Eek! ... I need to catch up with blogging my TAST stitches ...

... because I just realised that I am more than 20 weeks behind!

(where on Earth did the middle half of the year go anyway?!?!!!?)

I have actually kept up with doing them for most of the time (just not the last few, but I have a perfect catch up oportunity this coming weekend), but the last TAST stitch that I posted about was week 20 - butterfly chain ... and I said something about having some more photos on the camera ... not sure where though - just looked in my photos and didn't see any more ... which probably means I only thought I had taken photos of the other ones ... I actually don't remember exactly what other ones I was talking about now anyway, but there are a couple more on the same bit of felt as some other stitches ... which I have not taken a photo of yet (but I am just about to scan it, and a few others, once I work out what order they go in ;-)

Week 21 was crossed buttonhole, and this is what I ended up with for that one:

... and that seems to be where I didn't get around to taking any more photos - LOL

but I did find a photo of some work I did on another person's block from the needlecase round robin I was in (finished now - got mine back a couple weeks ago, but I plan to try and make it into something soon, then post all the photos of it at once) ...

anyway - this is my work on someone's block:

... as you can see, I did some feather stitch (which I nearly always do on stuff) and a spider/web (which I also do lots of) and some couching (which I also use a lot) ... and one other stitch that I didn't know how to do (or that it even existed) until it was the week 19 Tast stitch! (Basque stitch)

Week 22 was Satin stitch ... I must have been busy/lazy that week - all I did was add a little bit on the side of a bit of other stitching that I have already blogged about - it is on the bit of felt on the top left in this scan I just did:

mmmmm look at all those dog/cat hairs! LOL

(click on the image for a closer look and once the picture is full size you WILL see the hairs! lol)

Next to that (top right) is wheat ear stitch (week 23) and long and short stitch (week 25). Week 24 was French knots ... there are quite a few knots on my bits of stitching but I am not sure if any of them are French ones ... I think I might have done one or 2 on one of the bits of felt I have just scanned (possibly this one with the wheatear on it) - but on most of them I have done what I usually do instead of French knots - and that is Collonial knots (which I learnt to do when I did some candlewicking, because it is often used in that) ... it is a bit hard to tell them apart once they are worked, because the end result looks almost the same - unless they are French knots and I did them - in which case they either vanish into the fabric or look demented - which is why I use collonial knots instead - LOL.

The bottom 2 bits are my messing around with half chevron stitch and bullion knots (weeks 26 and 27).

Now ... week 28 and 29 were sheaf stitch and arrow stitch ... where the heck is that?

oh - here it is - on the bit of felt I did oyster stitch on (top bit in this next scanned image) ... along with some more crossed buttonhole, and the "missing" butterfly chain stitch ... the butterfly on the top left is butterfly chain with some buttonhole stitch etc, the fan on the bottom left corner is sheaf stitch and fly stitch ... the row of "butterflies" along the bottom are sheaf stitch, the white scorpion looking thing in the middle is butterfly chain with chain stitch for the tail, and the weird looking yellow bit amongst all those is my fiddling with crossed buttonhole and whatever else it kind of turned into.

the other bits of felt are the bit with curly ferny looking things that I have blogged about before (black bit on left) - but I have since added the red flowers to the "Fleur de Whatsits" on the bottom, and the yellow bit with black stitching is Buttonhole wheels, cast on stitch, (weeks 30 and 31) and a bit more arrow stitch and a few other fiddly bits that grew out of the buttonhole wheels ... and some more cast on stitch and a few other white bits around the edge. Under that (white on black felt) is a variation on the buttonhole wheel that I turned into a snail.

This bit is my playing with Crested chain (week 32) in white thread (mine look like little people with one arm in the air like they are throwing something - so I gave them balls ;-) then I did a tiny bit of each of the next 4 week's stitches (week 33 scroll stitch, week 34 Portuguese knotted stem stitch, week 35 Shisha Stitch, week 36 Cable Chain stitch)

I was a bit busy doing other things to have time to do as much as I wanted with these stitches (and a few of the earlier ones too for that matter) but I am going to the Canberra Quilters retreat this weekend and we have to take hand sewing (no machines allowed) so it will be the perfect chance to take all my printed out instructions and my felt and threads/etc and have a good fiddle around with a few of those I want to do more with, and also catch up with the last few that I have not done - once I realised I could catch up on the retreat I decided to do a few other things instead of doing the last 2 or 3 stitches ... like coming in here and posting these pictures/etc to my blog - LOL

This is all I did for rice stitch and square boss stitch (week 37) - I did a bit of one of them, on top of the other one! I like what I got, so I will have to have another play with this one too.

here is the bit of felt that one is on ... some spare space to start on the 3 stitches for the 3 weeks I am behind (and the one posted tomorrow will make it 4). There is a bit more cable chain on here too.

And now ... I think it is time I went to bed before the sun comes up!

(the time on this post will probably show up as the time I started doing it ... but it is actually about 4:25am!!! oops?)

btw, I should have been sorting out/tidying up/etc in my sewing room/the rest of the house today, but I was feeling lazy so I sat and crocheted a shawl ... start to finish! LOL ... how long did it take me? - er ... most of a one day cricket match, part of the news/etc and one episode of Mythbusters ... lol

(I will blog some pictures/etc of it later, once I have taken some ...)

goodnight ... er ... good morning?