Blackwork Handwork

I have had a lot of fun keeping my hands busy with little hand sewing projects and Huzzah! my knitting mojo has returned.  I've cast on to knit a pattern I've done before but everything was wrong with the first incarnation of this garment. Wrong size, wrong needles and wrong yarn. This time around I think I have a much better chance of completing something I like.

But first to the projects I've finished!

I love making pincushions and scissor fobs because they are small, easy to carry around and relatively quick to execute. And since I'm always putting my scissors down and forgetting where I put them, these little attached pincushions make them easier to find amongst all the stuff I tend to surrounding myself with mid-craft. Here they are!

 This is a little Biscornu Pincushion I made with the last bit of pale blue aida cloth. I did the design in really dark brown that looks black. I like the clean crisp lines of the blackwork so I enjoyed doing this. The worst part is always whip stitching the two parts together and stuffing it! Even ironing thin interfacing on the back to stabilize the base material doesn't always help.

This one I like because of the nice effect with the sage green blackwork lines with the golden-yellow french knots in the centre of the flowers.  It's not that complex a design and I think that's one of it's appeal. It translated into a really nice scissor fob too.

 And this last one I decided to make a Pin-Keep. I never knew this sort of thing existed until recently and I kind of made up the design myself. Not the blackwork design. Just the actual Pin-Keep itself. No doubt I've done this wrong but it kind of works the way it's supposed to so I thought it worth the experiment.

I'll have to look up to see if I can find a pattern for these. It's a handy little thing and I'm already beginning to be overwhelmed with pincushions. Blackwork is a wonderful form of embroidery that builds a great design filled with clarity and clean lines.  It was also a nice interlude after intensive knitting. So as I take up my knitting again, I put aside my needles and threads, fine weave cloth and embroidery hoops until next time.

Whenever I pick it up again, it's guaranteed to be fun!

See you all later :)
Dx

Big Finale! Last Pin Cushion!

I have completed the last (for the time being anyway) pin cushion of my small set! So I decided to go all out with it's decorative bits!

This is the front piece design I copied from the blurred photocopy I had. I used the organic cotton for all the colours except for the white on the wings...and now I look at it I realize I forgot the one black spot for the birds eyes. Bother!! Oh well, too late now :)

So here is the finished product! I even found some ribbon to do the tie at the top instead of the ring. And I added beads around the edges when I was closing it up. I am ridiculously impressed with myself! It's so pretty! And a suitable finale for my collection of pin cushions.

See? Lovely red beads all hand stitched on, even around the ribbon join. And now...I think I'll give it a rest for a while. No more pin cushions...
...but I do have some adorable black-work motif patterns that would make absolutely gorgeous scissor fobs...mmm...maybe keep the threads out a little longer!
See you next time :)

Cross Stitch - the Other Obsession!

I've been on a mission to complete as many cute pin cushions as I can while giving my hands a bit of a rest from frenetic knitting...not that I'm not still knitting, just not so much like a machine!
I've been tooling around on Pinterest and there are so many beautiful patterns and projects! I love small motifs, both in cross stitch and black-work because they are so simple, are relatively quick to complete and have huge impact visually because they are so small and cute!
Also I wanted to use an organic cotton thread called Scanfil which has a large selection of lovely colours. Since it's a bit heavier than regular cotton I find it quite suitable to do fine cross stitch and black-work with.
Anyway...I have finished all but one of the designs I downloaded. Here they are in order of completion!

Roses and Bees

This one taught me a few things. That sewing together the two sides SOUNDS easy...but not necessarily in practice! Fortunately I'd followed the pattern and it had this backstitch square sewn around the design and you thread through that so you get a neat edge on the completed item. Very clever :) The brass ring is so you can attach it to your sewing basket or something. A ribbon might have been better but I didn't have any and the rings were just sitting there, so...

Birds and Flowers

These are on even weave fabric and it never occurred to me how tiny the gauge would be until I was pretty much past the point of no return and my eyes were hanging out of my head!  When I downloaded the picture of the design it was hopelessly fuzzy so I drew it all out myself and as close to the original design colours as I could. When I didn't have a colour I needed in the Cotton thread I just used DMC instead. All at 1 strand thickness.

 

Ladybirds and Flowers

...And straight after tiny gauge, back onto usual gauge! Don't ask me what gauge that is, all I know is the previous pin cushion is 6cms square and this one is 8cms square. So, a bit of a difference. I think both designs cover a 50 x 50 graph square. 

Ladybirds and Bees

Back to sort-of tiny gauge. Not quite as bad as the Birds and Flowers one but still pretty small. All Scanfil cotton. I was pretty pleased with this one too. But because of the large piece of base fabric I used that I didn't trim down, folding the edges in was a bit of an irritation!

Ladybirds and Lily Bells
 And my nemesis! The design had lovely white flowers on a pale khaki background. I didn't have any base fabric darker than the cream stuff I'd used on the 8cm pin cushion so I though, "I know, I'll just sew the background the colour I need so the white flowers don't disappear into the cloth. Brilliant!"
Most. Frustratingly. Slow. Design. EVER!!
You don't realize you've  become used to finishing a piece in a specific period of time until you hit something that defies every attempt to hurry it up! It does look very attractive, as a finished project...But I would NEVER do it again!!

Florals and Swirls
And this is my latest finished one. Pretty, cute, little (About 6-7cms square) and finished! I have one more design that I had to redraw out because I couldn't see all the squares to do and it is under way as we speak. But I'm pretty proud of my collection. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them all but I have a similar problem with the vast amount of finished knitting projects I have so why should this obsession be any different? Hope you enjoyed my little brag show. See you next time :)
Dx