(not really?) catching up ...

hmmmm ... "the hurrieder I go, the behinder I get" (not sure who said that ... might have been Winnie the Pooh?) ... I seem t0 be getting behind with posting stuff here though ... the list of stuff I want to post here is getting longer faster than my blog is ... LOL

I will try and catch up with posting more TAST stitches next week ... or sometime ... I have actually done all of them except this week (which I will probably do sometime in the next day or so - because it is still this week ;-)

but ... in the meantime ... there are quite a few other things I have not got around to putting photos of here ...

So ... here is a rush job of throwing in some photos -

"30" - my challenge quilt for the Canberra Quilters Exhibition last year (the theme was 30, because Canberra Quilters was 30 years old - so I made 30 little quilts and joined them together)

the back - yes each little quilt has it's own title.





A photo of the sky - found it while I was looking for quilt photos (took it some time last year ... about Septemberish sometime ... )








"In My Dreams" ... a not very good photo, taken on my sewing desk (note feet at bottom - I stood on the chair to take the photo ;-)


a beanie I had in last year's TASDA exhibition


"Creation - All Things Under The Sun" - exhibited in last year's TASDA exhibition

"Crikey" my September Journal quilt from last year


"Desert Rain" - my June Journal quilt from last year


"Winter's Night" - my July Journal quilt from last year


hmmm ... I was going to throw some crochet ones in here but I didn't find any yet - probably means I need to actually take a lot more photos! LOL

and now ... DH (Dear Husband) wants the computer to read his e-mail b4 he goes to work (night shift) and I have to get ready to head off to this - http://craftact.org.au/exhibitions/2007EX5FCA.php
(I couldn't resist going to an exhibition opening for something called "Knit1Blog1" ... even if I don't knit much!)

Where am I?

If anyone actually reads this blog, they might be wondering where I am - because I have not posted anything for a while ... not even any TAST (the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge) stuff ...

why not?

well ... er ... sort of been busy ...

- stuff like work, being a wife and mother, and stuff like sitting down in front of the TV with DH (Dear Husband) and sewing/crocheting while watching a few dozen episodes of "Scrubs" - because DH bought the whole set of it on DVDs the other week - LOL

The TV watching is not a total waste of time though - I do need to get a pile of sewing and crocheting done, and in front of the TV is where I tend to have time to get it done ...

I have also been (not very sucessfully yet) trying to find my sewing room under all the mess, because I have entered a challenge quilt and a miniature quilt into the quilt show here (the Canberra Quilters exhibition) so I have to make those in the next few weeks, and I have note even started the challenge quilt yet! ... but I have pieced the miniature quilt - which is one of the things I am now doing some stitching on in front of the TV - it is mostly a "crazy quilt" and I need to do decorative stitches down all of the seams and embellish the rest of it too - I said in the catalouge description that it is crazy quilted with "a lot of spiders" - so I now have to sew the lots of spiders and their webs on there!

I also have some crocheting and other sewing/quilty stuff I want to do for the TASDA (Textile Art and Surface Design Association - a group I am part of here in Canberra) exhibition that happens a month or so after the quilt exhibition ... that is the one where the theme is "Poles Apart" - the reason that my blog is (or "was" if it has stopped working or I have edited my template and take it off or something by the time you read this) playing that weird music (see the post before this one for further expanation, links to their website, etc ;-) ... the music I am now listening to (because I went to look at my blog to see if it was still working, and it is :-)

And ... I have some ATCs to make, for a swap I signed up for (ATCs = Artists Trading Cards) and I have not made any Journal quilts for a while (I was planning to keep doing one for each month, like I did last year ... but "the wheels fell off") ... and - instead of being in here getting lost in cyberspace - I came in here to check my e-mail while I drank my coffee and ate my doughnuts - I should be back out where I was, in my sewing room, finishing off my "Inchies" - which are sets of 1" squares for a swap I am in on the AuzNZartquilters yahoogroup ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aus_NZartquilters/ )

hmmm ... this was going to be a short post where I wrote that I was busy and said "here is what is keeping my busy right this moment" ... and then I was going to paste in most of the text from the e-mail I just sent to the people in the inche swap ... which I am still going to paste in here anyway - for those who are interested in reading about what "that weird Andrea person" is doing with bits of fabric, yarn and shredded bits of plastic shopping bag ... and an iron ...

Hi All,
I have been collecting a pile of blue bits of whatever I find (in the op shop, in my sewing room while looking for something else, in my crochet yarn stash, etc) ever since I heard about this inchie swap ... but I only just started making my inchies today! In fact I am just having a coffee/e-mail break after doing that just now - I have just been ironing bits of yarn and cut up plastic shopping bag etc onto bits of netting and bits of that tyvek stuff that they now seem to use to make pillows and doonas ... hopefully I won't get lost in my e-mail for too long - because I want to spend some more time this afternoon doing some more things to them and doing the other ideas I have in mind ...
btw, I think my inchies ideas are now getting mixed up with ideas for my ATCs for another swap (due in a months time) and my journal quilts (which I have not actually been getting around to doing any of for several months ). - once I get into my sewing room and get immersed in a mad moment of creativity all sorts of odd stuff starts happening ... and with the way I tend to make my ATCs and similar things (journal quilts, postcards etc) it is often quite easy to do what I did for a journal quilt and some ATCs and postcards last year - and that is to make one bigger bit of stuff (i.e. I grab some interesting background fabric/whatever and throw on a few bits and iron/quilt/etc them on) and then cut it up into the various sized bits for a set of ATCs, a journal, and some postcards, and then I finished the various items by adding some embellishments to them and doing the edging/binding and stuff. ... so at least some of my inchies will actually sort of be the "trimmings" from the edges of A4 sized quilts or ATCs ... LOL


I will try and remember to take some photos and blog about the inchies, and how I made them and the other stuff, when I have finished the inchies ...

btw, I have still been doing the TAST stitches every week, and I will try and get around to taking photos and catch up with blogging about them sometime in the next week or 3
... I have even used this week's TAST stitch (half chevron stitch) on the needlebook that I am stitching stuff on for the round robin I am in, on http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/southerncrosscrazies/ (yes - I am on LOT of yahoogroups - lol)

btw ... if the song finished while you were reading all the lunatic ravings I have just written, and you actually wanted to listen to the song - it should play again if you hit the little "play" arrow on the top left hand corner of the music player box at the top of the page ... I just did that becuase I wanted to play it again while I finish this and read the other few e-mails I have not read yet ;-)

Anyway ... I have a few e-mails to read/reply to, a whole heap of sewing to do, and a pile of junk to go and get out of the back of the car - that is another thing I have been busy with this weekend - I went and "slept over" at a friend's place (the other side of Canberra - not really that far away but if I sleep there we can have a drink or 3 and I don't have to drive home afterwards) and we spent Friday evening and most of Saturday sorting out a pile of junk she had in a spare room ... she has been crocheting (and teaching crochet, and writing patterns and designing stuff for magazines etc) for years, and she had a whole pile of crochet items and lots and lots of odd bits of yarn and stuff that she no longer wanted ... so guess who got given anything I wanted out of that lot - yes - me!
... I tend to use all sorts of odd stuff, and I tend to get most of my crochet ideas when whatever bits of yarn I find/buy/get given "talk" to me and tell me what to make out of them - so it was kind of like having a birthday or Christmas or something when I got given all her junk ... so it was one of those "everybody wins" things - she got company/help doing the sorting/clearing out of her spare room and I consider all that yarn and stuff more than fair payment for spending the day dragging stuff off high shelves and carrying the heavy stuff down the stairs for her ... and the op shop will probably do well too - because she also had a whole pile of old books (mostly novels and stuff) she was throwing out - so I put them into boxes and most of those will go to the op shop ... along with the heap of old clothing and stuff that I have sitting in a pile in the lounge room - once I get the other stuff out of the car the old clothing/etc can go in - and the whole lot can go to one or other of the op shops that are right next to where I work (the ones I usually go to in my lunch break and take fabric and yarn and stuff OUT of - LOL)

er ... I had better go do that stuff before I run out of afternoon - oops - where has the day gone? ... looks like my inchies won't get any more work done on them until this evening now ...

Of Crochet and Knitting ... and Poles Apart

A long title for what is probablyWAS going to be a short blog post ...

I have 2 things I wanted to post here for TASDA members (if you don't know what it is, then you are not one ... but you are still welcome to read this post and use the info ... TASDA is a textile art group I am a member of - for the curious, and/or people near enough to Canberra to join and come along - there is a website at http://www.acttextiles.org.au/ )

First ... something to listen to while you are here (hopefully it is already playing - if not you might have to click it or something, but you might not have noticed it playing yet because the first bit is quiet):

EDIT (a few weeks after originally posting this) - I moved the music - after accessing my blog at "dial up" speed the other day, I realised what a pain this music player is for those who have a slower connection (how quickly one forgets what things were like before getting broadband - lol) ... so the music is now playing here - http://wheremyblogis.blogspot.com/ - this is a blog I created when google took over blogger, but before we had to move our blogger blogs over to our google account ... now it is just sitting there doing nothing but being a spare blog - so it is the perfect place to put the music ... those who want to listen can open it up in a new browser/window/tab/whatever and leave it playing in the background while you read the rest of this blog ... or while you go and read/do something more interesting ... LOL

Even later (much later - it is now 2 years since I posted this!) edit: That blog now does have some stuff on it, but the B#%^$$& playlist thingy doesn't play that song any more ... I think it is because they no longer have permission from Pink Floyd (so not really the playlist site's fault I guess) ... so it now I have set it up to play some other stuff ... currently 2 Pink Floyd songs played by an orchestra (weird sounding, but kind of ok actually ... er ... they kind of fit rather well on a blog called "Huh?" lol) and another Pink Floyd one I am not sure who is playing it ... and also a couple other odd songs I like ... but that may change if I ever get around to going in and finding more stuff to stick on there ...
(in fact is is still chaging/being added to now ... seeing I am still messing around on there adding stuff and I am just about to hit the "publish" button on this and go and read some more e-mail while I listen to a few things I am finding and decide if I like them ... or whatever ... you still reading this? ... oh ... it probably doesn't make much sense any more ... I am kind of "thinking out loud" here ... lol)

I tried to put the music player in here, so it was just in this post, rather than on top of my blog ... but it didn't work there ... took half an hour of fiddling and finding something blogger told me I had to change before I could change my blog template (which is what I had to do to put the music thing in) ... so hopefully the song is playing now ... there is only one song on there (I might add more one day)

Yes ... I like this song ... and it just happens to be called "Poles Apart" - which is the theme for this year's TASDA exhibiton ... the theme is actually meant to be about polar ice caps and stuff, but as far as I know, anything to do with any meaning one sees in the title is fair go (my mind comes up with all sorts of stuff - poles apart = differences and/or separation, bi POLAR, icey poles? polarity? this song? anything with Poles and/or Apart in the title ... blue coloured fishing poles side by side but not touching? ... anything ice coloured? ... and I wonder how many personal versions of "Blue Poles" will be entered? LOL)

If the song does not play, and you want to hear it ... it is "Poles Apart" by Pink Floyd ... and I think I might paste a copy of the lyrics on the bottom of this blog post (there are copies of it on lots of those song lyrics sites that my kids visit so why not here too? lol) I am not sure how long the thing will work for even if it does now - things like music files etc on the www tend to come and go fairly quickly)

Anyway ... the other thing I wanted to put here was a pile of links to stuff about the "Magic Squares" (also known as mitred squares) that Janice is showing people how to crochet, and I am going to try and show people how to knit, for the meeting activity this month (in a few hours time - LOL).


I had not knitted these before ... I have not knitted very many other things either ... I learnt the basics of knitting and never seemed to get fast, so I just stuck to crochet because I far prefer that ;-)
but ... because Janice is running the activity and teaching the crochet ones, but also isn't a knitter, I said I would find some info about doing knitted ones, work out how to do them and then I could show any people who were knitters and not crocheters how to do the knitted version. So I found a few websites with patterns/instructions on them and had a bit of a play ... and came up with one version that actually turned out square and looked like it was supposed to, and that is easy to do and should be easy to show people.

I knitted a couple of samples to take to the meeting, then I decided that seeing I am also likely to end up helping people with the crochet ones - maybe I had better actually do a crochet one myself! ... it kind of went a bit odd (I think it was mostly because I used too big a hook) so I undid it - but it gave me a weird idea of something to make using the technique (same mitreing method but not squares - I like to take a "normal" technique/pattern for something and change it until it is totally mangled beyond recognition ;-) so 2 hours later I had a totally useless crochet object that I can't decide if it is a hexagonal crochet bowl or a hexagonal beret to fit someone with a head the size of a cat! LOL
(if I remember/have time in the next day or so, I might edit this post sneak a photo into here ... if not I will put it up in a later post)

Anyway ... here are a few useful links:

http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/afghans/st_st.htm an interesting rug - with patterns for small and large size squares in stocking stitch
http://www.magknits.com/Oct06/patterns/mitred.htm childs skirt, but has basic pattern for mitred square as part of it.
http://www.hjsstudio.com/miter.html hat and mittens set, but has a basic pattern half way down the page.
http://www.knittingatknoon.com/afghanpatt.html - mitred squares afghan pattern
http://www.interweave.com/knit/interweave_knits/pdf_files/MiteredSquareRug.pdf stocking stitch
http://home.pacbell.net/kapleo/blog/domesticspherepatterns.html - this is the pattern that worked for me, and that I have used for the samples I am taking to the meeting. ... the page has the mitred square bag on the top and a whole heap of other knitting patterns under it.
http://www.planetshoup.com/easy/knit/mitre_bas.shtml - this is the same as the one above - except it has more than one colour ... but the basic pattern is what I ended up doing ... this one might be better to print than the other one.
http://www.planetshoup.com/easy/knit/mitre_sec.shtml - another page on the same site - how to work another square onto the first one.
http://mindofwinter.prettyposies.com/archives/000146.html - a blog post about them, with yet another way of explaining the same method that I used for mine. (down the page a fair bit)
http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/2006_05.html#001556 instructions on how to knit groups of 4 squares without having to join them (halfway down a very long page, but if you are lucky this link might take you to the right part of the page when it loads)
http://www.knitlist.com/01gift/mitred-baby-hat.htm - pattern for a baby hat using mitred squares
http://www.shellykang.com/2006/07/lets-do-gauge-swatch.html and http://www.shellykang.com/2006/07/lets-do-gauge-swatch.html - another person's instructions for doing mitred squares and joining them.

Most of these patterns seem to be stocking stitch or similar, and one even says garter stitch does not work ... but some of the patterns are in garter stitch ... I tried doing one in stocking stitch (with knit and purl rows) and mine was NOT square ... but the garter stitch one (all knit rows) worked out fine! There were a few versions of each of those too ... some with stuff like k1 pssso etc that I was not even sure I knew how to do - LOL but it did say that it was decreacing by 2 stitches and at least one pattern said to knit 2 together twice (dec 2) in the middle of the row ... same effect just a different way to do it (probably with a slightly different look - might be a matter of what you know how to do and/or what works best for you/the yarn/needles and/or what you want the finished square to look like ...

What I did was to cast on an even number of stitches, knit a row and then knit half of that number, minus 2 - and knit those 2 together, then the next 2 ... then knit to the end (which should be the same number as you did on the other end of the row) then the next row is just knit each stitch then the next row you knit 1 less than the last time and then knit 2 together twice and knit to the end ... and keep going in that pattern - knit one row then do the 2 decreaces in the next ... until you get down to decreacing 4 stitches to 2 ... then knit those 2 together and finish off (... or not, if you are going to pick up stitches down the side and work another square onto it)

Hmmm ... for some reason I can't seem to find any patterns for patchwork crochet ... ok for me because I can work those sort of things out in crochet ... lets hope you lot paid attention to Janice when she explained it ... and if any non tasda members need to know ... it is the same sort of idea as the knitting - crochet crochet a chain, and then a row, as long a 2 sides of the square you want to make and decreace a couple of stitches in the middle of each row ...

eeek! where did my evening go?!

goodnight


oh yeah - before I go - the lyrics for that song ...


"Poles Apart" - Pink Floyd

Did you know...it was all going to go so wrong for you
And did you see it was all going to be so right for me
Why did we tell you then
You were always the golden boy then
And that you'd never lose that light in your eyes

Hey you...did you ever realise what you'd become
And did you see that it wasn't only me you were running from
Did you know all the time but it never bothered you anyway
Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes

The rain fell slow, down on all the roofs of uncertainty
I thought of you and the years and all the sadness fell away from me
And did you know...

I never thought that you'd lose that light in your eyes

Time

There are not enough hours in each day ...



eek! look how late it is already, and I am still in here mucking around with this (and posting stuff on http://spot-theblog.blogspot.com/ ) instead of finding my sewing room under the mess and working out what I am going to enter in the Canberra Quilters exhibition this year ... entries are due in just under 2 weeks time, and as usual - I have not even started anything yet ... LOL

hmmmm ... I wonder if that clock will show the right time once I publish this post? (it does have a thing to choose the right time zone ... and it looked right on the page I got the html code from ... but I am typing this just after 4pm and when I preview this post the clock says it is just after 6! ... oh well ... if it doesn't work it doesn't work - that is what often happens when you put stupid free junk on your web page/blog/etc ... lol)

btw ... talking about time - I never seem to get time to answer people's comments on my blog posts ... but I DO read them ... and I often go to the link to their blog and sometimes I leave a comment there ... LOL
but - I did just put a comment on my own blog - an answer to a question about how I made that big black bag ... when I work out how to find an extra 50 hours in each day, I might get around to doing some more of that sort of patchwork and take some photos and post some "how I did it" photos on here ... but don't get too eager - it could take a while ... pigs might fly first ... LOL

"Eventually" does happen ... sometimes ...

Earlier this evening, I took some photos of that bag I made ... the one I said, in the previous post, that I would take a photo of "eventually" ...

but first - here is a photo of the fabric/etc I "had" to use:

- it was a "paper bag challenge" that a group of us, who are on a quilty yahoogroup, decided to have - we all met for lunch one day (back in about Febuary) and we brought and swapped paper bags of bits (there were a few loose rules - the bag had to have a fat quarter, a couple of other biggish bits, a handful of scraps, and some beads/threads/something). The idea was to then make something with the fabric, adding stuff from our own stash if we wanted to (and we did not have to use absolutely every bit of what we got, just at least some of the big bits and some of the other stuff).

There were some really nice fabrics in the bag I got!

... so ... I grabbed a bit of black (I figured that black would make all the different colours sing together ;-) homespun from my stash and went crazy and sewed strips together and cut them up and sewed them together then added batting and backing (a bit of old shiny dark blue curtain fabric I got from a garage sale or somewhere) and I quilted it, to make this round thingy:

... yes - I did what is normally a big "no no" and quilted it around and around and around in circles ... the dizzy heights of creativity?

(or running around in circles going nowhere? lol)

Then, after resisting the temptation to abandon my original bag idea and leave it as a round quilt (it could have looked good as a wall/table quilt with prairie points or something around the edge ;-), I gathered the circle up and made it into a bag:

I used some more of the fat quarter to make the bit around the top of the bag, and the handles are made from strips cut from an old t-shirt and crocheted.

The original intended use was as a crochet bag - so I could spread all the balls of yarn and bits for whatever I was working on all over the bottom and be able to find stuff ... but it has come in handy for taking all my junk to work - there is room in there for a smallish handbag, my camera, a small box or whatever of sewing and/or some crocheting, and there is room for lunch and a drink bottle and whatever other small items I might want to throw in there ... (and it sits nicely on the floor behind the drivers seat of the Land Rover and things don't fall/slide out and roll around while I drive to work ;-)

An hour or so after I took the above photo of the finished bag, I decided to go grab the camera from where I had left it (IN the bag) ready to put the photos onto the computer ... and as I walked into the room I sprung somebody climbing in ready to make herself at home!

B$#^%& cat! LOL

Spook likes sleeping on/in whatever I leave lying on the bed.

so ... what is that other thing, behind the bag, that also looks black and dotty like the bag?

well - it is this:

I had some leftovers from the big bag, and I had not used any of the bag of beads I got with the fabric, so I decided to make a matching smaller bag (I was originally thinking of making a small purse but it kind of grew ;-) out of my leftovers and use the beads on that ... the other side is black fabric (no coloured bits) with lots of lime green quilting (same colour as on the front) ... I knew that big roll of lime green sewing thread would come in handy for something one day - LOL

It still needs some binding on the top, and some kind of handles ... and the beads will either be part of the dangly thing used to hold the bag closed, or I might sew them onto the front of the bag (have not decided yet) ... or I might decide to still do a small purse as well, and use the beads on that! (with me - anything might happen)

I just realised I had already taken a photo of the bag ... but only because the bag just happened to be in this photo that I took the other day!

yes - Diesel also likes to make himself comfortable on the bed!

Hmmm ... talking about bed that is where I should be now!

(oops?)

but before I go ... I have one more photo that I have already uploaded here ...

... last, but definitely not least - I got a surprise in the mail the other day - Mum made and sent me 3 ATCs! (Artists Trading Cards) ... and I think they are wonderful ;-)

A few odd things ...

I found a few recent photos of things that are not Take A Stitch Tuesday stitches ...

I have been going around and around in circles lately ... sometimes it seems like it is in more ways than this:

this item is actually finished now - but I have not taken a photo yet ... but I will ... eventually ...

This is a bag I finished recently:

and the other side ...

actually I might add a do dad to close it ... or I might not ...

I didn't peice this from bits of fabric - it was actually a bit of velvety fabric with the patches already printed on - a furnishing fabric sample I think - I only had this little bit of it in my stash ... I liked it so I used stitches to decorate the "seams" and made it into a bag, with a green polar fleece lining.

This is a crazy quilt name tag I started making a year or 2 ago - for a crazy quilt retreat that was going to be big, then got cancelled (and then sort of did happen but as an informal gathering of a few of us rather than a big full on organised retreat) I dug it out a few months ago and stuck it in my sewing box with a few threads to use on it, and finished it a few weeks ago.

hmmm ... there are also some more stitches on felt that I put in the corner of that photo ... the yellow bit is another bit of eye stitch and the white bit isn't actually a TAST stitch - it is something I was fiddling with - I saw an interesting stitch in some old needlework book they have on that Project Gutenberg website ... then had a fiddle with what I thought I remembered (when I saw it again it was actually totally different! oops? ;-)

... I might have to have another fiddle with that later ... with both versions - mine and what it was supposed to be ... LOL

Now what else can i find ...

I hang most of my washing under the pergola - that way if I hang it out one evening and leave it there until I get home from work the next day (or longer!) then I don't have to worry about it getting wet if it rains (unless we get a storm and it rains sideways - which does happen sometimes). This is what the washing line looked like one day a few weeks ago:

This is a whole pile of fabric that I undyed ... it was cheap homespun - black or dark/strong colours, and I attacked it with bleach - most of it was done with a group of us from a quilting yahoogroup (we gathered at someone's house, with fabric, beach, vinegar, ideas, etc and had a day of fun) and some I did when I got home. The pale bit in the background was a bit of daggy old white fabric that I attacked with condy's crystals (potassium permanganate) ... looks purple when you throw them on, but they leave interesting brown spots and swirls/etc ... (or from what Mum told me once - interesting holes if you leave them on there too long ;-)

er ... I probably should go get some sleep soon ... a group of us from that quilting yahoogroup are meeting for lunch tomorrow, and I don't want to sleep in and miss it! LOL

Stitching up some more loose ends ...

Ok ... as promised (numerous times :-) here are some photos of a few more of my Take A Stitch Tuesday stitches:

Week 13 was Knotted Cretan stitch - so here is some ...

(there is also a little bit of eye stitch and fly stitch because I wanted to fill up the corner with something else to make it look interesting)

hmmm ... I didn't do a lot of knotted Cretan did I? ... I will have to do some more, because I do like that one .

Week 14 was Bonnet Stitch ...

I added a bit of fly stitch in this one too ;-)

Here is some more bonnet stitch ...

I think these 2 fern fronds were actualy my first go at bonnet stitch (before the ones in the other photo) ... funny how things just seem to "fall out of the needle" sometimes ...

I decided there needed to be something else growing on the ground, so I added a row of Fleur de Whatever they are ... I might have to add some red knots (or maybe even beads?) later ... I think they would look better if they actually had flowers on them ...

Week 15 was Oyster Stitch ... so I had a play with that one on the black felt in the photo below, and week 16 was Palestrina Stitch - so I had a play with that one on the same bit of black felt, and then on the yellow bit ...

I also did some more oyster stitch on the yellow bit of felt ... 3 "oysters" kind of turned 3 of the palestrina stitches (bottom right hand side of the yellow felt) into some weird plant or something ... and I also created a round motif thingy with a circle of palestrina stitch with oysters around it.

btw - if you can't see what these stitches look like in the photos in here, the photos are (I hope) also links to the bigger original versions - so you can click on them for a closer look - and if you don't know what some of these stitches are (I didn't know a couple of these until they were posted on Sharon's blog as Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST) stitches ;-) then you can go look them up either in the Take A Stitch Tuesday posts on her blog or in her stitch dictionary at http://inaminuteago.com/stitchindex.html ... and if you want to see what everyone else (there are rather a LOT of us doing this TAST thing) then have a look at either the list of participants that was posted among the TAST posts fairly early in the year, or look in the comments on any of the TAST posts (the idea is that we are supposed to put in a comment when we have done the stitch and blogged about it)
Now where was I up to? ... lol

Week 17 was Running Stitch ... I have done quite a lot of this one before too, but I still had to have a play with it ;-)

I wasn't sure if I liked it better before or after adding the white rows of stitching, so I decided to leave it half and half - which I think I like even better than one or the other.

Of course I also added some oyster stitch, palestrina stitch, detatched chain and knots in the middle bit.

There are also 3 other funny things on there too - Week 18 was Whipped Wheels and/or Woven Wheels ... the 3 above are whipped wheels, as are the top 2 in the photo below, and the one on the right on the black felt at the bottom of that photo ... but the 2 on the left are woven wheels.

The photo below also has Basque stitch (week 19) and some Butterfly chain (week 20) on it ... and a few other things ... LOL

The read heart is Aida cloth, so I used it to have a fiddle with doing the cross stitch on something that has an even weave (the felt does not have any weave, let alone an even one ;-)

The cross stitch kind of also grew into bonnet stitch (I also wanted to try that on an even weave).

I worked some Basque stitch around one of the wheels on the white felt, and did a row and a couple of other fiddly things on the black felt (I kind of like the white one - I could use that idea to make some nice daisy flowers I think ;-) and I did a winding row of (uneaven sized) butterfly chain on the black felt, then dug out the red heart and worked an even row of butterflies on that.
I have had a bit more of a fiddle with the butterfly chain since then, but the photos are still on the camera, so I will post those when I blog about the stitch for week 21.
(week 21 already?! where HAS the time gone?)

I have also been doing some stitching on a couple of people's crazy quilt blocks for a round robin on a crazy quilt list ... so I decided to include some photos of the first block I got to work on (now with the next person), because I have been using stitches that have also been used as TAST stitches (some of them I already know and use anyway, and a few of them I didn't know and/or had not experimented with but I like them and will use them now I have fiddled with them for this TAST challenge thingy ;-)

One of the seams just had to have a row of Fleur de Whatever along it ...

I also put on some feather stitch with knots, and couched on some fuzzy crochet yarn (which I actualy had to crochet into chain before I couched it on because it was fuzzy bits with plain bits in between and didn't look interesting sewn on like that). There is also a flower thingy I made from lazy daisy stitch with a sequin in the middle - it was one odd iridescant sequin that turned up in amongs a whole packet of purple ones that I was given the other week - so I think maybe it was meant to be found and used on this block.

Here is a row of cretan stitch on top of another row of cretan stitch on a seam ... an interesting effect I think.

Here is what is next to that row of cretan stitch ...

blanket stitch, feather stitch with knots ... and a spider with a web - I like spiders ... I hope the owner of this block does too! (I have read/heard that it was traditional to always include a spider on a crazy quilt, for good luck - a lot of crazy quilts/etc do have spiders and/or webs on them)

It's probably a good think I don't have any more photos of the last TAST stitch or 2 ... this post is long enough already!

Couch Potato?

This is another post that I started writing, and then left it sitting as draft because I had not yet taken the photos for it ...
(I stopped writing it when I realised I still needed to take a photo, so I am writing the second half, the bit I am writing today, in yellow to match this bit ... "baby poo yellow" I call it ... think "mustard" is the name most people would use ;-)




All this sitting and stitching I am doing, for the TAST challenge thingy, lately - I think I probably do spend too long on the couch (which, btw, I call a LOUNGE ... because that is what we call it here in Australia).

The TAST stitch for week 12 is ... couching ... which isn't named after a couch/lounge/settee/whatever else you call it, even though it does involve LAYING a thread over the work and sewing it down.

I probably do spend too much time sitting on the lounge and stitching (or crocheting/etc) ... but that is not really what I came in here to post about - so ... back to the real subject - I also couch threads/etc quite a lot too.

... in fact - on Monday [some Monday about 6 weeks ago] I was sitting at a friend's place doing this:

That coloured stuff is some fancy yarn my friend had given me on another visit - she crochets and gives me her "endy bits" to use in my weird creations.
This particular bit was actually one strand of some odd yarn that had a strand of fuzzy stuff and this one both twisted around each other, and the strand I used was actually made from 2 strands - a strand of plain black twisted around the coloured bit - so I pulled the black bit to bunch up the coloured stuff to make a coloured chenille like wormy looking thing and couched it down onto the black felt hexagon that I had found lying around in my sewing stuff.

Then, the next day when I looked to see what that week's TAST stitch was - I discovered that the stitch for week 12 was couching! LOL
so - I added some more couching around the edge -

the yellow yarn is sewn on with black thread where it overlaps and on the outside loops, and yellow thread on the inside ones. I added the dotted yellow line and the 2 red knots because once I did the yellow around the edge the heart in the middle was off centre ... oops ...

Then I had another play with couching (even though I already use it a lot ;-) and ended up with this:


The red and the yellow thread are those ones I think I mentioned before - that came from an Asian grocery shop! ... the yellow is similar to pearle 8 crochet thread (but a cheapy version) so I needed to twist 3 strands together to make it thick enough for what I wanted to do here, and the red is a bit thicker - it already was three strands wound together but I pulled one out and used it as 2 ... the white bits were how the thread came - that was part of what caught my interest enough for me to buy it (after seeing how this, and the few other things I have used it for, turned out - methinks I might have to buy some more next time I am there ;-)

anyway ... I think I will put the photos for week 13, etc in a different post - I am sure you are sick of reading this in "baby poo yellow" ...

btw - if you think that is weird what about this - my teenage daughter has made some merangues (cooking in the oven right now) ... and she asked if she could put some food colouring in them ... guess what colour she used? - BLACK ... LOL
... merangues are made from egg WHITES, so you can guess what colour the mixture ended up ... black + white = a rather stange looking grey! (although it is going a fair bit darker as they cook)

eh?

I work in the science area of a high school, and this was one of the things that came in the box of various supplies that I ordered - as the label on the upside down packet under the other one says - these are some packets of universal indicator paper (used to dip in stuff to test the pH)

Methinks that English is NOT the first, or for that matter not even the 31st, language of the person who wrote this label:



... and the really scary part is ... I think I probably sort of understand what it was supposed to mean ... LOL

hmmm ... if this stuff only keeps for 3 years, maybe I should chuck out the dusty old rolls of the same stuff that I found in a back cupboard not long after I started working there ... I have been there longer than 3 years and they were old and dusty then (which is why I have been buying new packets for the teachers/students to use ;-)

Anyway ... I have a bag to finish making (I want to take it for "show and tell" at the sewing day I am going to tomorrow - a group of us from a quilting yahoogroup are meeting to do a little bit of sewing/etc and probably a lot of chatting/etc ;-)

... I also have a few other things I want to do as well ... so I had better leave the B$%%^& computer alone and go DO some of it ...

Humming a few bars while you wait?

I wanted to actually post the stuff I started writing and then saved for ages before finishing and posting it on Wednesday night ... so I decided that the other bits of barred chain can have their own post ... although they might end up sharing it with whatever else i decide to stick in here with them ... LOL

btw - the barred chain on that photo (see previous post) is the orange circle thingy in the middle ... and the cross stitch is in yellow, in a line down the left hand side (I meant to mention that in the post, but I kind of forgot ... oops)

So ... where was I?

I took a pile of photos of the stuff I have been stitching, including a better one of the rest of the barred chain, during my lunch break at work yesterday ...

Here ...

... is some more barred chain.

and Here ...

are some results of my playing with up and down blanket/buttonhole stitch (with a bit of fly stitch and some knots etc)

Here ...

... is some of that interesting variation that Elizabeth came up with (see http://quietermoments.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/step-by-step-on-a-three-prong-up-and-down-buttonhole-stitch/ ) ... I just came up with a weird name for it while fiddling around with the photos ... "Fleur de Whatever" - because to me they kind of look like Fleur de Lys ...

I did the red bullion stitches on the top to make them look like those "red hot poker" plants or something ... the 2 round things on that bit of felt were already there - it is the same bit that has the fly stitch fly on it ... but I added a knot in the middle of one, and created a weird square motif with red knots etc on it too.

Here are some more -

... there is even another little variation of FLY stitch in there (well - it was meant to look like a bird!)

I also did one of those Fleur de whatsits with 5 "prongs", that also stick out the bottom a bit - so it kind of looks like a bundle of wheat or something ... looking at those knots (one each side of it) has now got me thinking too - a row of those, with the knots (or beads) between them, could look quite good along a seam of a crazy quilt ... (so would a row of the flowers - in fact I just did a row of those on someone's block for a round robin I am in ... I will have to ask the people in it if they mind me putting photos of their blocks up here on my blog ... at the moment we are all putting the photos on a members only page for the crazy quilting yahoogroup that the round robin was organised on)

I must have originally intended to put all these stitches (the ones I am just writing about in here) in with the stuff in my previous post - because for the next weeks stitch (week 12, which was near the end of March!) I have already written something about it and saved it as a draft ... but now that the photos are on the computer and I have fiddled with them, I can add some more photos to that one and post it shortly (maybe tomorrow ... because now it is time I went to bed ... if I stay up too much later it will be time to get UP again!)

btw - don't forget - the photos are clickable links to bigger versions (provided things work like they usually do in here) so if you want a closer look, just click on a picture and it should take you to a bigger version.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Crossing one (or 2) more off my list ...

Er ... this blog post has been saved as a draft since sometime in March! ... hmmm - maybe I am just a wee bit behind with posting stuff to my blog! LOL
(The bits written in this colour are what I had saved, the green bits are what I am adding now ... and before you ask about the blue bits ... they are links, and they were already saved in this post too)

so ... what was I crossing off my list back in March?

- some more ...
... TAST stitches that I have done and not yet blogged about.

Week 9 was "Cross stitch"

... it can be used for more than just driving yourself bats doing those zillions of little "x"s all over bits of aida and then framing them and hanging them on the wall
(gee how can you tell - I am not really into doing that kind of cross stitch ;-)

I don't think I have done this sort of cross stitch either, so I had a bit of a play ...






I also added some to another bit of felt I have been decorating with TAST stitches ... that is in the next photo, along with some of what I did for the next week ...


Week 10 was "Barred chain and/or alternating barred chain"





[surely I did more of that - methinks I need to put some photos on the computer]

Yes I had done more ... I think I took some photos

< feel free to talk amongst yourselves (all 1 or 2 of you who ever read this blog) while Andrea goes and looks around in her photos >

ah ... that is why I saved this photo for later ... I found a photo of the other bit of barred chain ... and it is also blurred chain - LOL

... and that is a reminder to myself that I really should take photos of this stuff in decent light, rather than at night with the flash (which tends to result in a lot of blurry and/or washed out photos).

I guess I should go do that now ... but I might post this first - that way, if anyone is actually reading this blog - then there will at least be a little bit of something new (well ... newly published rather than newly stitched ;-)

btw - yes - I have been keeping up with doing the weekly TAST stitches (just not with photographing them and blogging about it) ... I have even done some of this week's stitch, the one that was posted yesterday!

Flying ... this time for real

Back in Feburary, I posted a picture that sort of looked like flying, and said "I wish ..." - little did I know just how soon I really would be!

Just over a week ago, I got to fly from Canberra to Brisbane (and back again a few days later) but unfortunately it wasn't for the happiest of reasons - the reason I flew to Qld was to attend a funeral ... but it wasn't really a sad one - my grandma had her 90th birthday 4 days before she died, and she had been in a nursing home for the last 6 years, slowly going downhill (to the point where for the last week or 2 she was so "out of it" that we are not sure if she even realised she had finally made it to the ripe old age of 90) ... so it was a peacefull end to a long and interesting life.

So ... the main reason for posting here - gotta put up some real flying photos ;-)

Canberra from upstairs (just after taking off) ...

I like clouds ... even more interesting when you fly up among them and/or see them from up above ...

Mum and Dad's back yard - I LOVE those dangly things!

Mmmm - interesting coloured leaves (probably the ones in the middle of the photo above this one ;-)

I wonder if I could copy this in fabric? - it would be an interesting quilty challenge ...

One of many reptilian residents of the yard - looks like it wants inside!

(or maybe it wants it's reflection to come out?)

pity there was no fruit on these (paw paws - yum) ...

btw - the green stuff in the background directly behind the big paw paw leaves is actually ... a pond! ... it is actually part of the river that runs along behind their place, but at the moment it is totally covered in 2 or 3 varieties of water weed!

I finished making this little (about postcard size) quilt while I was up there. Mum liked it, so I gave it to her ...

More quilt inspiration? - lots of leafy green crinkly fringy stuff ... mmmmm ...

It was dark for the flight back - this is the plane I flew back on ...

but the real reason I took that photo was the "fairy lights" that you can see behind the plane's tail ;-)

Flying at night means it is nearly impossible to get any decent photos ...

... but all the way back, the moon was out my side of the plane, so I had some wonderful views of the moon over the ocean near Brisbane, with the lights of the towns and cities along the coast making interesting patterns below, then the moon shone on the clouds for the rest of the way home ... until we got to the ACT and flew through some clouds and then popped out from under them in time to see the lights of Canberra spread out below ;-)

I even got to check what Tuesday's TAST stitch was while I was still up there (yes Mum and Dad do have a computer that they can connect to the internet) so I am still "up to date" with stitching them ... just not with posting them here! ... I need to take some photos of the last few and then I can put them up ... but I never seem to find time ... but they will be up here soon ... I hope ... LOL

And now ... it is time I went and got some sleep before it is time to get up again - have an early start in the morning - DH (Dear Husband) and I are going to Temora to watch the planes fly at the aviation museum there ... and I will probably spend all day wishing I was up there in one of them, rather than standing on the ground watching someone else have all the fun ... sigh ...