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.

Fine Cell Work.

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?

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!)

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

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)

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

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”

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.

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.