Adding Texture With Hand Stitch and Revamping the Group Of Eight's Blog...

Last week I posted about some inspiration I got from some wonderful threads my friend Heather gave me. Well, it would seem other art has been set aside and this has been my focus for the last couple of days.  I designed and pieced the components of this new piece, yet to be named, and I've been adding some texture with hand stitch.  I'm really enjoying using the Sorbello stitch (thanks again to Heather for teaching it to me!). I'm also adding other hand stitch to various areas before I move back to the machine to add some dense quilting.  I'm still amazed that this all started because my friend gave me a pretty skein of interesting thread! (Leah, I believe this is what you'd call a squirrel. LOL)

But, prior to working on this piece, the weekend was spent revamping the Group of Eight Fibre Artists blog.  Please pop by to see the new format, learn more about our fibre art group  and 'meet' the other artists in the group.  There are a few artists I'm still working with to get photos taken of their work, but most of the galleries are ready for viewing!

I'm linking to WIP Wednesday at Needle And Thread Network.

TUSAL (Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long)

My ORTs jar started off with threads that I had in
a bin beside by my chair in the family room.

Thanks to my new cyber friend, Connie, I've joined the "Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long" for 2012. Check it out at Daffycat.  The object of TUSAL is to collect all your bits of thread (also known as ORTs - Old Tattered Threads) from your stitching for a whole year.  It's a totally easy idea that won't require me to do anything I'm not already doing, except that now I'll put the threads into a glass jar and photograph it once in a while. I've got an old fashioned candy jar that I'll use to collect my threads.  It will be a real challenge not to dip into the thread stash to make some funky greeting cards, but I'll do my best to stay out of it.  It'll be really interesting to see how much thread collects in a year.   Since I've already got some thread collected I've decided to get a head start (there's no prize for having the most,  so it's not cheating :D don't worry.)

My ORTs jar in it's new place of honour in my studio.