There's good news and theres bad news...

Shall we start with the good?  My isolated stitches rooster is finished!  the crowd goes wild (in my mind).  Yep he's done.  I'd like to say I used a gazillion different single stitches, but I haven't.  And the design I chose I think limited the stitch choice.  I'm sure we all remember those terrible bullions for a start!

So what have I used?  Detached chain, French knots, woven bar, arrowhead, pistil, and some...um I'm not sure if its still a picot if its attached or if its called something else?  Well whatever they're called I used some of those for his thighs.  So in the scheme of stepping outside of my comfort zone I think I did ok.  I also have long/short stitch, whipped chain, regular chain and some back stitch.  I don't believe I've done a project to date that has used as many different stitches as this one.  So I definitely think I can tick off having challenged myself.

Now to the bad news... my pen hasn't washed out.  Uh-oh.  Its a new white pen.  Same brand as I usually use, although I usually use the blue.  And yep I did trial it first on the piece of the fabric and yes it did wash out.  But today, its not washed out.  Is it just that its been on there too long?  I don't know.  Maybe its a knock off pen?  Possibly, I bought it off an auction site so you never know.

I'm not crushed about it though, which goes to show my heart hasn't been in this project as much as usual.  But that also isn't surprising considering how I have struggled with it.  I'll give him a more thorough wash tomorrow and see what happens.  Fingers crossed.

Somehow he hasn't acquired a name as he's been stitched.  So I think I'll call him 'Toast' cause the whole thing is toast if that pen isn't going to wash out!  😆

Thanks for stopping by!

Quick progress check

I thought I better share my progress. Mostly because I'm pleased I've made some!  

Miss P is busy trying to talk me into embroidering portraits for her this weekend.  Of King Henry and his wives no less.  She loves history.  I'm quite excited about giving it a try.  Might give me some motivation to finish this guy.

Anyway thanks for stopping by!

Isolated Stitches

Hi,  Well I had a bit of time over the weekend, finally, for some stitching.  And based on how much unpicking I did I probably should've gotten a lot further!  There is something about this project that just isn't filling me with the same sense of excitement I usually have with a project.  But it can't all be rainbows and unicorns right? 

I've done the next feather of his tail in arrowhead stitch, 2 strands with the pink and white. It doesn't look too bad in the photo but I pulled it out about 3 times as my arrowheads kept getting shallower and shallower as I went along.  I'm sure at the end of the day no-one will probably notice but me (or someone who embroiders themselves).

And I've begun on the third tail feather.  This one I'm going to fill in lengthways half orange and half yellow with long/short stitch and then use the background blue colour to do pistil stitch in a fanned shape down the tail. 

So yep, thats where I'm at.  Fingers crossed I can find some more time and motivation to do a bit more this week before yet another Beyond TAST challenge gets started.  I think I'm already 3 behind now.  Need to pick smaller projects for the challenges I think.  😀  And stop feeling so guilty when I get behind!

Thanks for stopping by!

Some progress..

Hi... Maybe that title is misleading... but then it doesn't say a LOT of progress does it? 😆

I've been busy with other things and I've been stalled.  What to do in that area of wonky bullion knots?!?  

But inspiration finally struck  - detached chain.  I've done it in a single strand which looks a bit sparse I think, but when I considered that the rest of the tail feathers could result in something quite busy I figured that I am at least on the right track with detached chain.  Whether I need to go back and pull them out again and replace them with two strands remains to be seen.  I guess I could also use the blue thread in between the coloured stitches as well to make it more 'complete' feather wise.  But I'll see as I go.  

Actually the more I think about it the more I like the idea of the blue between the coloured chains.  Blogging is actually quite helpful at times!

Anyway thats all I have for now.  I need to make the most of this quiet time and actually do some stitching.

Thanks for stopping by 😁

Isolated Stitches

So I've made a decision.  I'm doing the 2nd of the Beyond TAST challenges - the Isolated stitches.  I found this crazy cool rooster below.

So I've made a start.  I'm using a mid blue fabric simply so I could still trace the image through it.

The Bullions look awful I know, they're going to get picked out.  I'll use them on one of the other feathers where they will be packed in tighter together.

The Bullions weren't floating my boat so I made a start on the other bits.  The original picture has 'cut out' areas which won't work so I'll fill those areas in and then stitch on top using a blue to match the background (as best I can).  Like that white section there, that will have detached chain on top of it I think.

I'm still not convinced this is going to work... but in the name of exploration we'll see.  If nothing else I'm learning something about bullions.  Like how NOT to do them! haha

I've not used this white pen before either... so fingers crossed it will wash out.  Its come out of the trial piece of fabric today but I've heard so many stories about these pens reappearing.  Not that I've had trouble with usual pen before and this is an Adger pen like that one so fingers crossed.

One Fish Two Fish

I've added my jellyfish, he doesn't look bad.  I couched down the tentacles and while its not perfect its OK.  So just got to finish off Herringbone and then I think I'm caught up.  Whoop whoop!

Thanks for stopping by 😀