wordless Wednesday

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equinox

For us it's the start of spring

for others (in the southern hemisphere)

it's the start of autumn,

day and night are of equal length

The cycle of the year

the cycle of the seasons

the cycle of life

"Equinox"

Last week's stitches that were in the TAST-challenge,

were the French knot and the pistol stitch
(=  a French knot with a tail )

and I used those in the "Cow parsley" piece

that I showed before.

This week we got no new stitch :

a "catching-up week" 

for beginners or stitchers that got behind otherwise ...

We're supposed to have FUN

and certainly not stress, when stitching !!!

So a very good reason for me to do another French knot piece

(and why not use the equinox as a starting point for that)

This time a LOT of them !

For this sun I almost ONLY used yellow (-ish) threads

from several thread nests or from some already threaded needles

that were lying around.

(yes, there are skeins and balls, no, didn't used them)

wordless Wednesday

March ?

Already ?

YES

We had some wonderful springy days

last week :
a lovely Zoo-day with the youngest grandson,
much needed gardening
and even some stitching outside !

Though the cold (and drizzle)

have returned today,

I finished the last bit of a small piece

that really looks like SPRING, I think.

"our beginning"

(cell, sun, earth ? )

I started with a very THIN piece of striped cotton

that was resist indigo dyed, 

of course with some felt as backing.

The theme for last week was "couching":

sewing thick thread (too thick to embroider with)

in one way or another onto the surface.

You often use plain strait stitches,

but in fact a lot of other stitches can do too.

Here I used cross stitches to fix the long floats around the circle.

It was fun to see the light shining through the thin piece

I finished it all with some seed beads and tiny gold specks.

P.S.

Today my dear friend Mo
had the opening of her exhibition
of her wonderful stitching project
in which a lot of our friends were allowed
to participate :

"I dream of a world where love is the answer"

https://www.yumpu.com/en/embed/view/jAPBognX9aze8GcS 

colours !

I'm always fond of

funky colour combinations

(at least I know not everybody loves

my sometimes bold choices)

So making these small

(10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4")

embroidered pieces as extra TAST works

gives me the opportunity

to try out different things.

"Faraway universe"

In the sun the purple looks a bit more reddish

than it really is

Some hand dyed fabric (and some from the shop)

and a little piece of silk

made a lovely base to start on

I couched some thick silk yarn along the round cut

of some of the snippets.

Added more purple but also blue, turquoise

and some red wool.

(the colours on that second picture are in fact best)

(love the feel of the spider stitches)

just lovely

A sunny day

the first that let us think that 

SPRING

is not so far away anymore.

(though the rest of February and also March

can be rather cold still)

Ahhhhh !

There was some stitching of course

10 x 10

in black (gray) and white.

wordless Wednesday

buttonhole

Stitching is still "hot"

It's so easy to take with you :

a cloth

a needle (or two)

some threads

and scissors

...

on the boat,

in a waiting room,

at the Alpaca knitting group

(no ... they didn't mind !)

I did some really small pieces

with mostly ONE kind of stitch

buttonhole stitch

Cotton (in fact for crochet), embroidery floss, rayon and silk

on shot cotton (with a piece of felt at the back)

10 x 10 cm

Initially I did one like this in reds

on white cotton with a ragged edge,

but stitching on the edge

on not easy then !

So for the blue one I took a bigger piece of fabric

but still a 10 x 10 piece of felt.

A nearby trip last week

through a foggy landscape

resulted in this gray and white

feather stitch piece.

TAST week 5

The front side of my cushion cover

is growing more than the backside :

too many narrow lines.

Week 5 is the feather stitch

but before that I made a twig with leaves,

twisted chain stitch and fly stitches close together.

Then I made the Portugese stem stitch

around the edges and today some feather stitches at last

The Portugese stem stitch looks a bit lumpy,

because you wind the thread two times around the stitch

I also have now an overall plan

for the colour scheme.

(ha : guess what :

the whole rainbow)

wordless Wednesday

19 - 1 - 19 ... T A S T

The year had a quiet start :

I love that

after all the hussle and bussle of December.

Now January halfway gone ...

I am making sketches again for new pictures,

forming ideas of  "stories" ...

painting them will take a while.

But

I started something else :

T A S T 

No, not "task", though it is,

but Take A Stitch Tuesday.

I found this accidentally

and it reminded of my try two years back :

something similar but abandoned very soon.

Let's see what this year brings ...

An old IKEA cushion cover I found

(the back is almost totally white)

A thread-nest with odds and ends of other

stitching projects

The start of  T A S T  at the back side of the coverlet.

Me, I was stitching on Thursday

and catching up the first three weeks :

chain stitch, fly stitch and buttonhole stitch

(with variations if you want to)

All familiar to me so time to play !

(I hope it's allowed to stitch on other days too ?

at least I did !)

Start at the front ...

(HA, someone in the TAST - community

is using the very same coverlet ...)