The spiral design behind the crow silhouette is now under way. I’ve decided to start from the top and work down; I’m doing this a bit at a time, and this is why: As I mentioned before, I’m transferring the design by stitching over a transfer of it ironed on the back with small running…
Happy new year! Best wishes to everyone for the coming year, and a big thank-you to everyone who took the trouble to read my blog or to leave comments during 2009. This has been my first venture into blogging, and the warmth, support, and generosity of spirit I’ve found in the online sewing community has…
My new project is now underway. I’ve drawn a new head for the serpent that looks a bit more threatening than the rather cheery one I had before, grafted it onto the body, along with a longer neck, and have made a fair copy to work from. I’ve also done all the usual setting up…
The linen’s arrived! I can finally make a proper start. With the (pre-shrunk) fabric ready, I tacked the cross transfer to the linen, and with a hot dry iron, ironed it on. The same transfer worked fine for both the front and back crosses – I didn’t need to make two. I left a gap…
As I’ve been making transfers of the flowers on the banner design, I’ve needed to do a bit of simplification. The individual flowers and leaves that make up the foxgloves and ferns get smaller and smaller until they disappear; this works well on paper, but isn’t practical to embroider, especially as I’m planning on working…
Continuing with the prep work, I’ve started making transfers for the flowers that’ll appear all the red panels on the front of the banner. I’m doing this with an iron-on transfer pencil – tracing the design with the transfer pencil, ready to iron onto linen for stitching. There is a complication, though: when you create…
Here’s Fiona’s design, taped to my drawing board. The paper was a bit wider than the board, so I’ve trimmed it (badly), but the design is unaffected. I’ve started on some prep work, ready for the fabric arriving. I’ve decided to do the central crosses first – that’s crosses plural, as there’s one on both…