Tent Stitch.
You thought what?
I had tottered on the edge, but had not yet fallen. For a start I had to work for a living, moving to London, then Edinburgh, then Aberdeen. That was where fortune smiled on me and I met JB, my Better Half. I had wandered away from embroidery and then suddenly there was someone in my life who could knit and sew and, poor delusional child, she seemed to like me.
One evening she was stitching on something and I asked how it was done. She showed me how to do Tent Stitch and the jaws of the embroidery demons began to close around me, dragging me into the depths of their warm flossy maws.
Having discovered the soothing flow of yarn through canvas, having stitched line after line of tent stitch, I wanted more. Then she showed me Gay Ann Rogers. "Needlepoint Designs from Asia, ISBN 0 7090 1554 2. I chose a pattern I liked the look of.
Thunk! The trap was sprung.
Did I have a clue where to begin? Of course not.
Was I worried? Of course not. I knew nothing, but how difficult could it be? There was a chart, and a list of colours with little symbols to show what colour went where. It's only when you start to learn that you realise how little you know and fear of the unknown creeps in. So off I set, to Christine Riley's embroidery shop in Stonehaven (now closed - the shop, not the town) and purchased the required Appletons crewel wools.
Fortunately JB had been a customer there since childhood and when she explained to Miss Riley what I was looking for, Christine could not have been more helpful.
The design is based on a Japanese Imari porcelain bowl of the late Edo (Tokugawa) period, and is worked in three strands of Appleton's Crewel wool on 14 count canvas.
Framing up was fun, NOT. I didn't know any better, but JB came to my rescue and after a couple of attempts I had the canvas square on the roll-bars and the roll-bars fixed in the ends of the frame.
Heart Stopping Moment.
Where should I put my first stitch? Which colour first?
The learning curve was steep.
The first thing I learned was that I am always going to have that 'First Stitch Fear'. It doesn't matter what it is, I always end up sitting staring mindlessly at the frame for a good ten minutes before I make that first plunge of needle through canvas.
The second thing (unintentionally) was that shoving a tapestry needle under your finger-nail can be painful.
Really, I learned so many of the basics when stitching this. How to start a thread, how to finish a thread, what order to work in. I didn't know until it happened that bringing a white wool up in a hole it was to share with a dark coloured wool, already stitched, had a good chance of bringing some shreds of the coloured thread with it. Lesson, do the lighter colours first, starting with white.
I also learned one of the most important lessons - how to rip out without destroying the stitching you want to keep. How do you do that? Carefully!
And I learned how relaxing it could be.
Hook, line and sinker!
I stitched two of these between January and October 1986, one for my mother and one for Senior-Sister-In-Law, and once I had turned them into cushions I was on the hunt for my next project.
Thunk! The trap was sprung.
Did I have a clue where to begin? Of course not.
Was I worried? Of course not. I knew nothing, but how difficult could it be? There was a chart, and a list of colours with little symbols to show what colour went where. It's only when you start to learn that you realise how little you know and fear of the unknown creeps in. So off I set, to Christine Riley's embroidery shop in Stonehaven (now closed - the shop, not the town) and purchased the required Appletons crewel wools.
Fortunately JB had been a customer there since childhood and when she explained to Miss Riley what I was looking for, Christine could not have been more helpful.
The design is based on a Japanese Imari porcelain bowl of the late Edo (Tokugawa) period, and is worked in three strands of Appleton's Crewel wool on 14 count canvas.
Framing up was fun, NOT. I didn't know any better, but JB came to my rescue and after a couple of attempts I had the canvas square on the roll-bars and the roll-bars fixed in the ends of the frame.
Heart Stopping Moment.
Where should I put my first stitch? Which colour first?
The learning curve was steep.
The first thing I learned was that I am always going to have that 'First Stitch Fear'. It doesn't matter what it is, I always end up sitting staring mindlessly at the frame for a good ten minutes before I make that first plunge of needle through canvas.
The second thing (unintentionally) was that shoving a tapestry needle under your finger-nail can be painful.
Really, I learned so many of the basics when stitching this. How to start a thread, how to finish a thread, what order to work in. I didn't know until it happened that bringing a white wool up in a hole it was to share with a dark coloured wool, already stitched, had a good chance of bringing some shreds of the coloured thread with it. Lesson, do the lighter colours first, starting with white.
I also learned one of the most important lessons - how to rip out without destroying the stitching you want to keep. How do you do that? Carefully!
And I learned how relaxing it could be.
Hook, line and sinker!
I stitched two of these between January and October 1986, one for my mother and one for Senior-Sister-In-Law, and once I had turned them into cushions I was on the hunt for my next project.
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