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We have had a varied start to winter here in England! A couple of weekends ago we had snow. I still get excited and like a little girl, wanting to go out and play in the freshly fallen snow! I was so disappointed that it didn’t last long. And now it has warmed up to a pleasant 12 to 14 degrees celsius days, but the wind! It certainly made for an unpleasant walk with the dog this morning! We are very windswept, and now safely inside, listening to the wind howl around the house threatening to cut off our electricity by making a tree fall down!
All in all, it makes for some good stitching weather! Unless of course we do lose our power!
You may recall one of my projects, the Cauliflower Stumpwork piece I had started, it is one of my ‘easy’, after work, when I’m tired pieces. But maybe not for too much longer, as I have now finished all the ‘cauliflowers’. Some are a little more oval than circular, so I may re-stitch them when it comes time to assemble it if they just aren’t going to work. Wait and see.
I have no idea how many french knots I have stitched, but it feels like a lot! I was really struggling initially with the french knots – it was hard to get the two strands of woollen thread through the eye of the needle, and then four wraps later, I was struggling to pull the needle through the wraps to complete the knots. And that was when I previously put this project aside! I attempted again with the small needle when I picked it up recently, and decided that if this was ever to be finished, I would have to make some changes!
So I upgraded to a larger needle, and to compensate, I reduced the number of wraps to either two or three, a variety of both, my theory being it would be more naturalistic. The result was much the same, but I could actually stitch them! No more worrying if I was going to get a needle lodged in my finger, or needing to get a pair of pliers to pull the needle through! The thread thanked me too. Before, it was getting dreadfully knotted and tangled, and I was spending just as much time de-knotting the thread as I was attempting to do french knots! The change made for a much more pleasant, relaxing experience!
To give the cauliflowers a more realistic colouring to them, they weren’t stitched in two strands of the same colour white – one strand each of a similar colour – one ‘whiter’ and one ‘creamier’, in wool from the Cascade House Crewel Wool range. The colours used were 1000/2 and 1000/6. I was almost finished the cauliflower heads, and I ran out of the 1000/6 colour – and there was no more in the kit, something went ‘wrong’ somewhere! I was keen to finish, so I got out my stash of woollen threads, and found a comparable Appleton Crewel Wool colour to finish it off with. It was close in colour – the bigger difference is the Appletons Wools is slightly thicker. But, all in all, I’m happy with the result!
The next step is to make up the leaves – six in total, two small, two medium and two large. And then the fun of putting it all together! I’m not sure if this is going to be able to continue to be my ‘easy’ after work piece, as the leaves are all wired, and I find this is not quite so easy to pick up after a long day in the office. But, I’m going to try! I will get the wire in place this weekend for at least one leaf, and see how it goes! Try and get the fiddly part our of the way, then there won’t be any ‘excuses’!.
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