Blackwork Acorn Project Finished!

Yea!  I finished a project!

Yes, the Blackwork Acorn Project is finished.  I spent quite a bit of time on this one and it was fun!

I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.  I've thought about framing it or making it a bookmark, but I'm just not sure.

 

 

 

 

Here is the finished project.

 

 

I do wish I had used bigger acorns in the corners (I don't know what I was thinking!)

 

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

Blackwork Acorn Project

The latest Blackwork project I've been working on is a larger sized medallion that has oak leaves and acorns in it. I found the pattern on Pinterest and thought I'd mess around with it a little bit.

 

 

Here, the center medallion is completed.

 

 

Below, I am practicing the Holbein stitch.  It's getting easier.

 

 

And this is what I've accomplished so far!

 

 

I'm really having fun with this design and it's quite an easy design to stitch.

 

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

Blackwork Flowers

The past couple of weeks I've been stitiching away at a little flower medallion pattern that I found on Pinterest.  I was going to make a little bookmark out of it.

I started with the boarder first, which should've been left for last. Eventually, I made a mistake in the second medallion of flowers.  I was going a bit off pattern, and messed it up in a big way.  I will have to rip out the second medallion and repeat the first one, which is what I should've done in the first place.

 

 

The boarder (incomplete below) is from my Blackwork Made Easy book by Lesley Wilkins.

 

Ugh, so full of mistakes...I'm going to start another blackwork project soon.  Hopefully the new project will have fewer mistakes in it.

That's all for today!  Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

Blackwork Bookmarks

Finished up a couple of Blackwork bookmarks in July. 

 

 

We spent a couple of days at my In-Law's cabin on a lake.  If I wasn't helping with meals or reading, I was stitching under the trees.  It was such a relaxing couple of days.

 

The basic pattern, for the bookmark above, is from my Blackwork Made Easy Book by Leslie Wilkins.

The other bookmark shown below was a pattern I found on Pinterest.

They just need a nice little backing and then will be put into my Bible.

 

 

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

Busy With Black Work

In early September I got out my black work project book and stash of black work items and spent a couple of weeks catching up, fixing old mistakes and finishing some UFOs (Un-Finished-Objects).

 

The first bookmark had a pretty big mistake in it.  When I made the mistake back in January or February, I didn't have the patience to rip it out and fix it.  But after giving it a few months I was able to patiently fix and finish it.  I guess it just goes to show ya that sometimes you just have to walk away from a project for awhile and come back to it when you are ready again. 

This is like the fifth bookmark in this pattern that I've done and once I get going I don't need to follow a paper pattern, which is nice. 
 

 

Here is a new design I'm trying out.  It's not finished yet and I hope to have some time to work on it again soon.

 

 

 

 

There's a stray string hanging out at the bottom of the last one...oops.

 

Picking up the black work again was fun but once again it bothered my eyes.  They started twitching and "wigging out" on me just as they had last January, so I am hanging it up again for awhile.

 

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

Blackwork Prayer Pocket

This was one of my black work projects for the month of February.

February and March have been challenging months for me.  Most of my good friends have moved on to different states and I reminded all too often that I am living in my own state of....well, loneliness.  The winter has been long and cold, and the sight of the four walls that surround me is getting old.  But on the bright side, (there is always a bright side, right?) I have had the opportunity to carve out more time for reading, studying, praying, and stitching.  This was a project that could combine them all.

This little prayer pocket started out as a bookmark but ended up being something that I keep in my purse.  The pattern reminds me that everything in my life comes from Christ.  I am the butterfly in the middle.  The cross (which represents Christ) is connected to the boarder that surrounds everything (God).  The cross (Christ) is also between me and everything else...the dark woods where the wolves are lurking (trees, peaks and valleys in the lower left corner), the beauty I see in the world (flowers in the upper left corner), my family and marriage (lower right corner), and the light of good and the dark of evil (upper right corner).  Christ comes first.  This idea (or journey) has not always been an easy one for me, and maybe it's not suppose to be.  The more I struggle with it, the more I learn.  It hasn't always been easy to let things go, and to give everything to Christ, and there are certainly times when I'd rather keep things under my own control.  But He knows best. 

I added the letters VDMA inside the cross because they are for the Latin phrase Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum, which means, "The word of the Lord endures forever".  And it really does....and that is something special.

I started with a free pattern I found on pinterest.  It looks like this.  Thank you to whoever created it.  It's a cute little pattern!  I hope it's okay that I tweaked it a little bit.

When I went to put the backing fabric on the piece, I decided to leave the top open so that I could slip a prayer inside and use it as a bookmark.  It just morphed from there. 

 

 

One prayer turned into a couple, plus some Bible verses and some sermon notes, etc, etc.  I switch them all out every once in a while.  

 

Later, I will show ya'll the felt Easter eggs that I've been embroidering.  They are happy, colorful and full of hope that Spring will soon be here!  That's all for today, until another day, have a happy Stitching day!

Busy With Blackwork

Whew, I've been busy!  Not only with work, but with some fun stuff too!  It seems every bit of "off-time" I get I pick up a little Blackwork and start stitching. 

I'm thinking for the month of February, I will pull something else out of the "UFO" basket.  As much as I love doing Blackwork, I have to be honest and say it's hard on my eyes.  My left eye has been twitching up a storm this month, and I think creating tiny stitches under bright lights is the cause of this eye stress.  I have a magnifier, but it's not the most comfortable to wear and I don't always have it handy. 
So, I'll take a break from Blackwork and go back to embroidery for awhile.

But here are some photos of some of the bookmarks I have done this month.



And here is the bookmark finished.  I really like this one and it wasn't too difficult to do once I learned the pattern.

That's all for now!  Until another time have a happy stitchy day!

Blackwork Bookmark Completed

The Blackwork bookmark is finished!  Monday evening found me stitching the final stitch.  I have about 9-10 hours of work into it.  Once the pattern was stitched onto the top half of the bookmark, I no longer needed to follow the book's pattern and I cruised along much faster.

The diamond on the left is an example of the Holbein stitch that is suppose to be used when stitching Blackwork.  Sometimes I just couldn't make it work and did a lot of back stitching.  Therefore, the backside of the project looks a little messy, but I don't mind.

With the Holbein stitch you stitch one direction skipping every other stitch, then turn around and stitch the stitches that you skipped.  This seems like it would be fairly easy to accomplish, but I just can't seem to get the hang of it yet especially on the more "organic" and detailed patterns.  The diamond outline was easy though haha!

Here is a photo of the whole project. The thread cutter is another Christmas gift from DH.  It is so handy!  Unfortunately, I don't have a long enough chain for it yet, so I improvised with a bit of floss.

Here is the project completed! Yea!

I realize that it's a bit off-center.  I am going to cut along the left side to center it and trim the top and bottom as well.  Am thinking about finishing off the edges somehow, but will have to read-up on how to do so.

That's all for today, tune in tomorrow to see some new vintage goodies!
Until then, have a happy stitching day!

My First Attempts at Blackwork

This Christmas Darling Husband bought me the blackwork book I've been drooling over.  This book is crammed full of beautiful examples and patterns of blackwork, and a some history about the craft as well!

 

So I dug out my scraps of Aida cloth and chose an easy pattern to start with.

 



I quickly found out three things. 
The first thing I learned is that you definitely need good lighting.  I moved my flexible lamp to the side table, and directed the bright light onto my cloth.  
The second thing I learned is that blackwork is addictive.  I had a really hard time putting it down.  "What's that honey?  You made lunch?  Okay, just a few more stitches dear." 
This is a type of stitching that requires a bit of attention.  There is counting and following of a pattern.  I like to work with the radio or TV in the background, but this is not the time to watch something new....or something complicated like the Mentalist, Hawaii Five-O where if you blink you miss something.  I threw some old episodes of Frasier I'd seen a thousand times and stitched away for 5 hours!

The little project above was my first attempt at a bookmark.  unfortunately, I found a mistake and couldn't seem to fix it.  It was good practice and taught me to double check whether or not my stitches and pattern line up properly.

One of the fun things I love about blackwork is that a person can use different elements and designs and create their own pattern!

Saturday evening I started a NEW project (much like the one above) and I will show you the outcome of that very soon!  So far....no mistakes! 

Until tomorrow, have a happy stitching day!