A Crewel Start for a Fair Maiden

I was cornered into teaching a workshop this summer for my local EGA guild. We knew it was to be crewel, but didn't have an exact project. The day of the last meeting, I got my issue of Sampler and Antique Needlework quarterly in the mail. They had a very nice crewelwork sewing purse on the cover, and we decided to do it. So I've started one now in order to have a model to teach from and in order to clarify instructions and such. Here's the start. There are three pieces, two of which get embroidered. I'll be starting the actual stitching this week, but at least I have it all traced now.

Second Band Done

I ended up clamping the frame to my desk and breaking out the laying tool for this band, but I think the result was more than worth the small extra effort. It went quickly and now I'm on to band three, which is much larger.

New Round Robin Block

I received another block to work on on Thursday. It's been embellished by two others so far, and they've done such lovely work. I'm thinking of filling up the upper left hand corner with a flower motif and do some crocheted edgings in some perle cotton and a very fine hook. I'm not sure what else I'm going to do. I definitely won't be using my really gold gold on it, though. All the other embellishments use silver as an accent.

February Recap

Especially compared with January, my stitching success in February wasn't. There is the excuse that I was down with the flu for a week of it, but I feel like things just got away from me. I only completed four projects, and none of them was my Take It Further challenge or my ornament challenge. I seem to have hit the doldrums.

The Take It Further challenge was "What are you old enough to remember?" Immediately when I read it, I thought of mimeographs, dittoes in the old parlance. Before copiers, there was a different printing method that involved ink and mess and a certain smell of solvents. By the time I was in high school, the age of mimeographs was over, but I still remember the smell. I have something designed; I just haven't gotten around to stitching it. I'll try to get it started next weekend.

With the ornament, I was just so sick on the day of and am just now creeping back to normal. I'll be working on it tomorrow, and I have it started. It's a Papillon Creations freebie called Winter Wood, but I'm doing it in monochrome. I feel so behind.

On the good side, Part 3 of the Midi Mystery is complete. That means it's well over halfway finished. Band two of the 17th Century English Sampler is done, which means I'm on track for it. And Band five of Tiramisu is complete. I guess this means I did -something- this month.

Filling in the Circles

I messed up this week but decided to keep it anyway. I used the right color of Edmar, but the wrong type. I used Lola instead of Glory, resulting in my circle filling being a bit more pronounced than it's supposed to be. I'm keeping it, though. Didn't want to rip out the smyrnas and I'll just use Glory instead of Lola somewhere else if I have to. There are three Walneto stitches to put yet in this band, but at least I'm making stepwise progress on it.

Third Iteration

Working on the third repetition of this garden now, it's getting kind of hard to say new things about stitching it. Of course, this lack of novelty could be the flu I've had all week. Maybe when I finally shake it off in the next couple of days, I'll start thinking of new things to say. I hope none of you get it. It's nasty!

So Close to a Band

Band 5's so close to being done in this picture, and since it was taken last Friday, is now complete. Considering how wide the band is, it went very quickly. I hope the next one, equally as wide, goes as well.