It’s been a very quiet week with The Gymnast at home with winter sickness. I’ve been writing lots of stitch instructions and doing their accompanying diagrams, so there are more pages in the next book looking more full now.
However, I’ve been a few days without stitching, so it is time to do some more. After the last project (which is nearly finished, but put aside for now) which was very large, I’ve decided I need a small project to make me feel like I’m making more progress. I had a design that I’d been working on a few weeks ago that I was reasonably happy with, so tweaked it a bit and started stitching last night.
On stitching I quickly found something I needed to change. Then I found that the scale of one of the stitches was too heavy and was drowning the nearby stitches. It needed to be changed. I tried changing it on the fabric, but I got myself all confused. Things weren’t lining up the way I expected them to. It was time for bed.
With a lot of moving around of elements and fiddling with the design on computer this morning, I think I’ve got it sorted. I’ll start again on a new piece of cloth this morning, and keep the old one as a test cloth for various stitches.
Now, I have some questions that I’d really like some feedback on. We did discuss this on the Vetty Creations Facebook page yesterday, but I’d love your input too.
I’ve been thinking through ideas for projects for the book, and trying to work out what I could make the embroidered articles into. Would you be interested in making an embroidered clock face? The idea would be to make the embroidery, put it in a frame and then mount the clock mechanism in the centre.
Would that be something you’d consider making? Do you think you’d baulk at finding a clock mechanism, and/or mounting it in the right place (though your picture framer could probably mount it for you)?
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, this link to Elisabetta Ricami takes you through to pictures of very pretty embroidered clock faces. Mine would obviously look nothing like the ones shown, given that Elisabetta’s are surface embroidery in colour, and mine will be white on white and counted!
Putting it in a more general way, do you want to love all the examples in a book enough to stitch them? Or is most of them enough, or some of them? Is “admiring and not stitching” enough?
I know that for me, I don’t need to want to stitch any of the projects in a book. Usually for me it’s about learning the technique. But that’s mostly because I have too many of my own designs to stitch, to even think of doing one by someone else! It would be very helpful to hear how others weigh up the usefulness or not of a book.
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
A clock face isn’t something I would stitch, but don’t let that stop you! I like to look at interesting/pretty designs, and I’ll never stitch everything. I might adapt it to something like a biscornu or a card insert. And I’m sure a clock face wouldn’t be the only smaller design in the book, and perhaps something else will suit me.
Mary
Thanks Mary. Yes, there definitely would be other smaller designs in the book as well. And I love to hear when people say “I might adapt it to…” – I love that sort of “thinking outside the box”.
Designs to fit the Sudberry House accessories http://sudberry.com/catalog/index.html would be good. They have jewellery boxes, music boxes, trays and clocks among other things. I also saw a wooden mirror when at Koala Conventions this year with an oval for embroidery on the back. I was very tempted as it was something different.
That’s great, thanks Elizabeth!
Even in the days when I wasn’t working primarily my own designs, I didn’t need to love everything in a book to buy it – and even then, I often adapted one design and applied it in the manner used for an entirely different project. I think if you can make sure there are a variety of finishing ideas, people can pick the ones they like best.
I’ve kept thinking about this on-and off. 🙂 I think, like you, I’m mostly curious about how a technique is worked so, whilst I love to ooh and aah over a larger project, I’m more likely to work several smaller designs that give me a feel for the technique and gradually progress my embroidery skills. I do like it if the designs can be worked up into useful, small items ~ particularly if they make nice gifts (sachets, book covers, needlework accessories etc). I am also looking for some sort of needlework case or hussif … something with lots of internal pockets that can house a variety of embroidery tools and is suitable for travelling. I don’t know if that would work with the technique you have in mind, but it would be very useful to me. Hope this helps! All the best with your current project. 🙂
Thank you Kathryn. This is excellent feedback!
And thanks Rachel, for your suggestions too.