest boards up to the wahzoo with different styles of embroidery to try and I love them all and I want to try them all.  But where do I start to make something I'm not going to feel embarrassed about sharing with the group.  Thats the kicker.

Step One:  Spend a whole day pinning ideas into my newly created 'Fabric book ideas' folder.  

Result:  Left feeling totally overwhelmed with everyone elses obvious natural talent and artistic abilities.  Sigh.

Step Two:  Pick a theme, trees I like trees, lets go with that.  And I'd really like to try a mix of appliqué and embroidery.  

Result:  Euphoria.  Yay!  I'm getting somewhere.

Step Three:  Pin some more pictures of trees.  Ok but how do I then incorporate that with the fabric collage type thing?  Um...

Result:  Panic.  Ugh.

Step Four:  Pep talk to myself.  "You can do this.  You just need to make a start and the ideas will start flowing.  Go upstairs and have a ferret around and see what you've got."

Result:  Hope.

Step Five:  Do what I'm told and go through my stash of fabric.

Result:  Curse myself for getting rid of my quilters stash.  Find hot pink spots, stripes and zig zags, thermal lined curtain fabric and some cotton with a print that looks like a cross between fruit salad and cat vomit (where did I even get that?!?).  Any way NONE of that is going to cut it.  Back to panic.

Step Six:  Make a list of what I COULD work with.  White calico, cheap linen, denim, an old sheet that I already hacked up to make a mock up of a costume for Miss P and the woven-y woolly fabric I used to make the actual costume.  Well, I'm not going to change the world with that lot am I?

Result:  Shopping?  No, be strong Kimberley, be strong.  To be fair I already have so much craft stuff I could start my own shop.  Why is it you never have what you need for the next project though?  

Step Seven:  Requirements gathering.  I'm an analyst by trade so lets start at the beginning.  The need to be met is to create a page made from fabric.  Lets not even entertain the idea that we're working on a whole book at this point, my confidence just won't take it.  Because we're aiming for trees, nature, leaves, birds etc we want natural colours.  (So the fruit salad up-chuck fabric is out for sure).   And I want to make a collage of the fabric before I start embroidering.  

Result:  Back to self doubt.   Right I need colour variations and I don't want to spend any money.  (well not today at least).

Step Eight:  I was going to get to the point eventually, right? 😊

I keep reading peoples amazing blogs about their efforts with eco-dyes.  Now I should point out I have no, and I mean ZERO, experience with any form of dyeing, painting or even colour pencils (unless you count me picking them up after my daughter has left them lying all round the house).

The more I've read the more curious I've become.  But when you're inexperienced its also easy to become over-whelmed.  But I have to make a start right?  Thats the hardest bit, that first step.

Result:  Action.  Doing something other than pondering my own lack of skill, talent and supplies.

Step Nine:  Now to be honest it currently winter here and even in summer I don't have a garden full of Tansy, Dandelions etc.  So we're going to have to play with whatever is in the cupboard.  So we're starting with the most basic of dyes - Tea and Coffee.  We've all ruined something with one or both of those.  And I also found some acrylic craft paint, no idea if that'll 'stick' but we'll give it a go.

So here's my list of 'experiments, which are currently still drying, brewing etc.

1. Wet fabric and then drips of coffee applied.
2. Dry fabric this time then drips of coffee applied.
3. Wet fabric scrunched into small balls then drips of coffee applied.
4. Dry fabric and then coffee brushed on to cover the fabric
5. Wet fabric then coffee stripes brushed on
6. Wet fabric then coffee applied using the end of an old cotton reel
7. Dry fabric then coffee applied using the end of an old cotton reel
8. Wet fabric then watered down acrylic paint brushed across it in stripes
9. Wet fabric then the watered down paint was watered down again and then spritzed on
10. Dry fabric then using the watered down paint I spritzed it onto some bubble wrap and applied to the fabric.
11. Dry fabric brewing in left over coffee
12. Laid down some toothpicks on a piece of calico and spritzed the fabric with tea
13. Dry fabric then dripped tea on it
14. Wet fabric then dripped tea on it
15. Fabric brewing in left over tea
16. I thought Miss P would never forgive me if I didn't try sprinkles, so I did
17. Wet fabric with Cinnamon sprinkled on it and then spritzed with water
18. Wet fabric with Paprika sprinkled on it and then spritzed with water
19. Wet fabric with Tumeric sprinkled on it and then spritzed with water
20. Fabric soaking in Tumeric water
21. Dry denim with fresh lemon slices laid on it
22. Dry denim with fresh lemon juice dripped on it
23. Old sheet with lemon segments laid on it
24. Dry demin with lemon segments laid on I
25. Used a bit of the old sheet and blotted up the lemon juice I had dropped all over the bench
26. Found one lonely dandelion flower in the lawn, so I chopped the petals up over the last piece of linen and then spritzed it with water
27. Threw a few seeds onto dry denim and then spritzed it with lemon juice.
28. Laid out a few leaves onto dry denim and then spritzed with lemon juice.

Yes I got a bit carried away 😊

So I guess the next question is how long do I leave these?  As they're currently taking up most of my kitchen bench it won't be able to be that long, especially if the family wants dinner tonight.  

It'll be interesting to see what 'takes' and what doesn't.  The linen I don't think has been washed before so it was definitely resisting the liquid a bit more than the calico.  And I think I might put the lemon juice bits and bobs in the sun this afternoon (if I can find any sun that is).

And I guess most importantly will any of it be any use for my fabric book??  But I've wanted to give this a go for a while, so if nothing else I can definitely cross it off the to do list.  

Thanks for stopping by.

Dandelion petals and lemon juice with seeds/leaves

Acrylic paint

Chicken Little #96 - Reversed Buttonhole Bar

I've had this chicken drumstick in my stash of chicken images for ages, just waiting for a chance to use it.  I'm sure some will think 'but thats not a chicken' but well this is my 'Chicken Little' project and from the start the idea was that somewhere in the project there would be a chicken.  Not necessarily a whole chicken, just a chicken.  And besides it makes me giggle to include it.

I don't think I mentioned this stitch earlier this week.  The tutorial on Pintangle is here.  I've used it to create the circle around the drumstick.

The Tree

The tree is done.  Its definitely got some issues with puckering and I don't think they're due to the fabric.  I think its all me - dang it!

Learnings:

• I had to add some fabric to the edges to fit my 8 inch round frame, which meant I had two different types of fabric and I only did a single row of straight stitch to join them.  So they weren't that well secured.
• I really should've used a rectangular frame.  Or been a bit braver about squashing stitches.
• With the tree trunk to one side and then the mass of French knot flowers completely covering the width of the image I probably should have either used a stabiliser on the back, or even used a second layer of fabric as a backing fabric.

But...  I still love it.  I'm so pleased to have that hilly background.  I'm pleased I used my back to front version of split stitch for the tree trunk as its given it more texture than true split stitch would've done.  The rocks in the front could've done with some padding behind them or even a small darker thread around the edge of them to make them stand out a bit more.  But for a first effort I'm pretty chuffed.  Puckers and all.  I'd definitely use this printable fabric again.

So what to do with the puckers?

I've found a few tutorials to try and remove some of the puckering and I'm going to try this one from Mary Corbets Needle'n'Thread.  I would've loved to have a go at it today but I need to go and buy a cork board or a piece of polystyrene/foam.  I did try the ironing board but its not padded enough.

Here's the post to the 'damp blocking' tutorial on Needle'n'Thread

So here's the finished tree in all its puckered and un-ironed glory.  I'll let you know how the blocking goes.  I'm hoping if it doesn't help too much maybe a professional framer might be able to help, or at least hide the worst of the puckering with a nice mat.  😀  Either way I'm glad I tried it.

Now I'm just feeling a bit lost as to what to do.  The black work idea is there, but I want something I can pick up and do straight away, so I'll have to put my thinking cap on.  

That's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

TAST - Zig Zag Coral

Chicken Little number 95!! Ninety FIVE chickens.  Only 5 more stitches to go in this current round of TAST.  Although it sounds like Sharon is cooking up some new challenges for next year - yay!

The zig zag coral is the peachy pink zig zag on the kite if you were wondering.  Apparently its also really useful to use as a couching stitch.

Here's the link to all 95.
Thanks Rose for pointing out I had missed adding the last couple of stitches to the album. 😁

Tree Progress

I've been making a lot of progress on the tree project.  I'll be SO over French knots by the time this project is done haha.  The weather is awful here today so the photo isn't too good, colour-wise.

As you can see the puckering seems to be getting worse.  The fabric just won't sit right in this frame.  I'm sure this is due to the larger frame and the add-on fabric to make it fit, sigh.  Well fingers crossed most of them will stretch out once its done.  

I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo, but when you look at the flowers they look quite textured. Not in a French knot texture kind of way, but more that it looks like the French knots are layered on top of each other, or some are larger making them pop out from the fabric more.  But no they're not, it must be from the changes in colour, because when you look across the fabric they're all the same size and height.  

I almost don't want to post this picture because the colours are all wrong, its so dark here today.  But an update is an update right? 😀

What Next?

How did we ever survive before the internet?  For small countries like ours we were so limited in the sharing of new ideas for craft etc.  But the internet, oh how I love thee.  And I'm sure I'm not the only one that loses hours... and hours... and hours to Pinterest.  Although I sure do get frustrated at times with it as well.  But Blackwork... I'm curious about blackwork in particular the shading side of things.  I've found some amazing patterns out there.  There are plenty of sites out there with various 'patterns' for free but I'm yet to find a good one about the shading side of things.  Anyway I think thats where I'll head next for a bit, although I'm not a big fan of counted work I've spotted an amazing ladybird picture in black work that I'm just in love with.  So we'll see... you never know which direction Pinterest will take me in next week haha.

Here's the picture thats got me all hot and bothered about black work.  I know its not strictly blackwork, what with the bright red ladybug and all.  But I love it.  Its terribly intricate looking at the detail but such a simple design overall.  (The links to the patterns are below the photos if you're interested.)

https://www.ajisaipress.com/product/blackwork-cross-stitch-design-ladybug-and-daisy/

The site appears to have some beautiful patterns, check out this Blue Jay

https://www.ajisaipress.com/product/cross-stitch-and-blackwork-designs-blue-birds-berries/

And would life be complete without a chicken of some kind? I think not.  I had a bit of trouble finding where to buy this one.  It almost looks like he was a free pattern from a magazine? not sure.

Anyway thats it from me today.

TAST - Portuguese Stem

Chicken Little Number 94 is done... I'm pretty pleased with how this wee guy turned out.  Although it got a bit 'squishy' around his eye, even though I swapped to regular stem stitch around the eye.  But thats OK, I'm not that proficient at stem stitch as I use split stitch more.

Tree Progress

I've finished the main tree -yay!  I've done the rock in front of the tree, which weirdly ended up using the same colour range as the tree, but just without the darkest colour.  I did the two main trees in the background using seed stitch and 3 various greens.  I'm not sure about doing the other background trees, but no hurry on that decision.  Excitingly I've started on the field of flowers.  The flowers are going to take a VERY long time.  1 thread with 1 wrap French knots are so tiny!  But I think anything bigger would've been too big.

Oh Puck-er!

I usually use a 6 inch hoop for my chooks.  I like that size because I just find it a good size in my hand.  But this photo measures slightly more than that in length and I didn't want any of the stitches getting crushed.  So I swapped to an 8 inch frame, my photo is printed on A4, so I've had to add on some width to make it sit in the frame.  This has resulted in it not sitting well within the frame and I've ended up with some puckering on the edge of the tree where the trunk nearly touches the edge of the picture.  I'm hoping that when I frame it, the stretching will pull this out, it does seem to disappear when I pull the fabric tight in the frame.

So far I'm really happy with how it looks.  Even if my photo is a bit blurry at the top of the tree 😊

TAST - Crested Chain

Finally got last weeks stitch done.  I was going to use the Crested Chain as the spines on a dinosaur costume for a chicken but couldn't find/design a decent image to work with.  Then I saw these guys and thought - Punk hair do's.  But that looked awful.  So with time running out I unpicked their hair and made a flag banner using one of my daughters variegated threads.  While I'm not usually a fan of variegated threads in this instance it provides a party/festive feel, so it was just right!

I used felt for their sunglasses, if you were wondering.  I was going to use satin stitch but the frames were just a bit wide and I wasn't convinced I could do it neatly enough, esp with the hassles I'd had to date with this design. 😎

This weeks TAST

Is Portuguese Stem stitch.  The tutorial on Pintangle is here.  And I borrowed Sharons' photo below.  No idea what I'm going to do with it yet.  

Until next time...