Winning Biscournu

This year we have two Presidents Challenges & the first was a biscouru which I completed from a kit my Mum let me have from her collection. She also taught me how to do the long armed cross to nicely join the two pieces & ensured that it was stuffed appropriately - thanks Mum!

With the presidents challenge guild members are encouraged to complete an item & then we all bring them to a meeting and vote on which one we like the best. voting is anonymous & entries are generally anonymous also - so no popularity contest really, although fairly casual.
Anyway, judging is in & here is the winning entry:

Mine :) and the prize: a voucher for Nancy's Embroidery shop yah!!!!

Now if you wish to see this in Real life as well as the other entries - please head along to the Embroidery Conference from the 7th of July in Christchurch at St Bedes. You can check out all the amazing work the guilds around NZ do. I am really looking forward to this.

My Mums test piece

Recently I have been working on a piece which my mother is teaching next year at the Wanaka Embroidery School, so if you like it you can have a go there :)
As she has only taught to her local guild members I offered to test her written instructions - at the moment I am good at this task as I am still learning a lot, yet am pretty good (if I do say so myself) at reading & learning stitches. I have also timed each step so she can ensure enough is taught.

This is inspired from a pattern she purchased in Canada & has adapted:

 

 

it has been a bit tricky choosing the right threads for each piece, but all part of the learning curve & ensuring I had enough thread for the parts I choose. There were a couple of times where I found the incorrect way to do one stitch several times.

Sample Book Complete

all done, all put together, ready to give... after I show it off to people :)

We had a work day in Upper Hutt yesterday, I love the way these work days always have a table of things that the local guild ladies donate & sell very cheaply. I got a piece of linen 90cm x 75cm in green - pretty cool, thought I would be able to use it for my class when I go to conference, asked the lady there what count she thought it was & she said to measure an inch is the length of some part of her finger, which she then counted the threads - 30 - yah, I'd been having a hard time finding any 30count, so then at the other stalls I bought the threads required to match... all set!
Until this morning, when I started to tack out the required griding, I remeasured - with a tape measure - & it's a 38count... grrrrrr. Luckily I realised that my Mum had given me some 30 count (& had the count written in pencil on the hem) for making my house, but there is a lot of material there & I think I might even use some of the green on that... maybe.
So now I need to buy more threads to match this correct fabric.

Next project I think will be the project for my Mum, testing her instructions.

Sampler update

I have completed all the cross stitching required for the sampler & got a better photo of the last page I put on here:

 

Next each page has been backed with a piece of thick interfacing & then I mitered the corners & tacked the excess linen to the interfacing. with this done I have joined two pages together using long armed cross.
At this point I realise how tiny these pages are!

My next step will to purchase some suitable ribbon to bind the pages together.

While I am finishing things, I made a tassel & finished my chair:

Now, soon I hope you will be seeing the next lot of projects, which include one unfinished sampler for friends, a piece which I am testing the instructions on for my Mum, the Home Sweet Home project & not to mention a few baby gift things. I really should get onto those baby gifts, or at least plan what I am going to do there!

Ukrainian Finished

Hurrah! :

I did have to re-hem what I had completed last week, but after much brain work I finally got the corners mitred :)

Now I have washed it & am waiting for it to dry for a final pressing. I'm very happy with the finished table runner.

Just in case I hadn't mentioned the details: this was done on 25 count linen, with 8 & 12 cotton perle. any questions please ask.

Progress

Progress is being made - the sampler has one more page done & only one to go - one with not as much stitching required as the rest :)

I have completed the corners & done some hemming on my Ukrainian, but I am just going to have to suck it up & mitre the corners myself:

I had a wonderful holiday south, July is the Christchurch Embroiderer's conference, which I am really looking forward to. I'll be learning Punto Antico & then having a few days in Hanmer - only 9 weeks away.

Ukrainian update!

as the days get shorter, I get to spend more time on my Ukrainian Whitework - yah!

finished all the needle weaving along the edges & now the corners, first I have to pull one thread & weave the next one back into the fabric.

look how tidy it looks - wouldn't even be able to tell there are threads pulled out :)

Then there is more border to do & button holes around the square & some fancy looking threads stitched in.

my next step is some kind of weaving thing in the corners to kind of look like a web. Then the mitre of corners & final hemming. Good thing I am going to an embroidery guild meeting with my Mum on Wednesday :)