TAST 53 - Square Herringbone

I was inspired by the concentric square herringbones that I saw on Annet's blog.  I decided to offset the orientation of my squares while keeping them concentric to get a sort of twisting effect.

Go to Pin Tangle for a description of how to work the stitch.

Scrappy Trips Cushion

I'm not much of a trend follower, but when I do decide to join in I generally don't do it in a timely manner!  And so it was with the Scrappy Trips Around The World.  It all began several months ago when one of the blogs that I follow mentioned a craze that was sweeping Instagram - #scrappytripalong. I was intrigued so I had a look and thought it was interesting, but not being a quilter that's as far as it went.

In the meantime I had bought several cushion pads that were going cheap from IKEA, which I then left piled in a corner.  About a month ago I decided it was about time I made some cushion covers for them and the scrappy-trip-along came to mind. It looked so simple and the result looked very pretty so I dived in with gusto. But I soon learned a valuable lesson about precision! Measure accurately, cut accurately and sew accurately, otherwise none of the blocks will line up.  After a lot of unpicking, remeasuring and resewing, my scrappy-trip-along cushion was complete.

And so, ta-dah! I really love it. So much, that I can't bring myself to let it be used as an actual cushion, so it sits on the sofa but doesn't get leant on :)

TAST 54 - Laced Square Herringbone

When I first saw the Laced Square Herringbone I thought it had a star-like quality.  So I stitched a little night scene: laced square herringbone and cross-stitch stars with a crescent moon over lights from a city.  It's not really in proportion, but let's just call that artistic interpretation ;)

As always it's well worth looking at the links in the comments to see all the different interpretations of the stitch.  I was amazed by the sheer number of variations that Chitra demonstrated.

TAST 52 - Triangular Feather Stitch

I bought one of those doodle colouring books for kids from the pound shop. You know the type - it's filled with spirals and geometric patterns to colour in. It looked like it could be a good source for embroidery pattern ideas.  Anyway I found a nice pattern with triangles which I decided to use for the triangular feather stitch.  I thought that the triangles in the pattern would echo the triangles in the stitch, but I think that maybe I should have made the whole thing bigger to accentuate the triangular shapes more.

It was quite nice to stitch and I really like the effect.  For more details about how to work the stitch and to see how other people have interpreted it pay a visit to Pin Tangle.

Inspired by Pinterest - Crocheted Flower Bookmark

I saw some lovely crocheted flower bookmarks on Pinterest and I decided to make my own version. Mine is much simpler - the flower is much less ornate and I left out the leaves - but still pretty I think. I've used DK yarn (Rico Essentials cotton) and a 4mm hook, and I sewed a button to the centre (to hide the rather messy colour change!).

What do you think?  I made it up as I went along so I'm going to make another one and make a note of the pattern so that I can post a tutorial.

TAST 51 - Raised Herringbone Band

This band uses a combination of stitches to produce a very decorative band. It is time-consuming but I do like the finished result.

I had planned to stitch something different but in the end I came up with this colourful Easter-inspired egg.  The satin stitch was done in Janlynn DFN threads (I don't know anything about them, size or even colour - they came in a value pack with no information, but it's a twisted thread about twice the thickness of Perle no. 8), the herringbone in Aida crochet cotton no. 20, and the weaving in Anchor metallic.

Do head over to Pin Tangle to see how the band is worked.  It's well worth reading through the comments to see how people have interpreted the stitch. The TAST FAQ page also lists all the stitches done so far by number so you can easily look at previous examples.

TAST 50 - Inverted feather stitch

I am soooo behind with TAST! But determined that I will catch up at some point.  Here's my attempt at Inverted Feather Stitch.

I'm happier with the idea than the execution.  I think my silhouette is a bit dodgy and as I wasn't using counted thread fabric I should have taken more time to mark out the border to get nice straight edges.  Live and learn :)

Pay a visit to Pin Tangle to see the other offerings.

Pretty Things

A few weeks ago we went to the South Downs and on the way home stopped of at Winchester.  It's a pretty little city best known for its Cathedral.  On the day we visited there was a market in the city centre, where I saw this lovely embroidered bedspread.  There were a lot of other embroidered items on the stall, but restless kids meant that I didn't have a lot of time for photographs.

This wonderful colourful book cover in a museum shop also caught my eye:

Wear Flowers in Your Hair

Last year I opened a shop on Folksy, but it was a bit of a half-hearted affair.  So at the start of this yuear I decided to make more of an effort to fill it and promote it.  It's slow going with all the other things that I've got going on, but slowly but surely I'm getting it together.

My mum used to sell costume jewellery, some of which she made up herself, and during a clear out of her garage she found a HUGE stash of plain metal hair clips in pristine condition, which she donated to me.  Well, they were just crying out for a bit of embellishment and so I accepted the challenge to make them pretty!  I love flowers, and crocheting them so that seemed like a good place to start.  This is what I've done so far (+ a pincushion):

Berry Bakewell on Folksy

What do you think of my crocheted flower hair clips?  I like them, and have actually diverted a couple from the shop for my own use (not a good business model!).  9 down, about 300 to go!

Make do and Mend Monday - Upcycled Denim Skirt

I'm a woman of the large-thighed variety, so this is an unfortunate side-effect of many of my trousers:

Rather than try to patch them up or throw them away I decided to make a skirt out of these jeans.  I can't remember where I saw the trousers-into-skirt thing, but no doubt there are hundreds of tutorials online.  I made my little upcycling project the basis of a couple of my sewing lessons.

First step was to cut the jeans to the length of skirt that I wanted and then to cut down the inside leg seams.

Then I took the bottoms that I'd cut off and cut a piece to match the gap, which I then pinned to the wrong side of the skirt. The piece was then top-stitched in place. Lastly, I added a length of colourful fabric to the hem to brighten the skirt up a bit. Ta dah!

Not a great set of instructions or photos I know, but I just wanted to show you what I did.