Working on Catching Up with TAST and...

I am currently working on something. No pictures though as I have just been plodding along and haven’t taken time to take any. It is coming along slowly as I have had to really think about some things and even redo a small part.

I have also been working on trying to catch up with the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. Here is what I have so far.

This one has the running stitch as the design.

This one features woven and whipped wheels with a few cross stitches thrown in.

This one is the Basque stitch. The center is needle punched yarn.

This one is the crossed buttonhole stitch.

And this one is the wheatear stitch.

I also have one more ATC trade to show. This lovely little ATC is from Emmy.

She sent some lovely hand dyed threads along with it.

And this is the ATC I sent to Emmy along with a few little goodies I forgot to scan.
























I am still 3 or 4 weeks behind on TAST. Now I am going out to mow grass before it rains.

**note** blogger wouldn't let me post this earlier. It was noon when I mowed the grass. And it never rained.

Too Many Ideas but Where to Start?

Oh, did you ever wish you could clone yourself so that you could do all of the things that you need/want to do? Usually I feel like I don’t have a clue as to what I want to work on and I hate when that happens because it seems like it lasts forever. That bit of uncertainty can be disastrous for me.

But right now I have so many ideas and projects I want to start on that my head is spinning and I don’t know which one to start on first. I will just have to make a list and go from there.

I have some more ATC’s to show.

This one I received from Barbara the other day. Love the buttons and butterfly.


















She also sent these with it.















I asked her about the white fiber fabric. This is what she told me: “I found the white fiber in my fabric store. It’s a new one and it's like paper. The shop sells it for decorating shopwindows ( you know? ..for a good looking shop) You can buy the fiber in many different colours and I use it for my mix media art."

I will have to play around and see what I can do with it.

This is the ATC I made for her:





















It has the ever so popular (with me) painted dryer sheet bits, plus some silk fibers that I needle punched onto the background. Tulle is holding the loose strands of DMC floss down. The colored circle is a variegated yarn that I needle punched on some stabilizer and then I hand stitched it on and added a few cross stitches and French knots.

This one came in the mail today from Peggy.




















Isn’t this sweet?

And this is the one I sent to Peggy.

New ATC and Two More Block Prints

I meant to post this sooner. I received another wonderful ATC in the mail the other day. This one is from Annica.

She also was very generous and sent along some wonderful fibers and buttons.

This is the ATC that I made for her. It has bits of tulle, felt, yarn, organza and, yes, a piece of painted dryer sheet.

When I was doing the block printing from the previous post, I used up what little bit of paint was left and tried printing on a couple of pieces of fabric.

This is the first one. Sorry for the crappy photo, the scanner does this with some fabrics. Click on photo for clearer image.

Here is the other one. I was just about out of paint and didn’t quite get a full image.

FAF June Experiments

The FAF group that I belong to has a technique to try every month. For June we are to try printing either by using lino blocks that we cut ourselves or by some other method of stamp making. I have some of the Penscore foam blocks. You heat them up and then press things into them to create your image. The image will stay in the foam until you heat it up again.

I don’t have any printing inks, so I mixed up some cheap acrylic paint with some Golden Glaze to keep the paint wet longer.

I used Yupo Watercolor paper for these samples.

Click on photo for larger image.















The one on the left I pressed some old junk earrings into the foam. Evidently I didn’t get enough paint on the block as the detail is lost on a couple of them. The one on the right I laid a bunch of straight pins that have large round heads on the table and pressed the block onto them.













For these I used a cuff link, old earrings and some buttons to create the designs. Once again, I didn’t get enough paint onto them as I only basically got the outlines of the pieces and none of the details.

So I tried again, this time using Canson Watercolor paper.

As you can see, I got a lot more of the detail this time with the one on the lower left; however, I still did not get the details on the lower right print. I think I pressed the objects too hard into the foam and made it harder to get the paint down into the details of the pieces.

Another ATC in the Mail

I received another wonderful ATC in the mail. This one comes from Jacqueline in Nederland.

She also sent me this charming little tag.

This is the ATC that I made and sent to her. This has painted dryer sheet bits, Angelina fibers and the yarn needle punched onto felt. I also added a small stone.

What Came In the Mail

I have had some wonderful mail yesterday and today.

This ATC came from Waltraud in Germany.





















This is one I made and sent to her. It is nylon ribbon yarn needle punched onto felt.























This ATC is from Nadia in Nederland. She doesn’t have a blog. She found my blog through another person’s and emailed me asking if I would be interested in doing a trade.





















This is what I sent to her.




















This ATC is from Gunnel in Sweden.
















This is the one I sent to her. It has a piece of painted dryer sheet and some strips of tulle punched onto the felt. I punched pieces of variegated yarn in the shape of a circle onto some stabilizer and then punched the circles onto the felt.

Postcards sent

Two of the FAF ladies have birthdays this month. I know for sure that one has received hers and hopefully so has the other, because I am posting pictures of them now.

This one I made for Helen:

This one I made for Anna:

I used my Xpression to needle punch a piece of batik fabric to some craft felt. I then free motion stitched the dragonfly on each. It is hard to see but Helen’s has a foil flower and Anna’s has foil bits.

Something to show

I have stated before that I am way behind in doing the TAST challenge stitches. The last ones that I did were for weeks 15 and 16 and here it is week 23 now. Week 15 was the oyster stitch. I showed it and someone asked to trade for it and I did, so I decided to make another to replace it. I made it very similar to the original but not exactly.

Here is the replacement ATC. It also has a needle punched background of wool rovings on a felt base.





















I skipped several weeks and went to week 20 for this one. It is a variation of the Butterfly chain stitch. I painted a piece of 18 count Aida cloth to stitch onto.





















I got my Janome Xpression out last night and had a good play with it. I tried out several different fibers, ribbons and such and made backgrounds for some ATC’s.More on this later.

This and That

Can you believe it is already June? And it has been two weeks since my last post.

I finally finished my piece for the Quilting Arts door challenge, but can’t show it. I mailed off two birthday postcards for the FAF June birthday ladies but don’t want to spoil the surprise so I will wait till they have received them before posting pictures.

Many of you may already be aware that there is going to be a new online
publication starting up in September.

Fibre&Stitch is the new venture from these five talented ladies: Sue B, Terri, Lynda, Carol, and Margaret. Go and check out the website. I wish them all the best with this.

The new Quilting Arts magazine arrived the other day and it has some wonderful stuff in it. Also the newest issue of Work Shop on the Web is out and there are some great workshops in it.

Hopefully I will have something to show the next time I post, until then thanks for stopping by and for all the wonderful comments.