Thursday, July 24, 2008

Some More Stitch Along and Weaving

I received the book Wessex Stitchery by Gay Eaton a while back from a friend and I've been contemplating what I could make using the patterns. I first saw Wessex work done on a band round robin piece by Christine. When you look through the book you realize what a huge range of patterns there are. I worked this biscornu for a larger project but I thought I'd include it here because the center of the flowers is Algerian Eye and the petals are really a form of eyelet stitch - 5 straight stitches coming from a single point. The border is the next stitch in the alphabet of the Stitch Along - the Arrowhead stitch. There is arrowhead in many of the Wessex stitches, including a border stitch where it is called a 'stacked wave stitch'. I plan on doing a sample of some of the more complex Arrowhead stitch patterns for my stitch book.
I was able to get my loom up and running so I could start weaving in class last night. I love the look of the linen warp!
Here is the tabby start with hem stitching - please ignore the blip where I stepped on the wrong treadle.
Here is the huck lace pattern I'm doing. This is really one of those things where a photograph doesn't do justice to the texture and colour of a piece. Again, there are a few places where the pattern is a bit off because the linen threads stick together and the shed doesn't open fully in some places. I've slowed down a bit and I'm being more careful. This will be a table runner for my home so I'm not worried. Hopefully I'll have everything perfect for the second one which will be a gift.
I wonder if every weaving project is a learning experience no matter how long you weave. This is only my fourth project, but this time I've learned about working with a high epi (ends per inch) piece, adding heddles to a frame, fixing a misthread and weaving with linen (lovely but challenging). I'm sure I'll learn another lesson soon, something is bound to happen!

2 comments:

Cherri said...

this looks great. I failed to mention how nice the baby blanket looks also. You need to bring it in to the studio and show everyone. It doesn't look like it is predominantly white, which is what I thought it would look like.

Carolyn McNeil said...

I like how the algerian eye stitch was used for the center of the flowers. Great work!
Carolyn
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