Annies Crazy World

 
 
 
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    This is Annie Whitsed's Crazy World a world where I stitch the joys and chaos of life into beautifull crazy quilts. email annie@loopylace.com
November 2007
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TAST Week 47 Thorn Stitch – Detail 430 November 20th, 2007

Thorn Stitch Christmas treeAs Sharon suggested, Thorn Stitch, this weeks TAST Stitch, makes good trees and I have used it to make a Christmas tree on a stocking.

I started with a brown Stem stitch for the trunk and worked the Thorn Stitches close together…The red metalic thread, that didn’t work for Chain Braid Stitch, did make nice tinsel on the tree, I also used gold metalic thread, petit gold beads and a gold star bead for decoration…a Satin Stitch pot completes the tree.

Holiday Snaps Day 23

TAST Week 46 Chain Braid Stitch – Details 427 to 429 November 19th, 2007

Doing some TAST stitches catch up…The Stitch for week 27 was Chain Braid Stitch.

Chain Braid Stitch

I Started with a thick metalic thread, almost impossible to pull through the fabric and it snagged on itself forming the twists and I was having trouble forming the stitch and have ended up with individual knots.

For my second attempt I chose a thinner, smoother metalic thread and had no difficulty stitching with it but whereas I had thought that it would hold the stitch shape well it actually slipped pulling the knot down to the bottom, so again I have something different to what I thought I would.

Chain Braid Stitch

Third time lucky! Using a size 5, cotton perle thread I tried again…I was starting to think that I really didn’t like this stitch but by this stage I had worked out how to do the stitch and with the suitable thread I enjoyed doing the stitch.

Chain Braid Stitch

Holiday Snaps Day 22

Birds on a Wire November 18th, 2007

This afternoon I looked out the window just as it started to rain, as I watched about a dozen Galahs landed on the Electricity wires and started to do acrobatics, swinging upside down with there wings spread, they were obviously enjoying the rain.

Galahs doing acrobatics in the rain

Repetition – Detail 426 November 17th, 2007

The seam before embellishingAgain I have changed my mind mid seam…I chose to do a ruched ribbon because I wanted to cover some parts of the gold design on the fabric…Next I was going to add beads as I usually do to the ruched ribbon…But the reason for covering parts of the gold was to show off the shapes of the gold design and beads would have been to close to the gold and be distracting.

I thought about leaving it with no further embellishment but it didn’t look finished, I was a bit flumaxed as to what else I could do until I looked at the other seams that border the gold design…that was it a little repetition would work…I found the fabric and cut out a couple of extra bits of the design, because they are small pieces as well as putting them on with fusible webbing, I used a gold thread to stitch them on.

Ruched Organza Ribbon

Holiday Snaps Day 21

Texture – Detail 425 November 16th, 2007

Overlayed Herringbone and Colonial nots

How to overlay HerringboneAfter doing Herringbone Stitch and Colonial Knots on this seam, I looked at it and thought a thicker thread would have looked better because, when working in monochromatic colours, it is the texture of the stitch against the surface that I look for…I thickened the thread by overlaying the first row of Herringbone Stitch with a second row worked over the threads of the first row.

Holiday Snaps Day 20

Pink Rick Rack detail 424 November 15th, 2007

When I started this seam it was going to be the ric-rac held on with herringbone stitch and trimmed with french knots…

Ric-rac with bead roses

With a loop on the right so the I could poke the end of the ric-rac under itself…

When I made the loop I thought instead of cutting it short I could twist the ric-rac for the length of the seam…When I started twisting the ric rac I thought umm if I can make a loop at the end I could maybe make extra loops along the length…I liked the shape that it formed and kept the trim simple, using each loop as a background to a pink crystal with green seed beads.

A very different seam to what I started to do.

Holiday Snaps Day 19

Frameing November 14th, 2007

Framing

Before I went on Holiday I had everything, except the cut in the mat board, ready to frame a friends embroideries…I have a cutter to cut the hole but since having to wear glasses I don’t trust my eye and I baulked at making the cut…When I did do one of the cuts today I was not at all happy with it, it wasn’t may eyes that let me down but my hands and I was not able to keep a consistant even pressure as I pulled the cutter along and the result was a jaggered cut…on to plan B, I took the mat boardes to the frameing shop and paid a few dollars for them to make clean, crisp cuts around the hole…

Because the embroidery is 3 dimensional I put in a thin border of foam core to hold the mat board and embroidery back from the glass…After getting the first one into the frame I looked at it and oops I had forgotten to put the mat board in…re assemble it with the mat board…Tip remember to put all layers into the Frame.

Together again…oops there is a thread in there…take it apart, remove the thread, reassemble it…Tip last thing before putting the embroidery in the frame check glass for smudges and embroidery for fluff and threads.

Second frame assembled without a single oops but…

Ooops When I came to assemble the third frame the glass was to big to fit, when I measured the hole it was just a bit smaller than the other 2 frames…this meant that I had to undo the second frame to exchange the glass, cut a sliver off every side of the mat board and restretch the embroidery over a slightly smaller board…There was no predicting that problem.

Holiday Snaps Day 18

Concreting 101 November 13th, 2007

Several months ago I started to build a garden edge from small peices of slate but put it on hold when the mortar dried crumbly, I reasoned that the problem was that my cement was old and stale so I bought another bag of mortar and last week I tried again, no joy the mortar dried crumbly…I talked to a friend on the weekend and he gave me a tip and in so doing reminded me that cement needs to be WELL Mixed and not just stirred till it is all wet, the tip was to add a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent to the water before adding it to the cement…I don’t know wether it was the detergent or the extra mixing but something worked and although my mortar is still not real good it is a lot better and I have finished the short bit of wall that I was building…Just goes to show the value of a little knowledge.

To Blend the wall with other things that I have done in the garden I added small shards of china to the wall and left gaps like little caves where I can put tiny objects.

slate wall in the Garden

This was a trial run to learn how to work with cement/mortar so that I can make my castle ruin permanent…

Holiday Snaps Day 17

Arty photos November 12th, 2007

Driftwood

SeaweedDriftwood

Seaweed

I had more Holiday Shots For Day 16 than I knew what to do with so I am blogging some of them today. After the sun had risen we spent some time wandering along the beach…These are some of the photos I took of Beach objects, they are images that I took for no other reason than that there colours, shapes and textures drew my eye to them.

A Shell

Shell

A Branch of seaweed, that must have been tossed around a bit to gather the other materials tangled in its branches, before being left adrift on the beach…I like the way the natural tappering shape of the plant rests in a lovely curve.

A Seaweed clump

Rose Petals – Detail 423 November 11th, 2007

a path of rose petals

I chose to do TAST week 42 twisted Satin Stitch on a sample block because I was thinking little flowers and couldn’t see them on any one patch of the pink project

Elizabeth’s comment re detail 421 ‘They look like little pink rosebuds scattered everywhere to me’, gave me a Duh moment as I thought they didn’t have to be confined to a patch they could be scattered everywhere or along a path as the rose petals where on the wedding day…I have added a pathway of scattered rose petals across the bottom of the block…by starting them under the Ooh La La detail they also assist in bringing the eye back around into the block

a path of rose petals

Holiday Snaps Day 15