caro-rose-creations

TAST 2012 July 31st

Week  31  Algerian Eye Stitch

I have only ever used this stitch in drawn thread work and once in a sampler.  I love using it in the drawn thread which I usually stitch on linen.  I have often thought about trying it on curtain scrim but of course I don't have any to hand.  I will get there some day.

I did have some odd pieces of fabric I picked up from an Charity Shop on the off chance that it might come in handy some day.  Today was the day.

I used a perle thread and just played with pattern within the confines of the weave of the fabric.  This meant the the stitching wasn't quite symmetrical.  Just a bit wonky.  I then mounted the piece over a piece of gold wrapping paper so that you get the glint of gold showing through those eyes.

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TAST 2012 July 24th

Week 30   Oyster Stitch

It took me some time to come up with a design this week but I finally arrived at the point I wanted to be.

I tried my usual model for testing a stitch.  Different thicknesses of thread, different spacing, different directions. 

It wasn't until I tried to the stitch in a circle, first inward and then out that I found something I liked.  I added a few french knots and there it was.  But what to do with it?

I have a little bowl on my desk that I bought from one of those cheap dollar shops.  It is made of plastic and cost $2.99 but I think it must have been copied from something else because it is so beautiful. The colour on the inside and under the pattern is the same as some dyed thread that I have.  I then thought that what I really needed to stitch was a lid for this bowl.  It all came together.

 
Now I just have to wait for the woodworker  to cut the ply wood so that I can cover it with the embroidery.

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A lovely day and a job complete.

Well I finished that TAST sampler that I put aside with such haste.  Then, when I was removing the blue marker pen, in my rush to finish I added too much water and the colour ran.  So I decided to make it a feature and add a bit more colour to the run.

It was another lovely day today.  I spotted this pot plant up on a balcony.  Just an ordinary pot plant but the angle of the sun made it look specail.

And there was a camelia tree covered in the most delicate pink blooms.

TAST 2012 July 17th

Week 29 Basque Stitch

Well I have done this stitch before and I just couldn't get inspired so I decided to stitch a sampler.  Thin, medium and thick threads.  Liked the thick thread best.  Then some circles, the flowers were quite nice. Then an alternating column.  Then inspiration struck and I had to put this sampler aside.  (I will come back and finish it later.)

That last collumn of stitches looked like eyes.  From there I jumped to eye monsters, I'm not sure how.  So here they are, the one with the beads is 'The Green Eyed Monster".  You always wondered what one of those looked like when you mother called you that.  Now you know.  Not pretty!

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TAST 2012 July 10th

Week 28 Up and Down Buttonhole

This is one of my favourite stitches.  It goes in straight lines, spirals, curves and you can even stitch in two directions at once because the stitch has two arms.

My design has a story attached to it. Back in the early 1970's I was in England and had hired a mini minor car to get out and see the countryside in my spare time.  I was flatting with a girl from Western Australia, we were two innocence abroad. We got talking about what our grandmothers had told us about family who had come from England orginally and some of the sites we wanted to visit. 

Her family in Australia had come from Kalgoolie in W.A. and her grandmother had been sold to her grandfather, as a wife, for food.  Her grandparents had made a match of it but still I was astounded that such a thing could have happened.  (I did say innocent.) Times must have been desperate on the goldfields back then (1900's)

My grandmother regaled me with stories that her grandmother had told her about how all the medieval paintings in churches that had been destroyed back in the time of the Civil War.  (She spoke as though she was there!)  But, some parishioners had whitewashed over the painting and she had seen some of them when she was a girl. I'm not sure if she approved or not, her father being a Methodist Missionary here in Australia and them coming from staunch round head families.

So I wanted to find one of these churches and see these painting. And I did.  It was in the church of St Peter Ad Vincula in South Newington.  Back then the paintings were only partly visible and I was enchanted by the spiral design I could see behind the virgin.  For some reason I saw this design as a rose bush spiral.  I can still see it.  Problem is when I found an image on Flickr there were no roses but I could have sworn there was back then. 

As a result my design has rose buds in it.  I stitched the outline in a stem stitch and then used up and down feather stitch to twine around it.  The buds were inserted in between the arms of this using a chain stitch. 

 

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TAST 2012 June 26th

Week 26

Palestrina Stitch

I haven't used this stitch in, oh I'm not sure, at least 20 years.  It was like a blast from the past to see it written on the screen.  The last time I used this stitch I was going out somewhere special and needed an evening bag.  I used it to embroider a design on the flap of a silk clutch bag.  I remember that I had some special thread that I had bought somewhere and only just had enough to do that embroidery. 

When I saw that this was this weeks stitch I went looking for the bag.  I turned the house upside down but I think I must have thown it out, or given it away, or put it in the charity bin.

So that got me thinking about a design that I had adapted from an Indian design and the special stranded cotton thread that I have been holding onto, again for at least 20 years.  I bought this thread from Sandie  Meldrum in Western Australia when I was really into candlewicking.  Sandie had developed her own thread and it was beautiful.  It was called Ozcot and it was soft and silky and best of all you could strand it to get different textures.

So once more I started searching, this time with more luck.  Not a full ball but enough for the design I wanted to stitch.  Problem was I didn't want to waste the thread on a mock-up, I wanted it for a cushion cover.  I had drawn the design and started stitching when I realised that I would never get it finished in time for this week. 

So I have stitched half of the pattern.  The other half is a mirror image of this so you will just have to imagine it. I also intend to add beading for highlights.  The linen I have stitched it on is from Ikea. Love this stitch and this thread.

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TAST 2012 June 12th

Week 23 Buttonhole Wheels.

After a week of no TAST it seemed strange approaching this task again.   But here we are.

For some reason I have always associated this stitch with embroidery of the 1930's.  Maybe it is all those doilies and duchess sets that have flowers embroidered with this stitch.  The flowers always made me feel that there should have been little faces looking out.   So, when I saw that the stitch this week was buttonhole wheels I immediately thought of flowers.

I toyed with the idea of making Munchin type figures in a scene, great idea but I knew I would get really carried away with this, so no.  But I still wanted faces.

I ended up with the faces out of a diagram of emotions in an old psychology text book.  Because I had first associated this stitch with flowers they had to be growing on a plant.  I drew the shape of the flowers first.  To do this I used a 5 cent coin and then drew around a 20 cent coin placed over the outline at random.  This meant that the outer wheel wasn't lined up with the inner wheel giving each flower it's own shape.  I coloured the faces using a textile pencil and then drew in the features using a Uni pin black pen.  The plant and leaves where then drawn in using Fabrico ink pens.  I like these pens because they use a dye rather than an ink.  This then becomes part of the fabric and doesn't sit on top like paint will.

As each face is showing a different emotion I choose the colours according to how I thought each colour matched that emotion.  This was a purely personal choice and I'm sure other people might choose other colours.

So there it is, "Flowering Emotions"

or should it be "Emotions Flowering"?

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TAST 2012 May 29th

Week 22 Knotted Cretan Stitch

I haven't used this stitch before and somehow I overlooked it when I did the Cretan Stitch variations.  The theme I decided upon was coral. I have really distorted the stitch to get it to do what I wanted, to the point that it doesn't look much like knotted cretan stitch any more.  

 

I wanted to use the colour coral as well as this type of coral it is not found in great quantities and I thought that it would stand out against dull colours,so I superimposed it over some seaweed. I used a variegated Caron watercolour thread, 1 strand, for the seaweed and then a DMC 5 ply Perle for the coral. To break it up a bit I worked some chain stitch in the coral as well. I thought it needed a fish in there so I machined one onto a scrap of fabric and machined the fish onto the background.

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TAST 2012 May 8

Week 19  Half Chevron Stitch

This was an easy one and I will file it along with Chevron Stitch.  I haven't used this stitch before but it reminded me of shelves on a wall.  I thought about displaying books and things on it and then I thought, one of those multiple level diving boards.  Although I have never seen one like this.  I don't think it would pass Workplace Health and Safety regulations!

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TAST 2012 May 1st

Week 18 Crossed Buttonhole stitch

I need to stretch this piece over some cardboard and I can't get into my editing program because I have downloaded a new operating system and I can't find my way around it, but I will, in time.

I had already done this stitch on my buttonhole sampler but this gave me the time to play with it. So a very original thought,(not), "use a cross".

• Thin thread and even spacing for the outline, very regular.
• Used for couching the wool thread.  I could have used another thread here but I did want it to look rough and rustic.  It is rough, not sure about the rustic.
• Free stitching in a pearl thread for the grass,this worked well.

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