thinking about merezhka

Recently I have received several emails from people expressing their desire for more merezhka patterns as a follow on from my book Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery: Merezhka Poltavska.

I would love to be able to do something about this, but I am really battling with the fact that there is still just one of me! Sure, I am an identical twin, but that’s just not the same as having a clone. (wink!) So I feel I am going to have to do a bit of lateral thinking to try to solve this problem.

I don’t use model stitchers, mostly because I don’t know anyone else who does my type of stitching who would be interested in model stitching. But maybe that’s something I could consider. I also have extremely high personal standards for my stitching… but that doesn’t mean that others wouldn’t meet those standards.

So, very much just testing the waters here, is there anyone who has learnt merezhka from the two learning samplers in my book or from a class with me, who would be interested in submitting a sample of their work to me? At this stage, its probably best if it was only Australian and New Zealand stitchers – not because of any dislike of stitchers elsewhere, its just that domestic and nearly domestic postage is much cheaper and faster!

If you are interested in talking with me about model stitching, please don’t post me anything yet! I think the best thing would be if you could send me a good quality closeup photo of your merezhka work, both front and back. My desire to see the back of the work is only so that I can see that the technique is correct, not because I want to see how neat it is! You can email them to me at:
ystantonfish @ iprimusfish dot comfish dot aufish (remove the fishes!)

If I was to take this further (and I am not making any promises, just really thinking it all through at the moment), then I would need model stitchers of a very high standard, who can complete work quickly.

Could this be you? And even if its not, if you know someone who might be interested, please get them to contact me.