TAST update

 I have not done much on my Gingerbread house since I have been working on Elizabeth.  I have however made the base tree for that end of the house.  It is done in 1/4 Algerian eyelet stitches.

Tree super close up to show the eyelets

My husband says it looks like an arrowhead.  Maybe he won't be so critical when it is actually decorated.  And to be fair, I did ask his opinion. 

Tree or arrowhead?

TAST finally caught up

I finally put the rest of the skipped TAST stitches in my gingerbread house.  I am still working on the girl. I know it will be hard to see, since it is hard to take pictures of white on white. 

Girl overview

 In the closeup I hope you can see that I outlined the apron in crossed buttonhole (Week 18) and then added the pink beads in the holes I left behind.  The middle part of the apron is 4 rows of wheatear (Week 17) in alternating directions.  The scallops on the edge are whipped wheel (Week 11).  All the white stitching is DMC Perle 12.

Girl skirt with new stitches

Butterfly Chain

Boy and Girl in Progress

I am continuing to work on my Gingerbread Boy and Girl using TAST stitches.  I added Bullion Knot (Week 20) to the spaces between the half chevron.  It was done with one strand of the mystery floss.  It might have gone better with a slightly thicker thread, but it was a small space.  Her buttons are done with French Knots (Week 16) also with one strand of green mystery floss.  Her sleeves are done with two strands DMC 321 floss using Week 21 Butterfly stitch. 

The gingerbread parts on both are done with DMC 436 one strand.  His head is is discussed here. It is done in a pulled backstitch.  Her head is just a double running with no tension.  Any opinions?  Feel free to leave a comment if you like one better than the other. 

Girl top closeup

TAST summary page

I added a page to the blog that has links back to where I have used the various TAST stitches and talked about them in the blog. 

Now to get caught up on the rest of the stitches.

TAST update

I have not been stitching much.  But here is a quick update on what I have done on my gingerbread house.  I am still working on my boy and girl. I already had Week 14 (Satin Stitch) and Week 15 (Stem Stitch) on the boy and girl. 

Gingerbread boy and girl

 As you can see in the closeup, I couched (Week 9) down a gold beading wire to outline the girl's collar. It was couched with hand quilting thread.  I decorated the collar with detached chain(Week 7) in the metallic sewing thread I used on the boy.  I added the belt in Barred Chain (Week 12) using one strand of DMC 321.  I used Half Chevron (Week 19) for the main front of the top. 

Girl top closeup

Not much stitching time

I have not made a post in over two weeks.  I really have not been stitching much at all.  I have worked a tiny bit  on my Gingerbread boy.  I added whipped chain on his shirt.  The green is the same mystery floss used in the belt.  It is whipped with one strand of white floss.  The belt was outlined with one strand of DMC floss 321 to make a buckle.

Whipped chain added to boy's shirt

 And I had to add at least one picture of spring in my yard.  All blogs need at least one flower picture.  I also clearly need to clean out the old leaves from last fall.

Week 4 TAST finally

Week 4 TAST was the Cretan Stitch.  I decided where I wanted to use it, but I had to get there first.

I found Rose's raised Cretan stitch on her blog when looking at everyone's work.  This was not a stitch I was familiar with, so I used my trusty friend google to find instructions.  Then I stuck both of them on my TAST Pinterest page so I could find them again later.

For the boy's pants I used Perle 5 DMC 321 and Ribbon Floss 142F-12.  They are just slanted satin stitch.

For the belt I used 3 strands of mystery floss from a stash given to me by a friend some time ago.  She had gathered a lot of odds and ends and put them in a bag.  Some were orts, some were whole skeins.  And everything in between.  I did the back stitch base with the floss.  Then I added 2 strands of the metallic sewing thread (also a mystery fiber) that I used in his sleeves to do the raised Cretan. A bit of the metallic sewing thread is pinned at the bottom so you can see it.

Close up of the Raised Cretan Belt

 

Boy got pants and a belt

Bag of partly unided thread

Working on the Gingerbread Boy

I have been working some on my gingerbread boy.  His head is done in one strand of DMC 436 using a pulled back stitch.  It has a herringbone like pattern on the back, so it is puffy in  places.

The sleeves are done in running stitch (or pattern darning) using white Perle 8 which is then woven with a metallic mix sewing thread of unknown origin. (Read this as: left over from another project with no labels)

The sun is coming from the side so it is not a great picture.


Close up of boy

TAST week 7

TAST week 7 is detached chain or lazy daisy stitch. This will eventually make it into my gingerbread house, but I need to put more background in first. So I played with detached chain on my doodle cloth. I usually think of this stitch as working out from a center, so I decided to play with it backwards. All stitches are done with 2 strands DMC floss.

 First I simply worked a square with the detached chain tack stitches all going into the center hole.

Detached chain 1

Then I did a shorter tack stitch with a little pull to make a center eyelet.

Detached chain eyelet

Finally I did the 4 chains across the top of the picture and wove the side ones in to make a basket effect.

Detached chain woven

Gingerbread house update

Front of house progress

I have been working on my house. Mostly I have been doing the boring royal icing buttonhole stitches around the outside edges.

 I have basted in my widow and door on the front of the house. The window will eventually be hardanger. I have added TAST week 6 - Chevron stitch to the upper part of the house.

The big picture

Feather stitch and TAST update

I have been slowly working on my gingerbread house.  And sorting through my stash.  I have done the buttonhole edge (my royal icing) around 3 of the 5 pieces of the house with white perle 8.  I have added the single feather stitch (TAST Week 3).  It is shown below in perle 8 DMC 902. 

Single feather stitch

 I added number 8 hex cut beads which I think are these from Whimbeads

Single feather stitch with beads

current view of the house

I still need to get TAST week 4 (Cretan stitch) on the house.  Week 5 is the herringbone, which I have already used in the roof ridge.  So really I am only one week behind schedule.  Once I get the rest of the buttonhole edging done, I should be able to keep up.

Playing with candy canes

I am continuing to play on my doodle cloth trying to decide how to do the candy canes that I want to put by the front door of my gingerbread house.  Some of my possibilities are in my previous post.  I could not find any white beads in my stash.  However, in talking to a friend, I remembered that I have a whole box of beads I had not searched yet.  When you have been collecting stash your entire life, it adds up. 

bead possibilites for candy canes

I found some fake pearls in my stash.  I think they will work for my candy canes.  They are a pain to work with because the holes are not regular, so I will need to dig out the tiny beading needles.

I have not decided what to do with my Cretan stitch on the house.  I played with it a bit on the doodle cloth.  The bottom left corner is Scotish Cretan stitch from here.  The right side is two rows of single feather stitch.  These two stitches are weeks 3 and 4 of Take a Stitch Tuesday.

Cretan stitch samples and feather stitch sample

TAST Week 2 - Buttonhole stitch

Week 2 for Take a Stitch Tuesday is up and it is buttonhole stitch.  This works out for me, since I plan to use quite a bit of buttonhole stitch on the edges of my gingerbread house. So far I have put in just a little bit on the roof edge.

Roof of Gingerbread house

You can see the buttonhole down the left edge. And below you can see a close up of just my simple buttonhole edging.


Closeup of buttonhole edge

Paula Heckman Iris

 This is one of my pieces from the finished but never "finished" box.  It is a Paula Heckman cutwork design from *cough* over 20 years ago *cough*. In the extreme closeup below you can see the buttonhole connector bars and the buttonhole edges.

Paula passed away recently.  She used to have a website, but it seems to be no longer active. The only link I found to Paula's embroidery is to EGA Notecards made from her interpretation of the EGA logo.

Pinterest

I have joined Pinterest.  It is a virtual pinboard where you can gather together images from the web and save the links back to them. I made two pinterest boards so far:

TAST pieces I wanted to find later
and Gingerbread house ideas

I don't really know what I am doing and some of the pictures don't show up on the board right.  Maybe eventually I will get it figured out.

Basting and Fly Stitch

I got the basting on my gingerbread house complete.  As I was basting, I was thinking about the fact that I automatically started to the left of the vertical.  If you have no clue what I am talking about, it is illustrated here. 

Basting is done

You can see the fly stitch/ herringbone on the left sort of.  It is at the bend in the roof piece of the house, so it will be highest point of the roof.

Herringbone with fly stitch

I know it is hard to see. I may try again with the camera. What you are looking at is a herringbone base done in perle cotton #8 which is 2 threads "wide" and 8 threads "high". You can see that on the right side of the picture. Then a fly stitch is done over the top of the herringbone with Krenik braid #16 in 032. The fly stitch is supposed to glint like snow on the roof. The #16 is really too heavy for this fabric, but I wanted the snow to show up.

Herringbone with fly stitch

In this picture I played with the contrast and color to try to make the fly stitch show up. White on white is pretty in person but just does not work well for the camera.

Wow, just wow

After I made my last post, I visited the Facebook page for TAST.  I found a link posted by Nathalie Locquen of her fly stitch.  It is truly impressive.  Nathalie's blog is in French, but it is well worth looking at.

TAST 2012 is up!

Sharon from Pin Tangle has posted her first stitch for TAST.  It is fly stitch. 

Take A Stitch Tuesday Week One for Sharon's post
Fly Stitch in Sharon B's Dictionary for Sharon's instructions for fly stitch.

Both have some examples of innovative uses of fly stitch.

Now I just need to decide how to use the fly stitch on my gingerbread house.

Introduction to Stitching in NC

For my New Year's Resolution, I am doing TAST for 2012. This stands for Take a Stitch Tuesday.  Each Tuesday, this blog will post a different stitch to be used in a sample.  The link for TAST is:

 Take A Stitch Tuesday Info Page

 In wandering on the net I found a tiny gingerbread house done in cross stitch.  The pattern is for a Gingerbread stitching house by Victoria Sampler.
Victoria Sampler Gingerbread House

So the purpose of this blog is to use my TAST challenge stitches to design a larger gingerbread house.  The goal will be to update the blog at least once a week. You are welcome to follow along with my efforts.