Touch My Stitches #15 : Chevron Stitch

Day 271 Week 6 of 52 of the TAST Challenge.  The Chevron Stitch

(See the end of this post for all my previous links.)

I am behind on my weekly stitches but continuing to challenge myself to finish them and learn more about stitching.  In keeping with my free developing 'Scape series I saw this fabric at the store and knew that it was going to be the background for the next set of stitches.  I know I said I was going to do this all with scrap fabrics but A. It really spoke to me and B. I had a coupon.  It is a printed Duck Cloth, I really like stitching on this fabric because it is a little thicker and well it just works for me.

But with duck cloth you really have to finish the edges because they get all shreddy, especially after washing.  Here I zigzaged the edges and cut them with pinking scissors.

The Chevron was a little more time intensive and a little less free flowing.  I really had to put down not only long straight lines but smaller dashes where the top and bottom T parts would go.

After washing the duck cloth becomes very soft and flowing so it was hard to keep the stitches straight, even with the drawn lines.  Normally, I do not hoop but I tried here it just didn't work out because the stitches were on the edge of the fabric, I didn't have a big enough hoop and the stitches themselves were bigger than I expected in this piece. Perhaps I will investigate getting one of those rectangular frames in the future.

I am not quite sure what this is going to be but I had it in my head that this would be a frame of some kind.  Framing what we shall see as I move on to the next stitch. I would have liked to see these stitched smaller but this is what my hand and head were telling me to do.

You can see all the marks I had to make.  The fabric is soaking and then I will have to dry and iron before moving on to the next stitch because the red pencil marks turned parts of the white thread pink.

I have never worked this stitch before.  I definitely made a few mistakes, these are not as free flowing as some of the other ones.  You have to really concentrate to keep them straight and as even as possible.  I did pick out some of the mistakes but others I left in so in the future I can see where I started from.

Find all the weekly TAST stitches that I have completed HERE.

Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST)<<--Come check it out and join in!

Week 1: Fly Stitch

Week 2: Buttonhole Stitch

Week 3: Feather Stitch

Week 4: Cretan Stitch-Open

Week 5: Herringbone Stitch

Completed Oceanscape with first 5 Stitches.

The lazy blogger returns...

Day 66

Oh my I am such a lazy blogger...but it is sooo much easier to just send updates to Facebook or Tweet about things but I will TRY to make a better effort at blogging too!

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Recap

We had the Official Momtasterrific Craftery night on Friday night! What a hopping good time that was...got to chat with a friend and watch her paint (she is an AMAZING artist) and then we made Nibblers in which hers wanted nose hair, go figure--next month we are gonna play with fire in our craft!!

We went from trees budding and bulbs sprouting on Friday

to a raging snow storm on Saturday that dropped an inch in our part of town

back to blue skies and blossoming trees in the afternoon!

So during this snow storm a friend and I HAD to go out because we have big plans! We made a pact, a goal really to be more positive this Spring and Summer. To go out and hit up the Habitat for Humanity's ReStore (where builders drop off their unused supplies) so that we could cheaply do little projects around our houses and to check out garage sales/thrift stores for the same reason! We have our lists of supplies and we are determined to do these little projects ourselves or with our families and not let the current state of the economy get us down. I think I will call it the 'Operation Castle Redo' officially...and I will let my friend know about the name later lol..

In fact hub and I have plans to rip up the downstairs carpet and paint the floors fairly soon!!

But in my travels I found yards of this Limited Too fabric which my girls went gaga over the cute panda.

70s velveteen fabric to make a critter with...

and some tumbled tiles to paint on, washers to sew onto an art quilt and an interesting tile to just display cause it was interesting

TADA the finishing of Fairy Tale Quilt Block (Pre-ironed state pics) with vintage background fabric, shoe cut from vintage pillow case, vintage hand tatted lace around the borders and modern seed beads HAND sewn (at first this was tedious but then completely a joy) into the design...Cinderella would totally wear this!

Go back to high school (to the tune from Grease)...the artist lurking within my friends

Ok well these aren't from high school apparently these are from 8th and 9th grade...and yes she is still that same beautiful person today with a fantastic hub and 3 amazing kids but look how brave she was to send me this picture!

This is my idea person in my life right now, I swear every time I hit a block she has an idea pop into her head she says it has been like that her whole life and I believe it I also highly suspected she had an artist in her just SCREAMING to come out....and I was right!

She took a collage class at the library the other day with MrsCatHead and look at this....when she said she was sending me a pic of her collage I don't really know what I was expecting I was STUNNED just FLOORED with the beauty of this...I would totally frame it and place it on my wall and I just might print out a picture for my inspiration wall and have the artist sign it lol

to me looking at collages is like seeing a piece of someone's soul or spirit and to see such beauty just makes me weep for humanity, the joy of it all!

(Thanks to her MiniMiley for sending me the pics!)

And since I am in the 80s mood I will bet that she listened to this song from 1982 'Come on Eileen' by Dexy's Midnight Runners



You are now required to hum this tune and have it in your skull for a total no less than 24 hours....you are welcome!

Yet another video from the 80s confirming my suspicions that musicians are just plain weird especially if they performed in the 80s...no I am sure this band did not indulge in ANY drugs whatsoever uhuh yea right...

...although my G2 musician came in after I told her they had violins in the song, she is big into 80s music but only the good stuff cause I teach her right muahahahaha

Heather Bailey Happy Stacker Project Round 2

Round 2 of the perfect (or at least make it look less lumpy) Heather Bailey Happy Stacker project. This is almost impossible to make perfectly round into rings without getting lumpy or bunchy even in small places because of the hand sewing to the last half of the rings. Picture hand sewing while turning in seams and holding some stuffing in (most of the stuffing I added last) and you a really have to stuff it even though this poofs it up to the point of not being able to see the stacking center. But without all the stuffing the fabric is slack soooo...I took them to the store for them to use as a display but I am not happy with it at all. I am going to make a muslin this week and see if I can't mess with some tricks to get it straighter. And I will share them with you should you dare to take on this pattern.

End story is it is a cutie once it is finished but it is the sewing journey you have to travel on to get there that is tricky!

Now of course it does not look too horribly terrible but there are not a lot of ways around having to hand stitch the last half...I will not let this defeat me though I am going to make it look like I at least know how to sew which this last one does not do UGH.

I do like all the stripey fabrics I put together don't you?

Funny story today about these.... the part you stack the rings on is like a soft 'bat' that sticks up and the rings can all be set on them (the bottom ring does not stay in one place but also comes off) and I had given the first set of these to a mama at the store where the stripey ones will be displayed, well she took the original sample home and I heard that her cat was being naughty and the 2yr old said 'I'll be right back or I'll take care of it' something along those lines but I was giggling so I forget exactly and ran back in with the fabric bat from the Heather Bailey Happy Stackers and wanted to use it as exactly that lol lol.....I figured as much when I sewed these up because that is the one thing that is perfect for little hands that and perhaps chucking the rings across the room....

....I will update on the adventures of making some muslins of these and then I intend to make one more sample out of black and white fabrics with perhaps some ribbon doodads like the pattern shows as options!

365 Challenge Post 16 of 365- YUMMMM RIBS...

Yes I actually cooked again and under the quite intense watchful gaze of not only hub but the critics (I mean girls) I made boneless short ribs tonight. I looked up some recipes on AllRecipes.com and then went to town with my own concoction. Those of you who know me personally know how much I loooove to follow directions NOT so of course I cook the same way and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, you never know till you try right, and food network I am not...Suzanne if you don't like to watch me put in zippers I dare you ladies to come try out my dad's recipe for artichokes sometime just don't watch me cook'em lol

OK so here is a basic recipe that I made:

in a deep sauce pot on the stove top
Olive oil (bout a capful)
onion pieces (sauteed in oil till brown)
as onions are cooking I added salt, pepper, ground hot pepper, garlic powder
take ribs out of package and cut off all visible outside fatty pieces (I mean really you should have chosen some that did not have too much fat on them way back at the store)
while this concoction is all simmering on low on a plate on the side I mixed flour and garlic salt and pepper and organic sugar....when the onions are brown and it smells good I dipped the ribs each into the plate turning and coating them then toss them into the pan to brown
with my fav wooden spoon I turn and scrape the (not burnt)stuff off the bottom to be able to mix with the ribs better!
When the ribs are nice and brown and smelling good dump your fav bbq sauce on them, enough to cover them each (meaning not like a pot full but enough to be able to make some good sauce and each rib can comfortably sit in sauce to it's top)
add in some red wine vinegar, turn the heat down to med and then low till it is nice and bubbly stir a few times, cover and resist urges to keep taking off lid and smelling

After about an hour of bubbling and some small stirring activity along the way turn off put on a plate and eat with a fork, a sharp knife and make sure you put some of the bubbling sauce on top ooooo it was soooooo good --top it off with a salad with Paul Newman's Creamy Caesar dressing (not only is it a good side dish but it makes you feel like you have balanced the carnivore with a healthy green salad and it alleviates all thoughts of food/calorie/beefy guilt over the aformentioned rib and bubbling sauce recipe)

Enjoy!

No really enjoy...feel free to experiment. My Nana cooked like this and a pinch of this a tad of that is exactly how I like it!


PS and the girls refused to have any part of the tasting session as their taste buds have been corrupted by past cooking experiments ala mom but hub had one and declared it 'pretty good'

365 Challenge 15- WHEW the Skulls are Modified

Should have posted this last night but was in the middle of doing some kid snuggling and we are reading Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (I have already read it but I am reading it aloud-yes we do this every night in our house.) and we got into it so we read a few chapters!! And it is going to be out in theatres Jan 23 2009! And really (except for a couple of exceptions of his acting choices)you can't go wrong with Brendan Fraser! A lot of good book movies out soon, hope they don't ruin the magic of the books too much.

Anyway here is the YCMT top that I made the other day but then G1 requested modifications...i.e. wider waist piece, slits on the sides, snaps to hold it closed better at the top and long sleeves soooo you can not see the snaps but it does make it lay better since I had to upsize this to a 12 ....the sleeves are some scraps of stretchy soft almost suedey material I had and I just raglan sleeved them into the orginal sleeves....she wants them longer next time and fuller at the wrist....added the slits on the sides with the bias trim and you can tell I just extended the shirt pattern so that it hung to her knees. Thankfully she took off her cosplay materials so that the top looked normal without all the bulky clothes underneath and she is wearing it tomorrow night to go see Twilight at the movie theater...I hope I don't break out in pimples from all the sparkly teen angst lol. This is going to be a cool night cause both of us read it and we are going with MrsCathead who also read the first book our other kids have not read it and are not interested so the G1 tween steps out with the moms ooooo scarey...

365 Challenge- Post 13 of 365- Horses and Skulls

It actually rained here today for perhaps a good hour or two at a steady pace and it was cloudy for the rest of the day. I cherish these days when it rains because I miss it so much it tends to get so dry and dusty. I grew up in Florida and I miss the smell of the salt air as well as water, water everywhere.

So while the kids and the hub played video games, cooked and watched movies and some cleaning I took the time to make some things I had planned!

First up is Butterick Pattern 4970 similar to what I made G1 yesterday but longer and with the sash-almost like a long tunic/dress . It was really easy to do EXCEPT the way they wanted you to sew the collar on even with ironing to get it evenly all the way around the curve and put the other fabric of the bodice between it was HORRIBLE I did it for G1's but this one I decided to sew and turn right side out and then stitch it together to the bodice--it looks nicer on the outside but on the inside the edge is exposed at the seam line behind the top stitching of the collar. Well anyway G2 likes it so what more is there to say...it looks bulky here because she was insisting on not taking off the thick shirt she had underneath.

Personally I do not think this pattern is very flattering or attractive but at least I made it but it would not be my first 'go to' choice when I need a pretty pattern again...perhaps again in the Spring BUT my girls do not like to wear tank tops or sleeveless shirts so they will always be wearing something under it.

























OK this pattern was from the You Can Make This Site -->> see the link over there-->> but it was this pattern The Wrap Top & Dress and it was really easy to cut out and make....really easy and I even was able to go off pattern a little which always excites me as I hate to follow every pattern exactly. I still have to add the snaps and ribbon to close it but all in all a pretty nice pattern!

I will be adding sleeves of a suedey material to make the sleeves longer...I will put them under the short sleeves per G1's request.

These images make it look bulky but that is because she would not take off all of her cosplay stuff -hence the construction paper ears on her head...this is her favorite website if you don't know what Cosplay is...I still don't know if I would wear it without pants underneath and that is the way she wanted it like a long tunic. Next she wants me to use the pattern to make one with slits at the sides of the legs to the hip.
























I really did like this pattern and it was cheaper than still searching for the Vogue 7894 one I have been waiting on...it can easily be adapted for many things long sleeves, no ruffles...we added the binding instead of ruffles, will add the long sleeves under the short sleeve and a larger middle section....

Don't you just love that skull heart/rose fabric? I love that Badanna skull fabric and the way this turned out!


I did not know if I would like printing a pattern and using it but I supposed it depends on what the pattern is, how it is created and who created it...I LOVED having the pictures to refer to for each step. I decided that I would purchase a pattern of something off of YCMT site and make it each week...some of them are so cute and they have so many different crafts to do why not?!!

ETA: For the pattern from YCMT I had to upsize it to a 12 as it only goes to 10. For the Butterick pattern I did not use knit but cotton woven which would have made it lay better.

365 Challenge- Post 12 of 365 Big Hair, Ripped Shirts Yep it's the 80s!

Ah yes again one of my searches during an open sewing at ye olde Hipstitch I found this fabric and it was very dipped in some sort of lovely 80s chemical as it was almost stiff as a board but very bright and I knew 2 girls who would think it was cool-"I mean like really the 80s were sooo long ago like ancient mom", little ingrates....so I took it home and washed it twice brought it back at my next open sewing session and cut it out, anyway I was attempting to make this Butterick 4970 pattern because G2 wants Dress C for an outfit similar to wait for it ....Selena Gomez and what she wore on Another Cinderella Story in one of the last scenes, yes my kid watches movies for the fashion SIGH LOL...but I made top B without the bottom ruffle thing AND I gave it to her older sister to wear first, hey she can always wear it in hand me downs OR they could GASP...CHOKE share clothes

365 Challenge- Post 11 of 365 Plaid Skull Pants

Well all of the shopping and browsing online has certainly slowed down the internet...I was having trouble with blogger last night and now it has taken me over 1/2 hour just to do this one post.

Anyway, these pants were started at one of the open sewing times at HipStitch and Suzanne is the one who helped me find the perfect skulls to applique and the funky scrap fabric they had there for the pants. G2 luvs them and thinks they are totally cool!

Originally was a pattern for some front fly pants and just decided against it so now it has a side hidden zipper, ruffles on the bottom and I gathered it on the back with some elastic so that it would fit slimmer but it can be expanded as she grows




























Margins acting really funky will work on that again this weekend

365 Challenge- Post 10 of 365-- Shiny Stars & Vintage Fabric

So I was sidetracked today because my youngest saw a picture in an old Mary Englebreight Home Companion Magazine today where they decorated for the holidays in a fairy wonderland...and she wanted the stars that hung from the ceiling so sparkly so lovely--no glitter falling off, no bare spots...so perfect lol....off we went to search the black hole-I mean garage-for the box of glitter thrown out there when we disemboweled the over the door organizer so that it could become a barbie/bratz organizer for G2 (sigh well at least she is putting her wardrobe talents to good use) and I kept meaning to come out and organize the black hole all summer in a marathon weekend cleaning but have decided it is much better to do it in small doses-apparently I have not gotten to the glitter box section BUT BUT I did find a glittery crumpled piece of wrapping paper I had saved for some sparkly craft in the future and well I thought it might be enough to put over lots of stars!

Now on to what the stars should be made of? Hmmmm well that huge pile of MT Recycling might have something and it did it had gift shirt boxes, the thin cardboard kind and a lot of them had holiday motifs on them PERFECT!

Off we went to draw stars on as many spots as we could find, all sizes and cut them out. Then we glued the shiny paper to the stars--some on the silver side and some on the gold side and when the glue dried we just cut off the edges...punch a hole, string some leftover ribbon and voila fairy stars to hang from the ceiling!

We got a little carried away and also added to our 100 or so coffee filter snowflakes that hang from the ceiling every year along with some white lights to make it a winter wonderland--thank the movie Elf for giving us the idea oh so many years ago!

So we will be hanging this mess-I mean THEY will be hanging this mess on T-Day BEFORE we put up the tree-our loving artificial tree who has been around for years and is not ready to retire quite yet--reminscient of Charlie Brown's tree at this point.

I will have to get better pics in the daytime cause they are oh so sparkly for the flash.




















And then I got bored with cutting stars and decided to make an impromptu Yule sign for our wall-there it will stay temporarily cause it looks cool and won the G's stamp of approval



















And yes I even got sidetracked sewing because I found on my shelf the most perfect perfect perfect green with pink flowers (not sure of the fabric it feels silky, drapes well not heavy at all, upholstery fabric?) that I had obtained on one of my garage sale vintage finds with the tag still on it from Denmark I believe. This with the satin matching pink will become a cute holiday dress with bow and ruffle...G2 said it will look good with jeans...little ingrate apparently EVERYTHING looks good over jeans and I now know she got this from some Selena Gomez bit on Disney Channel whose statement G2 is quoting. AH but this is Albuquerque and jeans are dressy here!

Oh but it was soooo cool to come upon this fabric in my stash which I had forgotten about...if anyone knows anything about the fabric let me know as I was unable to figure out any interesting details in my 5 minutes of honest search time

365 Challenge- Post 9 of 365-- And here is the sewing!

Totally 80s top for G1



Horsies for G2



Star Wars and Nerds Rock for G1



Little bit of glitter and goth for G2




Patchwork cord pants for G1



Badanna top for G1



plaid cord pants w/ skull applique (and big ruffles at bottom) for G2



Goth, Grey and bronze for tuxedo dress for G2




Faux lace up dress for G2

whew that is a lot of prepping and sewing cutting....will have modeled photos this week!

365 Challenge- Post 9 of 365-- Weeds as Art & of course sewing

Living in the part of New Mexico where we are you become quickly intimate with the tumbleweed-the same one that blows down the streets of most western movies only those are small ones--seeing ones as big as VW bugs is pretty common and you can often here the remark while out hiking 'wow look at the size of that tumbleweed' they are so common. While hiking with a guide recently it was pointed out that the bottom of the dried plant (because the ones blowing around are dried and done growing and dispersing seeds as they move along) was pretty spectacular with it's curves and shape. I had a light bulb moment as these would be perfect for displaying Devil's Claw seed pods we had recently picked up on another recent hike--they are so beautiful in their form that I just had to display them.

The bathroom that they now hang in is also newly painted and decorated with one small quart of brown glaze paint that was not the right color for a friend's house and she was going to get rid of it so add one cool brown glaze to one ugly white small bathroom and you get a comfy crapper lol!

Anyway this was just the place to display these and I love them all together. Thanks to loving hub who hung them up--his artistic instincts are excellent!

So it might be weird but weeds can be art...and obviously the beauty can be found in some most unusual places!

And if you are considering this art please wear gloves and a full body suit to protect you from the prickly seeds that abound in tumbleweeds..again loving hub went into the field to collect the tumbleweeds and then cut them for me!

PS Another cool thing about NM are the coyotes-yes they are all over and pretty darn adaptable animals but here in the desert mesas if you are far enough out and have the windows open you might here a whole bunch of them howling at each other...it is REALLY quiet out here so quiet that even car noises bother me now and it is desert quiet--one night I will try to get a recording of the coyotes. Oh and did I mention the stars you can see? More than you ever realized were out there because it is so dark you can see almost all of them AMAZING and did I mention that the sky really is as blue as Georgia O'Keefe painted and the clouds that fluffy.....just beautiful!

365 Challenge- Post 8 of 365--Jazz is Music is Art

So today was not really about my art but about G2's music. I am a proud parent and most of the time in awe of the music she creates. I think the fact that we homeschool has allowed her to follow her passion with more time to be who she is--in this case create music. Today they had their end of semester Jazz performance. This is a 10 week class that runs in two sessions of 5 weeks each through Outpost Performance space and G2 came in during the second session so she has only been with this band for those last 5 weeks and honestly for kids I think they did darn well for only being together that long....the other kids have been playing together in this group for some time. G2 is in the intermediate class and the beginning class was very good with their wide variety of instruments and the advanced class was amazing with their talented talented teens! G2 has never performed like this with the mike on her instrument and having a spotlight AND doing a solo during a song....she did really well--course she said she does not get nervous that she 'loves this stuff' and she must because she was flush from the spotlights after she got offstage. She also stated that she is 'not a diva in training' ..... so here is my art that I created today because from some fluke of genetics from her dad and I she is who she is after all and raising kids is an art form--a free flowing abstract one but definitely an art form lol

This first song is Cameleon by Herbie Hancock and she was not supposed to do a solo but I think her wonderful teacher convinced her to do one and when they do solos they are just playing impromptu notes that they can make up on the spot and for not really being into jazz I think she did darn well (klezmer/folk music is her first love)



This is part of Come Together by the Beatles--sorry for the cruddy videos we have a camera that does videos and I supposed we should invest in one acutally intended for videos


The other videos I will have to work on since they are bigger than photobucket allows but all in all a fun day!


Very low key no stress community program intended to bring the kids to the music and vice versa and I think it does exactly what they intend without all that added pressure that is usually found on kid musicians!

And I went to Hancock's to choose fabric for the belt of the tux dress and ribbon for the corset dress...tomorrow I will share the fabrics and stuff all together and hopefully mostly made but today, today is G2's day!

365 Challenge- Post 7 of 365

First up gratuitous cat photos--brother/sister duo--sound like a herd of buffalo when they run around the house you would never know there was only 2! He is Sokka and she is Toph both named after characters in the Nickelodeon cartoon, Avatar the Last Airbender
loveable cats and very helpful in the sewing process from ripping the tissue paper patterns, chasing the scissors as I am cutting and cleaning up stray threads by eating them afterwards (still trying to work on this habit)

Sokka loves his 'Sissy' bed pink with the sparkly fluff (he also likes to be dressed up) and Toph loves her brother even when he is mean to her and rubber oversize alphabet letters.




















Ah today such a boring sewing day--gave me a chance to catch up on all repairs!

Repaired:
1 patchwork bedspread dug/ripped into by a brother/sister cat team because it is a combo of silk and brocade squares and apparently they have OCD issues with silky fabrics
1 pair of Studio Tantrum Zuma pants
1 footed jammy pants request that feet be removed per G2
1 pair of homemade Disney Princess Jasmine pants
1 felt homemade dragon puppet

Research of dress that G2 wants for her upcoming concerts--one will be inspired by this one Tuxedo Dress (you have to login to Craftster to see it) and inspiration from this one the Corset Dress from Just Tutes Hub says he likes the roses and skulls better than the fabric we already chose and so does G2 but I am not fabric searching now as we already chose the fabric and I don't even know what that is lol

Also weeded through my Ottobres to help with the base dress for the idea G2 has in mind

And looking through LOVELY books borrowed from Mrs. Cathead--thanks lady! Good inspiration!

And helped G1 create a pouch she designed and then sewed herself to carry her Pokemon cards in, what else would pouches be good for? I will get a picture of it tomorrow as she took it immediately to fill with cards.