Ecstatic, might be a better word, but also nervous, a little frightened and feeling well pleased with myself.
Why?
I submitted three proposals for classes to be taught at the American Needlepoint Guild Seminar in Tucson, 2022, and one of them, "Flame Fan" has been selected. I am going to be teaching at Seminar!
Cool, but worrying! It's a tick on my bucket list, something I've wanted to do for years just so I can say I've done it, and I'm looking forward to it with just that sense of trepidation.
Next steps? It's well over a year away, but I still need to tidy up the stitch guide and find some local embroiderers to pilot the class. I also have to gather the class materials and find out what I need to do about visas that allow me to work in the USA. And there will be all those things I haven't thought about yet!
Will I get the teaching bug?
I don't know. I may be a terrible teacher, or it may all go swimmingly. Only time will tell.
Since I don't know the rules, I'm assuming I shouldn't share the selected design with you. All I'm saying at this point is that it's worked with variegated threads and a gold metallic. Well, you know me, I like a bit of bling.
On bling, since I can't share "Flame Fan", I thought I'd share a bit of bling with you.
These are part of my current BIG project. Planning ahead, it probably will not be finished until 2022.
As you can see, I've looked at heraldry again. The silver and gold are from my collection of Kreinik metal threads, the colours, or tinctures, are Soie d'Alger. Then there's this bit.
The cute dragon is all worked in Kreinik metallic threads. It's worked on congress cloth, using #8 braid, which is maybe a little on the thick side, but I wanted to give the figure bulk as well as bling. The dragon is worked in Tent Stitch, to get the detail, and is about 3" tall. I wasn't going for even-ness of stitch here, but for the sparkle as the figure moves.
I can almost hear you thinking "what's the nutty Scotsman at now?
The background is, not surprisingly, Soie d'Alger in Basketweave.
This project has gone through starts and stops and disasters. The metal threads were no problem. We have a large collection of Kreinik metals gathered over the years. The BIG DISASTER was the backgrounds to the figures (there are a number of them). Having carefully calculated how much thread I needed, I discovered I had miscalculated. I tried to get more of the same, but the dye-lots had changed and I just knew I'd not get a match.
Solution? I may have to re-work all the backgrounds I've completed. I doubt if I have sufficient of some of the metals to totally re-stitch all of the figures, so I'll just have to rip out the backgrounds that don't match.
Frog-stitching - what fun (not). I'm not looking forward to it, but it will be an improvement when it's done.
