Goldwork in progress proper

Here's the viola in the hoop and a start made on the stitching. The photo isn't clear (as is to be expected when having to take it in artificial lighting, it doesn't seem to be get very light today), but you might be able to see that I've done the foreground outline in gold twist thread and the outline of the back of the instrument in Kreinik #7 Japan thread in copper. The small bit on the left went rather bad, so I'll be taking that out and re-doing it. I've also just noticed that an angle in the copper outlining on the right hand side doesn't match the gold. Grrrr! Perfectionist, me? Not that you'd notice - if you were blind!!!!=)

I plan to do around the scroll, fingerboard and tailpiece in the pearl purl that came with the kit and was originally meant to go in these places, just putting the scroll detail in in finer Jap thread. The f holes I'll do in Jap thread too and the chinrest I'll probably fill in with Jap thread, kind of in or nue style, but I'm not sure about this yet. I could even be persuaded to do this in kid leather, but I may leave it almost to last. The big issue is how to get the bridge higher than the pearl purl will be so that the strings will look right and not go upwards when they get to the edge of the fingerboard. Sometimes it's easier not to feel such a commitment to getting the details right!=)LOL!

It's absolutely slinging it down here in Taipei and the Gov't issued a cold weather warning on Sunday as temperatures dropped to just under 5C overnight in the very north of the island. That may not be cold for those who have -20C to deal with in the winter, but this is a sub-tropical island with the southern third fully tropical and there is no heating installed in the vast majority of buildings. I just read that about 10000 fish died in Changhua county thanks to the cold! Our two heaters are doing sterling work and we're OK and even getting our washing dried, but it's a bit boring having to waste the whole week's holiday stuck indoors! Nothing much to do but read, study, stitch, watch DVDs and listen to music. We've just braved the rain to get some groceries in, but the local supermarket is v low on fresh produce given that it's still officially New Year's holidays. Thankfully, I stocked up well before the break.=) So, plenty of chance to get on with my embroidery, but I doubt I'll do anymore on this viola today. I'm really dopey at the mo, would prefer to work on the mouse for a bit and, frankly, I forget how monotonous goldwork can be!!!

A bit stumped

No, not with stumpwork, but with the goldwork. First though, thanks to Carol-Anne for the idea on getting the crease out - sounds like a plan!

I'm not at all sure how to re-plan the design beyond the outline. I'd like to have some filled in areas as the original does, but, as you can see from the photo above, gold is not just one colour! The gold kid leather is really a very different shade from the regular goldwork threads' shade and there are Kreinik and Anchor threads to both match and fill in any gaps! The piece of gold kid leather I have is very much a green-ish gold whilst the rest of the goldwork threads are getting towards the orange shade, (with the copper threads showing up the real red gold). The Japan threads in the middle are a great yellow gold and then there are greenish and white-ish shades on the right of the photo. So, I need colours that co-ordinate well and, as I want to use copper for the 'back elevation', I really need to be looking at the orange-gold selection, saving one of the whiter shades for the strings. I just don't know enough about goldwork to plan ahead with confidence and have no good references with me. So, I'm still far from ready to set off with this one!=(

I've done a bit more on the little mouse though - put in his tail and the flora around him, part of it for the second time.

My blog hits have really gone up over the last couple of months, so many thanks to all visitors and those who have been kind enough to list me as 'worth a visit' on their blogs and other sites recently. I need to live up to that, don't I??=)LOL! Well, I've just been visiting the blogs of several ladies who list 'stumpwork' and/or 'goldwork' on their Blogger profiles in the hope of finding some new eye candy, but I find that there's a world of difference between being interested in something and actually blogging about it!! Can't really complain as there are any number of interests on my profile list that I don't blog about much, if at all!

Re-designing a goldwork kit

This afternoon and evening (in 2 sessions), I made a start on the Benton & Johnson Goldwork String Instrument kit that I'd brought with me. I remember buying this one as part of a real retail therapy session - serious comfort shopping - during the time I was horribly unhappy doing my old teaching job, along with several others. I spent as much at that one stitching show as I would normally do at two or three - a whole year's worth!!

This is the original design of the kit, although the one I bought came with black silk as a background fabric, which is what I wanted.

Anyone who knows much about modern string instruments would see at a glance that this design is far from accurate and, whilst I'm no expert player (yet!!!LOL), I do actually own a viola and so I always intended brushing this design up a bit. Well, a lot actually!! I know it's meant to be a generic sort of stringed instrument, but I wanted my own instrument represented in goldwork, so it needed a chinrest for a start. The body shape also needed refining and the pegs needed to match the strings - 4 strings (very badly placed strings at that) and 6 pegs, since when?? Recently, via the Pin Tangle blog, I came across a blog posting by Kirsty on the 'Feeling Stitchy' team on how to turn a photo into an embroidery outline and so I followed that wonderfully simple and effective process as follows.

Find the photo you want to stitch from. This is one I found via Google images of a viola, complete with chinrest (some are pictured without, some folk even play without one, but I'm not up for that!).

Using Photoshop Elements' 'Filter' tab, select the 'Sketch' type and then pick the one that best suits your needs from the list given. The tutorial I read said 'Pencil Sketch', but my version doesn't have that, but the 'Photocopy' option worked beautifully and, after increasing the contrast to make the outlines really stand out, I was left with this image:

Print it out at the relevant size, take a tracing from it and transfer the design to your background fabric in your preferred way (mine is good old dressmaker's carbon paper in white for dark backgrounds, although yellow would have been good too), the results of which you can see below.

That's it, ready for stitching and not needing to go to all the fuss of drawing it out myself.=) This really is a good method, try it and see for yourself some time.

To my delight, I found that I'd actually brought some of my goldwork threads with me - 3 colours of Bright Check (chips) and a thing of Twist, as well as the Kreinik Japans and other Kreinik cord type metallics, so I can adapt the threads and actual working of the design as well. Haven't got that far yet, will work up a stitching plan tomorrow, but the design is on the silk, which is tacked to the backing fabric ready to go in the hoop for working.=)

Sometimes kits provide the needed inspiration and materials and you can do the rest yourself. Oh, if anyone knows how to get the strong packing crease out of the middle of the fabric, please let me know ASAP!

Last night I added yet more eye candy to my blog sidebar in the shape of some of the 2007 finishes. Putting them all on would have meant that it was ridiculously long, so I dropped some of the cards and monograms. In time, I'll merge all the three years' worth of finishes into a single 'Gallery' bar, but not until I've got something to show for this year. The needlecase isn't considered a finish proper until it's made up. Many, many thanks to Margaret of NZ for kindly offering to send me the needed doctor's flannel (which I didn't see anything like whilst out at the fabric market last Friday), and also to Nic for offering to send more novels. If the postage hadn't made me feel uncomfy, I would have accepted this last offer too, but I just wanted to publically thank you wonderfully kind and generous ladies.=) Mwah! xxx

Editted to add in credits for the transformation method, Friday 11:43 am

Hardanger stitchery complete

Finally got the hardanger stitching done on the needlecase. All I need to do now is get some doctors' flannel type cloth (which I rather stupidly didn't bring with me, considering I knew I was going to stitch this and have brought all the stuff I (thought I) needed for several other pieces), and I hope to find something that will answer on Friday at the Yongle market, which is the place that sells all the fabrics etc. I'm planning on going there with an English friend I first met in Dublin, but have caught up with again here, of all places!!

Made a boo-boo with the lower part of the cross stitch in that the most southerly blackberry and leaf were stitched one hole too far north, an occupational hazard with evenweave fabrics! Anyway, I've done most of the first mouse and the plant life is un-picked and ready to be re-stitched, when I finally get back on with this one.

I also got some tracing paper at last, thanks to DH's electronic dictionary helping me find the Chinese for it, and am now more or less equipped to get on with the other projects I mentioned before - the Brazilian roses and the goldwork viola.

I got through Burney's 'The Wanderer' in record time (good book, that, give it a try some time, if you don't mind 18th century lingo and nearly 900 pages to wade through), and am now out of novels. Well, I would be had my English chum here not given me hers the other day!! She also assures me there are English books in the local libraries, so I plan on calling in and registering with the local branch pretty soon, if not faster.