Bunny Christmas Stocking

Why would you have a Bunny on a Christmas Stocking?
I'm not sure either, but Jane-Beth picked this canvas up at the Silent Auction at the ANG Seminar in Lexington. I think she put in a bid because no one else had and she felt sorry for the Bunny.

Was she ever going to stitch this?
Probably not, so I did.

The Bunny is a painted canvas on 14 count. It came with no stitch guide, and no indication of the designer. If you recognise the designer please feel free to leave a comment so that I can give them the credit.

I had to make my own decisions about stitches and threads. First off, I didn't want to lose the fine shading on the canvas, so it called for lots of different threads. Looking back, I think I used nearly twenty different threads and braids. Because I didn't want to lose detail I used tent stitch on the carrots and the Bunny, except on his tie, weskit and hat band.
I used Fluffy Stuff and Appletons Crewel for the ears face and paws. The rest of the stocking was worked in Appletons and Silk'n'Ivory which I had purchased in Lexington for the good reason that I liked the feel of it and thought I'd like to try it. It's mere co-incidence that it worked with the stocking. There is also Kreinik gold braid and a bit of DMC perle.
For the egg in the Bunny's paw, I wanted just a slight sheen, so I used 2 strands of Appletons, lightly twisted with two strands of Décor.

The name band is tent stitch and satin stitch, the long stitches are held down by a grid of Kreinik gold braid, couched at the intersections with a blue Kreinik braid to match the letters.
The name is not is some strange Pictish script, it's the name of a Bear (Grumpy) who, being a bear, does not feel restricted to common conventions on the direction of letters or spelling.  His stocking, so of course I had to do it the way he signs his name.

Star of A'Tuin

Not really anything to do with Discworld.

The culprits are the same group of RPG players as The Chapter, but much earlier. We're talking December 2003.

They called themselves House A'Tuin as a tribute to Terry Pratchett, and their emblem was a central circle superimposed on two four pointed stars. They were not the most pleasant group of adventurers, not that they would have called themselves pirates, but...…

The background is a piece of cotton Halloween fabric. I chose this because the party was led by Drow. Those who read fantasy books will know what that means, but put simply, Drow are evil elves, sometimes called Dark Elves, who worship a Spider Goddess. When I saw the fabric I couldn't resist it! To give the cotton enough body to take the weight of the gold I backed it with a piece of calico before basting on the outline of the stars.
The stars are worked in couched Japanese gold with the couching in different colours to highlight the stars and circle.

It took nearly 4 months to design and stitch this.

Bluegrass Fantasy

Lexington, Kentucky, is in the heart of Bluegrass Country, so it seemed only reasonable that while at the ANG Seminar I should take a class called Bluegrass Fantasy.

Bluegrass Fantasy was designed and taught by Peg Dunayer. I was attracted by the title, but the way threads and ribbons had been combined to create the design also fascinated me. My fingers itched to try these new stitches and materials.

I see Seminar as a place to try new things and learn new skills. It's not just the classes, but when you get a large group of embroiderers in one place they will talk about embroidery, exchange tips and provide advice.

It wasn't all stitching, there was some eating, and there was the 'Tourist' bit. We went on a Coach trip to a Bourbon distillery - how could we not? The Bourbon did, of course, have to be tasted. I'm going to be controversial here, but I have to say that Bourbon is not a patch on a decent Single Malt Scotch Whisky.
We also made a visit to the home of Mary Todd Lincoln, which was only a short walk from our hotel. I think the volunteers running the house were a bit surprised to have a visit from two Scottish people who actually knew about Mary Lincoln.
And of course we just had to visit M's Canvas House. AND I became a Bag Lady. Yet again I was overwhelmed by the variety of threads, flosses, and, well just everything!

We had two weeks of fun, fun, fun, then, as the saying goes, we had to come home "Tae auld clathes an parritch."

Shoo Fly and Shadow

Another quilt? You might think so from the title, but this was the second class I attended at the American Needlepoint Guild Seminar in Lexington.

Shoo Fly and Shadow was designed and taught by Mary Lou Stransky, based on the quilt pattern of the same name.

I chose this class because I like quilt patterns and because it used lots of different stitches. Apart from Basketweave, there's Milanese, Nobuko, Diagonal Scotch and Upright and Horizontal Gobelin. Not only was it an exercise in learning new stitches, it was also a lesson on compensation.

I don't know how many hours I spent on this but I do remember that I didn't want to put it down once I had started. I'm sure I'm not the only person who can sit down for 'ten minutes at the frame' and discover that an hour has gone by.

The 4th Wise Man

In September 2003, having been to an American Needlepoint Guild Seminar two years earlier in Washington DC, we went back again. Work, distance and cost kind of got in the way of going in 2002.
Seminar 2003 was held in Lexington, Kentucky and I knew it was going to be an interesting adventure. To start with, after a long flight, then a short flight, we arrived in Lexington late in the evening. We were waiting for the shuttle to our hotel. (OK, I was standing outside, in my kilt, having a sly cigarette - Jane-Beth, being much more sensible than I, was in the air conditioned terminal building.) A gentleman, presumably local, came along. He was in blue-jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, all but the six-guns and holsters. As he came past he stopped, looked at me and declared "You ain't from around here, are you boy?" then he walked on. I managed not to break up with laughter until he was out of sight. Really, it wasn't what I was expecting, but it got the visit off to a jolly start.

The 4th Wise Man was the first class I took at Lexington. It was taught over two days by Dorothy Lesher and it took me from September to December to finish it.

If you don't know the story, basically, Atraban (that's him) is on his way to join the three Magi but he gets side-tracked because he spends some of the treasure he was taking to Bethlehem on helping others. There are various versions of the story, but they all have him spending all his treasure on other people and never getting to Bethlehem. The embroidery shows Atraban with his last piece of treasure, a pearl, in his hand.

It was the technique. not the story, that attracted me to this class. The background is not stitched, but drawn in with watercolour pencils. I hadn't even thought of doing such a thing, never mind tried it, so I had to have a go.
There were also tassels (never made one before this) and twisted cords (same), so apart from some new stitches there were three new techniques. I didn't know whether I would ever use these techniques again but I'm glad I have them in my armoury (if I can remember how to do it!).

This was the first time Jane-Beth and I had been in the same class. We hardly spoke the whole time, and we were sitting where we couldn't see each other's work, but we both managed to make the same mistake with the starting point of the brick pattern. Spooky!

Festivals

There's nothing like the Edinburgh Festival season; Jazz Festival, Film Festival, Fringe and of course The Edinburgh International Festival. During the Festival period, allegedly, real Edinburgh people go abroad for two months and rent out their houses to festival goers at exorbitant rates. Since I don't know anyone who does that, I'm prepare to believe that it's a vile calumny on the good citizens of our beautiful city. That said, I do tend to avoid 'going up the town' during The Festival.

Which brings me on to March 2003 and "Festivals"

This was another Patchworks Macmillan Challenge. I had seen the fabrics a week before the start of the challenge and they had not spoken to me, but when they became available the colours made me think about the view from my kitchen window, looking south towards Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat and over the New Town to the castle. Apart from the bright orange, the colours were mostly dark and subdued. It struck me that they could be cut and layered to look like the rooftops seen through the summer darkness and then various outlines of buildings and windows could be stitched on top of the fabric.
There is a massive fireworks display every year to accompany a classical concert, so I put in the orange from the pack as a narrow line to show the glow of low level fireworks, with circles of brighter fabric for the cascades from higher flying rockets. There are usually searchlights so I added the two bands of light coming from Calton Hill (on the left) and the castle (right) to make a St Andrews Cross. The pack included the blue star fabric at the top - I did not stitch all the little stars myself! As a wise person once told me, "Life's too short for stuffing mushrooms."

Festivals came out a bit 'rough and ready', I could have done a better job of the silhouettes and the hand embroidery, but I enjoyed making it, and that, after all is the important point. We should enjoy  our embroidery, even those bits that didn't go too well.

I Finished The Chapter

For those who have been following the creation of "The Chapter" as documented in the Page of that name, it is finished and framed. It took me 120 hours to stitch this and now that it's framed I think it was worth the counting, the miscounting, the ripping and re-stitching.

Next I'll do something completely different.