I decided to celebrate Saturday with embroidery. Isn’t this a cute bird butt? I’m using the colors and threads that came with the Water’s Edge kit, but I am using 1 strand instead of 3 and working it with needle-painting. Trish Burr’s book Colour Confidence in Embroidery has been enormously helpful. I still haven’t had the time to work any of the bird projects in it, but all the photos and detailed stitch directions are definitely helping me with this project.

You know what? I am not even going to wait until Monday to post this, because I love my little bird THAT MUCH.

OK folks, it’s back to work now. See you later!

I am still slowly working on Anita’s chikankari class. Most of the remaining stitches are surface work, not shadow work. I’m really loving the design! It’s so gorgeous. Here are some photos of the details I’ve added since last update.

I’m still working away at my dissertation, y’all, and I’m getting there. I have a ton of plans for this blog as soon as I’m done! We will have so much fun!

Anyway, I have a small dilemma. The leaf at the right of the dragonfly is supposed to be stem stitch, but I misread the directions and started it in long and short stitch. I’m working the main stem in stem stitch, but do I finish that leaf in long and short or take it out and redo it? Hmmmmm!

Here is a closer picture of the main stem.

For comparison, here is a closer picture of the leaf and dragonfly.

And one last photo for texture comparison photos, and because I like my dragonfly.

She dyed these silks herself! Aren’t they gorgeous? You know what else is gorgeous? Her artwork!!! She dyes her threads and fabrics herself, and they are just lovely. Her blog is Silk and Colour. Anyway, her first gallery show is opening Friday (April 27!), so you could see them in person! If you are anywhere near West Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, you should go!!! I will be so very jealous of you. Good luck, Marta!

Here are some close up photos!

There are actually two kinds of silk threads in the package.

When I graduate I will design a series of special pieces just to use these. It will be so much fun!

And here is the back of the work – you can see the herringbone that produces the shadow effect on the front of the fabric.

This is a guest post from my mother, Laura!

During the course Sumptuous Surfaces, given by Sharon B at PinTangle, I chose a beach theme and designed two projects. Both designs feature hands at the beach.  The first project had a neutral color scheme with the hand outlined but not filled in with stitching (see the post Seashore). This design features more color and a major portion of the hand is stitched.

This hand reaches into the water to capture a snail. I chose a primarily complementary color scheme – blues and browns. I believe I tried out as many different stitches as I could in the hand.I see chain, satin, stem, buttonhole, straight, herringbone, and ermine. Who knows what else. The swirls at the surface of the water are naturals for chain stitch, fly and stem stitch.

For the snail shell I used yellow perle cotton. I stitched a spiral in buttonhole stitch. I then filled in with light colored variegated cotton floss between the spokes of yellow. Green #8 perle cotton whips along the base of the button hole spiral. The body is made of some rather shaky satin stitch. I think the satin stitch of the finger nail is much better – I was learning. I also learned cast on stitch which is perfect for seaweed.

The center motif is framed by the random straight stitches in various blues, both dark and light. Critters of the interesting persuasion swim about. With these, I tried out rayon thread mixed with cotton floss. I love the shiny. The slippery just about drove me nuts.

I do love tidal pools and no self respecting tide pool would lack sea anemones, snails, starfish or weird unknowns. So, here is a sea floor of herringbone stitch, satin stitch and beads. There is seaweed, both cast on seaweed and feather stitch seaweed. Plus, there is extra long twisty bouillon loops for the weird. Anemone bodies are composed of chain stitch with buttonhole crowns.

Thus ends the Sumptuous Surfaces experience. Two projects designed and completed counts as seriously fun. Success all around.

The red, purple, and orange panels down the center are cross stitch! Here is a closer look.

Here is a closer look at the applique on the sleeves and at the side. The dark blue is the base fabric, the red is sewn on, and the little white marks are done with a bleach pen. I really love the geometric styling.

Now, on to the back! It has a gorgeous cross-stitch panel too! It must have taken forever to work.

It’s incredibly detailed work. I love the color scheme.

For the picture below, I unfolded the dress so you can see the applique. The cross-stitch panel to the left is on the front of the dress, and the cross-stitch panel to the right is on the back.

Here it is completely unfolded:

So, are you inspired or intimidated? I think this style is perfect for incorporating embroidery into a dress, though I think I would choose something that worked up faster than cross-stitch.

I am still embroidering away on Anita’s chikan work class, though I am falling a little behind since I’m busy with work. I’m very happy with how it is turning out. The fabric is very transparent. It looks ivory in the photo because I folded the fabric over several times behind the embroidered area.

Here is a closer view of the double back stitch embroidery.

From the back it looks like herringbone stitch. There are a lot of tails showing since I haven’t trimmed them all yet.

Here is one more photo from the front.

I think if I worked a long narrow design and then backed it with silk it would make a truly gorgeous scarf.

Now, do keep in mind that some posts (especially when I feature someone else’s work or blog) may have photos that are NOT mine. I ask permission before using other peoples photos, but I can’t give you permission to use them too. Most of the photos (including the ones of Dr Shirazi’s collection) are mine. If you are unsure about something, email me for permission – I love email, I really do. I love talking to readers.

Now, I have a present for all y’all Pinterest folks. Wikimedia Commons!  It’s a database of 12,443,168 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. A lot of them are public domain, and all the images have information about copyright permissions or restrictions right there on the page so you can easily determine whether you can use it. Hurray! Knock y’all-selves out!

There are tons of absolutely gorgeous images! Like the one above – wouldn’t it be gorgeous embroidered, maybe even with lace or organza embellishment? It’s a portrait of Natalia Pushkina (Nataliya Nikolaevna Pushkina), wife of a famous Russian poet. She was accused of cheating on him, and he died in a duel with her alleged lover.  It’s also rumored that she was the mistress of Tsar Nicholas I before her remarriage to a Major-General. You can read about her in this Wikipedia article.