The Work In Progress Wednesday report is a short one this week.
Although I've been short on time lately, I had to make two more birthday cards.
Luckily I had two pieces of machine lace, shaped like hearts. It was a quick job to add beads and embroidery stitches.
Every year I celebrate the Dolls Festival, Hina Matsuri, by making a few new ornaments for my mobile of hanging dolls and ornaments.
For 2024 I made a lamp of the traditional design used for the display of the emperor and empress dolls.
Furthermore, I made a duvet and duvet cover, also of a traditional design.
These days it is common to have a plain fabric eiderdown quilt covered by a fancy printed duvet cover. In the past, however, most bolsters had a filling of cotton batting and a highly decorative cover stitched (quilted) on top.
This bolster was then placed inside a white sheet with a 'window' (think window envelope) to show off the quilt. The white sheet could easily be washed whereas the quilt itself cost a fortune to have cleaned by a professional quilt cleaner.
I made the duvet because there is symbolism in bedding - it is a prayer for the baby girl to sleep well and grow up healthy. I made the pillow in 2011, please look at the tag HINA at the top of this blog for the other ornament I have made over the years.
Sometimes I regret picking a certain stitch for Sunday Stitch School. This was such a stitch. It did NOT want to behave, it twisted and twiddled and I had to wrestle with it. I don't like to have to wrestle with my stitches!
After having redone several of them, I finally got some arches that I managed to tame.
On Sunday I ought to make a post to review the most recent five stitches. Unfortunately, I have a major project (not related to stitching) coming up and will have to give my needle and thread a holiday. Sorry.
I had no time to report on progress yesterday, which was Wednesday, so I have to call it Work In Progress Thursday instead this week.
The report is quickly done, I have only one thing to show, a
Birthday Card
I went to a pre-birthday party and was given a bag of fabric scraps as a 'going home gift'. I used one of the Japanese scraps to make a vase which I filled with flowers made from other small pieces.
As the pieces all have raw edges, I covered the appliqué with a piece of net and roughly quilted the layers together.
Today's stitch is basically a group of Buttonhole Bar stitches, each stitch made into an arch. I found it at Let's Learn Embroidery. Click on the link to see it done in metallic gold thread.
Here are my photos:
Use a pencil or similar to make an arch.
Sorry to be a day late in handing in my homework.
This was a tricky stitch! I like the look of the stitch when it is half finished, in its unwhipped state, better than the wormy version. So I have left two versions on all the samplers.
Aida Sampler
This Work In Progress Wednesday falls on St Valentine's Day so what would be appropriate than to make a heart?
Sunday Stitch School Stitch Sampler
is the only project I have had time to work on. And this is where the heart is, made with #279 Reversed Palestrina Stitch.
Today you are in for a complex wrapped stitch which I found on Rosalie Wakefield's Millefiori's blogpost of Brazilian stitches. She calls it Spinal Double Stitch and you can see her instructions here.
Make it like this:
Start with a Bullion Knot.
It is as beautiful as the traditional Palestrina Stitch, and almost as easy. Being right-handed I felt it was just a bit awkward stitching right to left...
Aida Sampler
You get even stitches on Aida.
As you can see, it looks good on a curved line.
I tried various types of thread, the thick light blue is tapestry wool.
