VS Renaissance Rose Bellpull - bullions!

I mentioned in my last posting on this project that I'm often wary of bullion knots.  I think that, with a combination of Kathy's extremely helpful, 'alternative' method of working them (compare how the needle is held in this, more traditional approach, which I find overly awkward to work and leads to puckering)and the sheer quantity of knots that I had to work on my one and only piece of Brazilian embroidery and the 'Sunshine and Flowers' sampler, I've managed to get a fair grip on how to get them to work out OK.  I was really quite pleased with how the majority of these came out.

Having said that, I still wouldn't call myself confident with them, but I'm certainly getting there. ☺  I need to try the same do it over and over again method with cast on stitches and flowers next as I'd love to master those.

You may have noticed especially in the big heart, but also in the other two, smaller motifs with the bullion roses, that there were some pink lazy daisy stitches to insert too, which also add variety and balance to the piece.  Having said 'balance', I realised, looking at this photo, that the roses are much more numerous on one side than the other, but oddly, I didn't notice when looking straight at it.  Maybe this angle of photo has highlighted it.

This is the last section, (which I actually did first) and you can also see that I also worked the outer border as far as I could ready to make the piece up into a bellpull.  The original design was to be framed, so I had to think carefully about how to go about it.  More on that in the next in this series.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

VS Renaissance Rose Bellpull - part one

Thanks SO much for all the kind compliments on the last finish - and also all the way through the project.  And now, welcome to a new project series!

Before she approached me about her wedding dress panel, Lauren said she and her fiancé would like a bellpull with a favourite Bible text for their home as their wedding gift.  I chose the absolutely gorgeous Renaissance Rose design from Victoria Sampler to adapt for this piece.

Here's the initial floss toss and, with the exception of deciding against the gold shades in favour of the aubergine cord, this is pretty much what I used - for a wonder!  I normally chop and change several times during the process.  Do you?  Or do you stick fairly closely to the pattern and/or original palette?

As you can see, I opted for 8 shades of Coton à Broder #25 from DMC and Anchor.  The fabric is 28ct congress cloth (I think) in an ecru shade with which I used Anchor Pearl Cottons #8 and #12 in shade 926.

A quick comparison with the chart photo shows that I needed to start out with a little adaptation of the original design in order to meet the requirements.  I decided to replace several pattern rows in the middle, including the 'For You' bit with the scripture they wanted and also to move a cross stitch floral line down to make the text section framed by a similar motif.  It took a couple of goes with a piece of graph paper to get the lettering charted correctly, but it wasn't too big a challenge - especially not after the last project!

After the middle section was complete, I filled in the surface work on the lower half, including the beaded parts, (using good old Mill Hill petite seed beads, which I'm a big fan of), but not the bullion knots which I'm always a little wary of and decided to leave until last.  I hadn't ever thought of doing it before, but I love the section of ecru four-sided stitch in the section above the hardanger heart.  I think it adds a great textural element.

Next came the top few motifs, including the leaf and bead 'frame' for the lovely heart motif.

I then did the cutwork section on the lower heart, as you can see below and even remembered to take some photos at this point.  I didn't take as many WIP shots as I would have liked of thie piece and some were too poor to do anything with other than to delete them!

Here's the piece at the point that we'll leave it for this post and next time I'll show you the bullion knot sections.

I loved this project and I'd really like to do another one, perhaps on bright white fabric and with yellow flowers.  I would very probably want to keep that, but it would be a strong candidate for exhibiting in the summer shows.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

Lilac Bellpull Project

Here we are at the second project of last autumn's stitch-a-thon!

Actually, I began this one in the summer shortly after getting all the projects for the Bingley Show sorted, but didn't get to work much on it until a few weeks later on.  I used it as a bit of an alternate project alongside the autumn leaves some of the time. Not often, as this one was over-due anyway and the leaves one was to a fairly tight time schedule, but I did a little bit here and there for variety.

The starting points were that the bride (a Chinese friend who'd actually got married back in July) loved purple shades and has very little room in her home - no living room, poor thing - and so something to hang was best.

In Patricia Ann Bage's 'Beginners Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery', I found this design, the centre of which I'd worked a few years ago, also in purples, as a wedding card.  The bellpull ends I had in stock were quite narrow though, so I needed to adapt the pattern ever so slightly to take it in about 4 threads at each side.

I didn't seem to take many WIP shots, so we can do this all in one post.  Here we go:

At this point I realised that two things needed changing:

1) The purple squares just didn't work.  The shade of purple was too red to co-ordinate well with the lovely, rich, blue-purple in the centre motif (much more glaring that it appears here), and; 2) I'd miscounted on the chart and should have left done klosters blocks of 13 stitches, then 9, then 13 again.  So, I took it out back to the innermost green square sections and re-worked it with the correct spacing and the red-purple replaced by Kreinik #4 Very Fine Braid in 032.

As you can see, it wasn't very comfortable to work this piece.  The fabric I was using was really too narrow to fit into the nearest size of frame I could make up (Q snap 8"/11" rectangle).  Maybe it was partly this, but also an unhealthy mixture of not reading the instructions properly, rushing to get the project completed after the Autumn Leaves one so as to get on with the next (I wanted clear decks as far as possible) and/or over-confidence that led me to mess up with removing the threads as you can see here:

I removed all 12 rows instead of removing 4, leaving 4, then removing the final 4.  I just didn't read the instructions for the filling stitches or look closely enough at the pattern at the right time.  Lesson learned!  So, I had to choose alternative fillings that didn't require a central bar of threads still in place and that would look OK in this fairly long space.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any decent photos of the final stitched stage before the awkward sewing up part, but here it is finished up and you can see the fillings in the close ups.  A little narrow, but not too bad on the whole.

I'll leave you with a photo that I snapped on my phone (very badly, sorry!) of the happy couple and their witnesses signing the register.

Which project next?  The bridal dress panel is coming up soon. ♥

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2016/7

Work In Progress Wednesday - 5 Dec 2012

I've done a couple more rows on the centre part of the 'Sunshine and Flowers' sampler over the last day or so.  Oh, and I also added in some cream beads that I'd missed before - 4 of them!  There were actually 2 missing on the chart, but I missed two myself, so equal blame share!!!  Things are progressing fairly well with this piece now, although it takes a while to get the hang of each row.  Next will be 2 long satin stitch rows, or rather boxes, down the sides of the middle and that's a bit of a concern as there's quite some potential for miscounting there...

This afternoon I've also been trying to make some progress with the shading on the stumpwork rabbit, but I really need to come back to this in daylight and have a thorough review of the brown shades.  Two are far too close together to be of any real use in differentiating between shades (and the project isn't meant to be so realistic that it needs such gentle changes), and two are much too far apart.  I'm actually using the prescribed thread brand (it was designed in Anchor, for a wonder!), so I can't blame thread conversion problems.  Anyway, that's something I want to get a look at in the morning, when there's good light where I'm working.  I've already picked out a shade between the two far apart ones, but that now seems too dark....

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

Weddings coming up!

Two weddings are happening within the next 3 months and so I'm already well on with the gifts for the first one (in mid-August).  I've done the card and have got everything ready to start stitching for the gift.

<-This is the design I used for the card.  As you can probably see, it's part of a long, narrow sampler design and is by Patricia Bage of Patricia Ann's Designs.  It's from her 'Beginners Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery'.  I just used this central square and then added a line a silver cross stitches around the outside as it was really too small for the card blank. Yes, the fabric is lilac, but it hasn't shown up well here.

Here's the floss toss for the gift.  The design is the 'ring of roses' you can see on the right, here finished up as a table centre, but I'm going to work it as a cushion/pillow cover as it's more practical and, frankly, I can't stand buttonhole edging.  Caleb, I love ya, but not enough for all that edging!!!  I'll probably also change the woven filling for wrapped bars as they're quicker and, by the time I get to that stage, I'll be ready to do something else, no doubt.  The flowers are to be worked in these pretty yellows as I thought that would be easier to fit in with whatever colour scheme they chose for whichever room they want to use it in than the reds I'd originally planned to do with this design.  Anyway, I expect to be starting on the satin stitching this evening.

This next bit is for Cynthia who, after the room re-organisation post, wanted to see whole room shots.  That's quite a challenge as the room is so small!  However, nothing loathe, here is the view of the (messy) desk area, which is wall to wall as you see, and was taken from as far back in the doorway as I could reasonably stand.

This second shot shows the bookshelves joining on to the new shelves and from that you can see how short that wall is.

So, I live in a rather tiny space, but I think I've got it about as close to optimised as one could hope for.  There's no comfy chair in there for stitching, that's why that takes place in the roomier living room.  And, if we do move closer into town as Sir wants (and part of me does too), then I will almost certainly lose my room and we'll end up sharing a second bedroom as a study.  Not as good, but still far better than being restricted to the dining table, no?=)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012

So, what's next?

There are now only 3 full days left before we leave Taiwan and you should see our living room! It's absolutely covered in things waiting to be packed into the 2 big, strong packing boxes I got from the Post Office. Looks like we're going to need a third really, but we'll take that as it comes tomorrow, when I/we plan to try and get the stuff into them.

We've had a number of invitations to farewell dinners for this week etc, so I've not had to worry much about cooking, but the friends who came to our little 'open house' do on Sunday brought so many goodies, that we sent the last few away with a good number of slices of cake etc and are still giving stuff away now after off-loading all the pop (soda) etc onto Sir's old teacher who hosted a lunch for her students yesterday!

I've saved the goldwork viola, the narrowboat cross-stitch and this new project on the right for the journey home. I don't expect to get a great amount of any of them done, but at least I have some variety in there. Hmm, looks like including my hardanger scissors might be a good move too. Best not put those in a box! Anyway, this is one of the Cross'n'Patch designs that I'm planning to stitch up for my mum - the green version of what you can see in the photo here.

Below are the paper things I got in Japan - a few origami papers in delightful designs and a set of bookmarks, which I daresay will provide inspiration for some future projects. I really like Japanese art much better than Chinese and am looking forward to seeing what Korea has to offer next weekend whilst we're there.=)


More soon, but I can't say whether it will be from here (should be as I need to get the fieldmice cushion finished up - planned for tomorrow, if poss), from Seoul or from Germany...

Update on the Band Sampler

Here's the weekend's progress on the band sampler. For information, this is 'Silver Frost' by Patricia Ann's Designs. I like many of her sampler designs and own at least another 2 to do later on. Some of the parts (those with lots of backstitch) are a bit of a pain, but, in the main, it's very pleasant and easy to work. It'll be made up as a bell-pull and given as a very belated 20th wedding anniversary gift to friends who have now been married 21½ years!! Not as bad as the dog, which was meant to be a ruby wedding gift and made it to it's final desitination a couple of months short of the couple's (my aunt and uncle) 44th wedding anniversary!!! So, at this rate, there's hope that something might be ready on time yet!

I hope to get on with some of my colour module work today as my teacher, Diane, suggested that it would be good to get that finished and signed off as soon as possible and that that completion would spur me on for the rest of the stuff and I think she's right. I'm even looking forward to the work I need to do. I have to do the actual stitching on 2 samples and a few pieces of art work for the resolved design piece. Please don't ask me what a 'resolved piece' is as none of us really understand it - including those who did it all in previous years!

I'm reading Mary Elizabeth Braddon's 'The Doctor's Wife' at the moment, but not finding that I'm getting into it as much as I have the others I've read by her. Perhaps that's partly because I kind of know the story - it's meant to be her version of Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary', and partly because it's rather a slow starter. Doubt I'll be finished it in time to take back to the library on Weds, (only a 7 day loan), but at least you can renew them these days. You didn't use to be able to renew 7 day loan items. I plan to get quite a few more out then too, both from the 7 day and main collections (which, as an academic member of staff, I can keep for up to 6 months per loan!), including the 'Ever After' book, some of Wilde's plays and so forth.

Post Zusammenfassung in Deutsch:

Mein Sampler geht jetzt weiter und gibt's nur 8 Teilen übrig. Leider bin ich immer noch krank, aber heute hab' ich ein bißchen Berufschulestickerei gestickt und hoffentlich kommt bald einige Fotos.

Ich hab' kurzlich viel gelesen, viele gute Romans vom 19-Jahrhundert, von Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell und Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Krankheit gibt mir die Möglichkeit zu lesen.

Am Freitag fliegen wir nach Frankfurt, bis um Montag. Ich hoffe, dass wir die Zeit haben dort etwas interesantes sehen werden. Ich war nur 2 oder 3 Stunden in Frankfurt und würde gern mehr sehen.

Dyeing to stitch

We had a go at Procion dyeing in class this Thursday. I didn't have much in the way of interesting fabric to hand and wasn't really in the frame of mind (or body!!!) for anything adventurous, so I just did some random space dyeing with ultramarine, turquoise and a green mixed from ultramarine and lemon yellow. I thought they would be useful for sky and greenery backgrounds and I should be able to use one or two of them in my samples soon.




The weather has been so grey here that it's barely been light enough to take photos, but trusty Photoshop has enabled me to correct the colour casts and show where I am with the band sampler and cross stitch pieces, both of which you can see here.


Jane of Craft Therapy has kindly nominated me in the latest 'Kreativ Blogger' awards, which I've added to the rest of the accolades down the sidebar!! Jane's blog is quite varied, although her main interest to date has been a number of papercrafts. She's done some pretty scrapbooking layouts, greetings cards and ATCs and is planning on branching out into more artwork - drawing and painting.

Thank goodness for cross stitch!

I've come to the conclusion (yet again!!!) that I'm sometimes quite nuts when it comes to my stitchery. For instance, if I want to stitch something, but I have outstanding City & Guilds work to do, unless I'm going to get on with that work, I don't stitch, I do something else instead. Now that's mad as, often, my college works needs a lot of thought and even energy as I'm doing new stuff almost all the time, certainly always using my own designs and it takes a lot more than just relaxing with the 2 counted thread projects I have on the go at the mo. So, I decided that, esp. whilst I'm still recovering from the 'flu-like thing I've had, I can be a bit more sensible and get on with some of the others. After all, the whole thing is meant to be fun, not another thing in life where 'I ought to....' Man!

So, above you can see that I've added another 3 rows to the top of the band sampler last touched about 4 weeks ago and to the right here you can see a good half of the second bird added to the 'Goldfinches' cross stitch that I last worked on in late July! If I'm feeling up to it, I'll get on with C&G samples tomorrow and so on, but if not, I'm not going to fret about it anymore. Also, if I don't quite get my work done in time for the assessment session on the last Thursday before the winter break, I'm still going to take the full winter break and not work on college stuff over that fortnight. So there!!

Thanks for the well wishes, by the way. Susan, you're welcome to go stash shopping for me. Are you paying too???=)LOL!

Finished Band 8

Decided to do a bit more on the 'Silver Frost' bellpull piece and this is what it looks like at the mo. The large band at the top will have beads in the centres of the 3 large snowflake motifs, but I'll get the beading done all in one go once the main stitching is done. Well, depends. A band or two up from here looks like it's best to do the beads along with the backstitch, but I'll decide on that when I get to it.

I haven't finished my shell sample yet and it's class again tomorrow. We're doing appliqué with bird or feather designs, so I've got 3 photos of peacock feathers to work from. I'm looking forward to that as I've never done appliqué before. So, the kind soul who said I 'had the skills' for the course is proved mistaken!!! I have a lot to learn from it and, frankly, sometimes it scares me how much I'm expected to produce and take in over the next 8/9 months! Will post photos when I have some to post.=) Maybe tomorrow or Friday morning. We're going to Scotland this weekend and I'll take either my shell to finish or 'Silver Frost' to get on with.

The Wedding!

Managed to get the 'wedding' bellpull done in time, (finished putting it on the hanger in the car on the way to the ceremony!!!), and ,<-here it is.

And this is me with the happy couple receiving their new gift. Just wish I'd got my glasses off fast enough - vanity!






Here's me having the long awaited 'Victory Dance' with my friend, Caleb. About 18 months ago in one of his e-mails he told me he'd been to an Irish barn dance the night before. I replied that, if I ever got better, (I had ME/CFS for 3-4 years), I would dance a set with him and here we jolly well are! One of my other friends told me she didn't expect to see me the next day as she thought I'd be wrecked for ages. Well, this time last year, I would have been virtually crippled for a week or more after just one dance, but after 4 barn dance sets, plus some other stuff, I was perfectly OK. No pay-back fatigue or malaise whatsoever. Yippee!=) So, if you have ME, CFS or FMS and are considering trying Mickel or Reverse Therapy, let me encourage you: Ignore the popular skepticism and misinformation and give it a try. It's hard going, but IT WORKS!

Almost Complete!

The VS design is almost done now - just the ribbon and beadwork to go now.=) Here's progress so far. I like this type of design a lot as there are lots of new things to try and they don't take vry long to do. Also, good instructions to follow, instead of DIY-ing it like the last wedding gift. Panic stations!!

Nothing more to report on the stitching front, except that there's another card coming up soon as some friends have their 20th wedding very soon and I think that deserves a nice card. Then there's a 10th in May...

Miraculous!

I can see the floor in my bedroom! Look at these before and after shots. This first one is from late last year before I started the clear-out, and the second I just took a few minutes ago.

It took a long time and a lot of work sorting out all this junk and putting it, not just in another temporary parking spot, but actually dealing with it once and for all. YIPPEE!

Now then, on the stitching front: I haven't backed the bookmarks yet, but I am going to as it protects the embroidery from picking fingers, accidents and other such horrors as well as giving a nice bit of colour through the cutwork and just finishing the whole thing off neatly. Also, I noticed that I actually snipped one of the edging stitches on the white one, (which is for DH, who collects bookmarks), and so need to repair that. Someone on a hardanger newsgroup assured me that it can be done and so I've fished out a piece of scrap fabric to practice on first.

Made a start on Hongda and Ke's 'wedding' gift and here it is so far:

It's adapted slightly from the chatelaine design on the Victoria Sampler 'Thoughts of You' pattern, which definitely came from you, Petra!! You're the only one whose ever bought me VS designs and I know I haven't bought any myself - yet! More on that one soon, no doubt.

"And here we are again for 'Show and Tell'"

Feel like Sally Brown doing this! That's Charlie Brown's lil' sister, btw!! Love 'Peanuts'.=)

So, a few more older finishes before I get stuck into finishing off all the WIPs and WTBSUs ('waiting to be sewn up's):

Here's the Victoria Sampler 'Heart to Heart' friendship sampler design I adapted a bit and made into an anniversary bellpull, (with a wonky bottom, rats!), and the largest hardanger card I ever stitched, which is about A4 sized!!

I just ordered some goldwork threads for my friend's wedding present, a 'Welcome' sign for their porch done in goldwork with a silk-shaded flower. Yup, real silk too.=)

Four new cards!

So, here are three bargello heart cards, all stitched with Anchor pearl cotton #5 and co-irdinating Caron Watercolour threads.

Here's another one embellished with some ribbon and bead-work. Not sure what this one will be used for yet, as the engagement I've made it to congratulate, might not have happened! If it has and I'm told, I'll send it!!!!!!

None of them mounted well as they were done on Bellana fabric which warps and pulls like mad. Haven't put so much as a single stitch into anything since last posting. Been busy doing happy housework and clearing out my wardrobe and making space for new things....... (I should be so lucky!)