Concert

Friday two weeks ago, the night Paris happened, i was on a concert. Vredehammer, Vreid and Keep of Kalessin. Sadly, they had to play in front of less than 50 people, probably because Mötley Crüe were in town the same night.

But boy, was this a concert! Vredehammer, the opener, blew me away. The drummer was sorta out of sync for the first two songs, but then he found his rhythm and everything went great. They do melodic black metal, if this is a style. They were IMHO the best band of the evening and a real discovery. Like with many black metal bands, their stage acting was rather sparse, but they did interact. I loved their complex rhythms and melodic elements.

Here are two pics of Per Valla, their singer and guitar player. Like ever so often, I spent more time headbanging and enjoying the concert than trying to get good pics. Also, that was difficult despite the small venue because of the stage fog.

Next were Vreid. Nice enough, techically perfect and just agressive enough, but for me, somehow lacking. I think their songs sound too much the same.

Then, along came Keep of Kalessin. They do a mix of death and black metal with melodic and progressive elements. Life they were even more agressive and in your face than on CD. They interacted with the audience a lot and everybody went crazy, and so did I. They acted as enrgetically and professionally as if they were playing in front of thousands, and after the concert, they shook everyone’s hands and thanked us for the party. Thank you guys, you were great!

The pics show Singer Thebon, too bad my pics of other band members didn’t work. Darn stage fog!

Sobek

I spontaneously started stitching this after the plane crash at Egypt. It is not yet done, and is supposed to be accompanied by some plea to Sobek, Egypts most ancient god of fertility and protection. I have not yet decided on the final text. I know, probably not nice, and not a good idea, but sometimes my thoughts need a way out.

Now, after Paris, I seem to have no more stitches.

The things some right wing politicians and their followers say in public make me just as sad and furious. This won’t help.

The fact that most of the perpetrators grew up in Europe, and became what they are right next door, desperate about our own latent (or not so latent) xenophobia, makes it so much worse.

Cross Stitch Mini Sampler

Sorry for my long absence, I was so busy at my day job. For almost mindless stitching, I added a cross stitch section to one of my sampler bands.
The cross stitch alphabets came from an old DMC publication, which you can download here.
The rest of the design just happened, the back stitch letters are my own.
SK are my real life initials. The saying, two lines of a song by The Tremeloes was, at that moment, about all the things you experience when working with people.

The piece was stitched on an almost evenweave dress linen, about 26 threads/13 crosses per inch using 2 strands of Anchor floss for the cross stitches and #12 pearl cotton by DMC for the back stitching.

By the way, I think it is funny how much you read about cross stitch in embroidery blogs recently. Are these the beginnings of a trend or something?

Stitch Sunday – Break, in Order to Do it Better

Well, during the last weeks, I felt my Stitch Sunday post are becoming uninspiring. I still have enough ideas, the chain stitch family I’ve been at is almost inexhaustible, but I feel I need to order my thoughts and write a more useful program. So I’ll take my time to do this, and then resume stitch Sunday posts.
Well, at least I have done some leisure stitching that helped me relax after work, so you’ll get to see some eye candy soon.

Stitch Sunday 14 – Rope Stitch

OK, strictly speaking, this is not a new stitch, since it is done just like twisted chain stitch. but it looks dramatically different and is called a different stitch in all stitch dictionaries that describe it.

Start with doing one ordinary twisted chain stitch. The spike should be only only to four threads away from the line on which you insert the needle. For the next stitch, start the stitch just next to the place where you started the first one. Do that until you are satisfied with the length of the part that sticks out. These threads should completely cover the rest of the stich to form a smooth, ropelike structure. Now go on, but leave the same stretch between the beginning of two stitches as you go forward with the needle between stitches. When you are getting near to the end of a row, make your stitches ever shorter until you end with a normal twisted chain stitch. This stitch can as well be seen as a form of self-padding satin stitch.

I think you have already seen the next pic, but it shows two rows of rope stitch nicely, above and below the wild fly stitches.

Stitch Sunday 13 – Beaded Fringe

I know I’m late again – SORRY.
Today is stitch Sunday 13, so I’m continuing beyond the promised 12 stitches. To celebrate this, I show you something special – a quick hack to create a beaded fringe in the middle of a piece of fabric and really have it hang, not stick out.I hoe the pics are not too hard to see, the needle had to be small for this. I am using a small darner not a beading needle because it has a bigger eye, bends less and is still small enough to go through the beads with ease.

First, do a row of chain stitch where the fringe is supposed to be. The chain links should be about as big as one of the beads, may be a bit bigger. Use a nice pearl cotton, not the beading thread. Next, secure the beading thread on the back, I am using variegated quilting cotton and translucent, iridescent seed beads. Bring the needle to the front side just left and above the first chain link. Slide the needle under the first chain link and pull through.

Next, put the desired number of beads onto the thread.

to form the fringe, put the needle back through the beads exept the last one and slide it under the same chain link as before without piercing the fabric.

At last, slide the needle under the next chain link going from top to bottom, like in step 1, repeat.

Wordless Wednesday – Robin

Stitch (not really) Sunday 12 – Twisted Chain Stitch

I Know it is no longer Sunday, and hasn’t been for like 10 hours. Does the blood moon count as an excuse? Yes, I set my alarm to 3:45 a.m and watched it go completely red. My camera was not built for such an occasion, so I stopped bothering with it after a few minutes and just enjoyed.

Anyways, this won’t be another week without a new stitch. Well, twisted chain stitch probably isn’t exactly new to most of you, but it fits in here so well. This is one of the few chain stitch variants that are best done with a sewing action, like the regular chain stitch.

See the first picture for how to do the stitch. It is like a chain stitch, but open and twisted. next, just do stitch after stitch like with regular chain stitch.

The next Picture shows you how to hide loose end in chain stitches – leave the thread en on the front side. Secure the beginning of the new thread on the back, then come out with the needle where the thread end hangs, be careful not to pierce it. Pull the new thread through. Go to the back side of the work and pull the last stitch with the old thread out, so that the end is brought to the back side, and secure it. You are ready to resume stitching.

Of course, you can also do thestitch with the open part in altnating directions. If you make the stitches longer, make sure they are somewhat slanted to give the stitches stability.

Wordless Wednesday – The Fruits of Fall

Stitch Sunday – Break

I am sorry, this has to be a break week again. I still have too many stitching projects, a lot of work at my day job and I need to knit something.