So, according to the counter thingy at the bottom of my blog, this is my 'blog-o-versary', the day that marks 6 years since I started to blog. For the first couple of years, I used to changed the layout/template and/or colours of the blog, but I don't feel the need to just now. I just do it when I get sick of the current scheme and ready for a fresh look these days!! My very first post got deleted when I trimmed out all the irrelevant and/or personal stuff from my blog about 18 months ago, so that can no longer be seen.
I also have nothing to show needlework-wise, unless you count the sewing prep on the ironing board, which will be the completed water violets cushion sometime over the next couple of days.
So, how to mark this event? It is, of course, unnecessary to do anything of the sort, but I may as well say something and it may as well be a piece of news which could affect my stitching blog content in the months to come.
We visited what probably passes as my LNS last week and the chap there, whose been in the business quite some time, knows the territory and whose shop has won multiple awards, told me that he likes to get new designers started. He showed me the latest newbie's kits and offered to give constructive feedback on anything I might like to design - given that the embroidery kit selection is somewhat limited, esp. when it comes to surface embroidery and stumpwork - and help out by selling it for me. So, I've got a list of ideas down already and DH is keen to help out with the business side and has even fairly promised to put kits together (following in the footsteps of Mr Jane Nicholas!!).
I need to get one or two WIPs out of the way first, but then I hope to get down to some serious designing and sample stitching. They won't be large projects, but I hope they will attract buyers in time. I hope to get something on the market for the Christmas present buying season, but I'm not committing to anything just yet.
Wait and see!
Chinese Wedding Card
Just a quick post today to show a card I made over the weekend for a Chinese couple I was asked to stand witness for at their legal wedding ceremony yesterday, (if you can follow that!!) Red is the Chinese colour for celebrations and they often trim that red up with gold, so I mixed that colour scheme with our traditional white for weddings and did a quick hardanger piece.
DH typed up and printed out a nice something in Chinese which he stuck on the inside as a flysheet sort of arrangement too so, for an impromptu piece, we were quite proud of it.=)
Here is the final card mounting of the heart I did recently as well. This was for a silver wedding anniversary, but I found that I didn't actually have a silver '25' sticker, so just left the front plain. I think the stitchery is fancy enough anyway.
Next thing I hope to do it to get the water violets and fish piece made up into the final cushion/pillow cover. No estimates on when yet except that it must be done by 7 July.
DH typed up and printed out a nice something in Chinese which he stuck on the inside as a flysheet sort of arrangement too so, for an impromptu piece, we were quite proud of it.=)
Here is the final card mounting of the heart I did recently as well. This was for a silver wedding anniversary, but I found that I didn't actually have a silver '25' sticker, so just left the front plain. I think the stitchery is fancy enough anyway.
Next thing I hope to do it to get the water violets and fish piece made up into the final cushion/pillow cover. No estimates on when yet except that it must be done by 7 July.
5 Smalls, 3 Styles
Here are all my other recent finishes, most of which were worked on whilst I was working in Leeds recently.
The first is a cross stitched bookmark made for an elderly friend of ours, Charlie. He was delighted with it when we gave it to him last night.=)
Next we have the two printed canvas needlepoint kits that my mum found a few months before we went to Taiwan (about two years ago now!) and that I recently finished off and 'repaired'. On looking at the top one again the other day, I realised that there are more repairs to make, i.e. when I decided, in my 11 year old wisdom, that it wouldn't matter if one or two stitches went \ when all the others were / as it filled in the shape better....
Here's a wedding card done well in advance of the big day on 20 August this year. Now like me to get things done in good time (Prince Albert would have approved: 'It's always better to complete a task well ahead of schedule.'), so I now have this to keep clean and safe (in its envelope) for the next 2 months and to think of a gift to make.
The last photo shows the circular card mount I chose to put the silver and purple heart in. I took pix of both this and in a square mount and, as soon as I could see them side by side in my photo package, there was no contest on which looked best. (I'll post a better photo when I've taken one.)
Next task is to get on with the blackberries and make up the two cushion/pillow covers etc, but I'm rather busy preparing for software and secretarial exams (plus going to classes and so on) just now, so I mayn't get on as quickly as I'd like... So what's new, huh?!
The first is a cross stitched bookmark made for an elderly friend of ours, Charlie. He was delighted with it when we gave it to him last night.=)
Next we have the two printed canvas needlepoint kits that my mum found a few months before we went to Taiwan (about two years ago now!) and that I recently finished off and 'repaired'. On looking at the top one again the other day, I realised that there are more repairs to make, i.e. when I decided, in my 11 year old wisdom, that it wouldn't matter if one or two stitches went \ when all the others were / as it filled in the shape better....
Here's a wedding card done well in advance of the big day on 20 August this year. Now like me to get things done in good time (Prince Albert would have approved: 'It's always better to complete a task well ahead of schedule.'), so I now have this to keep clean and safe (in its envelope) for the next 2 months and to think of a gift to make.
The last photo shows the circular card mount I chose to put the silver and purple heart in. I took pix of both this and in a square mount and, as soon as I could see them side by side in my photo package, there was no contest on which looked best. (I'll post a better photo when I've taken one.)
Next task is to get on with the blackberries and make up the two cushion/pillow covers etc, but I'm rather busy preparing for software and secretarial exams (plus going to classes and so on) just now, so I mayn't get on as quickly as I'd like... So what's new, huh?!
Anniversary gifts
Here are two other things that I've stitched recently. It's our 12th wedding anniversary tomorrow and, as we haven't any money to spare for regular gifts, I finally got around to making up the keyring I'd been planning for Sir for a couple of years. I bought the 'frame' two or three years ago!
This is the traced initials outline:
Then we have the filling in with directional satin stitch, which, as directional stitching is anything but my forté, I pulled out a few times during the whole process. I was getting annoyed with it....
Then I outlined it in Kreinik cord with stem stitch. Stem stitch is great when you're able to work from the outside in (as you should), but that's not easy when you have an inside curve to cope with! Especially if you need to change direction.
And here's the finished item:
I think it worked quite well, it's just a shame that the keyring itself got a bit scratched. If I ever buy another, I'll make sure it's as scratch free as I can. As Sir himself says, 'You live, you learn.'
Here's the anniversary card I made for him. It's from one of those Jeanette Crews 'One Nighter' chart leaflets, the 'Tropical Birds' one. Cute, or what?
I hadn't made a small cross stitch item for ages and, I must say I really enjoyed it! There's more to show you soon too, as soon as one of the items is finished up. Look out on Monday, all being well.
This is the traced initials outline:
Then we have the filling in with directional satin stitch, which, as directional stitching is anything but my forté, I pulled out a few times during the whole process. I was getting annoyed with it....
Then I outlined it in Kreinik cord with stem stitch. Stem stitch is great when you're able to work from the outside in (as you should), but that's not easy when you have an inside curve to cope with! Especially if you need to change direction.
And here's the finished item:
I think it worked quite well, it's just a shame that the keyring itself got a bit scratched. If I ever buy another, I'll make sure it's as scratch free as I can. As Sir himself says, 'You live, you learn.'
Here's the anniversary card I made for him. It's from one of those Jeanette Crews 'One Nighter' chart leaflets, the 'Tropical Birds' one. Cute, or what?
I hadn't made a small cross stitch item for ages and, I must say I really enjoyed it! There's more to show you soon too, as soon as one of the items is finished up. Look out on Monday, all being well.
A design's not final 'til the stitching's finished!
This was the design I initially created for friends' Silver Wedding (25th) anniversary card, to be worked in silver goldwork threads and Anchor Marlitt:
The changes started when I went to my LNS only to find that, although they stocked plenty of gold goldwork threads, their supply of silver was very low indeed. I wasn't able to get pearl purl and so had to adapt straight away to twist instead. I managed to get the silver kid leather, but when I tried to cut it out into the inner heart shape, the result was so creased and, frankly, cheap and nasty looking that I couldn't bear to use it. So, that bit got dumped too and I decided to move the trellis from over the purples, to filling the inner (now middle) heart. The tiny heart in the centre was to be filled with silver bright check purl.
However.... I noticed that the silver of the bright check was not as cool as the rest of the silver threads. In fact, it was relatively yellow. That bothered me, so I ditched that idea and decided to fill in the space with French knots in DMC metallic floss.
Above you can see the first stage of the purple shading completed and the second layer underway. The top right hand side ended up so un-even that, when I'd done the lot, I realised that, not only would I have to outline the inside of that section with Kreinik Fine Braid, but that I needed a line of it between the two purples as you can see below:
By this time I'd also decided that I wasn't going to fussing around adding in accents in pink Marlitt either!!
So, much changed from the original design, here is the finished item. It's a little puckered, sadly, but that came from my not getting the silk fabric totally flat on the backing cotton when I was sewing them together - a problem I've had before.=(
And here's a side view. Of course, it isn't possible from this angle for my camera to focus everything perfectly (so I had to cut the bottom section off!!), so the right hand side is a tad blurred, but I hope you like the effect all the same. All that remains now is to decide whether to mount it in a round or square aperture card.
So, although I haven't blogged my work for a fair few weeks, I have been stitching! This isn't all I've been doing either, there's more. I'll post about that in the days to come.
The changes started when I went to my LNS only to find that, although they stocked plenty of gold goldwork threads, their supply of silver was very low indeed. I wasn't able to get pearl purl and so had to adapt straight away to twist instead. I managed to get the silver kid leather, but when I tried to cut it out into the inner heart shape, the result was so creased and, frankly, cheap and nasty looking that I couldn't bear to use it. So, that bit got dumped too and I decided to move the trellis from over the purples, to filling the inner (now middle) heart. The tiny heart in the centre was to be filled with silver bright check purl.
However.... I noticed that the silver of the bright check was not as cool as the rest of the silver threads. In fact, it was relatively yellow. That bothered me, so I ditched that idea and decided to fill in the space with French knots in DMC metallic floss.
Above you can see the first stage of the purple shading completed and the second layer underway. The top right hand side ended up so un-even that, when I'd done the lot, I realised that, not only would I have to outline the inside of that section with Kreinik Fine Braid, but that I needed a line of it between the two purples as you can see below:
By this time I'd also decided that I wasn't going to fussing around adding in accents in pink Marlitt either!!
So, much changed from the original design, here is the finished item. It's a little puckered, sadly, but that came from my not getting the silk fabric totally flat on the backing cotton when I was sewing them together - a problem I've had before.=(
And here's a side view. Of course, it isn't possible from this angle for my camera to focus everything perfectly (so I had to cut the bottom section off!!), so the right hand side is a tad blurred, but I hope you like the effect all the same. All that remains now is to decide whether to mount it in a round or square aperture card.
So, although I haven't blogged my work for a fair few weeks, I have been stitching! This isn't all I've been doing either, there's more. I'll post about that in the days to come.
A bit more goldwork
Another rather disappointing photo, (I can't tell you how much better it looks in real life!), but here are the latest two (counting both f holes as one element) additions to the goldwork viola picture. -> I was pleasantly surprised how smoothly these sections went. Next up is the whole fingerboard and neck/scroll area in no.1 pearl purl. The smaller detail will be done in a pearl purl of smaller guage (but I don't know what it actually is), then the nuts will be done in Coats Ophir (like a very fine Jap) - like the f holes have been - and then filled in with bright check. Then I have to think of how to manage a convincing bridge and strings....Considering that I have a number of time sensitive things to do over this summer, I have actually no idea why I'm concentrating on finishing the two that have no deadlines and are just for our home! I've two cards and, assuming I can find the keyring 'blank', a small monogram to go in it to do for various points in June, the violets/fish cushion and the blackberries pouch to have done by July and another gift for mid August. Hmmm! If anyone's seen my common sense roaming free anywhere, do send it back express!;)
I think I use too many brackets - just looking at my first paragraph! Recently I was reading a book review by someone I know and found it really hard to follow as they had far too many asides and big words in their sentences. Simple, plain, concise. That's the mark of a good teacher/writer. Got it, Lizzie? Good!
Kid it is!
The vote went for a kid leather chinrest on the goldwork viola and, as I agreed with that - even though kid is a beast to stitch through - here it is in a side view to show how raised it ended up (only one layer of padding):
Rotten photo, I'm afraid! My photography seems to be going through a bad patch just now.=) Anyway, there's a border of Kreinik Fine Braid in 102C around the kid. I also finally managed to get that little bit of copper border that had frayed re-done without it going nasty again.
I had hoped to get more done before posting again, but it's been a busy week. A week full of surprises too. The greatest surprise, beating the runner up by a small margin, was going into Sir's study on Friday lunchtime to find him on-line watching live coverage of the Royal Wedding on German TV!!=)
I've managed to get a bit more of the water under the narrowboat done and here it is, pretty much afloat. There's still more to do on that part, then a bridge and small tree etc to fill in on the left hand side. The main stitching must be about 70% done now. LONG gone are the days when I would get something like this finished within two or three weeks.=)
Thanks for the ideas on how to stretch and straighten the giraffe. I'll try that - when I get the necessary things. Might have to use a kitchen shopping board and wash out a cleaning fluid bottle thoroughly to use as a spray as I've nothing that will pass for a plant spray or cork tile at the mo. Will report back on that one once I've had a go at it.
Rotten photo, I'm afraid! My photography seems to be going through a bad patch just now.=) Anyway, there's a border of Kreinik Fine Braid in 102C around the kid. I also finally managed to get that little bit of copper border that had frayed re-done without it going nasty again.
I had hoped to get more done before posting again, but it's been a busy week. A week full of surprises too. The greatest surprise, beating the runner up by a small margin, was going into Sir's study on Friday lunchtime to find him on-line watching live coverage of the Royal Wedding on German TV!!=)
I've managed to get a bit more of the water under the narrowboat done and here it is, pretty much afloat. There's still more to do on that part, then a bridge and small tree etc to fill in on the left hand side. The main stitching must be about 70% done now. LONG gone are the days when I would get something like this finished within two or three weeks.=)
Thanks for the ideas on how to stretch and straighten the giraffe. I'll try that - when I get the necessary things. Might have to use a kitchen shopping board and wash out a cleaning fluid bottle thoroughly to use as a spray as I've nothing that will pass for a plant spray or cork tile at the mo. Will report back on that one once I've had a go at it.
