Pipers Silk (flat floss) order

I have never seen this maker's threads up close or in person before and after watching Helen M Stevens' embroidery tutorials on youtube, I decided I must have some!

They sell different types of both twisted and flat, but this order is of the flat, filament floss.

They arrived today.  The first three photos are taken out in the afternoon sunshine, just so you can see their marvellous brilliance.

They are still in their ziplock bag packaging, so you would think the plastic would make them shine more, but as you can see clearly in the third photo - the plastic probably takes away from it.

The photo below is taken inside with no particular light source.  Still in their bag, they are still stunning.

It is very fine thread, but being flat silk it should have better coverage than, say, cotton of a similar thickness.  This one (below) is called Saffron Gold.  It was in a little bag of its own - so is not in the images above.

You can see from the cm increments on the ruler that this thread is about half a mm wide.

Here it is out of its bag in early afternoon sun.

Kiss Lock Clutch - say that fast three times

 This could be addictive...

This is another 'first' for me.  It was a quick project in the general scheme of things.  From start to finish including the bead embroidery it would have taken less than a day.  I will make another one (and have the clutch frame on order) and it will be much quicker.  There will be less unpicking and re-sewing/embroidering on the second one.

First of all I had to sketch what I was doing.  If I don't have a clear plan in my head before I start, the project keeps evolving as it goes, and that rarely fares well...

Yes, it is different to the finished product, but it is basically where I was headed.

 Next I made a pattern.  I thought that allowing extra material at the dart points would enable me to embroider the beads around the bottom of the bag and still have a bit of fabric to create a 'tuck' in the base of the bag without losing beads in the tuck.

So, when I sewed the front and back together, I then pulled the front and the back of the bag away from each other and sewed across the pointy bits on the bottom to create a flat base.  It wasn't a huge success, but with a bit of playing around, it could be worthwhile.

The photo below shows the result of the 'tuck'.

It looks very crooked in the photo - it's not that bad in reality.

 

I attached the fabric to a backing fabric to make it large enough for the frame to hold it securely, and started decorating. 

excuse the feet...

 

 

 They are size 10 beads and the thread is lightly twisted silk which I bought on ebay.  Lovely and soft but if you have ratty nails or dry skin it catches on you all the time.  I recommend you look after your hands for a couple of days before you use silk.

The bag fabric is shot green satin.  $2 in the bargain bin at the local fabric shop.  The red beads remind me of the kind of cherries you use in cherry jam.  My old neighbour used to have a huge sour cherry tree which dominated the middle of his back yard.  He would give mum an ice-cream container full of them.

 Some silk ribbon embroidery.  Haven't done that in a lot of years.

Beads around the beads. These are size 10 with foil linings which doesn't show up on the

photo but they sparkle under the ceiling downlights at night.

I couched over twisted 4mm silk ribbon to form the stems.  The thread used for couching and to attach the frame to the fabric is waxed cotton from the bead shop.   I only used this because it was a nice colour match with the fabric.  I could have used normal sewing thread just as well.  The glass flowers a beautiful.

The lining is another $2 bargain.

 Now I just need somewhere fancy to go...

Blackwork Celtic Pseudo Knot

This is my first blackwork design.

I don't think you can truly call it a Celtic knot, because it is not one continuous line.  There are four links which make the design.   On the left towards the top you can probably see where I have shaded the links with pencil to give it a subtle 3D look.  I plan to use a different backwork stitch for each link and try shading the stitches by using two threads for the dark areas and one for the lighter areas, and maybe miss a stitch or two altogether in the more complex patterns to add highlights to the high spots.

I am slowly back stitching it 3:1 on 25 count Lugana or Jobelan.  So far I am one stitch out of square, and do you think I can work out where it happened???.  I will fudge along and hope that everything meets up close enough not to matter.

I am finding it easier to count the stitches if I hold it up to my head like thus.  As I am jumping three stitches at a time, which is probably not how you should do it, but I am a 'not by the book' type of gal! it makes it easy for me to count how many stitches (as per the drawing) I have done.  Every stitch (according to my drawing) covers three threads in the fabric.

I am enjoying this.  It is moving along quickly.  Well it was until I noticed I was one fabric thread out of kilter. mutter mutter mutter...

I will do an update asap. 

Update:-

15th February 2017

Progress so far...

I chose 4 stitches that I like, one for each link.  I am attempting to shade the stitching a bit where they "pass under" the next link.  It is interesting how much easier it is for me to objectively view my work in a photo than it is when I look at it directly.  I think there is more shading needed.

 The top left flowery stitch is my favourite.  Easy to stitch too 😊

These stitches are too small to be really effective.  Below is a blow-up.

The design is of squares overlapping squares.  Each square is 4 threads high by 4 threads wide.  Should have gone another two stitches each way and the effect would be better.  It has taken two full afternoons to stitch this section, so there is no going back now.  This pattern is a lot slower than the others as you effectively stitch into every hole.


UPDATE

8 March 2017

I AM FINIIIISSHED :)

 I am not really pleased with the shading.  If I try this again I may use three different shades of black-grey to try using colour values to give depth instead of crowding more stitches to create the darker effect.  Could just be that practice makes perfect, and this being my first attempt, I am reasonably pleased overall.

 I mentioned this stitch earlier and how it is slow and there is pretty well a stitch in every hole of the fabric.  The picture below is the reverse side (yes, I know - brave but ugly).  There is very little stitching to be seen - I was so surpised when I first turned it over to end a thread and saw how little stitching there was.  I think the stitches slip in between the fabric threads and are hidden to a certain extent.

What to do with the finished item...   stick it on the cork board as is, or frame it..?

Whitework Snowflake

I have been eyeing off snowflake patterns done in blackwork.  In this day and age, blackwork can be any colour.  Back in the old days when blackwork was first done, the colour black was used as it was much more serviceable.  I don't believe we washed our clothes as frequently back then...  pewh!  And I doubt the fantastic array of colours was available either.  One of Henry VIII's wives (the Spanish one - I would look it up but...) made blackwork trendy in England.

Now that anyone can afford the luxury of fabric, thread and needles, people are creating blackwork of all hues.  Have a look at this site for some diverse examples and a bit of history thrown in  

https://tigerctextiles.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/looking-at-blackwork-embroidery/ 

Below is my first piece of embroidery done with one colour.  It is all cross stitch.  Blackwork does tend to have backstitching and varied patterned stitches.  I will venture into that next time.

 

I found this pattern on Mary Corbett's site Needle 'n' Thread.  

http://www.needlenthread.com/2015/12/the-mother-of-all-snowflakes-free-pattern.html

I LOVE HER STUFF!!!!!! 

28 count linen (can't remember the brand).  One strand of DMC cotton.

I don't believe it!  The close-up photo shows where I didn't cross my 

crosses in one of the curly whirlies.  There's five of them, yes! 1,2,3,4,5!

Should I cross all my crosses in the same direction? 

It might help make it look neater.

My first biscornu

Here it is.  My first biscornu pin cushion. 

 It is a lily of the valley design which I found on the net.  Try as I may, it has been difficult finding the designer.  The first time I saw the pattern chart was on Pinterest and it directed me to a Russian site which looked like a blog and didn't indicate whether they had designed it or not.

My hand is in the picture to give you a sense of scale. 

The fabric is ecru even weave 30 or 32 count.  

The beads are size 8 (which I think are a bit big and messy lookin').

The most important lesson for me was to use fabric that contrasts with all your thread choices.  You can hardly see the flowers.  I used one strand of DMC cotton for everything except the yellow border which runs alongside the beads.  I will go for smaller beads next time too.  Also think I will go to 25 count fabric, as this was a bit challenging for my crappy eyesight.  And there will be a next time.!  This was fun to make.  And so simple to put together.  There are some good tutorials such as Suzanne Day's https://feltmagnet.com/textiles-sewing/How-To-Make-A-Biscornu

Can you find the flowers??

The yellow border is too close to the green curly swirls too. I should have

left a line.  All in all it was a good little project.

The end...