26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Cross-Stitch
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And it’s week 4 of the Pintangle TAST 2012 challenge, and I’ve had trouble this week. It’s Cretan stitch and I’ve had real trouble with it, both with and without a hoop. I simply cant get the rhythm right, switching sides from one stitch to the next.
I’m going to try again and see whether I can gte it working for me, and post up the pictures later.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Cross-Stitch, crafts, websites
I’ve posted about the Fine Cell Work group before, but have only just come across their site. They have a sale on at the moment (finishing at the end of jan 2012). If you cant afford a piece, you can still donate what you can to help keep those taking part in sponsorship
25 Wednesday Jan 2012
Posted in crafts, Cross-Stitch
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In 1807, a New Jersey schoolgirl named Mary Antrim embroidered a sampler with silk thread on linen. On Sunday, this was sold for £1.07 million at sotheby’s
Schoolgirl’s Needlework Sampler Sells for $1.07 Million – NYTimes.com.
So there’s hope for us yet eh? Perhaps not in our lifetime but who knows?
18 Wednesday Jan 2012
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This is the first stitch that (for some reason) I’ve dreaded attempting to do. A couple of things helped me:
Drawing the 4 parallel lines. These you can still see in my picture below
I have to admit that Sharon’s dictionary isnt the only place I went to to get directions for this one – I also used the diagram over at “Rissa’s Pieces” to help me out on this one, simply because the picture helped me out more than the written instructions.
I’ve also been doing a little playing around between posts, so here is a picture of the stitches so far. Most of the time I’ve been working on a hoop, hence the lines (sorry!)
18 Wednesday Jan 2012
Posted in Cross-Stitch, crafts
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Did mean to go to this last night, but forgot to get a ticket and then forgot it was on!
Anyway, here’s video of an interview from the night with Mr X Stitch himself (a Brummie, a stitcher and a boy!)
and here’s part 2:
And part 3
11 Wednesday Jan 2012
Posted in Exhibitions
It’s coming! Starting this Friday (13th Jan) until 23 march 2012, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has the “Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration” in order that “To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen, ten of the Royal Collection’s finest drawings by the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci “
Also looking forward to the “Study day” which I hope will give me something more than wondering around blindly.
The museum is doing the clever thing, in offering “out of hours” guided tour at various days and times during the exhibit. Ok, they cost £10, buti hope that some of that goes towards the museum itself. Arts funding budgets have been slashed in the last few years, so anything to support local museums (whose general access is usually free)
10 Tuesday Jan 2012
Posted in TAST
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And this week, the stitch is buttonhole (or blanket) stitch
Below is my initial steps. I have yet to decide whether I prefer stitching with or without a hoop – I normally do it with one to keep the stitches even, tight and regular, but with keeping the thread out the way to make up the stitch I find it easier to do without the hoop. The stitches on the right are the ones done without the hoop, so I think I need to practise!
Here’s also some additional playing around I did last week with the fly stitch after seeing what some others were doing with the stitch
07 Saturday Jan 2012
Over the Christmas period, Dragon’s Den member @DeborahMeaden kicked off the #buybritishhelpjobs hashtag on twitter, to urge and allow people to chose to buy items made in Britain.
Using the same hashtag I’ve found an article, showing that some British retailers are trying to invest in making (some of their) wares in the UK.
There are plenty of disadvantages of course (e.g. consumer’s apparent need for cheap clothing, which can produced mainly through bulk buying and low wages), but there are also some advantages (e.g. quick turnarounds for small orders, which leaves little surplus sitting in warehouses).
Meanwhile, Sir Christopher Frayling FRSA (who just so happens to have a book come out recently called “On Craftsmanship: Towards a New Bauhaus”), has written an article called “Tools for survival“ where he argues that “Only an outdated vocabulary holds it [the maker movement] back from playing its part in social and economic progress”
06 Friday Jan 2012
Tags
embroidery, hand embroidery, patchwork, pintangle, TAST, TAST 2012
I’m coming down with a cold, so was wiped out and in bed by 9:30 last night. The Christmas tree is away, as are the lights and wreaths, but that’s about it. I had little energy to do any heavy lifting so it was more of “there by the grace of God” that the tree was packed away at all.
After getting the sewing machine working again, I did a very down and dirty 9-piece patchwork square and considering I didnt pin, iron or measure it didnt look….too bad. Two rows even line up perfectly! (the last line is only a little off so it all depends on how fussy you are). It’s given me more confidence to take it all a little further.
I’ve also been looking at some of the entries for the Pintangle Week 1 Fly stitch and am immensely jealous of what people can do! I have to remember that I’m only a beginner on these stitches, but it has pressed me on to try it out a little more – I’ll post up a picture some time in the next two weeks.
03 Tuesday Jan 2012
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I readily admit to being a newbie when it comes to any embroidery stitches beyond a cross stitch. Therefore, when I found that the Pintangle website was doing a Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST) challenge, I joined up in the hope I could do more interesting stitches.
TAST 2012 started 3/1/2012 with a challenge to do some Fly Stitch. How to stitch this can be found on Sharon’s Dictionary of Stitches from the same site.
Below is my first attempt at doing this. I’ve tried it in 2 different sizes on a scrap piece of Aida. I’m currently not planning to make it into a sampler of any sort, so please forgive me if in further posts it gets to look a little scrappy.
