The second one is something on the slightly creative side to find out how things would look if I changed the numbers of the threads that I cut. Mmmmm............. possibilities are going through my brain. All four designs are still not cut from fabric. They are all waiting patiently to be made into something.
At my local lace group some months back, one of our members asked me if I could teach her how to do "that". "That" being a corner in a beautiful drawn thread tablecloth, pictured in a magazine that someone had brought for show & tell. No, not the whole piece, just the corner, as a brooch. Of couse I could. So with some thinking, we organized what had to be brought for the following meeting so that we could make a start. Come the next meeting, both of us forgot things, and of course we did not have the magazine anymore, so I rummaged in my bag & found pencil & graph paper & quickly sketched up a design. There were scraps of fabric in my bag, as was some thread, so we went to work. So the above little square is the result, really too big to be a brooch, but that really depends on taste. It is yet to be cut from fabric, & I think it will still become a brooch or bag clip or some such item. As far as a design for a corner, it really is not strong enough to be a corner design in a table cloth. Worked on even weave linen with my own hand dyed threads.
I did have plans for doing three of these little squares, all in differnt colours, but by the time I did the pink one, I wanted a different design. The problem that I had was that the border stitching had already been done on the others, so I was left with a limited space with wich to work. So I just filled in the spaces with laid threads, coral knots & woven wheels. I quite like the effect, and feel it could be a very interesting filler on something.
The third colour is yet to be worked. The ouside border is done but I have to think of something to put on the inside yet. That's tonight's plan.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have to stitch every day. If I don't, there is something seriously wrong. I am at the point now where I really need to plan my next serious stitching, because I am just filling in with fiddly things. I am on the down hill run with all the wedding sewing, with just hems & fiddly bits to do, the stitching on my Stitcher's Plus Challenge (which started here) is finished, my wrap for the wedding is finished, & I am looking for something to stitch in front of "the box" at night. So last night I pulled out a stitch challenge I gave to one of my classes some time back, and stitched this eyelet. Well, I stitched a few of them, and really want to stich more. The piece really needs some more fabric strips sewn to it before I can do too much more. Mmmmmm.................. maybe that is something to put on my "to do" list. Now I just need to find something to stitch tonight.
Today I made the final cut to my latest finshed piece. This is the piece that I started way back in December and was supposed to be like this. I showed a small snippet of it in January after I had discovered my mistake when I made a slight adjustment in design. This small adjustment led to the counting error & the fact that my border design would not fit. I had a great long list of things to try to fit into the resultant space & ended up with this Pulled work stitch. The fact that I was four threads out ruled out a lot of the things that I really wanted to do.
This my good friend Robyn Johnstone with her two works hanging at the gallery. She is another very talented artist & stitcher & in the two works that you can see here she has first painted, then combined surface stitchery with cut work & drawn thread work. Just yummo. Bug hugs Miss Robyn.
I tried today at my second attempt of digitized cutwork. I had lots of help & suggestions from my on-line friends to make it better. I took some of these suggestions on board and managed to have success. I used the same digitized design as last time and it looks so much better. I have made myself some notes to use in the future & will add more still, as I think even this could do with a little fixing. I need to experiment some more.
What is this disaster you all ask? Well, this is my first attempt at digitizing some cutwork. The idea was to lay down all the support stitches, cut out the appropriate area, then stitch the support bars and surrounding satin stitch.
I have been playing with another design of Reticella. I want to do a major piece and am having trouble with design. For some reason the designs just are not flowing. Something about this little sample looks disjointed. I think I know what it is and have come up with a new design which flows much better than this one but have yet to put needle into fabric. I want to test it first before I start on the major piece and am running out of time. I want the design sorted out so that I can take it away on holidays with me in December. Yikes! Only eight weeks to go! Better get stitching!
This is a piece of Myreschka that we did in a class. It is a form of Russion Drawn Thread & is worked totally different to the pink piece above.
This is atissue box cover that was also made in a class. The class was to explore chain stitch, but I managed to squeeze a few more stitches in for effect.
This beautiful lady is a pin cushion. I first saw her in a magazine & just had to make one. So the search began for my china half doll. I needed her first as that would tell me what her skirt would be. Not sure that I will ever use her as a pin cushion, she is too much a lady to stich pins in.
I have been playing with a few pieces of stitching lately, one of which is this piece of Reticella. I have always gone weak at the knees when I have seen pictures of this type of work in books. The technique is very old & dates back to the 1400's.
I have used my own hand dyed fabric & thread and hours & hours of labour!
