TAST week 2

Buttonhole stitch. Check out this gorgeous hand dyed perle #5 from Stef Francis-it is delectable!!! There are so many scrumptious threads here at Joggles, do check it out.

Whoopie!! Happy dance with me!!

I'm finished!!!




The Marriage Of Minds
Drawn Thread
125 wide by 415 long
32ct Natural Linen Silk by Wichelt
Needlepoint Inc. silk and Gloriana

Take a Stitch Tuesday

Here is my progress after week 1 of the TAST challenge. This is a challenge from a few years ago, so I am just doing this on my own. I hope to end up with a sampler(or several) of many different stitches to refer to when I design. Week 1 was herringbone stitch, and all of these rows are variations on that one stitch. I used Watercolors, Desert Sunset on 32 count Belfast linen.

January goals

I haven't posted any goals for a long time, so I will start out the new year with some goals for January.

1. complete Marriage of the Minds by Drawn Thread(my WIP focus piece)
2. complete model stitching on pink-brown silk sampler(new design)
3. begin Toccata 1(this was going to be my New Years Day start but I decided to finish MotM first since I am so close)
4. At least 3 more stitch examples of my Take a Stitch Tuesday sampler
5. Do finishing on pinkeep design for February release
6. Do a daily strand on Golden Age sampler by Sharon Cohen as new WIP focus piece
7. gather supplies for Grateful Heart sampler by Sharon Cohen(in Jan/Feb JCS issue)
8. work on Child of Spring sampler as time allows
9. stitch biscornu design for guild by 10th

I'm sure these goals are too lofty as usual, but one can dream! Of course this is all worked around my regular dollmaking job which is tons of hand stitching too!

Here is my progress on Marriage of the Minds, almost done!!!

And here is a peek at the silk flowers I did for the back of Hannah's hair! She is at auction for one more day.

Hannah and her heart!

This is Hannah. She is my newest doll creation. I have been just obsessed with embroidery in all its forms lately,(well not just lately, actually for years!) but I HAVE to continue to make dolls, because that it the majority of my business and I don't want to loose everything I have worked so hard for, for the past 10 years. SO, I have decided the solution is to work my embroidery into my dollmaking in a more obvious fashion.

So here is my first attempt to that end. Hannah has actually been sitting on my work table for almost 2 months while I was stumped as to what to actually do with her. I didn't really have a vision for her for a long time. But then I began reading Sharon B.'s blog and decided to do the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge on my own. I began a little sampler and I am working through all of the stitches, and eventually I will have a great long sampler of stitches to refer to-such a cool idea! Thank you Sharon B.!

Anyhow I began looking around Sharon' site, which is called Pyn Tangle, but used to be called In a Minute Ago, and I became really inspired by all of the crazy quilt stuff! And I realized that even though it is only Jan.2, dollmakers are already doing St.Valentine's Day, so there I finally had my theme for Hannah. I had GREAT fun embroidering her little heart pillow, and I will certainly be doing more of these. I can think of all kinds of ways to incorporate crazy quilting into dollmaking, and I will be trying them all in the near future. Yay! Its great to have a new direction!

Hannah is going on Ebay tonight in a 3 day only auction. So if she steals your heart don't hesitate, she'll be gone in a flash!