This summer I'll be going back to Durham, UK to do my last module on my Royal School of Needlework Certificate of Technical Hand Embroidery. I am so excited about it! I'll be doing canvaswork, which is a type of embroidery that quite honestly I am not terribly familiar. I have not done a lot of counted embroidery. So, in order to prepare for my course, I've been reading a couple books that Tracy recommended to me, Canvas Work by Jennifer Gray and Dictionary of Canvas Work Stitches by Mary Rhodes. I also started sampling stitches yesterday and so far I really, really like this technique! So far I have stitched 1 square experimenting with Straight Gobelin and Trammed Gobelin and 5.5 squares of Upright Gobelin in various color and material combinations. I have tried just Appleton wools and mixing in some DMC and some silk too. I'm working on a 18 tpi canvas in antique as this is what I will be working on this summer. It is not a very subtle technique it seems. It seems like you have to
be a bit more aggressive in the shading for it to come through and make a
difference, but I have a lot more sampling to do!
Any suggestions on stitches to try? There are so many of them!
Here's my "to-do" list so far: Florentine, Hungarian, Diamond Satin, Parisan, Old Parisan, Chevron, Leaf Diaper, Milanese, 2-Layer Oblong Cross, Smyrna Cross, Windmill, Broad Cross, Rice, Oblong Rice, Plaited Stitch, Herringbone, Rococo, Paris, Tent, and Diamond Eyelet.
Any of the cross stitches are recommended by me. :)
ReplyDeleteYou must try Norwich stitch - it is so satisfying to do:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stitcharena.com/library/canvas-embroidery/norwich-stitch/
Having survived this ! Also sample change sizes in a stitch and changing from one stitch to another for a clean transition !
ReplyDeleteHi Chloe! You must have read my mind. After looking at your RSN piece and many others, I was thinking that was going to be challenging. I started doing this the other day on a trial composition. It definitely goes a lot slower than just the squares in the same repeat! It feels a bit like figuring out a jigsaw puzzle! Did you sketch out all your transitions on grid paper first?
DeleteYes I mapped a lot of it out in advance. But also a lot of sampling as I went along. The hardest part it blending one stitch to another whilst still shading . But you also have to increase ( or decrease) the size of a sitch . Use one stitch in a variety of ways
ReplyDeleteDon't forget you can't just use wool ( tempting) look at silks, rayon, cotton perle, my entire train is silk
ReplyDelete