Saturday, May 08, 2010

It's Not the Forest-work in progress


Progress-Apr 13

"It's not the forest that I fear
These woods with wolves for knives..."


Progress-Apr 14

A new project I'm working on. Open weave wool fabric, unknown man-made fibre thread. I wanted to try aari/tambour embroidery, but this silly little town could not immediately gratify my desire for the appropriate needles. Also, I didn't know at first how small they were, and thought this fabric would be approriate from written description of the base cloth used. Not so much, but that's ok, this is interesting too!


Progress- Apr 15

So I made my own tool to do this in this kind of fabric, and started noodling along...


Progress- Apr 16

(Yay! My birthday! I'm 37! But still not old enough to be treacherous, I'm given to understand!)


Progress up to Apr 27

I had to play with the tool a bit, and my other hand still cramps up after a while holding the thread underneath to loop it around the hook under the frame, but I've started using a kitchen timer to limit my stints at working straight through. Timer goes off, I have to stop and stretch, get a drink or get rid of one if I need to, and bother kittens.


Progress up to May 8

Slower than I hoped, faster than I think. I can't wait to try an actual tambour needle now that I have one. And to think, I used to HATE chain stitch....


The whole piece so far.


And this is my tool! It's a "loop turner". I used it at it's full length the first day, but it was too long and the kitten kept trying to catch it. The second day I cut it in half, but it hurt to hold it long (like crochet cramps, only you're holding it like a pen and twisting your wrist as you bring the hook through -I've barely held a pen for any length of time in YEARS...). So the third day I cut it a little shorter again, drilled a hole in a piece of wood and stuck it in.

Much easier to hold this way, both because the wood is thicker, and you hold it palm down and don't have to twist your wrist as far. Now, if I could just find a tool to make the thread holding easier....


And now....IT'S KITTEN-TIPPING TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!