Serinde's 2020 Stitching Adventures 7 December

[Squirrel]

Really Serinde I am in awe of the amazing patterns you stitch and this must be the most amazing one I have seen. Never in a thousand years would I be able to stitch something like this without a chart. You really are 1 in millions for even trying it.

I have pulled up another bench so I can watch in comfort - this old body is tired after doing the weekly shop,

[Serinde]

Well, here are a few braid for you to enjoy. Summer fruit! I'm particularly proud of the watermelon braid, which was 20 strands and needed concentration, but I do like the strawberries, too. I wish I'd done the pumpkin with a lighter green for the stem -- it might have shown up better. Oh, dear. Might have to make another one.

[wendywombat]

Hmm...which one to chose? I really like the 'watermelon' one.

Well woven, Serinde

[rcperryls]

I can't decide between watermelon and strawberries. I started to type strawberries and watermelon showed up instead. I'll take one each please!

Carole

[Squirrel]

Is there no end to your talents with threads (and needless too of course). These are amazing and colourful. I can't pick just one all 3 are vibrant and beautiful.

[Mabel Figworthy]

They are such fun and I find it amazing that the fruits are so recognisable on that small scale!

[poppy]

There are very even and tightly woven, very professionally made Serinde
My favourite will have to be the strawberry one. I bet that they are fun to make.

[Serinde]

Kumihimo braids are easy to make on a disk, they are portable, and it's possible to make beaded jewellery, too. I intend to make these into fun bracelets, once I get my hands on some appropriate findings. Much less intimidating than its big brother, the marudai.

[Serinde]

I have been working on my Cluny reproduction "tapestry" of the Sense of Smell. 33 Years ago (really, during it's storage at my FILs house) a mouse chewed a hole in it. The hole is in the bottom right quadrant of the main figures dress. I worked the other figures, the heraldic beasts, flowers... but not that bit of the dress. Then came lockdown, and I decided I didn't want to concentrate on something difficult, so out the "tapestry" came from under its cloth dust cover (where it'd been languishing for easily another decade or two). Yesterday, I patched it with some 10HPI tapestry I bought. Here are a few pics to give you an idea (there are more, but I'll spare you..)

This is the hole. The gold wool shows the extent of the damage:


Fibres starting to be cut away.


Patch in place. Sewn in with Langley's superfine silk thread which -- miraculously -- was almost the same colour as the canvas. Not as tidy as it might be, but I was working from the back.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Brilliant solution - it'll be completely invisible once stitched!

[wendywombat]

Well done!!

[Podolyanka]

Well done, Serinde. I once did this with Aida after lots of frogging. Worked perfectly well, now even I cant remember where it was.

[rcperryls]

Great fix! Once it is stitched it won't show one bit!

Carole

[Squirrel]

really great patching job and only us know about it. Well Done Serinde.

[Serinde]

Well, I've finally started the wedding card, and changed my idea about what I'll stitch, too, of course. Rather than the 10th "Round in Circles", I've decided on the 6th. Oh, and after all the faff about colours, none of them worked the way I wanted. Luckily, I'd done a bit of sampling on the all-purpose 25ct doodle cloth. So, I'm going to do it mostly in whites with a bit of metallics and perhaps a bit of colour. Later on, perhaps, I'll have a shot at stitching this again with one of the major colours I had in mind.

[Mabel Figworthy]

It's called the design process

[Serinde]

I suspected it might have some kind of name!

[Serinde]

Well, here are two pics of the Cluny needlepoint. The first is the full piece, and I think you can see I've actually accomplished quite a bit, watching rugby! But I can't tell you how boring the flowers are, now that the main images are all complete! The second image is of the repaired spot. I'm really pleased. I can't believe that when I started this back in the last century, I'd never heard of a loop start... And I will confess to being rather more cavalier about starting and stopping each flower petal all the time... life is definitely too short, especially as all the running threads will be covered by the background colour!

[Mabel Figworthy]

As you say, life's too short and we pick what is worth doing and what isn't!

Great progress and that repair is brilliant.

[Serinde]

Thank you, Mabel.

Now, there's also this wedding card -- for Friday... not quite last minute... As you can see I have used Mabel's Round in Circles design 6. I've stitched it mainly in silk (Grandeur and Au ver a Soie perlée), and sequins (held down with Caron Waterlilies -- Iris)and crystal seedbeads instead of spiderweb stitch and french knots, Caron Wildflowers (Orchid), PTB 47 for the eyelash stitch. The sequin thing is a direct result of doing all those Faby Reilly designs. Thank the lord for stash! Oh, and the fabric is that opalescent one, so quite shiny in real life.