Not quite cheating! TIF October challenge. Some new books

This is not quite what I intended to do for my answer to the October challenge - how does my workspace affect me? I have had a busy month and had hoped to finish my star that is intended for a Christmas box and then get onto my TIF embroidery. Very early in the month I knew exactly what I was going to do - just how I was going to do it took a little longer to decide. However by the end of last week I knew exactly what and how I would stitch it. Unfortunately life got in the way and I have only just completed this piece. I was beginning to feel quite sad about the prospect of ever managing to do the challenge for October as November is just around the corner - my daughter arrives for a visit tomorrow and then I will be out of commission for the fair part of next month. Suddenly it occurred to me that the feeling of this piece was exactly the same as the feeling I get whenever I settle down in "my" space to stitch.

So here is my offering for October, with no apologies. My Christmas star imparts the feeling of peace and joy I get working in my workroom. I have a rather good sized room at the back of the house. When we were looking to buy it was important that we found somewhere for my loom which occupies more than a four foot cube. The loom and sewing machine area is at one end; there are bookshelves along the back wall (so the loom room serves also as a library ) and at the other end there is a comfortable chair (a nice place to relax and stitch or just think) , a very big coffee table and a high smallish work table where I can sit and stitch or use my laptop. What more could anyone want? Nonetheless, I have to admit I seem to be forever looking for somewhere more for storage for all the odds and ends that one accumulates almost without realising. I will do another post with some photos of the loom and the workspace.

This piece goes back to my first Sumptuous Surfaces embroidery last year - I used only French knots, whipped stem stitch and , in this one, pulled herringbone instead of pulled cretan, as well as the beads and sequins. Unfortunately much of the sparkle does not show up in the scan. The pulled thread work is done using Moonshine, a very fine acrylic weaving thread with a lovely pearlised finish. Neither it or the pearls have any gleam in the image above.

Now I am cheating - I won't put pulled herringbone on my pulled thread sampler that I am stitching for the stitchalong but will certainly cross it off the list of stitches (otherwise I will never see the end of that list - it would help if I didn't keep finding stitches I want to try that are not actually listed!). It does make an effective background and I like the fine thread especially.

I have acquired two new (to me) stitching books by Edith John - Needleweaving and Filling Stitches - both in mint condition and published in 1967. I love her books and suggestions for stitches. Also I got a new copy of Patricia Bage's Beginner's Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery. This one came from Amazon, sight unseen - not my preferred method of buying books. I was slightly disappointed as one of the reviews said there was contemporary work but it appears to me that the only contemporary idea was using colour as well as white and natural fabric and threads. Maybe I am unfair as I really know nothing about drawn thread work and she certainly gives me a good grounding in how to work the stitches. However I would love to have had access to drawn thread used in a contemporary fashion - some people are never satisfied!