Taken the hint now....

[stellar_muddle]

Sometimes the world just appears to not want you to do something.
Did well in the looting stakes today. Rather than hunt for blank even weave embroidery cloth at about $60+ per m, found several even weave mostly-not-embroidered-on linen table mats for $10 from the local YMCA op shop. Unpicked, strung up on embroidery frame and decided to dig out the notes/instructions for a 13/14th C German embroidered pouch. One of the few extant ones and hence turns up quite often around the place. Checked embroidery threads from prior garage sales and after substituting light green for white and purple for blue (yeah, yeah, yeah), started sewing.
Started well, through the top row (~1 hours work while watching a doco on the French revolution(s)), started next thread, and low and behold, discover triangles consistantly 1 stitch too small. Bugger. Unthread, and unpick all bar about 5 stitches, start again. About an hour and a bit later (this time past dinner, the news and part way into a doco on Hanibel (too many elephants is a bad thing), discover made the diagonal straight bits one stitch too long (consistantly). So, unpick 98% of it. Then lose needle...
So, is this a hint not to do embroidery, a hint not to do sewing, or a hint not to start any new projects?
As long as when I pick up the needle and get back to the cuffs of the bliaut, that doesn't self-destruct...
Occasionally you hear bursts of fireworks in the background this weekend. Queen's Birthday is the one legal weekend for buying and setting off fireworks privately in the ACT. And Z missed it (again). Should I have gone to the markets and stockpiled?

Comments

[manus.livejournal.com]

Hee hee, Sonya taught a class on that kind of embroidery at Lindisfarne this year. I've forgotten how many times I've unpicked it, and I've even started again once cos it was quicker than unpicking what I'd done already. And from talking with others who took the class, I'm not the only one who's done that *grin*

[stellar-muddle.livejournal.com]

I can generally count fine with blackwork, so a tad miffed at myself for the muckups. Maybe should try smaller bits a a time, done on such a scale that when I do need to unpick (which is guarateed to happen), there is a smaller chunck to do...

[sandhi.livejournal.com]

ooo you're making a bliaut?

[stellar-muddle.livejournal.com]

Early style one based on one of the two female figures in the Bayeux Tapestry. Using the pattern by Robin Netherton in the new edition of Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Hand (coarse wool) embroidered collar and long cuffs (which I am in the middle of attaching). Still working out whether to directly sew up the sides, take them in and have to really wriggle to get it on, or eyelet it such that it laces up, the latter being a later innovation. May do matching embroidered belt to go with it, but depends on how enthusiastic I feel about it after. There were vague intentions to get it finished for a few events ago, but now I think Politocopolis 10th Ann or KWDS is far more likely.