Some embroidery tucked in around the rants and reminiscence.

The Mountmellick doily is finished. Sans the knitted fringe, mainly because I don’t actually want to make it into a doily….oh and I don’t like knitting, and when I did the workshop the people who could knit that thought it was hard do to with the small needles and cotton yarn. But I prefer my first reason.  EDIT: The stitches used on the leaves are palestrina, bullion, long arm cretan, cable chain, buttonhole, fly stitch.

The second is my stumpwork toadstool. This was made with embroidered slips for the cap and stalk. The cap has a very small amount of wadding stuffed under it. I wasn’t really happy with the gills – I think they work in theory, and the bullion knots work well, but they don’t look quite right. The little fairy on top is stitched with one and two strands of DMC, made without a pattern or plan. I photographed it with the cardboard window so you can get a sense of the size – the window is for an ATC (2.5 by 3.5 inches). She had sparkly wings made with oyster stitch, the dress is a Turkey stitch (or my variation of. I used a small amount of machine embroidery thread for her facial features, because I found one strand of DMC a bit too big, and fluffy. The machine thread worked well I thought.

I am completely incapable of taking a close up photo without it being blurry. I can take macro shots (the toadstool), distant shots (the doily) but nothing in between. Oh well. I hope the recipient will like this. Moo has requested the same, but with a pink dress. Demanding little madam she is.

And how my garden in growing (no cockleshells or silver bells though)….

 

Lettuce, tomatoes, capsicums, cucmber and potatoes in the tyres. Ate out first radish yesterday!