Irresistible

Having said that I wouldn't and couldn't spin any new embroidery thread for my blackberry design, I succumbed to the temptation of a little bag of hand-dyed silk top. The green is a better fit for the fabric I'd already used for the leaves. I've been binding the silk stems I'd already laid down for the leaves, using buttonhole stitch, twisting and turning the resulting line to resemble a lively vine. It's subtle, but adds a dimension to what could otherwise be quite a static design.

Meanwhile I'm thinking about how to frame the formal part of the piece. I've got a few centimetres all round to play with. I'm wondering about using a twisted gavanised wire. Would you believe, I have some in my fibre collection . . . I'm imagining the young girl who belongs to the colouring book, growing up in rural South Australia at the turn of the Century. Life surely had its hardships and she was to live through two world wars. I thought about barbed wire, but apart from the practicalities, I think that might be just a bit too harsh.

Twist

Twist is what holds spun fibres together in a yarn. The finer the yarn, the more twist needed to keep it together. I've been back at my spinning wheel the past couple of days--it's been too long since I spent time regularly at the wheel. I'm working on a small amount of wool-silk blend. I'm aiming for something fine and strong enough to use for embroidery. Here's where I got to this morning:
If I can make yarn like that consistently today, I'll be a happy spinner. I may yet need a little more twist, since I'll lose some when I go to ply it.

Work in Progress

My friend D sent me this pic of an embroidery she's working on:The excitement for me is that she's using some of the hand-spun embroidery threads I made for her. The leaves and blossoms are my hand-spun, hand-dyed silk. The brown of the gum blossom is a commercial silk thread. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole piece.

Sunny (sweaty) Queensland

Well, here I am in Sunny Queensland. The only reason to visit Queensland in January, as far as I'm concerned, is to visit friends. This place is much more comfortable a place to be in during the cooler--drier--months. But here I am. And as my friend D was tidying up her studio this morning, we came across these:
These are some of the hand-spun and hand-dyed silk embroidery threads I made for her--I think it was the Christmas before last. The little skeins on the left are the ones wound on "micro-noddy".