Thursday, October 07, 2010

Is it twee?


So here it is, my very first piece of embroidery (or stitchery, as I prefer to call it).  Considering that it's my first and that I used my own drawing to create the pattern, I'm quite proud of it. 

I originally wanted to stitch this on a different fabric, a lovely slightly textured chocolate coloured chambray (in fact a cheapo table cloth I found in Wilkinson's). But my transfer pencil left such faint lines I couldn't see the pattern so I had to make do with white. Transferring the pattern was not quite as trouble-free as it's portrayed here.  Even though I followed all the instructions, I still had trouble getting clear lines and had to draw over the fainter bits directly on the fabric with the pencil.  I've since found some non-waxy tracing paper and even a transfer pen (wonderfully named Sulky) so I'm hoping that will solve the problem.


Anyway, this is stitched entirely in split stitch on a bit of cotton napkin procured from Sainsbury's (a pack of 4 for £3.50!).  I used the split stitch simply because I couldn't get my stem stitches to work.  I know that sounds terribly fancy - it isn't.  The stitches have names and once you know them it's like knowing how to use certain ingredients for cooking.

There were a lot of false starts...muck-ups, pulling out threads and restarting, and some of the stitches are still not terribly neat, but once I got started (with Jenny Hart's book Sublime Stitching to hand), it was easier than I expected and I like the overall result. 
 
My only worry is that it might be just the wrong side of twee.  What do you think?

2 comments:

Helen said...

Nope - I don't think so. Having said that, if you stitched a cute circular border round it, I think that would boot it over the twee line....!

Rosie Tremain said...

no it's definitely not twee - I really like it and look forward to the next one. i should do some myself but there's always something more 'important' to do...