TAST - More On The Herringbone Stitch

Thank you to everyone who commented on their color likes and dislikes! While stitching yesterday I thought about why I never cared for the color yellow. To me, it's one of those "in your face" colors! It occured to me that orange and red are "in your face" colors too.

I looked around my house and realized that I usually go for the cool colors. I thought about the clothes in my closet and again, mostly soft pastel colors like pink, blue and green.

I guess the cool colors are soothing on my nerves. I only use warm colors as accents.

I'm not one to make New Year's Resolutions but I'm thinking this might be a good year to work more with the colors that I don't like and see where that road takes me. Orange would be a good challenge wouldn't it?

Ok, so on to my stitching:



It doesn't look like I accomplished much on this yesterday but really, I did! If you look at the vine to the left, I added some flowers to that.

The real treat is at the top! If you look closely, I have a metallic gold ribbon there. The ribbon is 1/2 inch wide. It came on a gift that I received for Christmas! Yes, I save everything that can be used with my stitching!

Ok, I was feeling sorry for the poor little Herringbone stitch! I knew I wanted to embroider over that ribbon and decided it was a good time to give the Herringbone a second chance! I lined up some 8.5 count waste canvas over the ribbon, pinned it on and did the Herringbone with 1 strand of Watercolors from The Caron Collection. After that, I used DMC #8 Perle cotton in white and did some of my favorite fan stitches! Click on the image to see a larger version over at my Flickr site.

I must say, this is quite lovely! I started beading it and will add more beads when I sit down later today.

If anyone would like to try this variation, here is the pattern:



Click on the image to go to my Flickr site where you can download the larger version. And on 8.5 count waste canvas, it is 1/2 inch wide. My software won't calculate for fractions of an inch.

I was asked it if was ok to use my charted patterns for personal stitching use. Oh yes, please do! That's why I'm offering them here. I want other stitchers to be able to use them on their crazyquilts and other projects. Enjoy and have fun with them!

The Color Yellow

Still feeling a bit under the weather here but have taken advantage of it and spent alot of time stitching:



I decided to keep all embroidery and embellishments to yellow and white (and of course green). I went through my bits of junk and do-dads and found a yellow rosebud pin. It works perfect with this piece so that will be the focal point on this purse.

I do have 1 minor problem with working in mostly yellow, I don't have alot in the way of yellow beads and embellishments. Thinking about it, I never cared much for yellow except when it comes to Black-eyed Susan flowers. That's the only yellow thing that I can think of that I like. So now I'm wondering, why is it that I never cared much for yellow? I did buy a yellow dress last Summer that I just love but it's the only yellow thing in my closet. And in thinking about my fabric stash, I don't have much in the way of yellow in there either.

Who would think that one's stitching and stash habits could become a vehicle to a path of self-discovery? Maybe I'm getting too deep here but I'm wondering, does anyone else have a color that they don't care for? I must say, I do like the way this looks. I'm off to stitch and contemplate why I never cared for yellow!

More tomorrow...

Take A Stitch Tuesday - Herringbone

As I mentioned yesterday, the Herringbone Stitch is not by any means one of my favorite stitches.
While trying to turn it into something that I find visually attractive, I realized what it is about this stitch that I don't like. To me, it looks like a bunch of giant cross stitches!

Many of you have probably discovered, that as far as my designing career goes, I've been moving in new directions. This not to say that I won't continue to design charted patterns, it's just not what I do on a full-time basis anymore.

Counted cross stitch is quite limited and designing it is limiting as well. I've found that I need to move beyond the grid.

On a personal level, perhaps I've found that I don't need to live by so many rules anymore. I've gone from the confinement and rules of working in "squares" to the freedom of absolutely no rules whatsoever in the form of crazyquilting. One extreme to the other yes, but they say, when a person gets into their 40's, they become their true selves. Well, I'm 45 now and I can see where my attitude has changed alot in the last few years. I've reached a point in my life where I just don't care what anyone else thinks about how I dress, what music I listen to and so on. And those are just examples.

Isn't it funny what came into the light from a simple stitch?

So, on to what I did with this stitch:



Yes, I pretty much beat up this poor little Herringbone stitch and over powered it with fan stitches. The fan stitch is one of my favorites!

One nice thing about the Herringbone stitch is that it can easily be combined with other stitches.

Quite honestly, I still don't care for this stitch. At least now I know why!

After stitching this example, I sat down and charted out what I stitched in case anyone here would like to use this version. I will continue to do that with my variations throughout the TAST Challenge. Just click on the image above to go to my Flickr site where you can download the large version of the pattern. My suggestion for this one would be to use 10 count Waste Canvas.

You can find this, all past seam treatments and future stitch variations in my Flickr album set titled, Charted Crazy Quilt Seam Treatments.

Crazyquilt Purses

I did alot of stitching yesterday and finished up my Pansy Purse:



The bee is a vintage pin that I found at a flea market last Summer. I've been saving it for just the right project! This is one of my rare pieces that didn't start with a focal point!

Although I feel quite a bit better today, my husband asked me to promise him that I would take it easy again today and just sit and stitch. Ow, ow! Oooh, twist my arm!!! Ok, so that's the plan for today.

Thank goodness I keep a few extra blocks all sewn up and tucked away just for situations like this!

I pulled out this piece and have already tacked it to my frame. Yes, it's another purse:



I haven't decide on a theme yet and don't know if I'll use a focal point or not. I'll have to dig through my bits of junk and do-dads to see what I have. I do think this one would pretty with yellow embellishments and maybe a twinge of some pink.

Stop by tomorrow to see where this one goes!

Dryer Sheet Pansy Tutorial Part 2

Now that your pansy is assembled, it's time to stitch!

On my sample, I did several variations of the Blanket Stitch. This was intended to give you some options. You decide which variation you like best and work yours that way:



I used DMC embroidery floss to stitch my sample pansy. You can however use #5 or #8 Perle cotton instead if you like.

On the yellow part, I used 3 strands and kept a fair amount of space between my stitches. On the side petals I did the same the thing but used 6 strands of floss instead. And on the top of the pansy, I used 6 strands and kept my stitches close together.

Personally, I like the stitches tight.

For the center, I did a tiny tatted ring and sewed that on. If you know how to do tatting, it's just a simple ring:

5 DS, Picot, 5 DS, Picot, 5 DS, Picot, 5 DS, Close Ring.

If you don't know how to do tatting, you can embroider a center or try the Cast-On stitch. I then added a 5 mm Czech glass bead.

To finish, I stitched on a few a straight lines with 2 strands of DMC black embroidery floss.

For the leaves, again I used the Blanket Stitch around the outside and then did a simple running stitch down the center for a vein. Feel free to stem stitch the vein instead.

To attach the leaves to the flower, I use fabric glue. You can sew them together if you like. And then to attach this to a crazyquilt or whatever item you choose to use it on, again, you can glue it on or sew it on.

And that's it! If you need help with the stitches, visit Sharon's Stitch Dictionary.
Sharon has excellent stitch tutorials with really good photos!

I hope some of my readers try these pansies. They're so pretty and are a wonderful addition to all sorts of quilting and craft projects. If you do one and have a blog or Flickr site, please let me know. I would love to see your photos.

And, if you have any questions regarding this tutorial, please don't hesitate to leave a message for me here or you can email me.

Happy Stitching Everyone!