Norma's band - revisited

Norma's band has now been completed and has arrived back safely with Norma herself. It has always been nervewracking to have a piece of work travelling through the post. However, since we live so very far apart there was no choice in the matter. The relief was enormous when I heard it had arrived.

The threads above were the collection I made to find suitable colours to work with the sampler as it was when I received it. I had thought of autumnal (Fall) colours and designs of leaves. I soon discarded this idea since another design was of acorns.



I came up with this design. I had toyed with the idea of using the lovely wing shapes used in the birds stitched by Sarah.



The stitching I used was basically Blackwork. The wing shapes have miniature figure twos inverted and in mirror image since the overall shape reminded me of the number. I trawled through my Blackwork books to find inspiration for the other shapes. I eventually discarded the idea in the lighter blue shape, finding something more appropriate in scale.

So now Norma's sampler looks like this.

Norma's band

This is Norma's band. It arrived in my hands yesterday morning.

The colours are richer than my photos can show. The base fabric is a lovely rich honey colour which shows the colours used to perfection. Norma describes this cloth as 28count Quaker Cloth pumpkin colour.



The top stitching above is Norma's own work, whilst the beaded work was added by Denise.



The enchanting birds, with their silk ribbon flowers were added by Sarah.

Beneath this comes Jenny's contribution. She added Wessex Stitching with a border of interlaced herringbone.

Then there is the gorgeous blue of Christine's blackwork.

The last section is Hungarian Cross Stitch stitched by Margaret.

I have not even started to put my own ideas together yet. However, I am going through a phase of looking at the developing autumnal colours. Picking these leaves up from the path in town before coming home to find the band sampler waiting for me.

I just loved the colours and the shapes of these leaves. Perhaps something will develop from here, but I shall have to keep you waiting and wondering for a little while as my brain begins to mull things over.

Norma's Sampler

Norma's Sampler now has another band to add to the collection. The stitching is a combination of Wessex Stitching & Interlaced Herringbone stitch.

The Wessex stitching is made up of long-armed lazy daisy stitch & needle-weaving. The background is one colour & the motifs are made up of a change in colour for the long armed lazy daisy with added needleweaving in a different colour. I interchanged the colours of the motifs to give added interest. This is the first time I have worked any Wessex stitching, something I have wanted to do for a long time.

The interlaced herringbone stitch border is one I was exposed to during my Intermediate Certificate studies at the EG here in Sydney about ten years ago, and have not worked since. It is a stitch which is found in common use on embroideries from Central Aisia & India. It comprises a double row of herringbone stitch, worked slightly differently to normal herringbone. Tricky to work, it must be worked correctly or the interlacing will not work. I have used one colour for the herringbone base & two different colours for the interlacing.

Norma, I hope you enjoy.

Look what's arrived in sunny Australia!

On Wednesday I rushed around to the post office to collect my registered international parcel, which could only have been the package from Sarah. Inside were 2 beautiful pieces of work, the pumpkin coloured linen you will recognise as Norma's while the ivory one is Sarah's first piece on her own band.

Norma's now has 3 people's work on it, and is starting to take on its own identity. Sarah's is a "newborn" and you can see she has stitched with an Oriental flavour. I've arranged with Jenny to take Norma's "out of turn", so she can have something to stitch on. It's not that she has nothing to do at the moment, with a wedding and a 21st birthday quilt AND an exhibition coming up, but you know how it is ! You need to have an alternate project to relax with from time to time, don't you? I have them both pinned on my design board at the moment, hoping inspiration will strike me. In the meantime, I have a few minor projects to work on as well, VBG.

Christine
http://missmuffettwo.blogspot.com/