CQJP (Crazy Quilt Journal Project) and TAST

I actually do have my block for the month completed. Here is a sneak peak at the upper left corner. I had worked on some larger silk ribbon flowers for this block, but I found them to be too large. I posted a tutorial for them recently on this blog. They will be used on some future project. I stitched these little silk ribbon flowers onto my block instead. This block will be for the January Garnet which is why I used the deep red. The ecru colored dragonflies were purchased on Etsy. They blended with the background as much as the chain stitch you see along side them. In order to make them more visible I added some metallic DMC thread in a silver/black tone, weaving it through the wings and looping it over the body.


Below is my TAST tag for the week. It is called the Whipped Wheel but I have also seen it referred to as the Whipped Spider Wheel. The wheels with six spokes does have kind of a 'spider' look to it. I used some bright floss on this tag. I am enjoying playing with different color combinations each week almost as much as I am enjoying experimenting with and/or learning a new stitch each week.


Somehow I got started doing a tree on each tag using the new stitch for the week. I know some weeks are going to be a real challenge, but that is what also makes it fun. For this one I was going to do stacking wheels that progressively got smaller but then I read that you can do a partial wheel in this stitch so here is my tree.
I have done 11 tags so far and only one does not have a tree on it. The second week we did the buttonhole stitch and I plan to go back and add a tree to it. That should be an easy one to accomplish. Maybe I will do a composite of all my trees at the end of the year.