Jet another sampler

Here is one more nearly finished sampler of mine. It is really just a doodle cloth on which I tried out some tast stitches when I had no time to explore them in a real project. I have shown details of it before, but never the whole piece, so here it is. It was done on jute fabric in a somwhat garrish colour scheme, but I do intend to finish it. It has a few really interesting half chevron stitch variants, I will probably mainly keep it for reference rather than for any inherent qualities of the piece.

Samplers

Sharon has shown us many of her fabulous samplers in a few recent posts, and that has sparked much discussion elswhere. I do like samplers, although mine always end up looking more like doodlecloths like anything else, and rarely get finished due to me being so whimsical and haphazard. Here I show a little drawn thread sampler I did about 5 years ago when I was very interested in drawn thread work and lace. I got frustrated about it because I used cheap fabric that gets pulled out of shape very esiely. Those were fabric parts meant to crochet arround them, I bought a bunch of them and planned to sew them togeter forming a band sampler. I gave up on that because I had problems with the fabric quality and found out at home that most of the quarters were not cut along the fabric threads, which meant much waste. But looking at this one now, I do like it enough that I might finish it when I find the time.

tif 1 – Steven Tyler

So my good intentions from last week already kick in – all the typing and mouse handling at my new job are getting hard right on my right arm and hand. I’m a lefty, but never learned to crochet and knit with my left hand , so these occupations are no go at the moment – and appear the best thing to do in the worl right now, of course :-;

But the upside of this is that I finally got going on my tif project. I chose Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fame as the object of my admiration. I don’t really know why exactly him of all the idols of my booze and party years. The more obvious candidates like Jimmy Morrison, or the members of bands like AC/DC , Metallica or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers so did not fit the colour scheme for my feeling. And steven is definitely beautiful. So it was the early nineties, me and my friends used to be drunk all weekend and hung over til thursday, the more crazy friends kept quarreling who of them was the reincarnation of Jimmy Morrison, and what substances it would take to find out for sure – just don’t ask… Well, most of us turned to more sober ways of life after two or three years and so did I.

After that question was settled, I went on to consult wikipedia and a few other websites about him. Way back we just liked the music, his beautiful face, his wildness, we were way too self-obsessed to care about anybody as a human being. Now I read the story of his heroin dependence and how he overcame it, saved the band and continued to make the wonderful music I still like to hear. This toughed me deeply. Don’t worry, my inner demons listen to more harmless names, but I can relate to the feeling of loosing control over your life. It’s all about finding your inner strength in the end. I guess I admire him more now than “woo he’s hot” although he definitely is. Right now I have started a stressful job in a field that is quite new to me after being out of work for a long time. It is not exactly easy but until now I’m coping all right. So the topic fits my life at the moment. Sorry if this was an incomprehensible rant.

On the technical side, I’m using plasic tulle they are selling cheaply for carnival clothing. Ipronted out a picture of Steven on strong paper and sew the tulle on. I got the inspiration for this from Terese Dillmonts embroidery book. I nicked the picture from sexysteventyler.com , it’s not theirs either, after all. I’m planning to sew this on a greyish background and add some more layers when it’s done. Now I’ll either have to work really fast or do something quick and simple for tif2 to have time to finish this one.

UFO Resolution

Sharon B has proposed her personal stash busting challenge. When I read that I thought “good idea, but I can’t be arsed to weight my stuff”. Well, at a second thought, I do have some stash but not really enough to worry me. Maybe a bit much knitting yarn and such, but it seves the purpose of clothing me, after all. But I do feel that the number of my UFO’s is spiralling out of control. I have a really haphazard working style in my free time, when no one tells me what I’m supposed to do. I should realy fix this. So here are my good intentions for this year in the UFO finishing, stash using and blogging department.

* I won’t buy any more knitting wool or yarn before I have finished at least 5 Projects using the stuff I already have (major repair jobs count)
* I won’t start any new crochet projects before I have finshed at least 5 UFOs in that departement
* I won’t start new embroidery projects that are not related to the Take it Further Callenge
* I will try my best to finish my embroidery UFOs when I’m not too busy with the new challenge
* I will keep painting, but I’m going to work on one painting at a time, avoiding the creation of paper or canvas UFOs
* typing the stuff I need to at my day job is more important than knitting or blogging, I will remember that when I get tendron problems
* Presents or comissions don’t count for any of these exept the last one, but I will try to avoid comissions now that I have a day job again

Sharon has identified the UFos she is going to work with. All you have to do to see my UFOs is go through my blog and have a look at all the unfinished stuff. Everything you didn’t see finished is still unfinished. I could never have resisted boasting about my finishes big deal. For Eye candy, I post one UFO here I haven’t shown before in the current state, and it is high on my priority list because it probably won’t take too much time to finish. It was my TAST piece for sheaf stitch and buttonhole weel.

You made my day!

Kate tagged me for the ” you made my day” award. Thank you, I really feel honoured. Now I’m supposed to tag ten other people, and have a hard time chosing. There are so many nice people out there, and many have been already tagged.
First, there’s Jowynn , not only for the eye candy and inspiration she keeps providing but also for her exeptional personality. Her nice comments, and her open blog posts about her struggle with her disease mean very much to me.
Dancing crow because she does lots of absolutely wonderful work, never boasts about it, and I just read that she has two hamsters, just like me.
Lynda , the purple missus and Susan D, because their blogs expanded my view about what fiber art can be and inspired me to lots of experiments.
I know Elizabeth has been tagged for this often enough, but her blog just never ever fails to make my day.
Linda for all the eye candy she provides, in the form of fiber art, sketches and nature photographs.
Carol-Anne for her absolutely beautiful blog about chinese and other traditional needlework. Her photos and explanations are so good that Iearned from them although I’m no into chinese embroidery.
Crazystitcher for the sake of this funny embroidery
Jude for sharing her creative processes and wise thoughts about quilting so freely.
Charley Parker , a webcomic artist and professional illustrator who writes a great blog about art and artists, because I learn so much from his blog, and because I just had to tag someone a bit geeky. Of course, I won’t mind if he doesn’t have time for tagging people and such.

TIF 1 – admiration in dull colours

Now I finally tell you what my fussing at the end of the old year was all about – I have a new job. I signed the contract January 2, the day I started. I didn’t want to tell anybody before the contract was actually signed – superstition and such. Now I’ll have to see how much time I will have for stitching. I am very glad that I have a job, and the upside will be that I’ll have money to spend on craft supplies.

Sharon B has posted the first issue of the TIF challenge. the topic is admiration, the colour scheme rather dull green-grey, beige, violet and turquoise. Pam Kellogg posted DMC colour numbers for these, and I went ahead to buy them. By the way, please check out Pams blog, it is gorgeous. I think the violets and the turquoise are much too bright for the scheme Sharon posted, but there are not so many dull colours in the DMC palette. Maybe I can find fabric that matches them better. Below you see the yarn and the sampler.

Now, what to do with them? the topic of admiration left me cold at the first thought. I guess I’m too much of a cynic to truly admire someone, although I do have respect or love or both for many people. The colour scheme itself also doesn’t spark any ideas. It’s a strange mix of dull and candy colours which does not really speak to me.

I have decided to go with both the colour scheme and the theme of admiration anyway, and I think I have half of an idea. it will be about some Rock star I used to admire in my wild youth, combined with something about the downsides of such behaviour. I don’t have any details in mind yet, not even whom to pick. For now, I have doodled with the embroidery threads a little bit to see how the colours will work together when actually used. I have to say it turned out better than I thought it would. I think inspiration will come, and I still have three weeks. The mini sampler is far away from done, but I wanted to show something and share my thoughts on the first weekend.