And Done!

I did work on my hem this weekend as planned. The hem was stitched a little differently from the hem on my Italian runner but the concept is still similar.

First step was to cut off the excess fabric. The design specified how many threads to count out. If you look closely you'll notice that a thread is missing. This acts as a channel to make sure I cut my fabric straight.

Here is my fabric all cut and ready to go.

I finger pressed the fabric making sure to keep five threads for my buttonhole. Normally you would use an iron but I couldn't with this fabric. The humidity from the iron could shrink the fabric as it's real linen. It was also better to do it by hand since my fold was so small. I wanted to make sure it was accurate going all around. Once I finished going around, I unfolded the edges and cut off the corners at a diagonal.

 I refolded my hem and put in pins to keep it in place.

Now I was ready to start. I had to get used to this buttonhole. The Hedebo buttonhole is similar to the buttonhole we use in Hardangar except we're coming in from the back. This adds a little twist to the thread.

Hedebo Buttonhole

Hardanger Buttonhole

It went much faster than I expected. By Friday night I had hit the half-way point and Saturday morning I was able to speed through the other half.

Here is my piece all finished. It's still very wrinkly at this point. I'm just waiting for more specifics on the materials I need to gather from Jette and then I'll be washing and ironing my piece. I also need to buy a pillow and backing fabric. So it's not completely finished, I still have a few hours to put into it.

Jette was very generous with her kit. Here is what I had left from the threads that were included in my kit. I have plenty to start and finish another Hedebo piece. Just need to get my hands on linen fabric.

Since Hedebo Enchantment is done, I've already pulled out my next project to finish. I decided to go with goldwork and am well on my way. I wouldn't be surprised if Monday I will be posting another finish ;) I'll try to publish an update post sometime this week so I don't overwhelm you with information later.

Almost there

For the past week or so, I haven't really been up to stitching. Work has really been draining what energy I have that all I felt like doing was sitting with my Kindle. Whatever stitching I did do was all concentrated on Hedebo Enchantment. (If you're reading this by email, click on the link to open it in your browser).

Last time I showed you the large drops with the pulled thread pattern. The center circle and the smaller drop are a little different. The circle is actually cut open and secured with a buttonhole edge. You can see it in action below.

The small drops are stitched the exact same way as the circle.

I had some trouble getting them all to look uniform and I'm still not a hundred percent happy with them, but that's okay.

The small drops have an extra step to finish them off. This technique is called needle lace. If you're familiar with Hazel Blomkamp's books she uses this technique a lot in her designs and even has a book dedicated to the technique.

The blanket stitch around the opening acts as an anchor. A line is then extended from one side to another and back. This is where you then start to needle lace. It's basically blanket stitching in the air. It's very fiddly, you want your line to be taught but not too much you distort the sides. Your stitches need to be tight but not too tight and they have to have enough space to breath on the line.

Note: If you ever decide to try this out, don't do it in white your first time. It is very hard to see your stitches. Also, don't try it with linen thread. Linen thread is not as smooth as mercerized cotton, so it will sometimes snag on itself. The first time I ever tried this technique was in a class with Hazel and she had us using DMC Special Dentelles in colors.

So here is my center all done. I finished it yesterday and was so excited I jumped right into starting the hem. I will be working on that this weekend and hopefully I will have a "finish" to share with you next week. It won't be 100% finished until it's been turned into a pillow, but it will take me some time to gather everything I need.

Waiting

I'm still waiting for the passing thread for my goldwork flower. So I took out the next piece on my pile of WIPs, my phase 1 Japanese bead embroidery piece and...ran out of beads.

I knew this was going to happen (Carolyn warned me ages ago) and should have placed another order. I guess I was too optimistic.

I could have started on the last bit that needs to be beaded, in between the leaves, but I decided to wait. That piece went back in storage and the next piece came out, Hedebo Enchantment. The border all around is done for now and I've moved onto the center.

I wasn't planning on stitching the center portion as I though it would be finished into a table center and that area would be hidden by a vase or something. My mom asked me to finish it into a pillow instead, so now the center has to be stitched. This also means that eventually I'll have to figure out how to do the actual pillow finishing. I think I will contact Jetta, the teacher, and see what suggestions she may have.

There are three different patterns for the center: the center circle, four small drops and four larger drops. I've started with the larger drops as it doesn't involve any cutting. They're stitched with a pulled thread pattern and then surrounded by two rows of chain stitch. They're kind of hard to see because it's all done in white. In retrospect, I think there should have been more color in the center. Maybe the chain stitch could have been done with the other linen thread that came in the kit.

The plan now is to keep stitching on Hedebo Enchantement until the passing or beads come in. I'm hoping it's soon as I'm not really inspired by my hedebo piece right now. 

Busy Weekend

This weekend is the 2017 Needle Arts Fair of the Cataraqui Guild of Needle Arts in Kingston, Ontario. I will be there tonight and tomorrow to help out l'Atelier de Pénélope at her booth again. I've always wanted to go to this fair, but every year we either forgot or weren't able to go. It's a 3 hour one way drive from Montreal! So I'm really happy with this perfect opportunity :)

This does mean that I will not be able to get any stitching this weekend. I am meeting my Japanese embroidery group on Sunday so maybe there will be a little bit of stitching but I wouldn't be surprised if we spend most of it talking about our upcoming Japanese embroidery class. However, I did make sure to meet some of my goals for this week. It's not as much progress as I'd like but still progress. 

I've finished my pulled thread border on Hedebo Enchantment. The next step would be to start the needle woven border that goes in between the two satin stitch borders.

I plunged all the Japanese threads on my goldwork flower. Next week I will start with the two padded areas that are around the filaments (? I had to look that one up and I'm still not sure it's the right word). It's more couched threads, but this one should be interesting as it alternates between Japanese and passing thread.

I also did a tiny bit of beading on my phase 1 Japanese Bead Embroidery Wednesday. I was hoping to do more yesterday but work got in the way. At least I finished the row I had started before.

I'm really looking forward to the fair, I hope there will be some sort of exhibition from members. I also took a look at the list of vendors and there are a few interesting ones including some bead shops. I'll try to take pictures to share on Instagram and the blog.

White and Gold

This weekend I made a good deal of progress on two of my main WIPs. We had wonderful weather so I sat outside for a bit and worked on the many borders on Hedebo Enchantment.

I'm almost all the way around, a little over a quarter is left. I should have this done this week and I can start on the next one.

While we had great weather it was also too hot to sit outside all day. Those times I spent inside on my Goldwork flower. The first step is couching the larger petals in Japanese thread.

I'm in love with this thread. It gives off such a beautiful shine.

The Japanese thread is couched around the petal outline, but the very center of them are going to be filled with chip work. I'm still trying to decide if this is a good place to stop couching or if I should do more. By the way, it's not your imagination: the petal on the right is bigger than the left which adds to my dilemma. Thoughts?

In any case, I've decided I will plunge all the metal threads before I make any further decisions. My goal is to get that done by mid-week so I can move onto the next part to be couched. This piece has a lot of couched areas.

September TUSAL

First off, I just want to thank everyone who took the time to comment on my last post =D I replied to most of you but many comments were coming in as no-reply. So thank you!

It's TUSAL time. I'm actually not late for once. This months it's all white threads from finishing my runner (there might be some color underneath) and yellow felt from starting my goldwork flower.

Stitching updates: I finally finished all of the squares on Hedebo Enchantment. Now it's all about that border. I'll have to review the instructions, but I think I have to go around about 5 times. There is a drawn/pulled thread border, as well as some weaving and buttonhole stitch border with needle lace to finish it off. Still aiming for an end of year finish and I think I'm making good time.

This week, I want to work on the couching for the large petals on the goldwork flower. I started last night so I'm hoping to have at least one of them finished before the end of the week.

Prepping Squares

My goal over the weekend was to finish all of the fillings for square #4. I finished those on Sunday and quickly moved onto square #2.

The filling for square #2 starts with the four-sided stitch over 2 threads in the thinnest thread we have in the kit. Doesn't sound too bad right?

The hard part comes when you have to do the cutwork seen in the animation below (click on the post if you're reading this by email). We do the actual cutting in the middle of the square to make sure we have a long enough strand on each side. The fabric thread is then unwoven and anchored at the back of the four-sided stitch. You have to do this strand by strand. You cut two strands at a time but you can't anchor them together in one shot or you'll pull on the stitches along the sides. Believe me I found that out the hard way :|

The final square looks very neat from the front.

But it's a different story at the back. Those strands are super short, less than half an inch in fact. These threads will be left there until the piece is finished and washed. The fabric is real linen so it will shrink and I wouldn't want them to slip out of their anchor.

I don't think I would dislike this square if it was bigger or if we had longer strands to work with. In fact, once all the preparations are done, I enjoy doing the actual filling of sling stitches and dove's eyes. I liked it so much I bought this kit from Jetta at seminar that is just riddled with them. I'm sort of looking forward to it, but first I need to finish Hedebo Enchantment.

Goal this week on this piece is to finish all the #2 square filling stitches. I have one more square to prep and then I can start the filling.

Catching Up

Coming back from Labor day weekend and I really wish I had one more day off. I took the opportunity to catch up on some of my long neglected WIPs because...my runner is finished!

I finished the hem on Friday night, but didn't get around to washing and ironing it till Sunday. And obviously by the time it was ready, there was no good lighting for pictures. Crossing my fingers for some good natural light in the living room. I want to take pictures of it against the dark wood of our coffee table so that the drawn thread portions really pop out. In any case, I'm so happy that it's done and I have plenty of time to arrange a drop off for the exhibition.

Finishing on Friday meant I had the rest of the long weekend to work on other projects. I was tempted to start preparations for the goldwork piece I'm starting this month but realized I never printed the instructions. So instead I devoted all of Sunday to my JEC phase 1 bead embroidery piece. I was able to finish all of the flowers. What's left now are stitching those leaves. That should keep me busy. They don't take as long to stitch as the flowers (each flower takes about 30 minutes), but there are a lot more of them.

Before

After

By the way, those extra beads I bought? It turns out they made a mistake with the shade of topaz. I ordered an extra hank of garnet, light topaz and dark topaz. The two bags on the right are the dark and light topaz they sent. What they sent as my dark topaz was in fact the light topaz. The dark topaz is the one on the left which is much darker. I did run out of light topaz but I was very lucky that I had enough of the darker shade to finish all the flowers. Otherwise I would have had to contact the JEC and place another order.

Monday was all about Hedebo Enchantment, my piece from this year's EAC Seminar. I decided to concentrate on the filling squares and finished all of square # 3 (the one with the doves eyes) and started square # 4 (this one looks like a '+'). I've been sort of avoiding the problem child which is square # 2 (the one at the bottom left corner). It was really annoying to stitch in class so I will have to do them in between working on the border. Right now my aim is to finish before the end of the year. I'm going to try and stitch on it at least two or three times a week so I can meet my deadline.

Before

After

So all in all I had a very satisfying and productive long weekend :) Did anyone else get any stitching done? Aim for this week is to photograph my runner, work some more on Hedebo Enchantment and setup my goldwork piece. So hopefully I will have another update for you at the end of the week.

A Mishmash of Updates

Since we had a long weekend, I had more stitching time. I just wish I had the energy to take advantage of it. I mostly spent it lazing around, but did try to put in a tiny bit of stitching everyday.

Foxy came back out for a second attempt at couching the passing thread. With some tips from fellow stitchers on Instagram, I was able to get that first one in properly. The main suggestion was to draw a line on the felt to use as a guide. Once the first row went in the rest were easy to align. I got all the way to the edge of the ear on each side and stopped there. I decided to plunge these ones first before moving on so it would be easier to see where to stitch in the little bits. I got the chance to try out a curved needle for the first time and let me tell you it is AWESOME! I wish I had it when I was trying to frame my pieces in the spring.

Click on post to see animation

My friend Nancy hosts Japanese Embroidery retreats once a month at her house for some stitching. It's a good way to encourage us to put in some progress on our pieces. They all do the traditional Japanese Embroidery. While I worked on my bead embroidery phase 1 piece, Nancy was working on finishing her phase 5 piece (she's already taken all 10 classes) and the other lady was working on a combined phase 2 and 3 piece. I didn't do much since I was low on energy, but I'm very happy that I finished one row of flowers. I've also realized that by stitching a specific pattern instead of just randomly picking colors, I will not have enough garnet and dark and light topaz beads. Luckily I can contact the JEC for more, but I have enough to work on it again when we meet up next month.

While I was there, Nancy lent me her Needlework system 4 floor stand and I must say it's fantastic. It doesn't tire my arm so much as I don't have to raise them to stitch like I do right now with my table stand. I will have to keep it in mind when I start shopping for a floor stand. It's a very light-way, easy to transport and put-away.

Before

After

Hedebo Enchantment also got some time. I finished the border that goes around the entire center.

Now I really need to start working on the smaller squares. I decided to start easy and finished square #1. This one uses taellesyning and platvaerk. Taellesyning is a form of counted thread work and platvaerk simply means satin stitch.

No stitching for me tonight as I have a cake to finish. It's my sister's birthday and I promised her a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I baked the two layers yesterday but I have to make the icing today and decorate it. Crossing my fingers it comes out pretty. I will have plenty of stitching time this weekend though as we have another holiday coming up, this time to celebrate Canada Day.

Crooked

I didn't get much stitching Saturday as we were invited to a friend's wedding. This meant I had a busy morning and then my evening was full. It was a lovely reception. We lost power half-way through which gave a lovely atmosphere for the couple with all the candles.

I woke up the next day ready to tackle Foxy again. The first order of business was ironing on the cotton interfacing Natalie sent me. I really like the quality of it (much better than the other one I previously used for Hana). I will have to find out where I can buy more.

The next step on Foxy was couching the passing on the head.

Unfortunately, my first go was really crooked. It's really important to get that first one right because otherwise the rest of the lines will look wrong.

While I was waiting for advice in Instagram, I decided to take out Hedebo Enchantment and work on setting up the smaller squares. I got so engrossed in getting them all done, I never stopped stitching and completely forgot about Foxy.

This means that I will have to get the head done this week in order to be able to catch up for this weekend.