Vashon family

Lacking the energy to post, I’m barely doing any stitching. Still in recovery mode, at least, I hope I’m recovering.

I have spent a little time with my family members, in between periods of seclusion.

I took them separately out to dinner.

Geoff and Carol

Caleb and Lauryth

Nan

In a short visit with great-granddaughter Beau, I got this video:

Beau as helicopter

Granddaughter Zoe is living in Seattle now and I haven’t seen her in months.

All for now.

Satin stitch and French knots

Continuing my effort to keep up with TAST (read all about Take a Stitch Tuesday here), I have used satin stitch and French knots to embellish a CQ block I’ve been working on for a while. Here are French knots inside fly stitches and atop detached chain stitches.

Below are French knots with satin stitch leaves.

The work-in-progress so far:

Catching up with TAST

Here’s the sampler I worked as a CQ block, using TAST stitches.

I’ve used fly, buttonhole, feather, Cretan, herringbone, chevron, detached chain, chain, couching, running, whipped wheel, barred chain, and stem. The only missing stitch is satin. The orange beads aren’t really orange; they are slightly beige.

At my Flickr page, I’ve identified all the stitches on the image.

It feels good to be able to work again.

Delectable fabrics

In December, still hyperactive and manic, I signed up for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project, as well as TAST. I was hoping these challenges would help me settle down and get back to stitching.While in that manic state, I began to think about ideas for a quilt made of the 12 blocks for CQJP. I wanted to have an idea for the whole, not just make isolated blocks. Cézanne came to mind. I love the palette of his landscape and still life paintings and decided I would try working with his colors.

After looking at lots of his paintings in my books, I chose two as the basis for my CQJP color scheme.

Going through my stash, I began collecting possible materials and noting what I needed to buy. I did some block designs in pencil.

Then in January, I crashed. The ADHD was gone, and so was all my energy. I was incapacitated. That brought a time-out for five weeks of solitude and silence and by March I was feeling much better. But wouldn’t you know? I did too much and have had to put myself back into retreat and rest mode.

Consequently, I have not been able to keep up with TAST, nor have I even been able to complete the January block for CQJP. But at least I’m not manic anymore, and I continue to hope I’ll get back to stitching.

Recently, Susan Elliott posted about Delectable Mountain Cloth in her blog, Plays With Needles. There I learned about the small piece assortments of silk fabrics DMC offers. Susan shows wonderful photographs of the small pieces she had received. I sent DMC an e-mail with scans of the two paintings attached, asking whether they could provide an assortment with any of the colors shown.

Yesterday I received in the mail a package from  DMC. The $20.00 assortment came in a plastic baggie weighing six ounces.

Now six ounces is a lot of silk pieces. They were folded over in the baggie. When spread out, they look like this:

That’s not all of them. There’s more underneath. Gorgeous fabrics.

I sorted them into color families. Here are the earthy ochres and sandy tones, the blues, and the yellows.

Here are the reds and greens.

And then there are some uncategorizable mixes. Unfortunately, some of the colors of the brocades washed out in the camera flash.

If you go back to the Cézanne paintings, you will see that I have his palette in silk fabrics.

Still lacking in energy, still resting a lot, I haven’t even been able to conceive of designs or plans. I’m hoping that’s going to change. Now I am hoping these beautiful fabrics will inspire me to get to work.

New couching

When I scattered fly stitches in three colors all over the appliquéd ground, I saw that this would be a good background for something. I just didn’t know what. Well, I have finally used couching to put something over the fly stitches–for TAST Week 9.

You can’t tell from the photo that these strands of plastic beads are highly reflective. They appear luminescent, reflecting the colors of the stitching.

I think this little sampler could become part of a CQ block.

Maybe I’ll get there.

At present I am still mostly in seclusion and needing to lie down, eyes closed, several times a day. I’m not doing much, but I’m feeling much, much better.

Couching

After 28 days in silent retreat, I am feeling better but not yet recovered. I’m still spending 13/24 hours lying down, eyes closed. Unable to stitch, I haven’t kept up with TAST or CQJP.

This vermicelli couching is on a crazy patchwork pillow cover I made some years ago. Usually done with metal threads couched with silk, here I worked it with Kreinik copper metallic braid couched with a single strand of dark blue cotton floss. Can’t get a good photograph because of the metallic thread.

Couching is the stitch of the week for TAST.

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After 30 months of frenetic activity and enormous changes in my life, I am back where I was three years ago–14 to 15 hours a day lying down, in silence (I mean silence) and solitude.