TAST 140 Threaded Cable Chain

This is the last TAST for this year. Thank you very much Sharon of Pintangle for this series, it has certainly made me try a few new stitches.

The top row shows the normal Threaded Cable Chain.
In the second row I have made elongated chains and links.
In the third row I have threaded the link rather than the chain and then filled the chains with beads.

I like this stitch very much especially the richness of the third row.

I hope that Sharon will continue this series in the new year, meanwhile I have a lot of stitches to catch up on!

Amigurumi..

.. are definitely NOT my thing!

Here are the two that I have completed

Flutterby and Fish. Perfectly nice, nothing wrong with them but I did not enjoy making them one bit!

So I have one copy of this book

to give away. Thirty lovable little animals waiting to be crocheted and loved! If this is your thing then please leave a comment saying that you would like this book. Should more than one person want it then I shall ask Mr RNG to adjudicate. Happy to post anywhere.

Normal service will soon resume!

FNSI for November

Thank you once again Wendy for hosting a great evenings sewing.

I started in the afternoon with work on this little Amigurumi fish.

I am not enjoying doing these at all and will be glad when this one is finished!

My next pleasurable activity of the day was making my mincemeat ready for Christmas. A simple task of weighing and mixing with the delicious smells of spice and brandy.

Here it is ready for it's overnight soak - I put it all into jars this morning.

And so on to the evenings sewing and I was working on my Autumn crazy block.

Specifically I was adding the blackberries, leaves and flowers.

Not far to go on this one now and I am starting to think about sashing fabric to hold the blocks together.

You may have noticed a new button up there on the left of my blog. It is for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project for 2015 and I have committed to making an 8" crazy block a month next year! Well I do need a project to keep me focused. At the moment my plan is to base each block on a different colour or colour scheme for instance my first one will be black/grey/white. Other themes I am thinking of are pink and orange, purple with a hint of yellow and turquoise. Nothing to do with being my favourite colours of course!

Hope you all had a good evenings sewing.

TAST and the Death's-head Hawk-moth

The latest two TAST stitches from Pintangle are 138 and 139 Barb stitch and Beaded Barb stitch.

Here is my quick sample.

This is a simple stitch - just two back to back rows of buttonhole which are then whipped together - but with lots of possibilities for variations and decorating.

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Do you remember my pictures of the Death's-head Hawk-moth?

When she died, which they do at this time of year, we took her to a friend who had volunteered to set her out. Earlier this week we went to collect her and here she is in all her glory.

Beautifully boxed and labelled.

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We had a sudden storm last weekend and I managed to get some photographs.

This was during the storm with the promise of some sun to come afterwards.

And this one later across the valley looks like smoke from a huge fire!

I have been sewing too - some of it secret stuff though! I have finished this pincushion from the Gail Pan Christmas book which I can show you.

And there will soon be more pictures of my Autumn crazy block which is coming along nicely.

Have you been following the Sew Sisters Canada Blogathon? If not then do go and have a look. There are some fantastic fabric giveaways all of which can be shipped internationally and, of course, lots of lovely blogs to read and new people to meet.

And finally - tomorrow night is Friday Night Sew In!

There is still time to sign up - just pop over and see Wendy to do so.

See you there.

TAST 135/6/7

Managed to catch up with the latest TAST stitches this week.

First up is 135 - Beaded Fern stitch

 

Poor choice of thread colour and thickness on my part but I love the idea of this. Am finding Fern stitch useful and have used it on my Autumn block.

136/7 Knotted Buttonhole Band and Beaded Knotted Buttonhole Band.

Adding beads to the right hand side proved a challenge!! Both of these are lovely decorative stitches.

Linking up with Pintangle's TAST pages.

FNWF for November

It is a while since I joined in with FNWF but good to be back. Thank you Cheryl for hosting. You can see what everyone else got up to here - just click on a name and it will take you to their blog.

I have finally made a start on my autumn crazy block. Autumn has been slow arriving here (more about that later) and so inspiration was a bit slow to come.

I put the fabrics together some weeks ago but don't seem to have kept a photograph. I completely missed those parallel lines until I started on the sewing but hope they will not be so obvious once stitching is complete.I have now been working on the embroidery for about a week.

Last night I finished adding leaves to the large fern like plant and worked on the ivy.

 

I had a great evenings stitching - I hope everyone else did.

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We have had glorious weather all through September and October. Last weekend the weather changed and temperatures have been down to the teens and we have been lighting a fire every evening. But no frost and so the garden is still looking very green and lots of our summer flowers are still blooming and some spring flowering plants are flowering again!

This morning glory is looking good in the vegetable garden.

The pink shamrock is flowering beautifully again and the tobacco plant that I thought was dead is also flowering.

The fuchsias in the window boxes outside my (north facing) kitchen window are still flowering beautifully as is the lobelia in pots all around the house.

This is the best autumn colour we have had in the garden.

and it has looked splendid for several weeks now.

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It is not very often that I fall in love with a range of fabrics but when I saw Chrissie D's blog about a range of fabrics called Meadowlark I knew I would have to have some! They were released for sale in October and Sue from Passion4Quilting ordered some in. Here are the ones I chose.

I love the colours of these and especially the beautiful birds.

You can read Melanie's blog here.

I have no idea what I am going to do with these fabrics but I am sure inspiration will soon strike!

Hope you are all having a good weekend.