A lace collage needlebook/Ein Nadelbrief aus alten Spitzen

Finally, I've come to the conclusion that it is now time to use the treasures in my stash - not just collecting them ...

Maybe the situation is familiar to you as well: You keep collecting and piling beautiful material, spending quite some time organizing and stashing your treasures (and if you're not too organized ;-): searching for certain items you know should be there somewhere) - and of course this is a pleasure itself, sometimes ...

but just having reached the break-even point of my lifetime, I'm now convinced that I want to use and have fun with these things, rather than collecting a lot more of them ...

So I took a dive into my beloved stash and found a box of vintage lace - and decided to make a 'Victorian' needlebook especially for my embroidery needles ...

It's not finished yet - I still want to add some beads - but this is the back so far:



- and the front:



(German summary: Ich habe mich entschlossen, daß jetzt die Zeit gekommen ist, wo ich meine gehorteten Schätze auch verwenden möchte, nicht nur mehr sammeln und horten ... Hier ein geräumiger Nadelbrief aus alten Spitzen, extra für meine Sticknadeln - noch in Arbeit, da ich die Spitzen mit mehr Perlen befestigen möchte.)

The resurrection of the sea monster/Das Seeungeheuer ist erwacht!

Yesterday I told you about the kit I bought at The Museum of Medieval Stockholm - and I got so tempted to start embroidering a bit again, that I kept on all day, until it was finished!

(The original illustration is taken from 'Dialogus creaturarum moralizatus', if you want to read more about it.)

As this simple kit basically just consists of the illustration printed on natural linen and a couple of mouliné threads and some single beads, not even suggesting which stitches or colours to use, I felt free to take my own hand-dyed threads instead and to practise long and short satin stitches, which I have rarely done before.

For the background 'water', I used chain stitches, broadening some of them for more variation. And as some medieval embroideries were known to be enriched by bead and metal thread embellishments, I let myself get carried away this time with some of that glittery stuff too ... using the contents of my new storage box and the jewel picker!

(German summary: Diese kleine Stickerei hat mich so in den Bann gezogen, daß ich es gestern noch fertiggestickt habe! Und da das Kit sehr minimalistisch gehalten war, habe ich kurzerhand Fäden und Perlen ausgetauscht und richtig 'byzantinisch' losgelegt!)

"Fairy Tale Castle"

I finished this small picture this week (19x20 cm/7,5x8") - it's an embellishing, embroidery, beading and recycling project at the same time, as I actually made the castle part - the one in petit point - when I was a teenager ... and for some reason, I now found it in my stash.

As I wrote in my last posting, I'm very keen on embroidery at the moment - but still I would like to combine it with some sort of recycling, and whenever possible, with embellishing /punching, as well.

I'm also torn between the "romantic projects" - like this one - and the plain, straight, modern - or medieval and older - ones. And I'm still very interested in that Wiking period ... I'm reading about it, thinking, drawing, collecting material ...

"Being a part of it" and some embroidery

Yesterday I finished this round embellished picture, it's quite big, diam. 43 cm (17"), consisting of embellished wool roving, pre-felt, cloth, yarn, fibers ... I haven't done any kind of embroidery or beading on it this time, as I wanted to keep it "natural" ... The colours come out a bit warmer in real as on the photo.

I'm much happier with this one than with the bird of previous posting - maybe I should just stick to my own colours in the end and keep it - yes, plain and simple!

But as I'm fascinated of embroidery lately, I made a some "embroidery whatiffing" after browsing through "The New Crewel" by Katherine Shaughnessy: I took a detail out of her patterns, simplified it a bit more, used other stitches and beads instead of french knots ... well, it was fun doing!



What I like about this book is that she uses modern (sometimes a bit "retro") and simple graphic designs with a traditional embroidery technique, which inspires me to draw some patterns of my own ... we'll see where that leads ...

This Bird of Paradise

I've been working on this bird of paradise lately - at first, not really planning a motif, just punching different red and pink fabrics and fibers onto a red woolen cloth, letting them blur into the background.

The left part was originally a blue-blackish fabric with a pink flower print, which I punched onto black wool and then added hand and machine embroidery to.

I sew and partially punched the fabric for the bird onto the background, forming the outlines while sewing it on, padding it here and there with some wool fibers.

Finally, I added a hanging which I made out of some black metal wire and I noticed how different a picture looks with some sort of hanging - I'll show you "My Grandmother's Garden" again, this time with the birch branch added:




For this purpose, I ironed on a suitable stabilizer as a lining for the back - it makes it hang smoother.

"My Grandmother's Garden"

Today I'm almost finished with "My Grandmother's Garden" - it's an embellished picture measuring 8,5x10" (22x26 cm).

What I enjoy so much about the embellisher is that you can use the tiniest of scraps to create a new piece of cloth and also re-use and present those very old samples of needlework in your stash, which have been carefully made and collected by women of generations before you ...

So, with this very modern machine you can assemble those old treasures to be cherished again.

I'm not sure if to add some more to this piece - maybe I'll go out and look for a thin branch of a birch for the mounting.