First finish of the year!

I’ve stitched a little gold star with Madeira Metallic on the top of my Rhodes stitch Christmas tree…….

…… it’s very subtle and may need a bit of tweaking.

Then on to the glueing round the edge, with neat PVA this time. I left it overnight to make sure it was completely dry, and then for the scary bit of cutting it out. The white cut threads of the canvas show up too much…….

……. so I used a damp Inktense pencil in a dark green around the edges, both front and back, a yellow around the star, and left it to dry again. Then I put another layer of PVA, just to make sure.

I cut a slightly smaller triangle of mount board to go in the middle, and found some green felt to stitch on the back. I had stitched another piece of felt to make a pocket for a pencil on the inside, to use as a trunk for it to stand up. I found a wooden reel for a tub, a reel of red, and couldn’t decide which to use. Then I found a dark green Sylco on a wooden reel to stitch the pocket and the front to the back. I realised when I’d stitched across the bottom, up one side and about an inch up the other side, that although it would stand up I’d not put the mount board in the middle! I thought it would be worth undoing that little bit, and managed to wriggle it in.

Now the stitching’s finished.

The pencil’s in place, and I decided that the green reel looked better than the empty wooden reel or the red one. I can easily take the pencil out and use the thread, if I need to use such a dark green for anything else. I think Lorna is right, and the star needs to be more obvious, but I’d not got anything suitable with me.

So it’s not really quite finished…… yet!!!

Stitching mandalas

At Seata today we stitched mandalas, geometric designs put into a circular format. Instead of us all working on our own, they were to be collaborative pieces, a little bit from everybody on each table of eight. We all started with a piece of plain (or plainish) fabric, stretched in a 6″ hoop. Most used cream or white, but I chose the brown swirly print above.

We all did a central motif of some sort, knowing we had 20 minutes before passing to the next person. I did four long stitches into the centre, and continued to divide each section until I’d gone all the way round a couple of times. Then I did smaller stitches between each spoke, and finished with a cluster of French knots. I’d tried to make it so that it was even when the 20 minutes were up, and decided I would stick with known stitches….. it wasn’t the day for doing anything too complicated!

A little star was passed on to me, and I started couching down a slubby thread from each point……

……using a different colour between each one.

The time increased by 5 minutes every two rounds. The next one arrived like this……

…….. and I added yellow lazy daisy stitches.

To the next one…….

……. I added blanket stitch.

I forgot to photograph the one below when I got it. I used a shiny rayon thread to do herringbone.

Then it was time for a lovely shared lunch, and each place had a little tube of handcream, all different. I picked Lily of the Valley, which took me right back to my mum doing Avon when I was little. Thank you, handcream fairy!

There were only five (four after lunch) taking part on our table, and three of of us opted to continue passing them on rather than working on our own. I had the lazy daisy one back, and blanket stitched using the rayon again into the chain stitches of the previous row……..

…….ending up like this.

Last was the blue star one, and I added straight stitches in a grey perlé following the round before.

This is how mine came back. We had a few more minutes to stitch, so I whipped the chain stitch and the outer running stitch in the same mucky pink colour.

At the end of the day here are some of those that had been done.

A few have thread attached, where a row hadn’t been finished when it was time to pass it on. Some tables had drawn circles as guidelines, which I think in hindsight would have made things easier.

It was fun to respond to what was in front of you, with no time to change your mind, no procrastinating or deliberating, just choose your stitch and thread, thread your needle and stitch away!

It was a great idea, Alex, with very helpful and clear instructions; thank you. Just a shame you couldn’t be there.