I'm on...

Just wanted to let you know that I'm heading to the beach today with my family to celebrate the Fourth! Then, Team Elliott will be staying there for another week for vacation so I'll be returning to blogging on Tuesday, July 14.

I will have internet access so I hope to catch up on all of my blog reading and see what you've all been up to... I may be able to post a few times but I'm not sure that I have that capability yet so we'll see...

I hope to finish my May BJP which I've started. It's kind of fun to work on it right now because, even though it was inspired by the Liberty to Liberty Triathlon in May, the theme works pretty perfectly right now. I'm feeling very patriotic these days.

Oh, and did you hear?


The crown of the Statue of Liberty is re-opening this Saturday to small, specially-ticketed groups guided by a park ranger. It's been closed since Sept. 11, 2001 and, according to Interior Secretary Ken Salaza, reopening the crown "would proclaim to the world — both figuratively and literally — that the path to the light of liberty is open to all." I'm just glad to see her open again.

Happy Fourth of July to my U.S. friends and Happy Weekend to everyone else in the world. See you in a little over a week, if not before.

Charm School Week Three: Whitework

Charity

This week's homework was the A-Z of Whitework published by Country Bumpkin. This book covers EVERY type of whitework I can think of except for pulled work which they claim will be covered in a future book. This book is definitely worth the price of admission as it is a tremendous resource for many different types of stitches -- for whitework, for crazy quilting or any other type of surface embroidery. I saw stitches in this book that I have not seen in any other book...

For my charm this week, I decided to try cutwork. I had never made anything using traditional cutwork techniques in my life...with the exception of hardanger. Unlike hardanger which is stitched using a counted method, I tried my cutwork "freehand" on a old piece of linen I had. Well, I can see how cutwork might become rhythmical, and I did enjoy it...


But, it might take an entire table cloth's worth of practice before my stitches would begin to look more uniform...My stitches were a little wonky but I guess that's part of the charm of handwork *teehee hee

It was really fun when it was time to cut away the interior parts...


and to see the heart pop forward in relief...so sweet!


And, I did try a new stitch called "pin stitch" to attach the linen heart to a ribbon I used to back the charm. Pin stitch is used for appliqueing two pieces together in Madeira embroidery ( I just learned that! -- who knew??). I couldn't find an online reference to show you, sorry about that...but it was quite nifty because it leaves your stitching on the back very even-- I also added a bead to my thread while pin stitching and that saved me the extra step of beading...I could applique and bead at the same time. Nifty little stitch...I just might have to show it to you another time.

And I used a wide rayon ribbon, folded in half to back the linen heart (see, with ribbon, I don't have to worry about seams and I was running late)...


So, what I ended up with this week, is this sweet little charm called Charity. And I know a lot more about what's in my whitework book.


Next time, I'll be covering stumpwork in one of Jane Nicholas' books...I'm just not sure which one yet...And, it won't be next Tuesday but the Tuesday following, July14. Next week I'll be on Summer Break from Charm School.

That's good. I just might take me two weeks to figure out stumpwork...

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.