Sake Boxes - Stitch Transfer

It is quite staggering to realise how long Sake Boxes has been in my life! I won the fabric and design in a JEC silent auction in 2011 but was not ready to begin Phase IX at that time so it went into storage for a couple of years.

I started stitching in 2014 at my spring class with Margaret Lewis. I had visited sensei a few weeks earlier to choose my silks and discuss preparation. As well as any stitched outlines, I hoped to have all the foundations stitched prior to class but did not get that far so the first day was spent twisting threads and stitching the foundation of the two vessels. At first these two blocks of solid colour look very stark but I knew that I needed to ignore that and just remember that they will look very different in the end.

When I last wrote about Sake Boxes, in January 2015, the foundations had been pushed to the back of my mind while I focused on the many chrysanthemums and I wrote “Until I get to the gold work on the vessels there will be nothing new to say about this piece, except for an occasional progress report.” While progress has been slow and intermittent, I have failed completely in filing progress reports!

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

By the time I attended class at Symondsbury Manor House in March 2015, I had made reasonable progress with the round and pointed petal chrysanthemums. Whenever possible, I like to spend class time working on something new so that I can obtain instruction and iron out any difficulties whilst my tutors are on hand. During this class I wanted to begin the superimposed work on the two vessels. As always, there is preparation to be done before you can start on the fun bits! Ahead of the class I traced the design for the sake box and the ladle on to tissue paper and began the laborious process of stitch transfer onto my foundations.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I had been advised to use a different colour couching thread for each of the various superimposed elements. This proved to be good advice even though my colour choices did not always work to my advantage.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Once the entire design has been stitched through the tracing paper comes the even more laborious process of removing the tissue paper. It must be done with care so not to disturb the stitch transfer or the foundation stitches.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

With the tissue paper removed, the two vessels were already transformed and began to get an impression of how they would look with the superimposed work complete.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching