Japanese Embroidery Phase 2-3 - Flax-Leaf Effect

I've had a very slow two weeks, so I was very happy to wake up early yesterday morning with the urge to stitch. I think it had something to do with the sun shining brightly and that I didn't have to be at work on account of it being a national holiday.

I decided to take out Hiogi and tackle the flax-leaf effect paulownia leaf. I figured it should be a cinch since it was one I was already familiar with.

What I didn't plan on were my hands being so cold I couldn't twist my thread. It kept slipping, instead of twisting. I've tried washing them in hot water, clapping and rubbing them together. It would work with one strand before my hands became too cold again. I guess I have poor circulation right now.

Luckily the following steps didn't require twisted thread, so I was able to move along.

I wasn't a hundred percent sold on the colors initially when I saw them side by side, but stitched they look great. I'm really happy I don't have a stash of silks as I would have been tempted to change the color.

One more off my list.

• finish sayagata cloud
• finish shippo cloud
• finish the snow flake in the upper right corner
• finish the woven effect paulownia
• finish the tie dye effect paulownia
• start and finish the flax leaf effect paulownia
• start and finish the separated single layer paulownia (low priority)

Next Sunday is my monthly Japanese embroidery meeting, so I'll have to decide what my goal will be. I'm not sure I want to start the last paulownia leaf, so it'll have to be either the shippos or the snow flake. I have the week to decide.

Not Much Progress

As much as I was hoping to get some stitching done over the weekend, very little happened. I did finish stretching my Japanese embroidery piece. I thought the framer would be waiting after me, but it turns out that I'm the one who will be waiting after THEM. It's fine though, I'm in no real rush.

I've tried to pick up a few of my projects over the past few days but I'm just not into it. I decided to stick to simpler pieces for now, like this hedebo piece. This is Hedebo Starbust by Jette Roy Finlay-Heath, a kit I bought at seminar in Newfoundland. There is a lot of pre-work to do in this piece so not much to show for now. I pull it out every now and then, and so far put in about 30 hours. It's a great piece to work on when I want to keep my hands busy but not think too much. Plus, not having to worry about changing colors is great. So it suits my current mood perfectly.

April TUSAL

I did mainly Japanese embroidery in April so there wasn't much in my jar this month until this weekend. All the white thread is from a Japanese embroidery piece but not from stitching. It's the lacing thread on my bouquet.

Last Friday, I cut the lacing and removed my piece from the frame and started the long process of stretching the fabric over foam core. I worked on it all of Sunday and am still going at it. So sadly no stitching update from me this week. I'm hoping to get this done before the end of the week so I can do some stitching this weekend.