TAST - Couch

This week the TAST at PinTangle is couch. So I've been couching. Didn't know what to do since I'm making my TASTs into a lap quilt so want to remain washable and cottony but finally decided to couch down some torn fabric strips into a flower and leaf shape. 

TAST - Chain

 The Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge at Pintangle brought to you this week by chain stitch.

I love Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers.

TAST - Chevron and Lazy Daisy

These are my lazy daisy stitches for the Take A Stitch Tuesday Challenge over on PinTangle. This is the first stitch I ever learned to embroider. My grandma taught me to embroider on a stamped dresser cloth over 50 years ago. She taught me lots of things. I miss her. 

This is last week's stitch and I just got around to getting a pic taken of it. Actually I have avoided even trying this stitch because I thought it might be like the cretan stitch. I just can't get the rhythm of cretan. This chevron isn't bad. I like it and will start using it more. 

And these are my sampler blocks sewn together so far. A TAST lapquilt draped over the back of a folding table in my messy sewing room. One of these days I will doodle stitch in the margins. And one of these days I'll clean the sewing room. 

TAST - Herringbone Stitch

This week's stitch for Sharon Boggon's "Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST)" at Pin Tangle is the herringbone stitch which, even with a grid to follow, I see I messed up on the top line (sigh) but I now have another happy block to add to my lap quilt. 

The extra challenge this week was to combine the herringbone stitch with one of the previous stitches from TAST 2012. My leaf motif used buttonhole on the left leaf, herringbone in the middle and fly stitch on the right leaf. I found the motif as a freebie at Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread but mine doesn't even look as good as the pattern which I modified a tiny bit. (Sigh again). And, I can add another happy block to my pile. 

In case you don't know what a Happy Block quilt looks like you can see a previous post of mine consisting of summer themed Happy Blocks. My TAST quilt will have white borders around all my TAST samplers but there will be embroidery in the white borders too. 

TAST 2012 Weeks 3 and 4 - Feather and Cretan Stitches

This week's TAST stitch is the Cretan stitch. I have never done this stitch before. I just can't seam to get into the rhythm of it but I tried. Maybe if I had used my smaller squared gingham it would have been easier but I doubt it. I will just have to practice, practice, practice and then practice some more. I've really avoided this stitch but glad I forced myself to try it. I will have to use it on a seam on my CQJP 2012 quilt too. 

I thought I had posted my stitch from last week - feather stitch - but looks like I forgot. So, here's my feather stitch and another happy block for my lap quilt 

And here's the Happy Block lap quilt squares so far. I need to add the last two blocks on to the quilt and then start some more stitching on the white part which will be quotes or thoughts on my word for 2012 which is LISTEN. (I don't think enough people do). 

Go on over to Sharon's blog, Pin Tangle to see what everyone else has done for the Cretan stitch. I know I'm going to check it out. There is also a link on my side bar.

TAST 2012 - Buttonhole Stitch

Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge  (TAST)  buttonhole stitch. This is my flower. Only other stitch is seed. So, it's a buttonhole seed flower. 

More buttonhole stitches on gingham. 

All four "happy blocks" with fly and buttonhole stitches stitched together and on their way for a lap quilt sampler. I will probably embroider more on the white like I did with the quote on upper left block. My word for 2012 is listen so I will probably cover the squares with more quotes that relate to listening or things I like to listen to. 

TAST 2012 - Fly Stitch

I'm using "happy blocks" (4.5 inch centers with 2.5 inch sides) as my TAST canvases. I made the centers of ginghams and stripes, etc. so I would have a graph to practice on and I will sew them all together into a sampler lap quilt at the end of the year (or sooner). I think I will put a border of fly stitch between the gingham and white. 

And this block has leaves and petals of fly stitch. I think I will also border this with a fly stitch border. In the white sections I will probably do a little more doodling and stitch some phrases and words. 

To see how others have used the fly stitch visit Sharon Boggon's blog PINTANGLE. 

In Between Sane and Crazy

It's never boring around here. I always have my choice of sane or crazy project to work on after a hard day on the job. And I always like challenges. I think they keep the mind functioning.

Another challenge I hope to work on in 2012 is Sharon Boggon's "Take a Stitch Tuesday" .

I love gingham so decided to make some 4.5 inch squares into little canvases to stitch on for the TAST challenge. I figured it already has some lines marked for me to follow while stitching. If there are some stitches that involve circles I guess I will use some pastel polka dots for the "canvas". The 4.5 inch squares are bordered with 2.5 inch white on white strips and I figured I could stitch on those too. Then it will turn into a lap quilt. Crazy, huh?

This is my work on Rita's rose block. It is for a rose themed RR over on CQI (Crazy Quilt International) yahoo group.

And this is how Rita's block looks after Ruby and I have worked on it. Now there are two more stitchers to go.

And, yuck, I don't really like orange but I am participating in an Orange Study RR with some ladies on the CQforNewbies yahoo group. This is my stitching on Doris' block. I added some pale orange eyelet trim, tatted a little butterfly, crocheted a few flowers, added some kiko stitch flowers, a bullion flower, some leaves...

...and this is how Doris' block now looks after Doris and I have stitched on it.