DOODLES

For Week 5 I ended up just doodling. Shouldn't say just doodling, for every doodle is a learning experience; some are just more aesthetic than others.
I began with a piece I started earlier when we were practicing the guilloche stitch. I wanted to play with different post combinations. I never went back to it because I hated the linen and the
stitches turned out bigger than I wanted to pursue. I returned to this sampler to study shapes
and tried filling the negative space with different things. I have a difficult working on this fine a count, and if I want to do a nice job I have to use magnification. I've tried different magnifiers, but all are awkward, so I'm going to convince my opthamologist to create a pair of stitching glasses for me.
The second doodle is on a 25 ct lugana. I was pleased with the look of the close spaced cretan stitch. I found that if I wanted to keep the knotted line even, it was best to work with a drawn line first. I like this stitch even when it is a bit rugged, wherein the center line and the length of the stitches aren't quite even.
Last doodle is on a piece of wool that I fulled in the washing machine. It looks dirty because I must have thrown it in with darker fabrics that added their lint to it. I'll have to remember to try treating it with one of those masking tape rollers or shaving it when I get around to buying a cheap electric razor just for that purpose. I played with fronds until the rayon thread became to unruly for my patience level. I wanted to see how the close spaced cretan would do as a tree trunk (didn't care for it). Then I wanted to try the up and down cretan for grass. I used 3 layers of stitching with different colors, but I think it needs more experimentation to work. I also tried a small area with 2 strands of different color.
Week 5 gave me lots new to use and even more ideas to try. I'm only sorry for not having prettier homework to show.

ANOTHER NEW TOY!!!!!

This just in from a knitting list. A design tool for generating stripes which allows you to pick your colors and stripe size and, well, another toy to play with. All these gadgets are bringing new meaning to Tool Time! The stripe maker is so cool. You enter as many colors and as many stripe widths for as many rows as you want, and if you don't like the arrangement, simply refresh the page and a new version will pop up. You can also save your versions.

DENSITY AND DIFFUSION

Here's another sampler I did for Week 4. I did some dense line stitching on the bias and then tried to diffuse or lighten the stitching in two of the corners. This is not supposed to be anything. It needs a border. The colors do not show up well in this picture; they are prettier on the cloth
(25 ct Lugana), trust me, and I see some of the stitches disappear into the background, so some of the detail is lost. I deliberately used tone on tone in the lower right as part of the illusion of fading.

I have really come to appreciate the knotted stitches and am happy to be adding them to my repetoire. I love the additional texture they provide. BTW, the focal bead (I had originally sketched in more to bring curves to my diagonal lines, but they were too heavy and too much for such a small piece
--pc size) also reads copper depending on which way it captures the light. You can see where the other beads might have gone. In the soft aqua bulge I substituted a spiral of feathered yarn.
Above that in the teal section is a cluster of French knots. They are done in 3 different fibers, but you just can't see them in this picture. On the upper side (I started stitching on the center diagonal and did one half at a time) I used a heavy boucle yarn to put space between the solid lines. I've reached the conclusion orientation is everything. I don't like the horizontal presentation anymore...

SAMPLER THROUGH LESSON 4

Stitching is complete on this sampler which takes me through the fourth week. I still plan to add seed beads here and there , nothing garish, just occasional highlights. The mirrored fly stitch in the 4th band reminds me of a school of Escher fish, so they're just going to have to have seed bead eyes, maybe something sparkly on the fins.

The last five rows of the sampler are the ones added this past week.
There's arrow or zigzag with 3 strands of color, the feather stitch variation that I truly love, always so graceful, here making me think of pine boughs. Next is ribbon couched with chevron , the a row of knotted fly, and finally 2 interlocked rows of knotted buttonhole,
the centers definitely needing beads.

I will probably add to the border eventually. This is a sampler in the true sense that I used it to practice stitches and combos.
I did not keep accurate thread counts or plan a row, just guestimated the spacing. Still I like it with its imperfections enough to want to give it a finished look.