Feather stitch, and a bag.

I have been keeping up with the stitching for the TAST (Take A Stitch Tuesday) challenge ... but, due to being back at work and all the usual things that are on during the school year keeping me busy, I have not kept up with the blogging quite as well as I did in January, when I was on holidays ...

I actually started working with most of those stitches on the Tuesday, and I even came in here and put the photos of my stitches onto the computer a few times ... along with a LOT of photos of insects and plants and sunsets and lightning and more sunsets etc etc ... but I seem to keep running out of "evening" before I get around to actually putting any photos onto my blog ...

Anyway ... week 7 was Feather stitch


(I think that was where I was up to ... that is what I said at the end of one of my last couple of blog posts ;-)

Talking about where I was up to ... this is the point in this blog post where I got called away from the computer to drop DS (short for Dear , or dratted/etc as the case may be, Son) off at a friend's place somewhere 10 minutes down the road, duck in to the shop on the way back (to buy cream for the cheesecake DD (short for Dear, or dratted or whatever, Daughter) wanted to make, then I got home in time to feed the dog and cat and take DD to Scouts ... then I got back and walked the dog, and made a tuna mornay (because DS said he wanted it for tea when he got home and it sounded like a good idea - some for my tea and some to take to work for lunch tomorrow ;-) ... then it was time to go collect DD from Scouts and DS from his friend's place ... then I had to help DD finish the cheesecake ... so now here I am trying to finish typing a blog post while eating tuna mornay ... and a soup in a cup thingy that DD made and didn't like ... (mmm potato and leek - but she put a bit much water in it ... sigh ... )

I had already been doing some feather stitch on a couple of things I was working on, because it is one of my favourite stitches ... so of course once I found out it was also the TAST stitch that week - I did a whole heap more of it ...

One of the things, with feather stitch on it, started when I found a bit of old ribbon lying on the ground, while walking the dog ... I found it sort of interesting that I was walking the dog when I found it - and the design it had woven into it was ... dog bones!

Anyway, I was sort of thinking it might make an interesting "found object" for the TASDA challenge (which I will probably write about in a different blog entry sometime in the future) and it also would go well with orange (orange is also part of the challenge) and it would go well on this bit of felt ... so I grabbed some shiny variegated thread and couched the ribbon onto the felt with cretan stitch ... and then started adding other stuff that went with it ...

Actually - I just noticed that I put that photo on my blog about a month ago - in my post about eye stitch (and I said I would post more photos later - so I guess "later" is now ... LOL ... gee - I actually did what I said I would ... amazing ... I also said, in that same post, that future postings might happen a bit less often than they were in January ... I was right there too ...

and this is what one side of it looked like at the start of the week when feather stitch was announced as the TAST stitch for that week:

- it has been folded in half and stuff worked over the edges, because by then, I had decided it was going to be a bag ...

Here are both sides, after I did more feather stitch on it ...

The bag was almost finished when I took these 2 photos ... in fact, at the time I thought it was finished, but then I added a bead and loop fastener thingy.

Actually, I might as well stick some more bag photos in here and tell the rest of the bag story now ... else it could be another few weeks before I get around to it ... and someone at work is waiting for me to give them the URL for the photos I am about to put up, so they can show their Daughter ...

But first - the other bits of feather stitch (because I did them before I finished the bag ;-)

2 weird little thingys:

- some red feather stitch turning into Cretan stitch and back in to feather stitch, with colonial knots tucked in there for fun ... and feather stitch that became double, trebble, quadruple and quintupple - I was having fun fiddling with it.

And some yellow feather stitch/etc on a black bit of felt:

I got to have a play with the stitch and end up with something interesting looking too ;-)

... my current plan for this stuff is to use it all together in some kind of wall hanging or something - which is why I was sort of trying to just stick to black and white ... then when I found that yellow thread I changed it to black/white/yellow ... but then the red/orange sort of snuck in ... LOL ... so who knows what I will end up with?!

What red/orange? - this red and orange - I put some danglies of feather stitch on this bit of felt ... then did a few more "eyes" - they make good daisy flowers:

the red and the orange are actually 2 different strands from the same weird ball of thread - it came from the same Asian grocery shop as the balls of yellow thread I have been using on here, and on the black bits of felt ... the thicker red stuff, with white bits in it, also came from the same shop (there is some on the bag - I used bits of all 2 threads for the feather stitch on there) ... I don't think it was being sold for doing stitching/embroidery/crochet etc - it was up in the back corner with the shiny paper and kits of glittery stuff for religious shrines/etc.


It isn't really ideal, or in the case of the thicker red (with white bits in it) thread - it is not at all good for stitching ... but at 70cents a ball - I just had to try it out ...


I might buy more next time I am near that shop - using things that are "not what you are supposed to use" can be lots of fun ... and leads to a lot of creative solutions to whatever problems there are with using it ... like the thick red thread that kind of frays and falls apart - works ok for some things if one is careful when stitching, and I am sure it would look good couched down with another thread (I was going to try that, but I don't seem to have got around to it yet)

Anyway ... back to the bag:

The TASDA (a textile art group I belong to, here in Canberra) challenge was to make something that is in, or is (or has something to do with) a container, and it also had to include:


The colour orange

Polar fleece

a "found object"

stripes

so ... it is a Bag - which is a container for whatever I put in it, and I already had the colour orange in it, and the ribbon was the found object (because I actually did FIND it ... and I did wash it before I used it ;-) ... so all it needed was polar fleece and stripes ... so the dangly bits of feather stitch are sort of stripes ... but then I remembered I had some bits of striped ribbon - the black and green bit I have used on the edge of the bag was just perfect! (well I think it is - gives it that bit of "zing"). What about polar fleece? - well ... what better thing to use for a lining than polar fleece?! (and I just happened to have some polar fleece that was also orange ;-)

As you can see in that photo - I like dangly bits and I like interesting yarns - so, of course, the bottom of the bag is fringed with dangly bits of interesting yarn/etc ...

Here is a close up of heaps of mostly feather stitch ... the green thread is another one of those not really sewing threads ... it is kind of like working with a thin version of that brown packaging string ... but I like how it looks when I have stitched stuff with it, and sometimes things need a bit of that colour green!

The red, red/orange and yellow bits are those threads I got at the Asian grocery shop (these photos are clickable for a closer veiw ... or at least I hope they are - that is usually what happens when I stick them in here like this - it does it automatically ;-)

Here is a photo of the finished? bag:

and here is the other side:

That photo was taken a couple weeks later - and yes - I snipped off the tassel! - I decided it didn't look right, so now I have a (sort of) matching key tag ... or something ...

Here is a closer up view:

... I think I might have to find an interesting shell or something and sew it to the end where I snipped off the tassel ... it needs something (just not that dangly tassel that didn't quite look like it belonged there ;-)

btw, this is an even better view of the feather stitch done with those 3 threads from the Asian grocery shop ... the red one with some white in it, the red one with a strand of yellow/orange in it, and the yellow one that is sort of a cheapy version of fine crochet cotton.

Anyway ... I should be asleep - I have to get up and get ready for work in 7 hours time!

I will try to find time tomorrow, or at least some time this week, to come in here, log in, and post something about the other weekly stitches I have messed around with - and today is Tuesday (well it is actually Wednesday now, but it was still Tuesday when I typed most of this stuff ;-) so we got given another stitch this morning - and I even did a bit of that one in my lunch break today!

I hope this lot all made sense ... it seems to be a bit "all over the place like a mad woman's knitting" ... jumping back and forth between all the stuff I was raving on about - just like my mind does ... LOL