Mabel's Designs 2026

[Mabel Figworthy]

Finished the blackwork tulip - this afternoon I'll be trying a bit of silk shading sampling!

[geekishly]

This turned out so beautiful!

[Mabel Figworthy]

I unpicked the stem I did on the tulip and restitched it. There is still something I don't quite like about it but I'm not unpicking it a second time!

[Mabel Figworthy]

I've finished the leaf; quite pleased with the shading, achieved with two different thread weights plus leavingbits of the pattern out.

[Serinde]

I like the contrast between the two leaf colours.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Between the left and the right leaf, do you mean? The right-had leaf is the lightest, both in colour and in pattern; it's also the most complicated and therefore the most likely to lead to miscounting...

[Serinde]

As long as you have enough fingers and toes...

[Mabel Figworthy]

A bit more tulip:

[Serinde]

Enjoying this.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Just the gold (or possibly silver) to add to this.

On the advice of two people at our monthly Cake & Craft, one of whom has taken several of my courses at the local adult education college, this tulip will be one of the projects in the course I'm hoping to teach later this year. It was going to be Norway, Ireland, India (Hardanger, Mountmellick, Shisha), but as the Mountmellick design so far exists only in my head, it'll now be Norway, England-via-Spain, India

[Serinde]

Sounds wonderful!

[Mabel Figworthy]

The tulip is all outlined - I used doubled silver wavy passing.

[Mabel Figworthy]

And another bit of blackwork experimenting, this time on 28ct black evenweave. This one I'm thinking of outlining with stem stitch instead of metal.

[Mabel Figworthy]

And a bit more:

[Serinde]

Nice, nice, nice!

[Mabel Figworthy]

I first tried a different pattern for the blue and it just looked wrong, so I unpicked it and did it again
Likewise this morning I unpicked one of the "flames" on the church banner because the tip had somehow got attached crooked - and how I didn't see that when I first sewed it on I do not know!

[Serinde]

Too close to the subject... literally?

[Mabel Figworthy]

Very likely. When you are sewing with your eyes 4 inches from the work, and the flame you are sewing on is two feet high, it's difficult to keep an overview...

[Mabel Figworthy]

I'm not sure about the pattern I'm using for the last petal on the not-blackwork-on-black but I think I'll leave it - it's not ideal but i think it'll just about work in the overall look.

One of my reasons for doing this flower is that i wanted to see how shaded you could get in a relatively small space on a relatively coarse fabric, and I'm pleasantly surprised by it! (Next pic when I've actaully finished it.)

[Mabel Figworthy]

Finished.The flower shape is actually for a silk-and-gold design that I haven't started stitching yet, so I chose colours similar to that design.