Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Happy Christmas

The big day finally got here and has been dull even by our own standards.  I am still making gifts to send out but I have slowed down.  Started today by being sick and sleeping in.  So I didn't get to make bread for dinner.  We were going to have turkey soup for dinner but it went bad.  So Lee may make us some potato pancakes instead!  The local Chinese restaurant is closed.

So beside resting I have been learning to do a form of whitework called Mountmellick.  It is very simple whitework with only a couple of different stitches, mountmellick stitch and palestrina stitch.  The main difference in this form of embroidery is that it is supposed to be worked on a heavy fabric like cotton duck.  A couple weeks ago I found some fabric that looked right but was a lot easier to stitch on.  So the last couple of days I have been practising the stitches and have actually copied out a pattern and put it into a stitching frame.  It is a wonderful frame that allows me to sit or stand to use it.  The project I am attempting to create is a large pillow cover.  The pattern is from a book I got last Christmas called "Begginer's Guide to Mountmellick Embroidery" by Pat Trott.  The author does the thickest padded satin stitch I have seen used.  She fills in shapes with seed stitch as well as two rows of padded satin stitch before the final satin stitch finish.  I really do enjoy whitework because it is all about light, texture and pattern.  Tomorrow I will have to finish the Herb Robert embroidery because it is supposed to be a Christmas gift and needs to be framed.  Sad that I never got the butterfly right!

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