No, No and Yes

After settling the blackberry leaves into place yesterday I went searching for suitable fibre to stitch the stems. I picked out a couple of handspun wool yarns from my collection. Unfortunately they were both Navajo plied, which is probably part of why they called me--that rounded and slightly irregular look--but they were too thick for the task and Navaho plied yarn can't be unravelled, so I set those aside. Then I found a little bag of handspun silk threads which I'd made for a experimental piece. I'd designed them as embroidery threads and fortuitously they were in shades of purples and greens. Ah ha! Just the thing for some nice textured blackberries. There's always a catch--in this case it's the fact that I have very limited quantities of these threads. They're just leftovers from another project and I won't have time to make any more--even if I could come close to matching colours. So I'm carefully working across the design: dividing my threads in half and stitching from side to side so that whatever I manage will be evenly distributed. Then I'll see how far I get and sort out the rest accordingly.

Remembering

This little house is part of a UFO. I started the quilt maybe ten years ago and have worked on it on and off --mainly off recently. When I last put it away I only had some quilting to do in the border and then the binding to declare it done. I had a good look at it yesterday. There are a lot of things I like, but overall I'm not quite satisfied. My task yesterday was to illustrate the basic elements and principles of design for one of my Textile Art subjects. I guess that gave me a new point of view. For one, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the little stitched details like the chimney of the settler's hut and the wobbly windmill. I also found I had more ideas about how I might tweak the design to make it work better. One idea involves more embroidered details in the foreground. For now I'm leaving this hanging in the living room. Then it will either go back in the bag and remain a UFO, or it will get another chance--just as well I have a couple of weeks holidays coming up.

Stitching Again

I ran out of week before I ran out of stitching homework last week, so I've had to do a bit of catching up. This is my feather stitch sample. We're still working on colour blending using the six-stranded embroidery cottons. Plus there are a couple of new stitches to use each week. I've found it challenging to use a set stitch and a set combination of colours while designing something with an overall sense of purpose. This time I've kept it reasonably simple, and that's helped.
My car is booked in for a service tomorrow. I'm planning to sit at a nearby cafe and stitch away until it's ready. It seems like a more pleasant and efficient use of my time than getting home and back again on public transport. So today I'm going to switch my attention to my other homework--it's currently a lump of clay sitting on the kitchen table. But first I need to take care of another form of stitching. My dog Macc in now two-weeks post-surgery and it's time to go back to the vet for a check up. The wound seems to have healed really well. That should mean his stitches can come out and his Elizabethan collar can go to. I won't be at all sorry to see the end of that phase in his recovery.

Detail

I've declared this particular bit of stitching homework "finished", even though there's always more I could do. I've got another couple of samples to do today and I've already worn a little hole in my finger tip where I push the needle through the cloth . . . I never could get used to using a thimble. Maybe I need to revisit that one. In other news, I assembled a TV cabinet and unpacked my TV yesterday morning. Both have been waiting for my attention for some months. Hopefully on the weekend I can get the electrical stuff connected and have it working. Then I need to work out what I'd like to watch. Any suggestions? Would you believe, I've never owned a TV before!

More Coloured Threads

I've been stitching away at my colour blending samples. I'm doing both on a white background, so I've taken a quick snap of the thread scraps on a black background. I'm amazed at how much thread I've used on what are really quite small samples. I'll have to go off to the haberdashery department again today and buy a few more skeins. I think that this week's class will involve more colour blending. Our paint mixing this week was working on shades and tints, so I guess that's what I'll be stitching next week.

I managed to pick up a darning foot for my sewing machine at a ridiculously cheap price--another $1 bargain. If this week's homework is anything to go by, I can see myself wanting to learn the basics of machine embroidery, even if it's just to produce samples more efficiently. Then again, I can only imagine how that would open up another whole new world of possibilities . . .