TAST 8: Chain Stitch

Record speed on this one - started Tuesday, finished Wednesday, posted Thursday!

I like chain stitch. I also like making pictures better than rows of stitching.

The big plant is mostly open chain stitch, tapering down to "regular" chain stitch. I was thinking of the charming horsetails plant, but the little plants look as much like asparagus spears as horsetails. They are "magic chain stitch" where you thread the needle with two colors and use them alternately.

The big plant was originally intended to have flowers, but it turned into a slightly different plant than my idea. Not a flower plant. It probably reproduces with spores.

Take a Stitch Tuesday on Pintangle: Chain Stitch

Horsetail (Equisetum) from the trip two weeks ago:

Special lizard bonus - I was hoping for a snake, and got a lizard! I was SO excited. The lizard escape technique is to dash madly for about a foot, and freeze unblinking as the hiker peers at you and takes pictures.

(We did see several snakes and a second lizard.)

TAST 7: Detached Chain Stitch

As I neared the end of the chevron stitch sample, I had a revelation: I was not enjoying it. These are SAMPLES. They are supposed to be fun. I do NOT need to cram in as many stitches as could possibly fit.

So, for this one, I left lots of space, getting around twinges of horror vacui by placement and just plain being tired of fanatical cramming. And presto, it was more fun to do - for one thing, I think I just like detached chain stitch better. Also, as its other name of lazy daisy stitch indicates, it is great for flowers and I had just seen lots of lovely flowers on last weekend's hikes.

This is the clearest embroidery-inspirer; I knew what stitches were coming up (since I'm so behind!) and this little flower was perfect.

Take a Stitch Tuesday - detached chain stitch page.

July?!

Where has this summer gone? - or, where has it been? Because it just really finally got here. It's hard to be convinced by the calendar when the weather is cool and overcast.

At any rate, the weather has been almost completely like summer since last weekend, when I went on a hike:


(If you look at the large version, you can just barely make out one of the hawks that was circling around and around--one of the tall grasses points at it.)

Yesterday Princess had an excellent day.



And I finally got in gear and did some painting--two new in-process and one probably almost done practice piece from a while ago:

The pomegranate/seedpods are experiments in that one is going to be only colors, and the other is starting off with the black and white underpainting as per the workshop I took a couple of years ago. Initial notes: I "get" black and white. Instant color is fun. And I tend to either use very little or way too much Liquin (thinner).

Don't faint...

...here's a post. I've been busy, doing things and going places.

To begin, a picture from a while ago of an embroidery I started a longer while ago; the picture's kind of dark (I have since become more familiar with my camera).


As to what else I've been doing with my time--lots of hiking trips recently. This last weekend I went to Crater Lake. My photography guru was appalled that I had, er, basically never uploaded my photos. Here is documentary proof that I have now done so:

There will be lots more once I get them sorted out--Crater Lake is beautiful, and I took full advantage of the capacity of the digital camera by taking copious photos with different settings, and never running out of film! Zoom lens is great, too. At some point I'll probably set up a Flickr account to post more pictures.