Another embroidery project finished

Whitework pattern finished

This little pattern was made on an openwork stitched linnen and will be the baptismal stole for a little girl named Anastasia Elise.

I finished the pattern and now only need to add the initials and the date, but I lost my thread, and I do not want to work with another shade of white, so I have some searching to do.

Whitework in progress

Two new embroidery projects

One is a little cribsheet (not the fitted sheet, but a light replacement for a receiving blanket.) The second one will be a baptismal garment.

Embroidered handkerchief

I have been working on this little hanky for several months, of and on. The lace was on there before so is not from my hands. I wish it would photograph better. The stitches are textured, so you really feel as if it is a bouquet on the linnen. I am nearly done. The second part of the stem still needs to be finished and then the monogram letter comes on the place where a ribon would bind the stems together.

Cottage shawl

I finally finished this shawl today. It is made, over the last four months, in lace weight yarn. The pattern is called a cottage shawl with spiders.












Over the last four months I have put aside embroidery in favor of crocheting a shawl for a very dear friend of mine.

Sewing block (April 19, 2007)

I know what writers block is. I have had it several times in my life. But ever since my first sewing machine made it's experience, I am suffering from sewing block. I don't know where to start. I managed to do a few succesfull stitches on my trial fabric, but I don't seem to be able to get more done.
In the meantime I have visions of fabulous gowns that I will make, and especially the wonderful baptismal favours that I will make for my little baby. As well as clothes and handembroidered sheets of course. Unfortunately the reality is that the sewing machine is staring at me from tthe kitchen table for nearly two weeks now, with the white thread ready, the machine just a connection and pedal push away from producing more of those stitches... and it doesn't happen.

I wish I could blame the sockmonster for this. Or anyone actually. Fact is that that machine is not going to produce gowns, baby clothes or baptismal favours as long as I won't sit behind it and make it start. I've been in a bad procrastination mood these last few weeks, and I should snap out of it. Even my embroidery is suffering. It has taken me nearly a week now to put the pattern of a butterfly on my fabric, put it in the hoop and actually embroider a few stitches. I keep being discontent at the result and pull out stitches again and again. Perseverence, that is what's lacking. But I will get better. Before the baby is born. In five months that is. Preferably today. I hope.
Can I just add here that my husband should be nominated for sainthood because he has not said anything about he embroidery project taking up the sofa and the sewing machine standing on the kitchentable? I love him so much... no wonder I made the big move over the puddle. Men like that are rare!!

Girly girls and pink elephants

Over the last ten years or so, I have often wondered about femininity. Maybe it started when I was a little girl. I wanted to wear cute dresses with bits of lace and ribons and big, big skirts that would bloom open when I twirled. Most little girls love to twirl, and I was no exception. Unfortunately I was born in 1976, which meant that by the time I was about ten, the actual finding of a skirt, blooming or not, was becoming extremely difficult, if you didn't want to resort to the things called balloon skirts or micro mini. What I wanted was simple: a nice, elegant little dress. The war on elegance had been declared though and it took up until the late nineties that finally glimpses of it were seen again in normal clothing stores.

My wonder about femininity started with my wonder about skirts and dresses. Of course that does not mean that there is no femininity outside them, but it seemed as if, during my growing up years at least, they had become symbols of something that people did not like to be reminded of. Putting a girl in a dress, even if that girl wanted to wear a dress, was seen as sexist. And the best way for a woman or a girl to be all she could be was to actually be... a man. Or at least pretend as if she was. Girls shouldn't just be allowed to play soccer, they HAD to play soccer. They shouldn't just be allowed to wear trousers, they had to wear them. They shouldn't just be allowed to do wild and adventurous things, they had to desire to do so.

My first rebellion came in the form of an enormous pink elephant. Out of the many books I devoured, many of them including knights and princesses, embroidery came to me as a wonderfully elegant pass time. It took quite a while to convince my mother that I really wanted to try it. I am trying to think back to remember if I was often given to passing whims, but considering I did ballet for five years before stopping, and sang in the choir until I had to go due to too old, I don't think I often gave things up. The only thing I did give up due to a sincere lack of any kind of talent, were the music lessons that I had wanted to take. Still, it took quite some convincing for my mother to actually buy me my first 'set'. I must admit it did not delight my childish heart. While I had been dreaming of tiny elegant stitches of roses in bloom and other beautiful materials, the gigantic pink, plump elephant with stitches of half an inch wide was nothing like I had in mind.
In this case, my mother proved to be much wiser than I was at an impatient and overconfident age ten. With an experience of twenty years of needlework, I know that what I had wanted then would have proved too difficult, frustrating, and would have been thrown in a corner quickly, instead of being the start of a lifelong hobby.