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?

A finish at last

I've started quite a few new projects in 2015 which is always exciting, but I've also had one tiny finish.  This Halloween table mat was one of 4 items on my Finish Along list created about a month ago.

It's a purpose built mat for my Haunted House to sit on when it gets finished later in the year.  I'm pleased to say that yesterday I finished embroidering the back of the Haunted House, and it's the biggest section.

Haunted House by The Victoria Sampler

The other sections will be slightly faster now that I've got the dimensions of the house, and figured out the satin stitch at the top.  I often find it easier once I've done the first section. 

So, come Halloween, the house will be sitting on this mat in the hallway.

As soon as I finished the Halloween mat I pulled out the next item on my Finish Along list. A Christmas Tree mini quilt. I know, I'm doing everything at the wrong time of the year, but if I leave these until the end of the year they just won't be done in time (again).

I always intended to hand quilt this Kaffe Christmas Tree.  I decided to try something new and quilted free hand squiggly lines in the green section. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. I used the green sparkly thread I picked up at Symposium. It's great to quilt with, but it does fray terribly so I have to be careful with the ends.  I've still got to decide what to do out in the white section yet.

 

Although I'm trying to be good and stick to my list, I couldn't resist the temptation to join up with a needlelace stitch along being run by a Russian lady - Daria. Here's a link to her blog. 

I've met many Russians on Instagram and they do beautiful embroidery. Daria has got permission from a Japanese lady (Erba?) to run a stitch along based on one of her free patterns.  Here's a link to casaerba.  This is what we are going to make.  It's shown as a table runner here, but I might just make mine a square and get it framed. 

Isn't it beautiful? It looks Eastern European / Turkish / Russian to me with those domes on the buildings. Although I don't usually do things in white, I think this one should be white so I'm using the bright white - B5200 coton a broder. I have accepted that I can't see clearly enough to do 32 count anymore, so am using 28 count linen for mine.  Daria says the instructions will be spread over 15 fortnights, with about 6-10 hours work per fortnight. I think that's manageable. (don't laugh)

Last night I made a start on the four sided stitch (box stitch) border, and I hope to finish that this weekend.

I'm making a list

As this year starts to draw to a close, I'm starting to think about my hand sewing goals for 2015. I've had a list forming in my head for a few days, so thought if I wrote in on my blog I would be publicly accountable for achieving at least some of it in 2015.

Before I start though, the good news is that I have made great progress on Your Place or Mine? since I last showed it here in mid October. I now have 3 of the 4 corners sewn on, and just have the 4th corner and two simple borders to attach. The 4th corner still needs to be hand appliqued, so it may take a few weeks yet.

So here's my hand sewing and embroidery list for 2015 in order of priority:

1. The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, Finish the Christmas Celebration Sampler. I estimate that this will take between 1 week and 10 days to finish the border (provided I have enough thread). this has been a mystery pattern, released over the past 4 weeks. I've enjoyed stitching along with others on Instagram.

2. Mill Hill beaded ornaments. Finish the one on the left that I've already started, so it can go on the tree with the one I've already finished in the centre. It should only take about 4 days. The one on the right can wait until next Christmas.

3. Your Place or Mine? final panel. Work on that until it's done. I can't take my extensive Perle 8 collection on holiday, so it must be done at home.

4. Northern Expressions Needlework. I knew when I started the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery that this wouldn't be finished for Christmas 2015, but I can take it on holiday and finish sewing the beads on. It should be finished by mid January and I can then get it framed.

The colours don't look good in this picture, but it's a very cloudy day today

5. The Victoria Sampler Gingerbread Etui. This is another holiday sewing project. I love working on Christmas sewing at Christmas time so I'll take this away with me too. I'll make a start on it, but may swap to the Haunted House by February because Halloween will roll around before Christmas in 2015.

6. Elizabethean Sweet Bag. This only needs about 1 week of stitching to be finished. It's quite a different style of embroidery to what I usually do, so I need to get into the right frame of mind.

7. The Victoria Sampler Haunted House. This looks like so much fun. The ornaments are delighful. I've got everything here to get stated and expect to be working on it by February.

 

8. The Victoria Sampler Needlework Shop. This will be waiting for me under the Christmas Tree this year. The parcel arrived and I haven't even opened the exterior packaging yet. You can see a photo here. 


9. Wool felt applique bag from Flying Fish Kits. This will be fun and bright and should take less than one month.

10. Needlelace - green. This only saw minimal action in 2014 and deserves better in 2015.

11. Needlelace - purple. I need to work on this again while I still remember what to do.

12. Heirloom Christmas Tree decoration. I've had the book, silk and decorations for 2 years but am still putting off starting. I guess I'm worried about mine not being good enough, but I do have plenty of silk, and the decorations could be recycled if I needed to start again. If this was a class I would have had it finished by now. I think I'm just a bit worried about doing it by myself - silly I know.

13. Sundry other projects lurking around which include 2 more biscornus, and some Christmas Decorations from the Just Cross Stitch Special Christmas issues. I've met a lot of stitchers on Instagram and seen some beautifully finished ornaments. I'm inspired to make more ornaments before next Christmas. I've also got 2 beautiful Christmas pieces from The Victoria Sampler which I'd love to do one day.

Wow, what a list. I love everything on it and would start them all tomorrow if I could. And it doesn't even include hand quilting because I tend to do that in the day time at the table. The list above is what I do in the evenings in front of TV. Here's hoping for a very productive 2015. I intend to check back against this list at this time next year - scary thought!

Blue, blue and more blue

Lately I've been very busy with my day job (paid work), but I've still managed to do a bit of stitching along the way. Strangely enough, most of it was blue!

First up, my Celtic Snow embroidery by Northern Expressions Needlework. I'm turning the final corner now and just need to check both sides are going to meet up correctly. Then I'll finish some more crosses and add all the yummy beads. It might even get finished before Christmas.

Celtic Snow

I've also had another lesson on the Needlelace I started five weeks ago. There's hardly anything to see, but this is the start of a chrysanthemum flower. It's really hard to get these petals even but I'm persevering. It's stitched on the same hand dyed linen as the Celtic Snow above.

Needlelace in progress

I haven't made much progress on the first motif because I was out of action for a few weeks with a problem in my elbow. It's a lot better now thank goodness. The photo below shows what it will look like eventually.

the model answer

The third blue thing was a star block I made for the Capital Quilters block of the month. These stars looked so good when they were up on the wall. Bridget was the lucky winner, so have fun with them Bridget.

The final blue thing was this lovely surprise that I found in the letterbox. It's a pincushion, custom made for me, by Carla of Granny Maud's Girl.  It was a great surprise, because it wasn't part of a swap or anything - it was just a random act of kindness. We've got to know each other through Possum Magic, and for some strange reason, Carla just thought those fabrics were meant for me! Carla has written a blog post about it, in which she calls me Mrs Peacock. You can read it here.
I love it Carla, and as you can see, it fits right in to my home. Thank you.

pin cushion by Granny Maud's Girl

A progress report

I've been working on quite a few different projects over the last week. On the quilting side I've finished the machine quilting on my Trellis Crossroads batik quilt, and only have to put on the binding, sleeves and label now. I love how this quilt looks, but I will not be working with batiks again in the near future. Hand quilting was nearly impossible, and even machine quilting was difficult because the fabric is quite slippery. Anyway, I'm very happy with how it looks.

I don't know if this qualifies as match stick quilting or not. My lines are 0.5" and 0.75" apart. I quilted out from the central diamond, and then out to the edges.

I had two people tell me to darn the ends in, so I did that. Is that what everyone else does, or do you just cut them off close to the quilt? I'd be interested to know.

I'm surprised at how long it took to machine quilt using this method. My friend Jo used Free Motion stipple quilting on a whole quilt and it only took her one hour. This quilt is only 40" by 40" and it took quite a few hours for the machine quilting.

On Saturday I attended the first Needlelace lesson, and as expected, made minimal progress.

Yes, this is two hours work, but I did get instructions on how to make all of the middle flower before the next lesson in a month's time, and how to prepare the base for another flower. Since Saturday morning I've done a bit more:

two rows of button hole stitch on the outer ring

My eyes do get tired doing this, so I've been swapping to my Northern Expressions Needlework Celtic Snow piece when that happens:

Celtic Snow by Northern Expressions Needlework

Yes, both of these pieces are on the same lovely hand dyed linen. I ordered it for the Celtic Snow, and found I had enough left over for the Needlelace. The threads are light for one and dark for the other, so the fact that I've just the same linen will hardly be noticeable when they are finished.

I hope you have a good week and get lots done. School holidays start next week for us and I will be driving my boys to study tutorials and cricket coaching, so I don't expect to get a lot done then.

Needlelace

As I mentioned in my Around the World blog hop post, I'm starting a new Needlelace class tomorrow. This is an extension class for those who have completed the first class. I certainly went to all the lessons for the first class, but sadly I still haven't finished my sampler. The good news is that I did pick it up this week and started working on it again - more on that later.

First, and more excitingly, is the piece I'm going to start tomorrow. This was what we had to do before the first lesson:

This is called 'preparing the grid'. I did this by carefully marking out the box and stitching rows of four sided stitch around it.

I then did a row of satin stitch inside the four sided stitch. Next I marked out the threads that were to remain, and then I started cutting very, very carefully.

I left 4 threads at each of the marked points.

Then I wrapped the threads with an over and under motion, being careful not to overwrap them and leave them distorted (although some of mine are a little bit).

Wrapped bars

So I'm already to start tomorrow. The picture below is what we are aiming to create. We'll see how that goes!

As for the piece I started two years ago. I have made a little bit of progress this week. I had to remember how to do Corded Brussels stitch and picots, but I'll probably need them tomorrow so it was a good refresher.  Here is is now:

a small bit of progress has been made on the left hand side

This was how I left it two years ago



So some progress has been made and I'm ready for tomorrow.