WIPW - A warm heart

Work In Progress Wednesday. It is time for the weekly WIPW report. Don't know what I am talking about? Go to Pintangle and learn, join in and see what others have made.

Swedish Wool Embroidery Collar
The progress I have made is a heart, a warm woolen heart stitched amongst the warm hearted people of the UK.

Swedish Cushion

Here I have made a long narrow leaf of green TAST #48 Arrowhead stitches, and six #42 Open Based Picots in orange DMC perle 8. Do they look like teeth in a hungry animal's mouth?

Next week I hope to have the other side made up with similar stitches, and time permitting, some other woven stitches.

Yesterday we got a new TAST stitch (#124 Closed Herringbone Stitch); this means that there are 23 different TAST stitches still left to add to this cushion...

How have you all got on with your WIP. I hope you have made great progress.

TAST #123 Woven Chained Bar

It's TASTy time again. We have reached TAST #123, which is called Woven Chained Bar and is based on last week's stitch. As you can guess from the name, it is a woven stitch - one of my favourites. To learn it, go to Pintangle.

Now that I have read the instructions correctly and done as Sharon suggested in the previous TAST post, the Chain Stitches that these stitches are based on lie flat and behave very well.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I also took the advice of designer Linda Calverley of Lins Arty Blobs and filled in the 'void' I had left in the centre of last week's sampler (TAST #122 Chained Bar). Thanks, Linda.

World Embroidery Day - the result

I stitch almost every day, but yesterday was an absolute MUST as it was World Embroidery Day.

A long time has passed since I last made a stumpwork portrait; deciding what to do was therefor easy.

Unlike Cross stitch, Hardanger or Blackwork there is more than just embroidery involved in the making of these stumpwork portraits. First you need to stuff, appliqué and shape the face before you can start embroidering.

For the eyes, I used Detached Chain stitch, French knot, Straight stitch.
For the eye brows,  Stem stitch.
For the mouth, Straight stitch.
To add a more advanced stitch I made the necklace with TAST #98 Beaded Shell Chain stitch.
The hair is made from couched down unravelled knitting yarn.
Finally I mounted the portait onto a card.


I would like to thank Skåne Sy-d and Kerstin Nettelblad for taking the initiative of establishing a World Embroidery Day.
Tack alla i Broderiakademin som hjälp till att etablera denna dag, och tack till Ingalill Jiborg som informerat mig. Nu försöker jag sprida vetskap och inspiration till mina broderande vänner världen över.

WIPW - UK stitching in progress

Wednesday means it is time to report on Work In Progress Wednesday projects. Read more here.

Swedish Cushion
This is my progress:

There are two 'leaves', on this one the outline is worked in TAST #82 Spanish Feather. It is filled with #83 Siennes Stitches.

The other leaf has an outline of #112 Chained Feather Stitches with #79 Chained Cross filling.

Swedish Wool Embroidery Collar

This shape was only half finished last week. Here is the completed version. 

I did not mean to make a grinning face, but that is what I got. That's free stitching for you.

TAST Reference Chart

The TAST Reference Chart was blessed with the two latest TAST stitches, #122 Chained Bar and #123 Woven Chained Bar.

 I will leave the upper stitches 'floating' to remind me that I need to follow Sharon's advice and catch a bit of the thread to make the stitches lie flat. On the other hand, my incorrect ones do look a lot like chains so have their charm I guess...

Some final stitches were taken while travelling through the British countryside by rail. Usually people come up to me to see what I am doing, but this time my carriage was full of very tired folk, who fell asleep instantly. I would rather stitch!

Today is World Embroidery Day so I will start making a stumpwork portrait. Show and Tell comes a bit later.

How are you all getting on with your progress?