Happy Easter, Holidays and Bonnet Stitch!

Happy Easter!

This week's TAST was a quick straightforward sampler - straight rows of bonnet stitch. But I like their symmetry and will be thinking about what I can use this one for again, when I have more time.

We are off on holiday for 3 weeks today! Flying to Darwin first and then driving onto Kakadu National Park and Katherine Gorge. It is finally starting to sink in. We are taking camping stuff and will spend some time out in the wilds - should be fun. I am so looking forward to being in the wilderness. Sydney is a great place, but having grown up in the English countryside - I am really looking forward to seeing some open space. I am looking forward to seeing so many things - ancient Aboriginal rock paintings, waterfalls, wildlife, Katherine Gorge. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Knotted Cretan Tree Bark

I have a passion for trees - verging on being a tree hugger! I'm the one stopping to stroke bark as I walk past a beautiful tree that catches my eye and doing strange things with the camera to get a close up of the beautiful colours and textures...

Knotted cretan stitch from TAST had that organic feel to it and I felt sure that some kind of tree would be part of the stitch study this week.

A while ago I created a couple of tissue paper and scrim backgrounds based on Yvonne Brown's article in Quilting Arts Magazine (Winter 2005 - issue 20). Of the pieces I made, the yellow ochre one looked unfinished until I added burned sienna to it ...and all of a sudden ...tree bark. It was the perfect background to practice knotted cretan on.

On Saturday I had a studio day with friends in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney and had overdosed on trees - so this was the obvious way to go. I used a sketch of tree bark that I had made as the template for the stitch areas - but took lots of artistic licence!

I found the stitch a challenge, but think I got there in the end. The main challenge was to get the tension right, before the knot tightened and left a loose loop. I've been brave and posted a close up, because I love the textures!

Couching

I decided to take the chance with this week's TAST to return to some of the stitches we have done in previous weeks and to use them to attach various threads on to a background.

A while ago I went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition "Goddess". It was a wonderful exhibition of art of the goddesses from India - sculptures, paintings, printing - a bit of everything. It was a inspiring exhibition. Since I went I have had a bit of a thing about the hot colours that they painted the walls of the exhibition - particularly hot orange with hot pink. So this week, I didn't feel I could put that off any longer.

As usual I had far too many ideas but settled on a postcard with a hot orange and pink background. This was fuchsia pink linen with bright orange and fuchsia pink sheer ribbons fused onto it. I thought that this shiny background would show off the matt wools I wanted to attach. Echoing the grid of the ribbons I used a variety of stitches to attach the wools. (chevron, single short tailed fly, cross stitch, buttonhole and couching stitch.)

My favourite is the contrast of the chevron stitch in pink and red over the purple wool, but I also like the orange buttonhole over the pink knobbly yarn - I like the texture produced. I think that I will also be using the background style for future fabric postcards.

Up and Down Buttonhole

This felt like a fun stitch to me and needed to be treated that way. It also seemed a stitch to cover lines or seams.

I have this old T-shirt that I loved - it just didn't love me. It didn't flatter me. I bought it because I loved the colours and patterns on it. So I just couldn't throw it out. It's been in my fabric stash for a while now. Today was it's day!


The T-shirt material was pretty stretchy - so I fused interfacing onto it to stop it going completely our of shape as I stitched. I eventually got the hand of up and down buttonhole and decided to fill the shapes of the fabric. I didn't use a frame and there are a few areas where the tension is a little iffy. I began to think of landscape - a patchwork of furrowed fields with hedgerows between stretching to the hills. The church shape was unintentional; it's just where I stopped stitching - but is a similar shape to many village churches where I grew up, which were a part of our landscape.


This was a fun piece to produce!

Barred Chain and Alternating Barred Chain

I wanted to produce a thickly textured woollen piece in this stitch.

I often doodle swirls and then echo the shapes with ripple lines - this design came from one of my doodles. I guess the influence of Aboriginal art has also deepened my enjoyment of this type of pattern.

I decided to stick to the wools in my stash - some dating back to unfinished tapestry kits that I had as a child! I stitched on linen - next time I will use a darker background colour as I had trouble with the ugly muddy green showing throw between the rows in places.

I didn't find this an easy stitch - the bars of the stitches got drowned under the thicker wools. Next time I will rework this stitch to show them better. However, this time I decided not to redo it - as I was happy with what came out.

I really liked the rich texture that was created and was pleased with the singing colours. This has become a patch for my denim bag!

Cross Stitch

I wanted to use Week 9's TAST cross stitch in an unconventional way. Whilst I love the effect of lots of cross stitches in a large piece - I wanted to experiment and try them in a different way.

I decided to use natural materials - on hessian and to stitch cassurina needles onto the background to create shapes. Sharon B (In A Minute Ago) had referred us to the cross stitch article by Jean Draper (Pattern Making with Cross Stitch). These pieces are beautiful and I will try some of these ideas out another time.

For this piece I used Jean Drapers' folded tissue paper squares (in gold) and stitched them into the spaces. I am very influenced by the art nouveau movement and Sydney has many fabulous buildings from that period. I was thinking of that feel as I stitched the cassurina needles in place. I was aiming to convey a sophisticated simplicity of a bygone era and hope that I have captured that in this piece.

Fly Stitch and Fly Fishing

Fly Stitch - TAST - Week 8

This is one stitch that didn't give me a clear idea. In the end I decided to use some of my monoprinted fabric and follow the curves marked on it with flows of stitches in similar colours. I used short-tailed fly, closed fly stitch and reversed fly stitch.

As I was stitching I began to think of water weed and sea weed moving in the current and it reminded me of going fly fishing with my Dad when I was a child and being mesmerised watching the weed moving in the trout stream. Dad used to make his own fishing flies and had quite a collection. He died a few years ago now and on our last trip back to the UK to visit Mum we started to sort out his fishing gear, including lots of hand-tied flies and hand made fishing rods. Sadly none of us knew enough about it and wished he had been there to share his enthusiasm and knowledge with us.

So perhaps the stitch was telling me what to do with it after all!