Like looking at it from afar, but closer...

If nothing else, this TAST challenge has revealed that the biggest challenge I have is deciding what to do! I'm late with Couching Stitch 9 and Running Stitch 10, but on time with Whipped Wheel Stitch 11. So, without further ado, here they are:

Couching Stitch

Running Stitch

Whipped Wheel Stitch

And this is how the Heart Block now looks overall:

Heart Block

For those who have seen the heart block before, yes, I tore out the chain stitch I'd done. It just didn't seem to "fit" to me, where it was, and the size it was, and the color green I'd chosen. Yeah, I know, it looked fine. But it wasn't the direction I'd wanted to take the block, I just put it there because I had to put it somewhere. So it got pulled out. I'll use the chain stitch again, perhaps on the green and off-white block.

Until I saw the photo here in the blog, I thought the heart block was pretty much done, but now I think it needs something more in the upper right corner. Maybe some additional beads for balance, or something along the uppermost seam.

Let's see, what did I learn. I learned to get some fabric to use for the stitches that come up, so I can put them there before putting them onto a block, to make sure they seem to "fit", and then only add them to a block if they do. I also learned that I'm actually getting better at keeping things straight and more evenly spaced, and that feels great! Still not perfect, but heading in the right direction.

And I learned that sometimes looking at a piece through the eye of the camera, smaller, on the blog gives a better perspective on it. It's like looking at it from afar, except closer. LOL! It's sort of like looking at it as if it were something done by someone else, so a bit emotionally removed from it.

And I learned that, despite the difficulties involved in trying to decide what to do and where, and what color, that the end result is a very nice feeling of accomplishment. I'm looking forward to the next stitch already! 

Okay, then, CHAIN My Heart!

As mentioned, I retired the last block and made a new one for the next set of TAST 2012 stitches. I decided to try using a crazy quilt template found via Google image search, for the new block I was going to make. I sized it, printed it out, cut out the pieces, and traced the shapes onto pieces of fabric. So far so good. But when it came to putting them together, for some reason, It just wasn't working.

I fussed around with it for half a day and then thought, well, I'll just bag that idea and sew them together as the spirit moves me. And it came out not too badly!

Block 2

I like it much better than the previous block. It's larger, for one, by a couple of inches each side, and the seams just look like they make more sense, and it's backed with muslin already. And I got it done just before Sharon released the Week 8 stitch.

But the Week 8 stitch turned out to be a Chain Stitch, and I couldn't figure out where to put it on the new block, so I put it on a different block. I'd made a heart block, as an exercise in learning crazy quilting. So here's my chain stitch:

Heart in progress

In hindsight, I think a slightly lighter green and fewer strands would have looked better, because now it looks to me like it needs more on the right side for balance. Or something. I like how the heart is looking, otherwise, though. I like the chain stitch. I think it will come in handy for a number of things in the future.

Let's see, what did I learn this week. I learned that if you just keep going, even if you don't know what you're doing quite yet, things get better. I learned that giving a little more thought to weight of thread and color is probably not a bad idea for best results. And I learned that patting yourself on the back for making some progress feels pretty good.

Unchain My Heart

It took awhile this week to figure out how to incorporate the Detached Chain Stitch for Week 7 of the TAST challenge into my block. I turned it this way and that way, and just couldn't land on somewhere to put it. But I did get some ideas, albeit rather tame ones, of things that might improve what was already on the block.

This is how the block looked before I started:

First, I added some green around the heart, because it just didn't stand out the way I'd wanted it to. It ended up like this:

Then I decided to add something more to the herringbone stitch, which ended up like this:

Then that made the chevron stitch look lonely, so it ended up looking like this:

At this point, the crushed velvet spot kept staring at me, so I added a semi-circle over it, and then it hit me, that's where the detached chain should go! So here it is:

It mostly covers the smooshed spot. Then, at the last minute, I decided to add some ribbon under the back-slanted blanket/buttonhole stitch, so now the block looks like this:

So, it's been improved from what it was. I'm declaring this block done. It's not the best work I've ever done, even at just starting something, but I think it's moving in the right direction, if much, much more slowly than I'd hoped. Sigh.

I'm still enjoying the process very much, and eagerly look forward to the next stitch. A new block will be made before tomorrow night, so there's somewhere to put the stitch. And this Block #1 will be laid to rest. To be honest, I never liked it to begin with, but you have to start somewhere. This week, I learned the detached chain stitch, that you can always add more to something if it just doesn't rock your world, and that the creative process probably consists of waves of adding something more to whatever you're doing because it doesn't yet rock your world.

Blockhead

I did the Week 5 Herringbone stitch for TAST last week, pinky swear. See, it's the image right here:

But I missed doing a post about it. I was in a funk, of sorts. I had become dismayed over how lopsided my block had become, and didn't relish taking a photo of it's ever-wonkier edges. It seemed to be twisting around in a circle from all the hooping it had gone through so far, not to mention the pulling out of stitches.

So I went searching the internet for more information about crazy quilt blocks. As mentioned in an earlier post, I tend to jump into things whether I know what I'm doing or not. But it's usually not a totally uninformed leap of faith. I've usually done at least some searches for basic information. I'd done that for crazy quilting. I'd apparently missed some fairly significant steps, however.

Like I hadn't attached my block to a muslin backing. I also hadn't "ironed the block within an inch of its life",  as one place had put it. So I set aside my light-weight craft iron and got my heavy Rowenta and steamed the sucker flat. Then I squared it up, lopping off the wonky bits, and basted it to a muslin backing.

Oh, my, what a difference that made! Now the block fits in the hoop better, I can use a larger hoop, and the block is stable. Yayyyyy! I was so happy with how much easier it was to deal with it, that I added the two more spider roses that Boud had suggested. Now the rose doesn't look so lonely.

By then it was Monday and there was another stitch, so I added the Chevron stitch for week 6 of TAST, and have finally gotten a post up here.

I didn't have any more seams to add it to, so I just plunked it in the middle of one of the pieces. I used a template for marking the fabric, first, and still managed to get it a little cockeyed. The template was another suggestion by someone. So this is how the block is looking now:

I added an outline of fly stitches to the ones that were already on the piece in the upper left corner. And while I was pressing the block within an inch of its life, some water spit out of the iron and I managed to crush/melt the velvet in the lower right corner of the block. So I'll have to come up with something creative to cover up that mistake creative opportunity.

I learned quite a bit the past two weeks: Use of templates for the stitches to aid in their uniformity, using backing muslin for stability of the block and to increase its size for ease of using a hoop, being careful with steam and (probably synthetic) velvet, and that M&M's peanuts make embroidery even more enjoyable!

I'm Beginning To Think I'm Brain Dead

I'm beginning to think I'm brain dead. Well, maybe not brain dead, but certainly there's some sort of stitching block that didn't exist earlier in life. Sigh. The cretan stitch for week four of Take a Stitch Tuesday was difficult for me to do, at first. I kept getting backwards where the thread was supposed to be.

But I did manage to finally get it, I think. After fumbling around with it for awhile, I did a seam and came up with this:

About the pink spider rose, welllllll, I messed up the fabric in that area pulling out some other stitches, so the fabric was a little tattered-looking and frayed. I couldn't think of what to do with it, so I just added a little spider rose. I know it doesn't really look like it belongs there. Actually, it looks more like it belongs there in the photo, but on the block as a whole, it doesn't really look like it belongs there. I'm pondering what else I might do to make it look like it does belong there. Meanwhile, there it sits.

Then I spent a little time trying something different with the cretan stitch, and came up with this:

Definitely not the most creative thing you'll see among the TAST needleworkers, but I'm a beginner, so cut me some slack! I'm rather proud that I even tried doing something different. I would love to be more creative, but I don't seem to have given myself permission yet to be so. Maybe by week 52, I'll have broken through that barrier!

So, this is what the block is looking like right now: It's slowly but surely getting some personality. And for those who notice that the stitching on the seam to the left of the heart, which is the buttonhole stitch with a backward slant, looks different on the top than it does on the bottom, those parts were done at different times. And, as fate would have it, I'd managed to stretch the fabric in such a way that while I was doing the upper half it looked like it was lining up with the bottom section. I was trying a different kind of embroidery frame, because the hoop just wasn't working for me. The frame didn't, either. I think if the block were larger, either would have worked better, so the next block will definitely be bigger.

What did I learn this week? Trying something different is fun and not as scary as I kept thinking it would be. And I need a bigger block or to baste the block to a fabric frame to make it larger so the hoop holds it better and I can work better. I learned that I really need to make sure the fabric is in the hoop or frame straight and not twisted akilter.

I also learned that I'm still enjoying the TAST challenge. It's been more challenging than I thought it would be, but less challenging than is uncomfortable. So, a nice kind of challenging. Perfect.

The Internet Lies!

I'm not very good with written stitch instructions, or static images, for that matter, so for each of the TAST stitches, I've gone to YouTube to find a video showing how the stitch is done. For the Feather Stitch, I  even watched three or four different videos to make sure I got it right. Then I did a seam of it on the Crazy Quilt block I'm working on. I was finished with the TAST stitch this week on Monday night. Yayyyyy!

My task done, I started looking at the work of others, to see what wonderful things they'd done, only to find to my horror, that the stitch everyone else was doing wasn't the one that I'd done. Gasp!