Retake: 'Ornamental Pool' piece

Fans of hers will immediately recognise Helen M Stevens' wonderful 'Ornamental Pool' design from the book 'Embroidered Gardens'.  I worked this for my in-laws for their 20th wedding anniversary, but never got a really good photo of the finished item.  We took the original pictures in over-bright sunlight and the end result wasn't as distinct as it could have been.  So, I took the chance whilst over at their place earlier this month of getting it down off the wall and getting some better photos for my own enjoyment.

As you can see, it had never been properly stretched as MIL did it herself rather than having a pro do it (which was both a shame for the finished result and good in that it was easier for Sir to remove the glass for photography!!), so there are some 'waves' showing in the fabric, esp. the top half.  However, try to ignore that and see if you don't love this masterful design as much as I did.=)

Here are some detail photos of various parts:

To be honest, the light was still a little too bright, but, for the first time that I can remember, I reduced the brightness on Photoshop Elements and then increased the contrast slightly and sharpened some shots a little.  Have you ever had to do this?

I'm quite pleased with the results and will have to remember to try that again when something looks rather bleached out.

By the way, have you updated your RSS reader links to Sew in Love?  I noticed on the last day of Google Reader's 'life' that I had 591 subscribers on there.  Imagine how desperately gutted I was to see only 124 when I checked on Feedly today...=(  So, don't forget to update your feeds so you can keep up to date with what's happening in my textiles world.  I'm hoping to make it well worth your while over the months to come, and feel free to make reader requests too as I'd like to know what you like to read and see.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Four Matching Bookmarks

So, what do you think of these?  Four assisi bookmarks worked to an identical pattern, but in four totally different colourways.  Two were for men and two for women - two couples.

There's quite a lot of variety in them, isn't there?  One thing that really struck me was the variation in size of the actual design, even though they were all worked on 16 count Aida band.  Perhaps it doesn't show as well here as it did to me in real life, but there was a good centimetre difference (just under half an inch) between the green/cream one and the red/white one.

Now that our busy month (including Sir's trip to Romania and our joint one to Germany) is behind us, I can now get down to some serious stitchery and blogging!  Stay tuned as my next post will be a photo tutorial showing how to put together one of these bookmarks once your stitching is complete.  It's a simple process, but might be helpful to some who are new to the idea or who aren't confident with finishing things up into completed items.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Assembling the stumpwork dragonfly

It's finally complete! The dragonfly is done and today I share with you how the last stages were done.

First I covered the last of the padding stitches with satin stitch in two strands, making the far left hand side considerably narrower to form the head.

Next I added two beads for the eyes.  I still feel these are a little large for the context (actually, the whole insect feels much too large for my comfort), but the ones supplied with the kit were even larger, so it could have been worse!

Following on from this stage was adding in the legs and one or two other parts in Kreinik Cord.  I used the grey-ish brown shade here.

I also added in one or two stitches in dark grey on the tail area in keeping with the real thing - as seen in my good old Brtitsh Wildlife book.=)

Last of all, the wings were attached using the method detailed in my tutorial on assembling a wired stumpwork flower.

And here is the whole finished item from two angles:

So, that's the last of the old DMC stumpwork kits worked up.  I'm glad it wasn't the first one I tried, or it might well have been the last!  The other four were far better.  The designs and instructions were superior and truer to life.  Yes, I know there can be a good deal of artistic license with stumpwork, but I personally feel that the scale inequalities and so on that are part and parcel of the traditional raised work style are more fitted to figurative work, i.e. pictures that look rather like 17th century pieces.  Many modern designs are much more realistic and that's the type of raised work I like best.

What's coming up next?  I've made a start on the first of four bookmarks that are to be gifts for my in-laws and another couple when we're in Germany next month.  They'll all be counted work, which will be nice for relaxation.=)  After that, I need to do two silver wedding cards, both of which will be 'gold' work and freestyle - probably silver hearts with various filling elements and also to finish Sir's anniversary present, which I wasn't able to get done in time to give him this morning.=(  The sampler is coming to Germany with me and I hope to make considerable progress on that there and then I can look at some fresh ideas.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Finished the Pink Baby Cardy

I finished the knitting part of the cardy yesterday morning and did the embroidery part today.  The buttons are a bit too big, to be honest, but they can be squeezed through the buttonholes eventually!!  I sewed them on with yellow pearl #5 thread in order to make a flower centre look.

Here's a close-up of the embroidered part.

The frustrating part now is that I had worked hard to get it done in time to take to my dentist tomorrow morning when I was to go for the second part of a treatment needing two sessions.  I got a call this morning to say she'd actually had the baby over the weekend (so I daresay a 0-3 months size would have been OK!!) and, not only does my poor tooth have to wait another fortnight to be sorted out fully (owww!), but I don't know how I'm meant to get the cardy to new mum!  I plan to drop it in at the surgery tomorrow and ask any of her colleagues who are going to visit to take it with them....

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

A sympathy card

My sister-in-law's father died from lung cancer recently, so I put together a small card for her.  Above you can see the materials including the design transferred onto white silk and mounted into the working hoop, and below you can see the Anchor pattern I took the design from.  It was originally a wedding ring cushion!

Below is the finished item (I took no WIP photos this time as it was a quick piece) with a few extras added in to 'pad it out' and the ribbon attached as well.

I'm part way through the last of my DMC stumpwork kits and will report on that soon.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

The Sunday Yarn - 31 March 2013

Here is my latest baby knit finish, very likely 'the last in the present series', i.e. until any other babes are in the offing!!

I put off and put off doing the neckline edge on this one as the pattern stated to do the whole thing on one, straight needle, but I couldn't see that being possible as it would stretch the small space at the button band dreadfully.  So, I bought a 60cm circular needle and used that instead.  It took a while to get used to it and it still stretched a lot (I should have used a 40cm one, it seems), but I managed it in the end and the whole things was finished late this last week.

Below is a close up showing the yarn and the knitted fabric more clearly.

So, I don't know when my next yarncrafts post will be, but I think the next project will be to make myself a warm wooly, esp as patterns using the thicker yarns seem to require about the same amount of stitches and rows as a baby cardy in double knitting!!  I need to get hold of suitable materials and take it from there.

I'm pleased with all that I've learned in knitting over the past six months and I feel that I've picked up some really valuable skills that I can use again later on for practical things.  Let's see how soon I can get back to it...

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Completed DMC Stumpwork Butterfly Kit

So, the DMC Butterfly stumpwork kit is finished!

It's a shame these kits were discontinued, even though the designs are nothing to write home about and some of the details in the insects etc shaky to say the least.  For instance, in this one, the butterfly wings were meant to be worked in padded satin stitch.  Padded satin stitch - for thin, delicate butterfly wings.  Hmmm!  The kits are fun and fairly simple to work - even though they say 'Advanced' on the box.

Here are all the wires for the wings couched onto the white fabric provided, which was first mounted in my tiny, 4" hoop - the smallest I have.  (Are smaller ones made, does anyone know?)

Above you can see the blue sections of the wings worked and below shows part way through adding in the brown edging.  From comparing the colours to my butterfly guide, I would say this was a Green Underside Blue butterfly!!

These are the finished wings, the edges done in white overcast stitch, all ready to be cut out and attached.  After they were, the piece looked like this:

Hope you've enjoyed seeing this one progress.  I just have one more of these kits to work - the dragonfly, and it's already out on my table to be started soon, although I have a card to do before that.

(PS Jules: This kit was sent to me as part of an old cross stitch newsgroup exchange game, it wasn't a magazine freebie.  I've never known a mag give away anything of this ilk!)

A tutorial is coming up for wired fabric elements for stumpwork, so look out for that on Friday, (this wasn't it...!)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

A ribbon card to share

A few years ago, in a fit of needing retail therapy whilst I was unhappy in a former job, I went to the Crafty Ribbons site and bought a few of their cut price, end of range kits, some of which I've already featured on blog. This was the last remaining one and the design left me feeling that I could really understand why it had been discontinued.  For one, the design isn't that exciting, but that's nothing compared to the poor choice of background colour - dark green and purple on black!  How they sold any is beyond me, but I got one and tried to make some improvements. 

Naturally, the very first thing was to dump the black background.  This is both an easy thing to do and made necessary by the fact that they always seemed to give you the very smallest scrap of fabric possible to work on - the sort of size you can't fit into a suitable hoop without troublesome mounting with other fabrics etc.  So, that's easy to lose.  I had another go at painting a background for it.  The first time I tried, I did the greens in too 'yellow' a tone and so the rather blue-ish colours went poorly with it.  This time I made sure the tones were all relatively blue themselves, even though they faded a lot more than I expected (again!) by the time they'd dried.

I also jigged around a tiny bit with the design, but I don't think I made any real improvements there, especially as I'm no expert in ribbon work and really only know one or two basic concepts.  What do you think of the finished item anyway?

I like this sideways on view as the light has captured the sparkly elements of the organza ribbon nicely, which is a photographic treat as one normally doesn't get to see such detail.

I've already got the next small stumpwork piece prepared in the hoop for embroidery, so look out for that starting soon!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Finished in February

(Incorporating this week's Work in Progress Wednesday and Sunday Yarn postings!)

These were the goals I set myself for February, complete with photos on progress etc:

* Finish the rabbit - done!  I finished this yesterday, on 28th, so it just qualifies for Anna Scott's Finished in Feb challenge (and I'll post the photos there soon too...)

This was how far I'd got at the beginning of the month:

And this is how it looks finished:

With a side-on shot to show clearly the raised elements:

I just need to decide what to do with it and who to give it to.  A Chinese friend has just been telling me how much she loves it and wants to see what it looks like in her room, 'wants that rabbit' etc, but I'm not quite soft enough to give in to that.  I'll decide who it goes to and, as I was taught never to ask for things, but always to wait until offered ("'I want' never gets" was one of my mum's favourite phrases!!), it won't go to anyone who tries to wangle it out of me!!=)  Besides, she was waggling away at the raised ear and, if it was in her possession, I'd give it a week before the wire was through, she'd be forever fiddling with it!  You know how some people just cannot seem to keep from playing with things like that?  Well, I won't be giving stumpwork pieces to them....

* Finish the feather I wish I could say this was done too, but it's only got this far after, I think, two sessions:

* Finish the peach baby knit  I'm almost done with this, coming up to 95%, and indeed would be done if only I hadn't felt that getting all the neck edge on one straight needle was going to be both uncomfortable to work and would over-stretch the button bands.  I'm going to get a circular needle to work it on.  Wouldn't you??

So, during the month, I finished the front as far as I could, did both the sleeves, then also did the button band and buttonhole bands.  

* Try some of the cabling pattern samples in the book  Didn't get to this.

* Try some miniature bedding ideas now I've got some fabrics for them  Didn't get to this either.

* Get to '50% complete' level on sampler  I think I did manage this one.  Here are the month beginning and end photos (nothing new as I haven't touched it since 12 Feb!):

* Make a start on one or two projects from the embroidery list - when first two on this list are done!  Didn't finish anything in time to start this.

* Continue CED challenge  Yup, keeping up, no problem.  Creativity is to found in so many areas that it's almost easier to do it than not!

* Report back on 1 March and continue to post regularly in the meantime.  Doing so right now and made 8 posts during the month.  Not too bad - an average of two per week.

I've decided not to set any goals for March as I'm feeling really weary after so many colds etc and I don't need the stress of feeling I have to do certain things at the mo.  I'll probably do them anyway, but I felt quite a lot of pressure to meet goals towards the end of last month and didn't have the energy to put much time in on them, so it was disappointing in the end.  So, I'll give myself a breather for now.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

The Sunday Yarn - 6 Jan 2013

And here, at last, we proudly display the last word on the lemon baby cardy.  I carefully pressed it (from the reverse, through a tea towel and onto a terry one), then attached the buttons.

Here's a close-up of the pretty buttons I got.  The contrast doesn't show up as well as I'd hoped it would (despite photo editing), as the buttons are a nice white colour.  Here they look lemon to match the knitting.

At times I found the knitting of this piece a bit relentless as it had no whole rows of any one stitch - everything was in pattern and, of course, being only 4-ply yarn, it took more stitches and a few more rows to knit than the other two have, being DK.  Having said that, I love the colour, the pattern and the texture and would seriously consider making a larger one for myself one day.  It would make a nice spring and summer cardy.=)

Today I can also show you the complete finish of the green set.  As you can see, I've finished it with light green buttons and matching ribbon in the mittens.

I thought the lemon knitted 'fabric' was fancy enough without stitchery and the buttons just added the finishing touch, but this one needed something, so I did this small embroidery on the cardigan front.  I didn't want to do as much stitchery as last time, so tried something a little different with the ribbon rose.  I don't like the effect as much, but it's given the eye a bit more of a focal point than just plain knitting.

As you can see, there wasn't any too much yarn left at the end!!  However, as the lemon pattern said I needed 3 balls to make the 6-12 months size and this is what was left of the 2nd, I'm not complaining!=)

I'm well on with the next piece already and will show you that next Sunday.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Completed 'Rolled Roses' Brazilian Embroidery

I'm delighted to announce the completion - and successful framing - of my long-in-progress Brazilian embroidery piece!  HURRAH!

Here are the last two WIP shots from last week.  The first one was what I got done during the rest of the Wednesday that you last saw pictures on and the second is, I think, from the next day's work.

After that, I just pressed on to completion and didn't take any more photos until the whole piece was done!  This afternoon, I stretched it in an 8" embroidery hoop after spraying with a clean water spray to wet the fabric.  It dried beautifully taut and ready for framing.

Last, but not least, I put it into one of those Anchor Flexi Hoop Frames (which I'll be detailing the process of soon, alongside some regular framing as Sir and I are doing a few of my pieces on Sunday afternoons together) and here is the completed item ready to be given as a gift to a lovely Japanese lady who put us up in her Oxford home last winter.  I promised to do an embroidery for her and I think she'll like this!

Do you?

So, that's my first Brazilian piece done.  How do I feel about it?  Well, I'm quite pleased with the finished results, but it was rather tricky to work some of it.  I'm not sure if I really enjoyed it in the final analysis and I can't really see myself ever working the larger kit I own - although I am interested in doing some small sections of it.  Jury's out on this one, I think!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

A Little Ribbon Embroidery

I've had a couple of Crafty Ribbons kits in my kit drawer for a while now and have been meaning to get them worked up.  However, when looking at the designs, I couldn't help but feel that the best hadn't been made of its potential.  This is the 'original', what do you think?  You get a small square of black fabric to work it on and, yes, it's plenty big enough for the design, but really nothing like big enough to put in a hoop.  In fact, although this is my fourth kit of this brand, I've never once used the fabric supplied in the package owing to its over small size.

I decided that the first thing to do was to create a new background and, as I had three small projects in mind that I wanted non-plain backgrounds for (including another kit by CR, the colour choices for which make me wonder how they could bring themselves to put it into production....), I decided to have a go at a bit of painting.  Below are the materials I thought I'd use, meaning to do natural, landscapey sorts of things with them.

And below again are the materials I actually used!!

This is what the piece of fabric with the three painted sections looked like when wet.  Notice that I wet the whole area I wanted to paint first so that the colours merged and spread out well on the fabric. 

And this is what it looked like dry - considerably lighter.  As you can see from the tubes of paint photo, I've used watercolours and I really should have remembered how much lighter they dry.  Having said that, I didn't really mind the change too much as I've made the mistake of having an over-poweringly painted background before.  I also learned that Sap Green' dries with quite a hard edge (as does Permanent Rose to a degree) - something to look out for another time.

The middle of the three was the one intended for this ribbon piece as I wanted to give the impression of a pot of flowers in a yard with a wall/fence (the brown-ish colour) and some greenery (the green spots dropped into the brown whilst still wet), on a paved area (the grey at the bottom).

The embroidery itself took around an hour and, as it was done in evening light and was a quick stitch, there are no WIP photos this time, but here's the finished piece, mounted in a card and looking a lot nicer, I think!

Do you agree?  I do like the general design and love the plant pot button - in fact I'm planning to get hold of a few, probably from the Crafty Ribbons booth at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show, presuming they'll be there.  So that part was good, but I think the black background, to say nothing of the awful slightly blurred and totally 'flat' photograph on the kit was a big no-no.  Not surprisingly, I got this as part of a sale on their website - discontinued kits.

PS, In case anyone's wondering what's planned for the other two painted backgrounds, the simple answer is nothing.  I found the green on the left hand one just too vibrant and felt it didn't go with the ribbon piece I had in mind and the right hand idea just no longer works for me.  I was going to do a small sampler with a crazy quilt appearance as a support for my catch-up on TAST.  I still quite like the idea, but don't think this one worked and so will consider trying another one soon.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012