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Saturday, 7 January 2012

Progress Report – December

I have been setting myself goals and regularly reviewing my progress for a year now, so this month I want to review the last year and look ahead for the next 12 months.

My initial goals centred on my four Japanese Embroidery Frames.

At the beginning of the year Loving Couple was on Frame One. The embroidery was already done so I only had to do the finishing and mounting before taking LC to the framers. Next onto the frame was my Phase VII piece. I started Camellias at my Japanese Embroidery class in March. The long and short stitch techniques learnt at this Phase proved very challenging for me and I have not made much progress with it. I would like to start the next Phase in March, so my aim is to finish Camellias completely by the end of February. With everything else I would like to finish this spring, that may be a bit tight but this is my second highest priority deadline.

Embroidery Bridge Between East and West is on Frame Two. My goal was to finish this by the end of 2011. Not only have I not achieved that, I have done very little stitching on this piece during the past 12 months. Completing this piece was not my highest priority and other things came up that I wanted to do first. It remains a low priority but I would like to finish it. I don’t see that happening anytime in 2012.

I have spent far more time on Frame Three than any other. I have a bigger goal than simply finishing current projects that centres around this frame. In April Matsukawa-san will be teaching Phase V class in Atlanta. I want to be in that class but I cannot enrol until I have completed the beading on Phase IV. My goal was to finish Floral Melody by Christmas 2011. I did not make that deadline but I was really close. I estimate that I have 20-30 hours beading left to do. This is currently my top priority.

Floral Melody was on Frame Four at the beginning of the year. That frame has remained empty since I moved FM to Frame Three and I still have not decided what to put onto this frame next.

One of the 'things that came up' was Floral Glove. This took me far longer than I imagined it would but I thoroughly enjoyed the class, learnt a lot from it and am delighted with my finished etui.

Another 'thing' was Chinese Flower. This also has taken far long than I thought it would and is not yet finished. I am nearly there and would like to finish it soon, say by the end of February.

Neither of these was something that I had planned to do but proved to be too tempting when I heard about them. They did however, fit with my learning plan for the year. They both included instructions for long and short stitch, the very technique that I was struggling with on Camellias. From those two on-line causes I think that I have learnt a lot about LSS and one of the things that I learnt is that the Japanese method is different from the western method. It will be interesting to see if all that I have learnt will be of help or a hindrance when I return to Camellias.

Other plans for 2012 include an on-line course with Tanya Berlin. This is another LSS project – I think that I am becoming a little obsessed with this stitch! The course begins in February which is not ideal timing for me but this was another 'unmissable' opportunity!

I have also enrolled for the Cabinet of Curiosities online course – yet another 'unmissable' opportunity. What embroiderer hasn’t dreamt of making their own embroidered casket? This is a big investment in terms of time and money but, if the two courses I have previously done with Thistle Threads are anything to go by, it will be well worth it.

Finally, I have also signed up for TAST 2012. I never did complete all of the stitches first time around and I would like to fill in the gaps. I don’t intend to as much as I attempted to the first time, except for maybe for a few stitches that I feel should be in my set of samplers.

I already know that I have taken on too much and will struggle to meet all of my goals but there is nothing that I want to cut from my list! It looks like being a busy year.

Happy Stitching

Friday, 6 January 2012

Small Flowers, 12

The space between the large motifs, the small flowers and the twigs and leaves is filled with silver beads using a technique called Tataki-ume. I have used this method on both Calm Flow and Poppy Pouch. On both of those pieces the beads are tightly packed to completely cover the fabric. On Floral Melody the beads are slightly spaced to allow the background fabric to show through. The spaces should be consistent so it is more difficult to do than the variation taught in the earlier phases. (n.b. Usually slight variations of technique have a different name but I don’t if that is the case here. I tried to research Tataki-ume on the internet but could only find references to food so I may have the name completely wrong!)

I discussed how the thread colour could affect the appearance of the beads in an earlier post and wondered if the silver beads would look better stitched with white thread. I did some stitch samples on the edge of the fabric using four different coloured threads; white, cream, pale blue and pale grey. I thought that there was a barely noticeable difference between the samples with the white and pale blue threads giving the brightest, most silvery effect. The pale grey thread gave the beads a darker, steelier appearance and the cream thread gave the beads a softer creamy look. In the end decided to stick with the cream thread that I had used throughout because it is the least noticeable against the back ground fabric.

As I started to fill the background, I was amazed at how the whole appearance of the design was altered.

All of the elements became unified.

Some of the small flowers that I had thought were strong accents, simply melted into the background.

And this is how Floral Melody looked when the entire background done!

As I said at the beginning of this series of posts, these small flowers, twigs, leaves and the back ground have taken several weeks to stitch. I certainly have not done them during the Twelve days of Christmas that these posts were sent to you! Even the posts were done in advance (mostly on Christmas Eve) and scheduled to be delivered one at a time while I was busy with Christmas celebrations and away visiting family in Amsterdam. When I returned, I was delight to see the lovely comments that had been left and thank you all for your kind words.

Floral Melody, when finished, will be a handbag with both sides beaded with the same design. Although one side is now finished, I still have some beading to do on the second side.

Speaking of the Twelve Days of Christmas, you probably know by now that Mary Corbet is running a TDoC give-away with some wonderful prizes on offer. If you did not know, do not despair, you have until January 9th, 2012, at 5:00 am Central Standard Time to visit Needle’n’Thread and leave a comment on the posts to have a chance to win.

Happy Stitching

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Small Flowers, 11

When all of the small flowers were completed, it was time to start work on the twigs and leaves that fill the spaces between the blossoms.

At first I was quite daunted by this. I have pictures of four versions of Floral Melody completed by other stitches and there is quite some difference between how they have done the foliage. I was not sure which version would suit my Floral Melody the best.

But once I had made a start, I just kept going ... and going ... and going. And before I knew it, all of the foliage was beaded and I hadn’t taken a single picture!

This is how Floral Melody looked with all of the flowers and foliage complete.

Happy Stitching

Wednesday, 4 January 2012

Small Flowers, 10

While checking that I had completed all of the small flowers, I noticed that I had missed a couple of things on the main motifs. Firstly, I had not finished the right-hand edge of this leaf.

When I had added the orange seed bead edge, I realised that I also needed to finish filling the centre of the leaf with the pearly seed beads.

Between two of the large leaves there is a partial leaf that I had missed completely.

I soon fixed that.

Now all of the flower motifs are definitely finished.

Happy Stitching

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Small Flowers, 9

This is how Floral Melody looked before I added the small flowers.

I worked a couple of flower types at a time, starting with the largest. When I had completed all of the same flowers, I stood the frame up and reviewed my progress.

I wanted to make sure that I had enough beads to do all of the same flowers in the same colour way and that the overall effect was balanced.

The first few flowers were predominantly red or orange and at that stage the overall effect was very orange.

But gradually the smaller blooms, worked mainly in the blackberry, blue and green beads began to make their presence known.

This is how things looked with all of the small flowers added (including one that I forgot to write about!).

Happy Stitching

Monday, 2 January 2012

Small Flowers, 8

The last of the small flowers were these small daisy-like blooms. There are a dozen or so of them scattered all around the bag. They were very simple to do. An orange seed bead in the centre ...