A Little Dragon

Taking a break from the quilt project I started over the summer, though its not far away (on the table behind me...) I have started on a small embroidery project. Now some time I go I did doodle a design of a medieval inspired piece of a dragon, looking at illuminated manuscripts, but I never finished it largely because I didn't like where it was going. Now move forward several months, I find myself doodling another dragon. This one I am pleased to say showed early signs of potential and thus it will get finished!

As with anything it started with a little spot of preparation, in the form of little satin spikes, and several layers of felt padding.  

Over top of which I then placed a layer of silk dupion, without any soft/ light-weight vilene I had to settle for bondaweb (wasn't about to stop and wait till I could get some...I wanted to get on with it!). With that stab stitch down, I then set about cutting out the head with the help of the bondaweb again, now this was the third attempt as I kept drawing the head in the wrong direction. Got the reverse wrong....

A spot of silver passing couched down...

With the body couching down I heat applied the head to the body, you can't really see in this shot but one of the dragon's ears was stitched, as was the chain stitched tongue, before I properly applied the head, which was then stabbed stitch down. 

I toyed with leaving the teeth as they were, just green silk but I opted to do a spot of padded satin stitch instead, and I am rather happy with the outcome.

Once all the teeth are complete, there will be further work to do...including working out how I am going to do his eye. Now, I have an idea involving a Swarosvki crystal, and some stitching...but you'll have to wait and see the outcome!

Goldwork A Look Back

Getting back into the rhythm of things of late sees me first taking a look back at past projects. Seemingly have a raft of work in progress or completely abandoned pieces of work. Recently whilst having a check at what pieces I have that I want to sell, I came across this piece of gold work, (see above) a Tudor Rose sampler, stitched in the first year of my apprenticeship at the Royal School of Needlework (sadly, they dropped the apprenticeship in favour of going the University route). 

To be honest it slipped my mind that I had even done it. To be fair it was 12/13 years ago. I do recall the first year being a bit tricky for me, the whole doing pre-scripted designs didn't really appeal to me. Still I did each of the projects. 

If you wondering it's purposely left unfinished, some in my year did go on to finish it but I quite liked the fact you can see the layers, which was the purpose of the piece. Goldwork looks really tricky but with practice you can get the basics down pretty quickly. Most of  the problems come from when you don't do the prep work properly, from the padding layers to working out the order of work. For instance you wouldn't necessarily start with the gold that is more delicate and liable to crack (i.e. in the case of the image above, the stem which is cut work), in an area that you also need to do a lot of other embroidery. Also simply taking your time with it.

It's been nice to look back at this piece, and perhaps it's about time I got it framed. For the time being though its time to look ahead.

Too the next post. 

Summer Holiday Unwind

Cor, blimey. 

It's been a while since I posted!

I am very much here, and stitching but the blog is pretty much in its summer hibernation mode as is my website and Etsy store. That being said I thought I would give an update...

I've working on the new quilt project, called 'Gossip in the Garden' it's by Hatched & Patched. It was tea related and had bees on it, so I had to do it. This weekend I managed to get all the appliqué completed for block A, I just need to finish the small patchwork block detailing before I move onto the next block. 

What's been nice about this project is the opportunity to use up scraps, and that it's forcing me to start making some sort of dent into the rest of my fabric stash. It's also been nice to do as it's making me stop and think about colour and print combinations too. Getting the old noggin working!

Lots of fiddly needle turned appliqué. 

When I haven't been playing with fabric, I've also been making a bit of a dent on my jewellery making stash. It was high-time I broke out the Swarovski Crystals. A made a rainbow inspired bracelet, see below, a long chain necklace and updated another long chain I picked up recently in the summer sales. 

Also celebrated Hamish the Hamster's 2nd Birthday. Still going strong my little ginger furball. He's currently on vacation with my Best Friend. 

And I've taken a small break from eyelets but it's coming along rather nicely. I can't quite decide whether to go all the way round or keep it to one side of the oval shape, a crescent of eyelets. But post my break I'm sure I'd have made my decision. 

And that my friends, is where I am currently at. I'll be back in proper blogging mode in September!