OMG - What A Challenge

It really doesn't feel like I have progressed far in the last week until I look back at my blog and I can see I have made some inroads. That is the fabulous thing about a blog, it is like a personal electronic diary that you can share with others but maintain a log for yourself. I wonder what the stitching ladies from the past, of whom many would have kept journals, would have felt about the ease with which we can share knowledge and experience in the 21st century.

So all my efforts this week have been on the scallop shell for the Mermaid Treasures. It feels like slow going as it is over one tent on 32 count and the whole shell is filled. Super easy to lose where you are at so don't want to remove any basting until you have to as you WILL have to count to find your lost location! I started at the top and worked down in rows of a single colour in an arch or rainbow shape. I found this easiest as you can reference on the chart to where you should be from the previous colour although that being said there are a couple of colours throughout that are situated side by side and are near impossible to distinguish between when laid down on the oatmeal coloured linen.

I have left the old lace stitches and will fill them in as a 'background' after all the rest is completed. That means at least there is one colour I will not have to reference back to the chart for and it is the predominant.

During the week I started to look like I was going to run out of not only the posion thread but also the old lace so I have emailed Amy who is obligingly sending me some further threads as the poison is also used for lacing the scallop shell so I will be way short. Hopefully what she sends will be enough as there is a lot more old lace nearer the bottom of the shell than I thought. I don't know if the kit was short or I just stitch different but I didn't want to run out and stall the stitching so hopefully the threads will arrive this week.

Me efforts.....

 

I also signed up for the two new Thistle Threads courses 'Tudor Rose, and 'Abby Couzzens Family Register Sampler'. Thankfully though, these are not due to start until later in the year. I know I have signed up for too much but they may never be offered again and you can do them at your pace and I need all the learning & practice in a build up to the fabulous creation of a casket of my own design.

 

My brother's wife died at the weekend peacefully after battling illness so now I need to think about heading for Wellington for her funeral. I need to fly there and they are in the middle of an earthquake resurgence as they sit on a fault line so it is filling me with dread! I hate earthquakes and the disasters in Christchurch did not improve my hesitation.

 

Happy stitching to anyone reading this blog

R