A New Journey

I'm hoping to enter items in four categories in next year's competition - knitting, crochet, beaded knitting and beginner embroidery. That's a lot of work, which is why I've had to start early. I'm still waiting for the postal service to deliver my daughter's parcel with thread for a new version of the crochet top and a magnetic clasp for the beaded bag, so I'm making a start on the embroidery.

The brief is to make a glasses case (brilhuisie in Afrikaans, literally a little house for glasses) decorated with surface embroidery. What is surface embroidery? Mary Corbet explains much better than I can in this article  on NeedlenThread. Basically it is 'free style' embroidery, as opposed to a counted thread technique like cross stitch.

 NeedlenThread is my go-to resource for this project, beginning with the pattern. I scrolled through the pattern section until I found a design that was the right size and 'from nature' as per the brief. It was easy to print out.

I looked through my fabric stash and I think this lilac linen will work. With surface embroidery, the fabric is going to show, so it's important that it is attractive. I have plenty of it, so I can use it for practising as well as the finished piece.

Now to get the printed design onto the linen. I rigged up a rather Heath Robinson arrangement so that I can trace the pattern onto the fabric on my glass table:

On my first attempt I used a pencil, but it was so faint that I was a bit dubious when I was stitching. Second time I used a ball point pen. I think I must get one with a fine nib, to be sure that the lines won't show once they're embroidered over.

The thread. At the information day last month we were advised to use perle cotton number 8. But I don't have a range of colours in that thread. I do have a lot of stranded embroidery thread. I'm going to use three strands, being sure to strip them, that is, separate them and then put them together again. I experimented with a thread that I have for tatting bookmarks, but I think the three strands of embroidery thread works better.

Now to experiment with different stitches and put in plenty of practice before I attempt the final article.