Karahana - Lesson 1

This year is the year of online classes. We were very lucky that our Japanese embroidery teacher is willing to teach over zoom, so we were able to reschedule our cancelled workshop. Originally, we were set to start phase 4 in April 2020, but with COVID it was reschedule for fall and then to April 2021. With the current situation holding a class in person is still not possible, so we've decided to move online. In the end, I think this was a better option. Instead of holding classes over four (exhausting) days, we will have 3 hour sessions every two weeks with homework assigned.

Phase 4 is the goldwork modules of the curriculum and I've been looking forward to it for years. There are a few pieces available at this phase, but I went with Karahana which is purely goldwork. It's such an elegant piece, especially on the black.

In lesson one, we covered padding with padding cotton. This technique is used on the center and the trefoil elements. We also discussed a second padding technique but we didn't have time to try it.

Not much gets done in 3 hours, but we finished the day with a list of items we had to complete before the next class.

As we were meeting in the morning (eastern time, we also had a group from St John's who joined us), that gave me the rest of the day to get ahead.

So before next class, I need to:

1. Pad and cover the six center elements in #1 gold, and outline it with #3 gold
2. Pad and cover the trefoil elements in #1 gold, and outline them with #3 gold - this is more a nice to have as it doesn't interfere with the next lesson
3. Make karayori and stitch it around the center elements. This is to conserve the spacing between the center and the petals
4. Put in the padding for the bottom petal turnover