Bullion Garden

Week 20 of TAST – bullion stitch.
I love doing bullions but all I could come up with was flowers.
This is it – A Bullion Garden

Thank you to Shirley who reminded me about twisted silk ribbon and who told me about the border stitch, detached bullion.  I started off a bit wobbly with it but got better as I got around the border.  I love this stitch and will definitely use it again some time. 
Au revoir for now, there may be a short break in transmission as Hubby and I head off on an adventure into the bush.
Internet connection may be non – existent where we are going but if by any chance I get some more TAST stitching done and I have connection I will post it up.
Pop over to Sharon b’s site www.pintangle.com and see all the other amazing bullion pieces.

Off to the Tropics

It is almost winter here, although this past week one could be forgiven for thinking winter has already arrived.
So, in just four days time we are escaping to tropical North Queensland where temperatures are up around 28 deg during the day and a mild 15 – 20 overnight. 

This will be our ‘digs’ for about a month or so.  Those little steps lead up to the boudoir.  The kitchen area is at the back of this.  Sink and gas stove and pantry.    It doesn’t look very big in this photo, but believe me, there is plenty of room and storage.  The whole thing folds up and sits on the back of the truck and then you can go anywhere a 4wd vehicle can go.  We love to head into the bush and off the beaten tracks, so this will be ideal.  We are travelling with 2 other couples so it should be a real hoot!!
This particular set up is called a ‘Travelander’ and if you are interested, you can see more of their features here at this website.
We will miss our little poppet, Lilian. 
Here she is at her cubby house which is currently in our back yard. Her great grandpa bought her this.  She is the apple of his eye – his only great grandchild…… so far.

Nothing to show for TAST this week yet.  It may be finished by tomorrow if I can get a good go at it tonight in front of television.

Snakes Alive & 4 Wheel Drive

My hubby found a yellow-faced whip snake like this one trapped between our two sheds on Sunday, he got rid of it especially for me on Mothers Day.  Thank you my dear man. 

Image from www.wildlifeqld.com.au
Saturday 5th May saw me behind the wheel of our 4 wheel drive truck.
This photo especially for craft and quilting friends who would not believe I was actually doing this 4WD thing. LOL.
  Apparently I have to learn how to drive it in case anything happens to my man when we are out on a bush track somewhere.  Not my cup of tea at all, but you know what?  I did rather well at it and even managed it better than him at times.  He is a good driver though and I am confident I won’t have to put my newly acquired  skills to test anytime real soon.

The first obstacle – stuck in mud. Hubby had the job of getting out of this one.

The spectacular view from the top of the very, very steep hill which we had to climb in our 4WD.  Yes, I did it with no probs.
We are leaving on a trek to Cape York in a couple of weeks time.  Very exciting!  So next couple of weeks we will be busy packing and sorting and getting our new camper ready to roll.  At the same time I hope to still keep up with my TAST embroidery challenge.  Now, that will be quite a challenge!!

Strata

Week 18’s stitch has been done.  The blogging is a little behind as life steps in the way and steers me on other courses.
Week 18’s stitch was Crossed Buttonhole Stitch.  At the beginning I thought it was quite a yukky stitch and by the end of the sample I still thought it was pretty yukky.  It would be much prettier embellished to the eyeballs, but of course I am trying to do all my samples with just using the TAST stitch for that particular week.  I am having to use the grey matter a little bit more and come up with interesting ways to display said stitch.

This is the end result, “Strata”.  It is made with 1 1/4 inch strips of fabric folded twice and couched down with the Crossed Buttonhole Stitch.  Thanks to Shirley for the little round beads which just fitted in nicely with the colours I had chosen.(We are also trying to decrease Shirley’s bead stash – but a losing battle methinks.  She has enough beads to take us into the next century!!!!)
When I see what everybody else did with the Crossed Buttonhole Stitch I had a little bit of embroidery envy.  Hop over to Pintangle here and see the many variations others have come up with.  Soooooo creative.  Also, lately on Stitchin Fingers there has been some beautiful embroidery, quilting etc. shown.  Do have a look sometime for some real eye candy.

Wheatear

What an interesting stitch we were given last week on TAST.  All I could think of initially was sheafs of wheat and grass.  In the end, grass won and “Grasses at the Gate’ was produced.  Not terribly original but I was quite chuffed with the idea of doing barbed wire with this stitch.  All in all I was happy with the end result.

Now that I have had plenty of practice with this stitch I will used it more often and embellish it heaps with other stitches, beads etc.
It is getting more and more difficult not to use other stitches in conjunction with the given stitch.
Pop onto www.pintangle.com to see more amazing and interesting ways people have used this stitch.

Playing

Wednesday was a play day.  It was ANZAC day and a public holiday here.  As our daughter was working at the race track we had the wonderful opportunity of spending most of the day with our adorable grand daughter, Lilian.
Before Lilian arrived I was painting and stamping fabrics.
  
It was just calico fabric which I wet and crumpled then painted with acrylic paint while wet. (The colours look ugly here, but really, some of them were quite pretty.
After it dried I got the moulding stamp out to do some stamping – also with acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium.

The basket weaving stamping

Potato masher stamping. 

After re-heating, the stamp comes back to normal.  I used the toaster to heat and re-heat my stamp.
All in all it worked out okay but the stamp has to be very indented so as the relief parts stamp well.
Lessons were learned.

Then it was Lilian’s turn to paint. 

Then we did some bare foot cooking. Pumpkin scones. 

Learning from Friends

It has been a week of learning and doing.  Finally a little craft time.
Firstly there was my TAST project to do.  After a couple of days pondering and tweaking the design I have come up with ‘The Look’ (named by Shirley because she thought it looked a bit like an eye)

I was having a devil of a time trying to keep those french knots in a straight line and under my control.  So, I turned to the ‘master of french knots’, aka Shirley, and she put me on the straight (sorry about the pun) and narrow.  Then, most of them went straight and I learned the correct way.  It made me really confident about the stitch and I ended up quite enjoying them.  Also enjoyed doing the beading and learnt a few tricks of the trade from a video I recently purchased called “Bead it like you mean it” by Lyric Kinard
Here is the journal entry for french knots where you will see I had other ideas too.

Teresa over on All things Vintage was very supportive when I couldn’t quite ‘get’ a pattern I was trying to make.
It was Isabella’s journal from Faeries in my Garden and for the life of me I could not understand what to do.  I knew Teresa had made this one so I contacted her being too embarrassed to contact the people from Faeries and looking like  too much of a dumb cluck.  In the end, it was all too much and like the song goes, I did it my way.  It is okay and I know the birthday girl recipient is going to love it anyway, cause I made it for her.

Anneliese from Stitching Lady has inspired me to try my hand at stamping and colouring my backgrounds.  I have done a little bit of this but may now start doing a few of my TAST samples on my ‘new fabric’.  The kitchen table was turned into an art space yesterday and I painted some backgrounds.  Now to embellish, stamp etc.

Kitchen table after lunch.

Some pretty washing.

The formy thingy I bought at a craft show and have just remembered after reading Anneliese’s blog.
You heat this up, not too hot, press it onto something textured and then stamp with it.  When you done with that stamping, you reheat it back to plain ready to do a different one.  Brilliant.  Can’t wait to try it out.
Thank you Anneliese for your inspirational work, and thank you to my friends for helping me out.
Drop into Pintangle and see what others did for the french knot (Week 16 of TAST).