A Finish

After a period of inactivity - a very pleasurable family visit followed by a nasty cold resulted in no stitching in this house for more than three weeks - I have spent my spare moments this week with my Gum Trees. Sadly the colours I have chosen are not easy to photograph and the effect in reality is slightly different.

I found this very enjoyable despite some stitching that needed unstitching - a small price to pay for designing on the run. This is where I decided to stop ( always a difficult decision to make, I have found).

I think I have followed Sharon's Sumptuous Surfaces guidelines despite the low level texture in the finished piece. That class was so good and I learnt so much - I keep hoping she will offer Sumptuous Surfaces 102 some day soon - hint hint.

There are only four stitches used - satin stitch, stem stitch, wave stitch and foursided stitch and the thread is all cotton perle , #8 and #12. I deliberately changed the size of the 4 sided stitch in the leaves in a couple of places - not sure whether to leave it or try again - this show up only in the enlarged version.

Stitch Explorer Challenge for March and Cruel Crewel!

Well, I am not finished by the end of the month but very close to the 15th April when Sharon announces the next challenge . In January I decided I was unable to participate every month as I needed more time to complete other projects – however this was one challenge I could not resist!

I find the ‘design as I go’ method that I use for this style of embroidery much more satisfying than design for a crossstitch biscornu I have been stitching each weekday. (Work on this piece has been restricted to Saturdays ) I can’t design crossstitch the same way, especially for a biscornu, and I have found work on it quite constricting in comparison.

I discovered while stitching Ziggy’s surrounds that I can control my buttonhole stitches much better without a hoop – previously I had realised stem stitch was always more even when I held the fabric in my hand but was surprised to discover the smae applied for buttonhole circles as well. Then I decided to try the wrapped wheels and guess what! The same result!

The fabric is 32 count linen - a dream of a fabric. The threads used are all cotton either, Finca perle #8 and # 12 or DMC stranded floss with just a touch of one Light Effects thread. I think I am in a cotton rut but I do enjoy the feel of the thread and have quite a good selection of colours.

The stitches are pulled satin, fairly random, wrapped wheels, buttonhole, bullion, and French knots as well as the original stem stitch, pulled Chinese stitch and pulled eyelets - a slightly enlarged stitch vocabulary for me. Now I need to decide how to stitch the nose and eyes.

My crewel-style fishes are creeping along – I save these for lazy Sunday afternoons. I admit to being amazed that I have managed to stick to this timetable but my weekend embroidery is the carrot at the end of the stick. "Crewel style" is a very loose definition for what I have been doing. The thread is cotton floss, DMC, once again and the fabric is a silk/wool dressmaking remnant, very slubby - difficult for a not so skilled embroiderer and a penance after the previous day's work on linen. I think my next attempt might be with a firmer fabric and, perhaps, I could invest in woollen thread.

Drawn Thread - second try!

This time I used the centre of a piece from Effie Mitrofanis' Needleweaving and Embroidery: Embellished Treasures. The surface embroidery is slightly different. I really like the way she uses surface embroidery with needleweaving.

I have been having lots of trouble getting a half decent photograph of this and I am certainly still not happy with my camera work.

I finished the stitching nearly a week ago. I enjoyed the process very much and felt the needleweaving improved as I went along but as you can see there is a massive amount of room for improvement. Still, perhaps I only need about another dozen practice pieces before I might be happy! For the moment I am content to go back to Hardanger and sampler 2. Amazon sent me details of a new-to-me Hardanger book Hardanger Embroidery by Donatella Ciotti - I like the few illustrations given on the site and have added it to my wishlist.

A paperweight to be treasured

I am the very proud owner of one of Paula's exquisitely embroidered paperweights. Paula and Moo gave this to me for my birthday. It is so beautiful but unfortunately the photos do it justice - however I have taken them from a couple of different angles to try to show it off as best I can.

This is an embroidery that one wants to hold and examine closely for ages - it is covered in stitches -from the tiniest french knots and whipped spiders to the lovely encrusted whipped 'shells'. Neutral textured embroidery is so interesting - one is not distracted by colour, I guess. Paula gives a really good description of how she makes these on her blog.

We had a good catch-up on Friday morning - always lots of fun - lots of talk and show and tell!

Christmas Cushions

The cushions are finished and ready to be wrapped.

These are gifts for my three granddaughters and they are 6, 7 and 7 years old. They all love pink - however I decided that although I had embroidered with a preponderance of pink threads I needed to make the cushions in another colour.

Amazingly I managed to find some pale green gaberdine in my fabric stash (probably not surprising at all - there is so much fabric in that cupboard.

I am quite happy with the finished result . Thanks to Paula's instruction I lined the covers with carefully (?) quilted fabric - Warm and Natural wadding machine quilted onto some sheeting. I am grateful for Paula's advice as this made a big difference to the finished look of the embroidery on the cushions.

My Christmas stitching is almost finished Maybe I can manage to make one or two embroidered ornaments - I had great intentions to make a number of these for the tree this year but so far have stitched none. There is still a little time. Our tree will go up the week before Christmas when, hopefully, there will be plenty of volunteers for the job and all I have to do is sit and offer advice. Putting up the tree is never a problem but guess who gets to pack it all away in January!

My December TIF

Well this will be a record - I can write up my TIF effort by the 3rd of the month. Sharon has given the concept of generosity for the month's theme. Now December is a very busy time in this household - we have visitors as well as the big celebration of the year so I have decided that since the gods are smiling on me I will be grateful that I can finish the year on such a positive note!

What is even more wonderful is to complete the year with this concept and feel it has really come a full circle. You may remember that in January the theme was based on the idea of considering someone you look up to. My chosen person is the most generous person I know so this was the attribute I considered for that theme. At that time an outstretched hand seemed to me to be the most appropriate way to portray this attribute and I still like this symbol.



Also because it was January and my enthusiasm for the challenge was at its peak I even managed to produce a piece using the chosen colours for the month so, if I withdraw my generosity piece, I still have produced 12+ pieces for the year , despite my using a slightly mature piece for November.

I have enjoyed the year's challenge very much and want to participate in next year's exercise that Sharon is offering on relatively unknown embroidery styles and stitches. To what extent I will do so I am not sure at this stage. I have found the years exercises really made me think and certainly extended what I had learned from the Sumptuous Surfaces class both in how I approach a concept and my stitch vocabulary. However I now have a number of directions I want to explore in embroidery and, as well, I am really getting anxious to try the loom again and find out if I have forgotten how to weave or not.