Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Birthday Long Weekend

Since it was my birthday I decided to take another long weekend. We celebrated by going for High Tea at the Ritz Carlton which is something I've always wanted to try.


The scones have inspired me. I will definitely have to try making them at home. I also took the opportunity to attend the Thursday stitching meeting with the day group from the Lakeshore guild. It was great to sit down with the ladies and interact with them. Some of them brought pieces for show and tell but I was so busy looking at everything I forgot to take pictures.


Fandango has been progressing slowly (sorry it's hard to take pictures of white on white). I've already stitched more than I need for my class in May, but I'll continue working on it as much as I can. I am determined to have it finished before the end of the year :) So the more I do now, the better (or at least that's what I keep telling myself).


A while back I signed up for a class with the EAC Virtual Threads Guild and it finally started this weekend. This technique is called Sardinian Knot Stitch or punt’e nù and originates from Teulada, Sardinia, Italy. The technique is fairly simple and is composed of knots that rest along the vertical fabric thread. It kind of looks like the coral stitch but with this one you have to be careful of stitching on the right fabric thread otherwise once you come around things don't meet up and the design won't look symmetrical. And let's not forget tension! Tension is very important in this style of stitching. I think I restarted this little figure at least 5 times and I never even went all around until my last attempt. It looks kind of chunky because I'm stitching with #5 perle cotton.

The class is thought by Jeanine Robertson who has a wonderful blog on Italian needlework of all kinds. You can learn more about this particular technique by clicking here. She even has some free patterns posted if you'd like to try your hand at it. My goal for this class is to master this technique so that I can stitch this piece.


It is a piece designed by Jeanine and appeared in issue 87 of Inspirations magazine. I tried to stitch it on my own but didn't like any of my attempts. Hopefully I will be able to do a better job after this class :)

8 comments:

  1. Happy birthday to you! Fandango seems to be a huge project, so many satin stitches ! But it's look beautiful and I'm sure the finished piece will be amazing!
    I like the blue pillow , can't wait to see yours :)

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  2. Happy Belated Birthday to you! I've seen this class mentioned on someone else's blog. Can't think you though. It's an interesting technique and I'm looking forward to seeing a larger piece.

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  3. Happy belated Birthday. Sounds like you had a fun weekend. Lovely stitching.

    Linda

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  4. Happy birthday! You certainly try the most interesting techniques. Thanks for sharing them.

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  5. Belated Happy Birthday, indeed. I think it's better to be enjoying an occasion than photographing it anyway!

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  6. Happy Belated Birthday. Looking forward to seeing all the pieces after Seminar.

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  7. Happy Birthday. I like how you celebrate. And your projects are coming along beautifully.

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  8. Thanks for the link. Love this type of embroidery. I stopped my subscription to Inspirations mag but there are such lovely things sometimes. Hope you had a great birthday.

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