Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Heritage Challenge

When my husband went to see his parents the other day, he took back a big bag of wool. "From Mom's neighbour. She doesn't use it any more." I thought of my stash in the bedroom drawer. When I found out that my favourite material is not on the market any more, I bought the last boxes in E-bay. I was one of maybe 3 customers interested in this wool. This craft is dead! But, as the last heir of wool embroidery in Germany (it seems), I get flooded with similar material.

I started another embroidery, another mini-quilt-like pattern. I don't have a plan; I just set rules. I chose a pattern which is much like quilt blocks and just let it go on without knowing the next step before I do it.
There is a risk that I won't like the whole thing; the challenge is to find a way to make it meet my demand. At the moment, I don't really like it yet; but after increasing the contrast, I feel it will work out.

Here is a detail of the stitches. Doing it all in one direction, it tends to distorting the embroidery; that's why I planned squares of 18x18 stitches and let the stitch alternate in a chessboard pattern way. As a quilt pattern, I think this is a nine patch + hour glass, or what is it?

12 comments:

Guzzisue said...

thats one serious stash!!

Judy said...

wow: look at all of that wool!
I am liking that piece. ;-)

xo

Art4Sol said...

Your piece is coming along nicely! I think you are set with enough wool for awhile.

Anonymous said...

cross stitch?

Eva said...

Jude, here is a detail for you to see, maybe it is called half cross stitch, and in each square, I change direction.

ArtSparker said...

Hard to take those risks, I know, - I mean of not being sure when you start with something.

jude said...

oh i think it is a tent stitch as in needlepoint. nice look, i like the quilt type pattern.

Margarita Korioth said...

It is looking good!

Eva said...

Susan, I always do it like this, or it is no fun.

Anonymous said...

I like how you just leap right in. I love working with wool. :) If your stash runs out you might be able to use a thinner ply yarn. I've used yarn that is meant for doing fair isle knitting for needlepoint.

Diane Cransac said...

Nice pattern you have worked up. It is fun sometimes to just jump into things isnt it? I used to love to do needlepoint and cross stitch also. It has a nice orderly feel to it that I find quite soothing.

Rayna said...

What's not to like? I think it looks beautiful so far. Look forward to seeing the progress and the finished piece!