A little progress...

A couple more fish added to my sampler in the last couple of days.  Just figured out a name for this 'One Fish, Two Fish' you know like Dr Suess? One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish and so on.  I almost know it by heart I've read it to my daughter so many times.

Sorry for the slightly blurry pic.

Still no decision on the Beyond TAST challenges.  

Current challenge - Couching:

I've had a play with a few types of couching and either I suck at couching or DMC floss isn't an ideal thing to use for couching.  Probably the first option. 😀  I did get a not bad result with a single strand of thread doing Bayeux stitch, but gosh that could take a very long time.  And I can't decide between a medieval style project or a modern style.  Decisions, decisions.

Previous challenge - Isolated stitches

I've found a chicken that could work for this.  Yes I know a chicken! but I kind of like the theme I've got going with the challenges so I'm sticking with it.  But I don't know I'm just not feeling it yet.

So I'm sticking with my little fish for the minute until I make a decision 😀

Meanwhile though I'm going to blur the line a bit on One Fish, Two Fish and do a jellyfish for the couching... or at least thats what I think I'm going to do.  I guess we'll soon see how if it works out.

Thanks for stopping by.

Beyond TAST

So what next?  Do I do the isolated stitch challenge for Beyond TAST that I missed while doing the rooster OR do I do the next Beyond TAST stitch which is around couching.  I have an idea for the isolated stitches one and I'd love to have a go at the medieval type embroidery.  Have already spent way too long trying to find a 'medieval chicken' picture on the internet.  But creating a isolated stitch kind of collage chicken would also be fun.  Decisions decisions.  Apparently couching can happen quite quickly so I may be able to do both in the time allotted for the challenge.  Either way I have to find an image first! 😀

And meanwhile in the Bat Cave...

So I've finally decided on a theme for my stitch sampler/fabric book - Fish! Yes fish... I know, I know, I usually do chickens.  But I find it helpful to have a starting place and I thought I'd try something a bit different but still with a starting place of X.  So fish it is.  Although I'm already thinking I should have made them a tiny bit bigger, but we'll see.  They don't seem to take too long so I can always start again, right?

Fabric:  My fabric is some shirt linen I got at the local craft store in a natural type colour.  Pretty cheap and cheerful.  

Fabric Size:  My piece of fabric is um..  I don't know... maybe a bit bigger than A4?  I have room for 2 pages of fish on the same piece.

Fish Size:  Each fish is about 1 1/2 inches long by 1 inch tall.  I've sketched out some fish shapes on a bit of paper to use as my 'pattern'.  I've marked out sections so I can fit 12 fish on each page (3 fish across on 4 rows).  Although I might just do 3 rows on each page, will see how it looks once I have 3 rows of fish.

Text:  I'm free styling the text this time because tracing through this fabric is difficult and the colour of the fabric is also not good with my water erasable pen, especially when I make a mistake.  Both of which probably suggest I'd be better off using good old white calico like usual but I'm trying to step outside my comfort zone a tiny bit.

Thread:  Just my regular DMC floss.  Colour wise I found a colour combo I liked the look of so am going with the for now.  There was only 5 colours in it, so I'm adding other colours in 

the same groupings to provide some variation which you can't really see in the shot of the fish below. (For colour ideas this tatami club have some beautiful combos if you're interested check them out.  Just google 'dmc colour combo tatami' and then look at the images)

So the idea is to stitch along with TAST week by week.  But of course as I'm late to the party I'm already behind so I'll just potter along and see how we go.

Right I'm off to google more pictures of medieval chickens.  Did you know there is a chicken or two on the famous Bayeux tapestry??  There is, I promise!  Only problem is its on a spit after its been roasted for dinner.   Haha not quite what I'm looking for.  

Thanks for stopping by.

The Sampler

Ugh I was sure it was ruined but the pen washed out! - PHEW!  Not that its moved since I washed the top half of it mind you.  Probably should remove it off the heated towel rail before someone dries their hands with it.  Although both hubby and Miss P wouldn't dare haha.  But Dad is probably coming for tea tomorrow and he would! haha.

Tea or Coffee?

Well I did as I said and randomly sewed together all my wee tea and coffee dyeing swatches.  I just needed to get moving on something, I was going crazy.  

I didn't think about it, I just paired them up into twos where they were about the same size, or at least the same length on one side.  Then repeated the process until I had a piece about A4 size and blow me down I kind of like them!

Now I had a cool piece of fabric (when I say cool as I generally stitch on plain white calico, anything thats not that is cool haha) what to do with it?    There was a doodle image that my eye kept getting drawn back to while I was trying to find something new to stitch.  
I thought it could be quite a good piece for using a pile of different stitches, sampler-esque even 😀.  Now usually when I look at these things and think 'yeah all different types of stitches' it never works out that way when I sit down to plan it out.  I'm sure it won't this time either.  But at least I know that going in right? 😀.  So I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to use a gazillion stitches, I'm just going to go with what takes my fancy at the time.   Its supposed to be fun, not stressful after all.

So I've got fabric, I've had my reality check about all the stitches I probably won't use.  While I like the original colour scheme, I don't think its going to work on my fabric, so I decided I'd stick with the tea and coffee theme and tried to match the darkest of the fabric colours to a DMC thread which I did and then I picked a few others in that range of colours.

Its not my usual colour scheme and it definitely has a lot of that very dark colour right now, but there is something about it that appeals.  As you can see I've got the design roughly drawn out on the fabric.  I haven't put it all on there, just the bigger bits, as I'll tweak it as I go so it works as an embroidery.

If nothing else,  I just feel so much better for having something to work on - yay!!!

Ta ta for now!

Oh bother!

I haven't done any stitching for days and days.  Why?  Because I can't make up my mind what my new project should be.  While I love Pinterest, I am sure at times, its not healthy for any 'creative' person.  There are too many beautiful things to look at, too many various techniques to try.  And I don't know about anyone else but I find I just end up giddy with all the options.  (head shake).  So this last week I have been looking, looking, looking but not stitching.  

I've picked half a dozen things and thought yes I'll do that.  

• Boro - I love the look of Boro but my stash is pretty limited and I just couldn't 'see' the fabric combination.
• Embroidery collage - I love the look of those lace-y, ribbon-y, collages of embroidery.  But I'm not a ribbon-y lace-y person and not feeling confident enough to make a start.
• A Cat - I found a drawing of a cat, similar style to Mr Bear.  But I just did that.
• Stitch & Slash - where you sandwich lots of diff fabric between two pieces and then cut through varying layers to reveal the inner.  Again limited stash put paid to that for the minute.
• Sharpie 'painting' - Miss P and I had some fun with sharpie and isopropyl alcohol a week or so ago.  Didn't come out anything like the tutorial.  But I do have some colourful fabric that I could use for appliqué maybe or the stitch/slash.  But just not feeling it.
• Stumpwork beetles - I love those framed embroidered bug collections.  But again just not feeling it.

I think my mojo is just off.  Any of those things could be fun. 

I love the idea of samplers, so I've spent some time today trying to come up with a plan for a stitch sampler than I can turn into a fabric book.   Trying to find something that takes my fancy is proving difficult, then I remembered I already started a sampler.  Yes!    

Mid last year I realised that my chickens were never going to make it onto a wall and decided I wanted to make a sampler that I could (maybe) put in a frame.  I wanted to use small cliparts I found on the internet, all the ones I'd found while looking for chickens. 😀    But I came to a grinding halt when I found I had a pile of 'line' style stitches that I couldn't figure out how to incorporate into wee clipart type images.  Now thats perfect, something to stitch while I figure out what to do next.  Something I can pick up and put down in between projects.  Yes!

So I dragged it out today tried to photograph it as it was, didn't work - too many wrinkles from being stuffed in the drawer for a year.  So I ironed it of course.  Now I have the sinking suspicion I've just ruined it.  Its still got all the washable pen on it which I've in effect just heat set.  (insert all sorts of rude words here).    Sigh.

Anyway, I guess I'll have to give just the top bit of it a wash and see if the pen comes out.  (I still need a lot of the lower pen marks for guides for text etc).  So now I'm sitting here wanting to stitch and I still have nothing to do.  Grumble grumble.

I've put the dreaded photo below.  Each square is about 1 1/2 inch square if you're wondering.  

If anyone has seen my mojo, feel free to kick its butt and send it home.  Thanks!

Until then, I'm going to dig out all my tea and coffee dyed swatches and just whack them together and see if anything comes out of that.   Maybe I'm just over thinking it all and just need to get stuck in.  Worst case scenario I'll learn something right?

Thanks for stopping by. 😀