NeedlenThread.com» Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘N Thread
2011-05-24 06:00:06-04 Another Needlework Finish in the (Near?) Future After finishing the Cluny piece up last week, I sifted through a few other pieces of needlework I want to finish up and … ahem. Well, not to sound insulting… but I want to get them over with and out of the way! Makes it sound like I’m trying to plow through an Unpleasant Task, doesn’t it? It’s not the case at all… not really! If they were Unpleasant Tasks, I’m pretty sure I could justify not doing them at all. (I’m really good at that!) But they are Loose Ends, and I want to tie them up while I’m organizing my Knuckle-Into-Summer List. That’s the list of Big Things I want to do this summer. And I’m more likely to knuckle into those big things, if I have some little things finished and out of the way.

One of them is this Tanja Berlin embroidery kit that I wrote about a while ago. It’s almost finished.

This section is looking a bit ratty right now, because that big center leaf needs to be added. It’s a piece of gold kid leather that I just need to sew on – not that difficult in concept, but I will admit that I’m not a huge fan of stitching on kid leather. It’s one of the only needlework endeavors where I invariably use a thimble – which is a pretty rare thing for me. The trick to sewing on kid leather (which is often used in goldwork – you can see an example of it in the last picture on this post about a Pelican altar frontal) is to pre-pierce your sewing holes in the leather (very helpful) and to use the smallest possible needle. For me, using a tiny needle on kid leather is much easier than using a larger needle. I’ll use a #12 crewel on this, I’m pretty sure. The smaller needle seems to slide into the leather more easily than a larger needle does.

Besides the large center leaf, I still need to outline that whole swirl area with gold thread and finish up a little of the brown branch in the middle of the swirl.

I need to give the fellow an eye and a beak still. Wow. Looks weird this close up! Just so you know, the actual piece is around 5″ high – so it’s fairly small. All the stitching is worked in one strand of DMC, so the stitching is fairly fine, too. The background fabric is a silk dupioni.

And lastly, I have to finish the top of the tree, which will go pretty quickly, as it’s just block shading with satin stitch.

This little cluster of grape / berry thingies is my favorite part of this piece. They remind me of …..

… Bottle Caps! (I’d try to convince you that this is just a sweet childhood memory, but… uhhh…)

So that’s one loose end I hope to tie up by the end of this week. What about you? Any loose ends or projects you’re trying to finish up? What’s your biggest hurdle when facing a project you want to finish? Is it time, is it motivation, have you lost interest in it? Or are you the type that charges to the finish?

The new “Ask & Share” section of Needle ‘n Thread is almost ready to launch – I’m thinking June 6th or 7th will see the new section up. A little behind-the-scenes work to do there still. Other than that, just plugging away until this coming Saturday afternoon, when summer officially begins for me.

See you tomorrow!