City & Guilds: Counted Thread

For the longest time I avoided counted thread techniques.  I don't know if I was afraid of their constraints or what it was.  I totally underestimated how much fun they are.  My intense attention to detail loves the constraints of these techniques.  It is so much fun having the patterns and then figuring out how to manipulate them.  When I did my RSN Canvaswork piece, I fell in love with the texture of the counted technique and the larger scale of the stitches and threads used. 

For this module, we had to do samples experimenting with blackwork, pattern darning and canvaswork techniques. 

 Blackwork Lily: 

Ground: linen

Threads:  silk 6-strand embroidery floss, super fine silk
I'm pretty happy with this piece.  I still need to work on getting my shading better but for the first try at a motif, I was pretty happy.   It's only about 5"x7".  I think I would like to try this again but at a larger scale to allow more room for shading. 

 Contemporary Pattern Darning

Ground fabric:  burlap

Leaves:  ribbon, yarn, wool roving, silk floss, gimp

Buds:  lace hem tape, ribbon, metallic + white braiding, baking twine, gilt smooth passing + ostrich feathers

Stem:  ribbon

Canvaswork Sampler:

Ground fabric: 14 count canvas

Blue Straight Stitches:  threads used include cotton, silk, rayon, wool and 

Yellow Cross Stitches:  threads used include

Red Diagonal Stitches:  threads used include cotton, silk, rayon, wool and