TAST 15: Stem Stitch (plus lots of other things)

I finished this over a week ago:

(Get it? Stems out of stem stitch.)

I have strange issues with stem stitch. Like, I tweak it so it looks a little more like I want. A few years ago Kim was working on a really intensive embroidery project. She had decided against stem stitch because of some issue, and I said strange, I don't have that problem; I just change it thus and so, and she gave me a Look (we may have been on the phone, I don't recall, but I'm sure there was a Look) and said, "That's not stem stitch."

Anyway, when I started this one, I decided to change the stem stitch so I had a wide stem. About halfway down, I realized I was not doing stem stitch. It was satin stitch. So I was VERY CAREFUL and did the skinny stems really using stem stitch.

Lovely examples at Pintangle.

I have spent some time off and on with this old fabric painting/embroidery sample. At some point I picked it up again (Needs To Be Finished) and realized it was boring because of the colors. Added orangey red; much happier. (Need to re-start TAST soon, before I lose more ground in my catch-up.

I did some painting - these are stages one and two of my Vision Board, started during the Midsummer Muse teleconference with my favorite Muse. I need to finish up this weekend, but I will have to visualize very hard to channel sun energy because it is totally overcast with intermittent sprinkles and I am wearing a sweatshirt in order to be warm enough to have the windows open. My bare feet are on the chilly side, but not past the threshold where I need to give in and wear socks.

[this is one of those times I get really annoyed at blogger; it keeps rotating the picture]

I made the little spirally squiggles mainly because I intensely needed to use the shiny watercolors. I was sorry after I did because I soon discovered they are definitely in the way.

Last weekend, I went to the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon and had to bring some yarn home. It made me inspired to finally get the white warp finished and off the loom so I can weave ORANGE:

(Purple and green had to come along with orange.)

I cranked through the plain weave, but then I had to do something cool for the end - and wove twelve narrow tabs. It was time-consuming: two hours to weave three inches. The start was the slowest because I had to pay very close attention so that I did not accidentally join them together. Eventually it occurred to me that there were 24 selvedges instead of 2; not really a problem in 8/2 cotton, but it could be a challenge with finer threads. There were lots of tension problems for the last bit of the warp, but I didn't agonize over it, and as I hoped, it seems to have evened out after washing.

The tabs make me very happy.

Marking out the spaces:

Close-up:

Making progress:

Nicely-posed, nearly done:

Off the loom:

Washed: