Monday, December 30, 2013

Well two entries in two days this is starting to look like I might make my resolution come true. I have done some more work on Sue's block Arlene kindly suggested the grey and pink blocks looked a little empty.

  So I added some funky flowers in the top grey block and some rain in the pink block. In the other grey block I added some Sturts Desert Peas. They are mainly done in bullion stitch with the leaves in detached chain. I will be mailing this to Sue next year; probably Friday.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

I am going to try and blog more often in 2014 so I thought I would start practicing today. This is the block I did for Sue in the Stumpwork RR. The wattle is Acacia Pycnantha the Australian floral emblem.
I did a course with Arlene White and adapted her hydrangeas to my wattle flowers. The leaves are woven stitch. Most wattle have little leaves but this one has long strap like leaves. The fabrics Sue used were beautiful but really challenged me as the colours are not me; this being said I am fairly pleased with the result. I intend to keep on now trying to learn to create more stumpwork embroideries. 

Friday, December 20, 2013

I have been so slack this year no posts since February. I really intend to try harder next year but we will see. I have done two courses with Stitchmap this year. 
The first was the Crazy Quilt Course where we made a pretty sewing kit and the second was Redwork. I was very fortunate to have Shari as my mentor each time.
Here are some photos from the Crazy Quilt

Here is my first needle book I use it for Milliner (my favourite needle) and Crewel needles



The second needle book. I use this one for Tapestry needles

The thread holder contains my special threads - mainly silks and Brazilian threads


The pincushion sits on my worktable and because it is so large it never gets lost


This is the thread holder opened out. It was such fun to do creating this secret garden for my threads

And here is the whole set together.

This course had a lot of stitching as well as design elements in it. I found it really valuable.

The second course was Redwork and here is a photo of my finished set. These are little weights filled with rice for the times you do not want to use pins but still want to hold something steady.

Once again this was a very stitch intensive course but I think the finished product was worth the effort