Bumpy

Hello, sorry for the absence, it has been what I can only describe as bumpy around here. Two weeks ago we had one of those weeks where everyone in the house took turns with a heavy sniffly cough and chesty cold. First wee-cub, then Bear, then elder cub. At one point all three were at home miserable whist I was at work getting ready for the first week of classes. I knew the drill, either I would get the cold or I would not - lots of hand washing and keeping my distance - but deep down I knew the cold was inevitable at some level. Sure enough last Monday I had a cold - while those around me were all much much better.

Little did i know the cold was just the beginnings of the week happenings. I was off work Monday & Tuesday, and back to work Wednesday. Not fully functioning but knowing that the longer I was off the more difficult making up for missing first classes would be for both me, other staff and the students. Bear dropped a bombshell on me Tuesday night, he said there was a company wide compulsory meeting at 10am Wednesday, the General Manager was flying in to head the Dunedin meeting, and the other branches would be online for a live streaming of the meeting. I guess someone dropped the bombshell on him Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon I learned that the company was planning to walk away from several of its interest areas, result was some branches closing, others having staff numbers heavily reduced. Bear has a job - for now, but 21 of the 31 at his work do not. Wednesday night was quite but little cub went on and on about how Yo-yo's face was rounder until we paid some attention. She was right, so Wednesday night we added one emergency trip to the vet, and we now have a cat with several infected injuries on her head, necessitating vet visits every two days for treatment. The poor thing has a reverse mohawk hair cut, so no photos until she looks like her usual fuzzy self. She is a rather gentle cat with people but a proud matriarch about her territory - woe betide any cat (or small dog) who dares to cross her path. Trouble is - at fifteen or sixteen years old I suspect Yoyo is not as able to defend her position as she thinks she is.
At breakfast Thursday elder cub complained of a sore wrist, he had fallen the day before. It was a little swollen so Bear decided he would be the parent and after dropping younger cub and I off at school and work respectively, took elder cub to the urgent doctors clinic. Here in dunedin A&E is reserved for life threatening injuries or events. So far the jury is out on if it is a tiny fracture or a strain. Apparently the injury acts like a break - when pushed a certain way elder cub yelps the right way, but no one can see any damage on the x-ray - so like the cat he is on a two day cycle of trips to the clinic until they are sure it is healing ok and doesn't need plaster.

Amidst all that my cold faded to an occasional cough and I managed to finish my merino possum merino silk cardigan - all done, blocked with buttons (not pictured) and ready to wear. The contiguous shaping was so much fun, and fits well - there will be another quite soon. Sans buttons this weighs 175g and feels like it will be super warm. I've also got 99.9% of the prep done for my unwind classes this weekend.
So now it is Sunday, and Yoyo is due at the vet in an hour, elder cub is packed for school camp - wrist brace, painkillers, a large bag with three days of teen boy snacks and a wetsuit. Something in that sentence doesn't quite make sense but he is keen to go. My head is clearer ... and I'm absolutely positive the next week has to have less in it, how could it have more? The only thing I am thinking of wishing for is a slight turn from the super warm weather we are having so I can wear my new cardigan.
How was your week?
Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

New year - new socks

You will be pleased to know tht Frances has claimed her socks, and for the second post in a row the main subject will again be socks. This year seems to be off to a slow start knit wise, I've been plugging along on some previously abandoned WIPs, a 100th anniversary EX shawl that I started ages ago to fill a gap on the needles, I'm ignoring the sanquhar mitts that I startd in February of 2012, and my latest cardigan has half a sleeve ... and languishes in the knit basket beside my chair. That all changed last night when peeking at my ravelry 'friends' recent activity I came across a pair of socks Ode to frogs and the frog pond by Adrienne Fong. Well the idea of knitting socks within frogs on them was just too tempting. I dug around for greenish frog coloured yarn, found some, bought the pattern, wound the skein into a neat center pull ball on my nostephinne, and cast on. This past week has also had spinning, and drawing distractions ... which I will explain.

Here we are, Top down, not my usual toe up, and I've not even thought about reverse engineering the pattern. The green is more grey blue, but I know intellectually that frogs come in many shades, not just bright frog green so this will do. Knit on some new favorite needles, knit pro/knit picks carbon fiber circulars ... Nice.

This was what I was knitting before I was distracted, I had resumed knitting on my Red Berry Pi, a circular shawl based in the pi principles developed for knitting by Elizabeth Zimmerman. This pattern is by Mwaa Knit, and is free, released to celebrate 100 years of EZ, way back in 2010. I was late to the celebrations as I only cast on in 2012. Maybe this will be my 100 year shawl? When I picked this up after Christmas after a several month break from knitting it I had no idea where in the repeats I was ... So frogged back to the previous increase ring. Turns out I was somewhere in the midst of working the 288 stitch ring. I've now completed that ring and have just startd on the 576 stitch ring. That is slow going instead of one or two four round repeats a night I manage two rounds .... I'm easily distracted but realize that if I abandon this again I will forget just where I am again.

There has been some spinning, I'm now 3/4 of the way through my current sock yarn project. Three bobbins done, one to go , then ply and finish and store away for the next Handspun sock project.

With all that going on my latest cardigan languishes, contiguous tempest, needing only half a sleeve and another full sleeve. The weather has been so warm and summery that knitting a merino possum silk cardigan seems the last thing I should do.

I'm still on leave, another week or so to go, and while I 'should' be doing lots of chores around the house I have spent a lot of time relaxing and doing creative things like Bookbinding. I tell myself that lots of bookbinding practice is required to prepare to teach at Unwind, and drawing. That I tell myself is because I am booked into a three day workshop on printmaking at the art school next month. I'd love to feel more confident in visually communicating my thoughts and ideas without words, heck - I'd love to be more confident with words. I've also put my hand up to up-skill on visual note taking, as part of a my 'professional development' for 2013. Doing that means spending a lot more time recording the world and ideas visually rather than verbally ... A scary thought as I usually reassure my students that if I can work in design with drawings that look like maimed stick figures they don't have to be scared of showing me their drawings.
To psych myself up for printmaking and for undertaking a drawing course I went hunting for easy ways to Improve my drawing and my drawing confidence. I hunted out library books and looked at loads of how to draw videos online. Then I came across WetCanvas, a forum not unlike ravelry but for artists, where there is a virtual classroom. I've lurked, and read and read and signed up to work my way through drawing 101, a serries of 30+ online self paces classes that aim to improve drawing from real life. I'm learning new terms like RL, short for real life, and I'm having fun.

I'm up to class five, drawing spheres, and I'm spending a huge amount of time lost in sketching and drawing instead of gardening or knitting. This is fun, I'm not perfect, and luckily I can see most of the mistakes I've made once I've finished and walked away. I hope to develope the skill of seeing mistakes and errors whilst I'm working ... That would be nice. I've set up a slopped drawing board, and gathered together a range of pencils, erasers, blue tack, and I'm drawing. Not sketching but really drawing, taking time to polish, refine and render the things I'm drawing. Here are things I've found around my house. None of these are perfect but they are improving, and i am drawing freehand. I'm aware that I find simple shapes less of a challenge, people, faces, hands and complex things like that scare me silly, probably always will but who knows perhaps this course will combat my fear of drawing complex things like people?

Each of the classes covers a principle, skill, or technique used in drawing, and asks the student to draw things from their environment to develop proficiency with that skill or technique or principle. Then several images are supplied, as either photos or drawings and the student is asked to draw them for themselves. Many many students have gone before me, each posting work for critique by rather considerate and encouraging, insightful volunteer tutors. After looking at the work of those who have gone before, reading comments and observing I am able to take my time and prepare my own interpretation of the excercise photos. For this class on spheres, one of the examples is a solitary eye 'borrowed' from a photo by Man Ray titled 'tears'. The process isn't quick, a drawing takes hours (as does knitting), and for me involves multiple sketches to develope the proportions before transferring my best lines to a new sheet of paper and working on a final drawing. And the critiques are honest, so if the proportions are odd, or the lines confused - the comments will say that. And it's very much hand held, someone guides you through seeing what needs to be drawn and how to do that. The course is a great confidence builder .... Knowing that if I slowdown and take my time I can achieve something like this is an amazing feeling of achievement. If you a keen, there is a process to follow, after joining wetcanvas you introduce yourself and post an image of a recent drawing you have done of something challenging, until you have done this the classes are closed to you. That is scary, posting a 'before' photo, before doing any classes to improve ... But so worthwhile.
So take care, please excuse the drawing content on my knit blog, and forgive me for being distracted, I'm sure it will pass and knitting will be back in pole position very soon.
Na stella

Posted with Blogsy

Ticking along .... Finished, nearly finished, and distractions

Wow, things have felt rushed around here, I thought with school finishing for the cubs and beginning my Christmas /summer leave that I would have all the time in the world. Turns out that thinking one has all the time in the world just lulls one into a false sense of ability, I thought I had time to garden, knit, cook, shop, parent, organize play dates for the cubs and for me ...and all that takes time, leaving me with less time than I thought. Still there has been knitting,a finished object even, and progress on another knit project, and site actions that come with being home more.

JaiHui's wristers

These were finished a few weeks ago, done in a rush, my favorite wrister pattern, cobbled together from a cable and some ribbing. All blocked and gifted to a postgrad student who had a birthday far for home, and will return to china shortly.

Ribbing around

And the cardigan is more done than not, I picked up a stitch for each row around the front and neck edges, then dropped each fourth stitch thinking the dropped stitch would add a little ease to the picked up edge. I worked 1x1 rib, increasing at the corners every second row to make a neat mitre. I worked the one row improved improved buttonhole from principles of knitting, and like the result. I have buttons, four largish vintage grey ones, hence the wide band. I worked a few centre meters of ribbing at the lower hem first, then picked up and worked ribbing around the entire cardigan.

Sleeves

I finished the band with a two stitch icord bind off, and now I'm working the first sleeve. There would have been more progress but bears brother loaned us a series of detective DVDs, inspector Montalbano, with subtitles which really get in the way of knitting. With the band done i was able to try the cardigan on and I like it, like it a lot. I based the shaping on a commercial cardigan I already have, a Momma Jack by Nom*d, a local New Zealand brand, and its worked out pretty much to plan. I like, but wonder why I am finishing a merino, possum, silk cardigan, which will be warm as toast, as summer approaches.

Beginning to know the materials

And as if I didn't have enough to tempt me, I've got back to drawing, in a very very beginners way, with polychromos oil pencils and developing a knowledge of how the materials layer and blend. Almost to simple to post but I'm learning, this took a little longer than I anticipated, the first five or ten layers just looked pathetic ....wimpy and and lacking any sort of feel I knew what I was doing. But I followed lots of online advice to build up layers slowly and take time ... And sure enough the form and depth of colour started to appear. Just like knitting, a simple act - repeated until one has something that is more than the sum of its parts when done. This was an exercise in using a limited palette, so only five colors, one of them white, and all of them blended and blended and layered and layered. Test patches of colour in the corner hint at what this looked like before the pencils were layered up enough. I might even try a leaf next .....or some piled up fabric. Folds in fabric were my go-to subject when I did art at high school, and wanted to draw, but knew not what. I had a corduroy jacket in mustard that I loved to render in acrylic or graphite again and again. I'd drop it on the table, and just draw the folds as they fell, different each time. I suspect the corduroy wales(lines) helped me see the volume better.

Christmas is coming

Preparations for Christmas are nearly done, the last batch of international post went away last week, missing the post deadline by two days. Tat might mean things are delivered late ... But better late than never eh? Domestic post is nearly done .... And things for cubs have been sorted, a box of 'something' is hiding user my bed, ordered, and shipped early enough to be here in time, another box is hiding out in the garage under the workbench .... That one was bought locally, i like to support local retailers, but the internet brings a huge range into tempting sight. Th local one was bought this morning whilst the elder cub lay-a-bed at home. Quite convienient at times this teenage tendency to sleep all day. And the cubs are working on the tree. We always have a difference of opinion, the cubs want the tree up December first, and I'm more inclined towards the week before Christmas. We have a small lounge and I don't fancy more being crammed into the room early than needs be. Bear I think gets a garden seat if I can work out the mechanics of bringing one home and hiding it without him seeing it.

2012 December

Take care, hope your Christmas plans are panning out, enjoy whatever holiday or break time you have, Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

You remember the lost yarn?

Well I found it, surprisingly after a few days of frustrated searching, and hunting and stash diving. I found it not six inches away from my knitting spot! After several weeks of wet weather, we had a few warm weeks followed by a cold snap. I had adjusted my dressing to accommodate for the warmer weather and was caught out, feeling a little chilly one night and not wanting to change I to something warmer, so I pulled one of the shawls from the back of my chair, the one I sit in every night,-- and there was the missing skein!

Wooo hooo, I promptly wound it into a ball and started to knit. I tried a test verson of bubbles, a sock I made some time ago in hand spun yarn, but, this yarn is thicker and I can't use the same stitch count. For now I have parked the project, while I decide if I would like to work a jumbo version with fewer repeats, or something else entirely but still a sock.

This past weekend we had the final round of ballet events, littlest cub was in three shows, and four evening practices over the week leading up to the show. Then I needed some 'knit-throu-a-long-ballet-recital-knitting', so started something new, which I thought I could knit in the dark of the audience. And the top down contiguous version of tempest goes well, I'm having to make decisions about where to start the ribbing, and love the fit so far. But, first back to the ballet knitting.

So ballet recital knitting, two hours of polite clapping for all the wee dears who have diligently attended lessons all year and learned to move with grace and rhythm. Mostly. The average dance is a few minutes, and the lights a dimmed which cuts out any knitting with long rows, or that requires a chart. A wash cloth seemed perfect - so that's what I started. I was quite surprised at the progress, and success of knitting at the ballet, another of NaiNai's favorites, this time in Wendy Pearl luxury cotton in a lovely shimmery pale yellow green. 25%viscose and 25%cotton.

And the cardigan grows, I'm well past the waist, and have worked three wide blue bands and two narrow ones. I've one more narrow to go then it will be time for some ribbing. This time it might be two by two ....

Plus I'm loving the pattern that using yarn from a cone reveals. The lovely interwoven cross crosses. Makes me want to knit a diamond patterned gansey something.

Take care, na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

Back to where I was

Things have been ticking along here, some knitting, some spending, some sending, some sorting and even some gardening. The cardigan seems to be back to where I was before the last frog. Feels like a much better and me-sized version now.

Here is the top of the sleeve, I do like the slight puff that increasing every row gives at the top of the cap. When I worked the yoke again I decided that the critical measurement was as for all fitted garments, the width across the back. So instead of knitting the shoulder seam to the length, I knit the shoulder increases until the back was the width of the back of my favorite cardigan. That gave me a shoulder some three cms shorter than it should be, but this fits, and fits perfectly. My explanations that the shoulder constructed this way may require negative ease in it, I will test that theory in the next version. Now I am working the body .... progress should be reasonably quick, if I'm not distracted by other things.

There has been some serious yarn acquisition, four skeins of Lizzy Bennett and five of Wiloughby. Blue faced leister fingering weight. I had originally wanted to knit the cardigan in the Lizzy Bennett colour way (reddish) but didn't have a second colour to go with. A cry of please help to Sally of veranda yarns resulted in these two colors being offered, and I couldn't decide so got both. The will be more lightweight cardigans in the near future. I seem to have graduated from buying single skeins to stashing garment quantities of yarn. Just between you and I this might be getting serious.

And there is a birthday this week, for my one masters student, right on the day she hands in her thesis. So I thought something hand knit was in order. This is the yarn that might become something, probably wrister a or mitts. Tonight will involve winding into a ball and starting the project. Handspun Romney, 49g, if 100 grams does two socks, then 49 grams should do two wristers. After all a wrister is pretty much just a sock without the foot and heel. I know she likes blue, and I know she found the winter in Dunedin cold. Her home is shanghai and she says that is colder but the buildings are warmer. I believe it and given the boiler at work spent much of the winter being replaced ... It has been a cold year to be a poor student in Dunedin. Something warm and hand knit will remind her of her time in Dunedin, or that is the plan. Take care and I will leave you with bears new rose bed, nine new roses, two species, three David Austin, and two chosen by Toby. Plus some underplanting, and new contain plants around the door. The men in my life like roses ..... I like that. Elder cub was slightly surprised at the cost of roses, and the hard work required to dig over a garden and plant, still he insisted on being helpful. I like that as well. And yes .... The house desperately needs the windows painted. For now it seems easier to disguise that with mass planting of flowering things ( I only semi joke). And I managed to send away some post.

Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

Frogging ....and third time lucky?

I frogged, got to the point of dividing my contiguous regauged Tempest inspired cardigan for the underarms and found that it was way to large. Oversized large, and not in a cute I've borrowed this from my boyfriend, but in a what were you thinking, didn't you notice? way. So I documented, with photos and measurements and frogged. Surprisingly the frogging took much less time than I imagined. Oddly disturbing to be reminded that to undo is often easier and less time than to do.

I've now restarted, and this time the size looks more me-sized. Much more the size of thing I wear and see left hanging over the back of a chair or the bed. In hindsight I didn't really think through the effect of the back neck increases. I knew that the increases curved the back neck, like dressmaking darts do in a funnel neck garment, I intellectually knew that adding increases would increase the back width. I had added two sets of six or seven increases ... and I just didn't think through that would make the back two inches wider. I then worked the shoulder increases to fit a fitted garment, not one with a dropped neckline caused by a wide lowered neckline. So my shoulder sleeve meeting point ended up way past my shoulder, somewhere down my bicep. That all added up to be way to big. Something I didn't really see until I had divided the sleeves from the body and cast on. Oh I tried the knit on at several points but it seemed to be always scrunched up on the needle and didn't sit right on my shoulders. I thought that was the scrunching, now I know the scrunching was due to the oversized nature, and that it would never sit well on my shoulders.

So here we are ... with much fewer stitches, looking like a top down cardigan instead of a large wobbly grey blue thing. And now I understand the way the shaping works, and feel happier with how to fit this to me.

Hope your weekend went well, mine was long, starting with the school show Friday night ( I got home in the wee small hours of Saturday with aching feet, despite wearing flats all day). Saturday went in a long tour of all the graduate exhibitions, another long on my feet day. Today has been mucky, some cooking, some printing, some tidying up ... But now it is time to knit and I am all enthused to see progress. Fewer stitches not only means a better fit but shorter rows so the cardigan seems to grow faster.

The care, more soon, with the show done work life becomes less hectic.

Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

Little tracks

Today's post is about making progress, of the slow and steady kind. Te past week went in a haze of coughing and sniffling, starting with smallest cub on Monday home from school and feeling miserable. Bear was out of town, and so I was the duty- parent. Tuesday was a normal Tuesday with cubs at school and me at work. Then the rest of the week went in a round of first me joining little cub in her cold, then elder cub. Bear came back and seems to have escaped the contagious period, and little cub was at school Friday. I' m hoping this week brings a nice relaxing normal work week, will full health all around.

I've been making slow progress on the newest cardigan, a few more stripes done, and beginning to think about shaping the under arm. I've been reading Barbara Walkers from the top, and realize the shapping I have developed based on my experience with drafting patterns for sewn garments is the same as Barbara's recommendation for shaping the body and under arm curves! Not sure if that is great minds think alike, or zeitgeist, or even duh! I'm tending towards great minds as that makes me feel cleverer. After a week of feeling like my head was full of thick goo - I'm taking any positive thoughts I can muster.

My next knitting project was going to be socks, Handspun socks ... But I've struck a hitch, I can't find the yarn. Not I can't find yarn for there is plenty of that, plenty of sock yarn to hand, and a local supplier happy to sell me more. My problem is that I can't find the yarn I want to use. Recently I spun a green-blue sock yarn from a skein of vintage Purls sock blend, I cabled the yarn and planned to knit a pair of socks ... the yarn looked a little under plied so I ran it through the wheel again adding a little more ply, and sat the yarn in the yarn bowl in the living room. Yarn bowl you ask, what is a yarn bowl. Well around the house there are some lovey items of glass, ceramic, brass or wood that are just there on display because they are too pretty to put away, and because we choose to put the ugly stuff like the crock-pot and the vacuum cleaner away and leave the pretty stuff out. We have more 'stuff' than we have spaces to tidy it to. end result is some things like the lovely large glass bowl in the living room end up being a temporary storage space for spin type project bits and pieces. Right now there is a spindle collection, some more sock yarn I've divided into four to spin into a four ply, and a wee pencil case that stores various fine dpns. There 'should' be a skein of marbled cabled blue green sock yarn here ... but there isn't, still aftr checking all the other places i can think of and not finding it I keep looking in the bowl just in case it has reappeared.

So I've been looking into all the odd places I may have tucked the yarn away in a fit of tidiness and thoughtlessness, I've been finding other things. One of those was a stack of paper that bear brought home. The company he works for recently rebranded, we won't even discuss from what to what, but its just the latest in a long list of changes this time so the firm can create a commercial identity separate to its current owner for a variety of reasons. The paper was old letter head, some heavy thick corporate letter paper, some gridded engineers calculation pads - all with the companies former logo and address printed at the head and foot of each page. Bear hates wasted, loves fountain pens and good paper, so brought the paper home to be used here rather than be thrown out at his work. There wasn't much, a few half used pads, and a part stack of nice letter head paper. But since I couldn't knit the socks I wanted to and as I was bored with the new cardigan ... I made some book blocks from the discarded paper. The first batch were square backed journals ....with rounded corners thanks to Stampbattery who loaned me a corner punch. I've now bought my own.

The second batch were inspired by Zoomer, who showed me her quarter bound books. I loved the look of the spine all plain and serious and the cover more colorful. I want to make more like this .... many more. I love the aesthetic, but also realize this makes decorative paper go further. I get more books for each sheet I buy.

The last set of books were experimental, made from the discarded paper, the batches of which there were only 20 or 30 sheets. Not enough for a full notebook, but enough for a thinner soft cover notebook. Pink and blue are two 'signatures' each, so around 20 leaves, or 40 pages. The brown and green thicker. They are narrow, as once I cut of the company footer and header I had less paper to work with. The green has the binding sewn through the cover, and the brown is my attempt at a soft cover moleskeine style. I followed instructions I found online to form the spine by curve a soft spine strip over a pencil. I can't find the instructions and a few frustrating days trolling through my browser history has not located it. Maybe I imagined it. I will post a link if I ever find the tutorial again.

Wish me luck in finding the lost sock yarn, and the curved spine tutorial (warning: don't google that phrase without the words bookbinding or it gets all medical),

Take care, na Stella

Posted with Blogsy

Progress

Just a quick post today, I have to return to work tomorrow, at which point I will find out what the timetable looks like for nest year. I left with concerns about the delivery of the courses I teach, in particular the 'theory' course which had been relegated to a finish time an hour latter than the other courses. I was 'strong' during the week I was on leave and didn't check my email, if you hear a frustrated cry from this side of the globe tomorrow - it might be me in response to the proposed timetable.

Contiguous tempest

Meanwhile I have been knitting, spinning, and sewing, first the knitting. I restarted my top down contiguous cardigan. So far so good, I am well into the sleeve head and so far the shape of the shoulder and sleeve looks promising. I have tried the yoke on, but the addi circular needle i am using has a twisty cable and there is not enough weight in the yoke yet to make the cable behave. When blocked this yarn blooms amazingly, the effect of the possum, so I am expecting the shoulder 'seam' to I prove when blocked.

Spinning on the Pipy has gone well, and one thing I really like about spinning woolen and being home on leave is the speed at which fibre can be spun. I am near the second bobbin of 220 grams of fibre. Friday Judith Mckenzies plying DVD arrived, courtesy of the recent interweave sale. I thoroughly enjoyed watching, as i spun, she has a lovely clear manner, nice voice and explains and shows why she does what she does. If I had watched the DVD before spinning this I might have planned a three ply, but as I am planning a lace shawl this two ply is probably best.

Tambour

The other thing I have played with this week is tambour chain stitch. I decided that it was best to stop stitching random patterns. The issue with random unplanned stitching is that it requires no precision in forming stitches, so I want searching for a pattern to chain stitch, well first I went searching for thread. I'm using heavy polyester thread made for quilting, as that is the kind that local shops have in stock. Having found thick thread, i went looking for a pattern to stich for practice, In one of my William Morris books, (William Morris by himself, designs and writings edited by Gillian Naylor - an amazing treasure of images and ideas), I selected 'design for bayleaf', and slightly simplified the lines to suit the chain stitch. Once I have the outlines worked, the next stage is to add shading with a slightly lighter colour green, and I have a dirty yellow that I hope to use as well. All the tambour hooks I ordered arrived, and yes the ones from Brodely.com are much much nicer finished and balanced than the lacis.com offerings. Review and update to tambour info page shortly. For now my practice is on white cotton lawn, I prepared the pattern the old fashioned way by pricking the design onto paper, rubbing powdered charcoal to transfer the pattern to the fabric, then I finished by outlining the charcoal dots with water colour paint. Time consuming but no more so than using tracing paper, or a pencil and light box, plus really really effective, and fairly easy. I used a sticky roller to remove what charcoal remained after a good shake outdoors, once the watercolor lines were dry.

Next stage in my tambour learning, once the leaves are complete is to move to working with organza and sequins and beads! What fun .... I even have sequins coming from Brodely.com and a wonderful book to guide and inspire.

Take care,

Na Stella

Posted with Blogsy