Spooky Blackwork Owl

Later this week I'll be posting a small Blackwork sampler I made for Single Colour Stitching theme on the &Stitches blog. Well the technique is Blackwork but my little sampler is made with different shades of green instead of black as I was allowed to use any colour except black. I found much inspiration in these two books from my personal 'library'.

I even purchased another Blackwork book on Ebay yesterday. Anyway, my small sampler was stitched on 14 count aida but I wanted to raise the bar and try stitching on a higher count even weave fabric. I found some 18 count aida (at least I think it's 18 count) in my stash, made a not very accurate copy of an owl I found in the book you see on the right and continued exploring blackwork in blue and green this time. The owl looks kind of spooky but then the example is a bit strange at well. ;) If you want to try Blackwork too you can find some simple templates (same ones I used for my small sampler) and useful links here. 

This week

For some reason a whole week went by without blogging. There were happy occasions at home (birthday parties!) to prepare and recover from. Sad happenings in the news to ponder about... So this is a bit of a hotch potch post about my small crafty news from this week.

I finally got round to updating my Princess and the Pea Sampler PDF pattern. The previous version dated from 2010 and since then I somewhat improved my PDF making and computer drawing skills.  Find the updated pattern here! I have a whole new pattern in the works by the way, it's one of my loveliest yet (at least I think so) and I hope to bring it to the shop before the end of this month.

I continued work on my Blackwork try out piece. After a shaky (and wonky) start I kind of got the hang of stitching that diamond shape. The whole composition is a bit static and not really refined like this impressive blackwork Whale's tail but you have to start somewhere, right? Also, I'm tempted to use other colours than black. Back in the 17th century it was not uncommon to use other colours than black either! This lovely piece by Sami Teasdale shows how you can get all creative (and colorful) with this traditional technique.

Kingfisher by Sami Teasdale

Find more fabulous pieces on Sami's blog Teasemade. I picked up some new blackwork tips from another recent addition to my Stitchy library called the Stitch Bible by Kate Haxell. I haven't properly read through the whole book yet (it also covers other techniques like Crewel and Hardanger) but found the instructions and diagrams in the blackwork section really useful. And soon I need to make room on the shelf because Sami is actually going to send me this book about Blackwork, as she had two copies. How sweet is that?

Ok that's all from me this week. Hope you all have a great weekend. :)

Back to Black

One of the gifts I received for my birthday was this book about Blackwork by Becky Hogg. This publication by the Royal School of Needlework is only 96 pages but for me it is a perfect addition to my stitchy library.  There's a short history of blackwork embroidery, a chapter about materials (funnily enough cheap bright blue plastic hoops aren't required), design and transferring. Of course there is a chapter about Stitches. Blackwork is limited in the number of stitches it uses and you will not need to learn any new stitches if you already know your 'basic' embroidery stitches.

There are lots of different patterns to be found in this book with diagrams and stitched examples. And with patterns I mean 'filling' patterns like diamond and hexagon shapes, not bunnies and hedgehogs. The patterns are followed by chapters on different Shading techniques. That's my favourite section of the book, it's amazing what you can do with variations in pattern, type of thread and stitches! 

Of course I had to give Blackwork a try too (see top photo) and grabbed some even weave fabric (not sure of the count 32 possibly?) and black floss. I drew a Jackalope (not sure yet how to tackle the antlers so haven't added them yet) on the fabric with a regular pencil and started filling it with a simple diamond pattern. It's far from perfect. Problem is that with my eyesight I can hardly see what I'm doing so it's really time to get a magnifier for detailed work like this. As it happens there was a review of an interesting magnifying tool called Craftoptics on Needle 'n Thread today. It would certainly do wonders for adding a Steampunk touch to my look (and possibly help me with my stitching too) but sadly it is a little too expensive for me. 

Speaking of tools...

We have such a good contest going on at the &Stitches blog at the moment. The only thing you have to do is blog (or if you don't blog, post on Flickr) about your embroidery tool kit  or embroidery tools and share the link on our blog. The prizes are so fabulous that I truly am sorry that I can't enter the contest myself. Sublime Stitching goodies (scissor, labels, patterns), a most wonderful tiny Abstract Art needlepoint kit from RetrosariaZoe and yummy handspun floss from DragonFlyLotus Designs. The winner will be picked by myself, Carina & Julie so make sure your entry is special :) 

Craft-on-the-go: an invitation from the Queen

I started this embroidery while I was away. A perfect on-the-go project as it only requires one colour! I found the Alice in Wonderland pattern of the Queen's fish footman presenting an invitation (well it's not really a pattern it's a drawing) when I spotted Martha's great version of this image in redwork on Flickr. I wanted to do my version in one colour as well and after briefly contemplating using green (green work?) I settled for black. Now I'm halfway I'm not sure whether I like it in black as much as in red. I guess it needs to be finished first to know for sure! Find more of Martha's redwork Alice embroideries and a link to the images here.

P.S. in the background you can see a tiny bit of my scrap vomit quilt top. I finally finished it yesterday after one and a half year! More about that later this week. :)