Gingerbread Retreat Cottage - and the Peacock Party

When I was choosing a name for my blog, I wanted something that reflected my love of embroidery as well as my love of quilting.  Five years ago I probably spent more time on embroidery than I did on quilting.  Now the tables have turned and quilting takes up the majority of my spare time, but I do still like to do embroidery, knitting, tapestry, and crochet etc.

This week I was finally putting away my Christmas presents, and I thought that I may as well "kit up" (and embroidery term I discovered on Instagram) my two newest Gingerbread Village patterns.

I've had the Retreat cottage pattern since April 2018, but hadn't made a start yet.  I split the bundles of threads, and put all the threads onto pieces of cardboard with labels.  This what is known as "kitting up". 

I then cut out the required pieces of linen and zig zagged around the edges so they don't fray while I'm stitching.

Then I couldn't resist the temptation of starting the pretty roof sections for the Retreat Cottage.  I haven't done hardanger for a while, so I was a bit nervous about cutting the threads. But everything was fine, and I remembered how to do it.

I'm using brown linen for the roof sections because I want the white snow to show up even more! I'll put a piece of fabric behind this section once it's finished.

I've also got the Flower Shop pattern waiting for me now! It's going to be a busy year! You can read all about my Gingerbread Village on the tab at the top of the page.  The patterns are all by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler in Canada. 

Now for the Peacock Party.  What's everyone else been up to?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  I'm enjoying visiting new blogs each week.  Thank you to everyone who has been taking part.

Inlinkz Link Party

Needlelace

Those of you who have been following my blog for more than a year might remember this project. It's my Citta stitch along.  Pattern from CasaErba here.

 

At the start of 2015 I stumbled across a Russian woman called Daria who intended to help people stitch this beautiful design.

I've done a bit of needlelace over the years, so I thought I would join in and learn all the tips and tricks the Russians use to create their beautiful pieces.

Daria's blog posts were in Russian, but she is fluent in English too, so if google translate didn't give me all I needed to know, I just asked questions in English.  I met another lovely lady Anna who was stitching along too, and she had perfect English as she had majored in English at university. Anna provided extra information where necessary.

I got to this stage and then Daria stopped providing instructions.

It turns out that she got busy doing other things (including designing and selling her own cross stitched Christmas decorations patterns).  Now Mila has kindly taken over the stitch along and she will continue from where we left off.  Fortunately Mila speaks good English too.

I've now been inspired to pick this up again and set up the frames for the upcoming needlelace instructions.

The Russian ladies make the padded roll in a different way to what I was originally taught, so I'm trying out their method and quite like it.

How I was taught:
1. do the satin stitch around the edge of the box
2. cut the threads in the centre
3. trim the threads very close to the padded roll
4. wrap the bars and bury ends in the padded roll.

How the Russians do it:
1. cut the threads in the centre - yes scary stuff.  Sometimes I mark out the zones with tacking threads.

2. pin the threads back and tack them down

3. wrap the bars

4. do the satin stitch around the edge of the box, covering all the tacking threads

5. trim the threads on the back of the padded roll.

Still lots to go yet if you compare it to the finished article.

It's meant to be a table runner, but no one will be putting coffee anywhere near mine if it ever gets finished.  Does that sound unreasonable?