You can teach an old dog new tricks.......

Hi everyone,

This Sunday 27 April is the 2nd part of my Wessex class. All went well last Saturday and everyone went home happy with the colours they had chosen and with samples of the stitches ready for homework if time permits. I am hoping to show some photos if the girls will allow me and my camera in class.

There was a little stitching done during the week, some more birdcage and santa's village but not enough to show. But.....

I have been thinking about joining an Embroiderers' Guild course called Back to Basics for sometime. It is self paced and focused on construction. Some by hand and some by sewing machine. You might say why? Well me and my sewing machine have had a love/hate relationship for many years so I thought with a lot of help from fellow tutors at the Guild we may fix this.
The first piece is a pincushion, the original was on Aida cloth but the group have allowed me to use 32 count linen. After tacking construction lines we were asked to embroider the top with straight stitches with some that were whipped. The construction edge is then created using a row of chain stitch. The pincushion will be filled with real sheep's wool so I hand stitched an inner liner bag. (Yep I know I skipped the sewing machine, don't worry I wont get away with it for long)

Back to Basics- Project 1, Pincushion

The photo shows the sampler of stitches, my inner lining and the pincushion outer piece. The next course day is the 4th Monday in May when I will filling the cushion and closing the final edge. This then goes to the assessors of the course and I will get back a critique of my end result. So you see I will learn lots and lots. There are 6 projects in all, so by the end my sewing machine and I will be great friends. (well that's my hope anyway).

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

PS: Silkstone Designs Australian houses can be purchased and Ozstitch.com.au