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Friday, 6 December 2019

Smoyg (and the Peacock Party)

I've been busy preparing a couple of bumper recap blog posts about all the different things I've worked on this year.  I stumbled across some photos of my smoyg embroidery and thought I should give you an update.


I started this piece back in March 2019 - you can read all the background in that first post here.

I made a fair amount of progress and I took it show the designer, Yvette Stanton, at the QuiltNSW Sydney Quilt Show in June 2019.



Unfortunately I haven't done any more on it since then and I now know why.  I studied Yvette's beautiful example on her stand at the quilt show, and saw that her version of the block I was currently stitching is quite different to mine.  Yvette had used the laying tool and separated each of the strands in the silk thread to get a very different result.

There was no way I was going to unpick all I'd done on that block, so I told myself I was fine with my version.  But perhaps I wasn't! That's probably why I stopped working on it.


Anyway, time has passed, and I've accepted that Yvette is the designer, author and teacher, so her work has to be perfect.  I'm just a mere student and if I'm happy with my version, it will be fine.


When people dump music books on it on top of the piano, will they care if I separated the silk strands on one particular block? Probably not.


So, I'm going to be a rebel and start a new block tonight.  Using new colours is always exciting, and getting back to the wool threads will avoid thinking about the silk threads. I do love this Norwegian pattern darning type of stitching, but you do have to be 100% accurate because errors show up really easily.



I know that people in other parts of Europe have different names for this technique, but I'm calling it Smoyg because I trust Yvette's research and I'm working from her book.

Now it's time for the Peacock Party. What have you been up to this week? Are you on an end of year finishing binge like I am? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter


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5 comments:

  1. Gretchen Weaver6 December 2019 at 22:29

    I think your smoyg work looks lovely! No one is going to even notice you did a section differently. I've never even heard of a laying tool. You're going to have a beautiful table runner when you're finished. Happy Stitching!

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  2. For the love of geese7 December 2019 at 02:16

    It's easy to get discouraged when you think you've made a mistake or your work doesn't measure up. But what you have done looks beautiful.

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  3. Karen - Quilts...etc.7 December 2019 at 02:37

    I love it - I think my daughter would love that embroidery too she does a lot of cross stitch I must mention this type to her

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  4. Farm Quilter7 December 2019 at 11:02

    Unless you are going to provide a copy of the pattern and a magnifying glass to each person who looks at your gorgeous work and invite them to check them, I really don't see anyone even knowing yours isn't exactly like the designer's!! What you have done is gorgeous and I couldn't see a difference between your work and the picture you have below it!!

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  5. FlourishingPalms9 December 2019 at 06:22

    You certainly find the most intricate things to work on! This is amazing and I admire you for choosing to work on this during the busy pre-Christmas season. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to write a blog post this week! Hope to change that soon. Thanks for being so reliable about blogging, and hosting the Peacock Party.

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