Prepped and Ready...

Well, I'm a bit past this stage now, but I thought you'd like to see how I prepped Norma's piece. Everyone's work is just lovely, and that pumpkin color that Norma chose is just luscious! I'm so thrilled to be able to be a part of this group.


I basted using red thread because that's easiest for me to see on all colors of fabric. It's a five-count baste from top (underneath that beautiful beading) to bottom, because my design is oriented more vertically. As I work, I can clip the red thread and pull it from the areas I've worked, leaving it in place for the next segment of the Pattern. However (gives a cheeky little grin), I'm going to let Christine post pix of both Norma's and my samplers when she gets them...!

A Northern Queensland vacation

I returned to Sydney last night after 5 days/4 nights in tropical Palm Cove not far from Cairns. 6 of my husband's workmates and their partners joined us for a retreat to do a little work, socialize and plan the next 12 months. We ladies were pampered in the day spa, we ate delicious food every meal, and we cruised out to the Great Barrier Reef for a day of snorkeling and relaxation. The surroundings were very luxurious, and the lap pool in the photo was the view during alfresco lunches. Visit my personal blog at http://missmuffettwo.blogspot.com/
for more photos. I could have stayed on another week quite easily, it was a real wrench to have to leave such a lovely part of Australia.
Christine, aka Missmuffett and Lady Jane.

Needlework photos from England

Hi all, I'm home.
I just had to share these photos with somebody, but for copyright reasons, I prefer not to put them on my regular blog. But since I'm just sharing with a few special friends, here are some pieces from the Victoria &Albert Museum.

On the day we went the Textile collection was closed and I was very upset. The worst thing was, I thought I'd missed Martha Edlin's casket. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/video_casket/index.html

But then we started looking through the museum and in the English 1500-1760 section I found the casket and more.

This piece is only about 5x5 and wonderful, although my photo is a bit blurry.

This is maybe about 3x6 and they call it a pincushion.

The next two are small purses.

It was all wondeful. I'll write some more on my regular blog this week, but I had to share these photos with you.

Margaret

Margaret's Band RR.

This is Margaret's Band Robin. She stitched the gorgeous tulips you can see at the top of this piece. I have added the piece underneath.

The design is based on some wonderful Amaryllis I had flowering on my kitchen windowsill during December and January this year.


After putting in the outlines of the flowers and leaves, I have filled in the shapes with patterns based on blackwork designs. The whole piece is stitched in YLI silk thread. The close-up below shows details of the stitching and beading I have used. The colours on this photo are more yellow than in life. The colours are portrayed more accurately on the top photograph.

Jenny's First Band

Just renewing one of our lost pics back to our new blog. This is the first band that I worked on my own sampler. It is one of my own designs and it is the first time I have done one of the filling stitches. It also gave me a chance to practice my doves eyes that I learnt last year and made me realize that I need to practice my picots. The threads are also some of my own hand dyed ones.

Misa's Band

To continue the saga of our International Sampler Band Round Robin - here is Misa's band in which she used #5 perle cotton red, white and blues. She included long-arm cross-stitch in her design. My design is just a simple cross-stitch using three strands DMC overdyed floss in a red/blue/purple burst of color. Misa's journal mentioned one of her favorite colors is purple but my purples did not go favorably with her color scheme. I had been wanting to try some of the overdyed floss .... so, as you can see, the color I chose makes Misa's design glow and that is what I intended. On my own sampler I used four DMC colors in my design which worked out quite well. Here in the overdyed coloration I think the design takes on the look of ante bellum ironwork. The band is now winging its way to the next stitcher.

Counted Thread Band Round Robin - Christine's band

8 stitchers from around the world are participating in a Counted Thread Band Round Robin which was started as part of a now-defunct group, and here we plan to share the experience with those folk who were following us on that group and others who may be interested.

Here is my band with 2 rows of stitching completed, my own and Jenny B's. My multicoloured band is Wessex Stitchery, a style developed by a Mrs Foster in Bath, U.K. in the late 1800's. I'm a great fan of traditional, antique and vintage styles of needlework. New Zealander Gay Eaton published a lovely book titled "Wessex Stitchery" in 2001 and the patterns are adapted from that book. I choose my favourite colours at the moment, purple of course, and some colours to go with that which just pleased my eye. The fabric is 25 count Lugana evenweave linen, and my threads are stranded DMC cottons.

Jenny's band is withdrawn thread work using a perle thread which she had in her stash, although at the time she did comment that she felt it needed some orange but didn't have anything suitable to hand. I heartily agree, and hopefully someone else during the rotation will choose to add it somewhere.