Tuesday Stitchers import: a little bit of everything

Hi, friends!
I apologize for missing my posting times last weekend and the weekend before-- I was traveling. I thought that I would be able to get internet access at some point during that time, but it didn't turn out that way.

Back home now, back to my own keyboard! Yay!

 I also thought that I would get a lot of stitching time while I was traveling. It didn't work out that way either! Ack.

 My mind has been on other things. My bunny, dear companion for the past six years, got diagnosed with bone cancer. Trying to coordinate his treatment plan with my vet (who was boarding him for me, thank goodness!) while I was traveling was an interesting experience. So now we're hoping for the best, monitoring his day-to-day status, and preparing for the eventual (but hopefully later, not sooner).

Enough of that! My grandmother is doing well, at least! :) So here's what I managed in my stitching:

I finished the bullion bumblebee on Shelly's RR block. 

I gave him irridescent tatted wings. :) They turned out really great! A lot of metallic and shimmer threads are very difficult to tat with because either they are too thin and/or fragile, or because they are shimmer wrapped around a core and the loop-closing process shreds the threads. This irridescent was, I believe, one of the Kreinik braided threads sold for embroidery. It works suprisingly well!

And I sent the block off in the mail for the next stitcher to work on. Also received the next RR block to start working on. :)

I had three birthday swap projects to finish up and mail while traveling:

a postcard for Melody

I forgot to take my own picture before putting it into the mail. Fortunately, Melody took this delightful picture, so I have something for my records and to share! I actually thought that I had forgotten to write the address on the back of the postcard, so I am absolutely delighted that it even got where it was supposed to!

an Artist Trading Card (ATC) for Judy

There's a little bit of everything in this one-- crossed chain, u&d buttonhole, herringbone, some tatting, whipped wheel on pistil stitch spokes, and finally some cast-on stitches! Several of the fabricss I used for this one came from my grandmother's scrap-and-quilt stash. Let's just say that my grandmother and I have very different color sensibilities! She seems to have loved yellowish browns, acid greens, oranges, and all of those colors put together. The 1970s were kind to her, I think!

It was a bit of a challenge working in this colorway for me, and I'm not sure how I feel about the red and blue as accents against the orange and green. hmm.

This one was especially interesting to stitch on this week because I did the finishing work (backing and binding) before I traveled, and before I did most of the stitching. Fortunately, I'm a fan of the scoop method, so it worked out pretty well for me.

ATC for Marja

The background fabric is a handwoven leftover from a university project back in 2003. Since my collection of threads was pared down for travel, I opted for a simple triad of red, yellow, and blue for the colorway, and relied upon the stitches for textural interest. There is a rose made of cast-on stitches, a tatted flower made with a modified tatting technique that I worked out while travelling, a crocheted daisy tacked on with a star center, and a whole bunch of French knots. 

This one and the postcard were still raw-edged, so I had to pick up some background fabric on the go, and do the finishing work by hand.

I guess that's where September went! When I get a chance to look at the pictures as I'm typing about them, I realize that I did a lot more stitching than I give myself credit for. Especially when you consider the handwork that doesn't really show (like stitching the border around the pc and the atc by hand).

I did get a wee bit done on my peacock CQJP, but am still very far behind, and unlikely to get much finished in the next two days.

I played a bit with a couple of knotted Basque stitch variations. They were more interesting to do than to look at, I think.

I did some more tatting and added it to the block. Tatting turns out to be a pretty easy thing to do on an airplane. It's small and it doesn't take large arm movements (that might annoy the stranger sharing the armrest), so that's what I did instead of stitching during the flight.

I created this unique little combo-stitch that I like quite a lot! It's a fern stitch of four legs spaced very close together, anchored by a pistil stitch. I think it looks like little chicken footprints. A very odd, alien chicken, maybe. I think it would be very nice with a bugle bead or a seed-bead combo on the long float of the pistil stitch. :) Must try that out now that I am back home with access to my beads again!

and my crowning glory seam treatment for this week:

..
Now THIS is more like my colorway! Heh. The picture washes it out a bit and doesn't show the sparkle of the metallic, but I think you get the idea. This color combo could probably serve as emergency lighting in a power outage. ;)
I started with a base of fern stitch in metallic purple. Then I remembered that I still wanted to do a decent exploration of cast-on stitch. I added a row of fuschia cast-ons, and then came back and added a row of smaller orange cast-ons to overlap them. So cool! I really liked how that turned out. As if that wasn't bright enough already, I added the bright yellow pistil stitch accents.
I love it.
I really really love it.
It makes my heart sing. :)

Well, that's what happened to September.