Stitchalong starts.....

We are back from beautiful, cool Norway to dusty, hideously hot Beijing (how are the athletes going to survive this heat?), so I am posting the first part of my sampler that I have been working on for the Stitchinfingers Hand Embroidery Stitchalong.

You can read about it here: (http://stitchinfingers.ning.com/group/handembroidery)



The sampler is 6" wide, on 25 count antique white linen. I decided to go through the list of stitchalong stitches "as the spirit moves me" rather than in any particularly organized way, so this is the result. I also decided to try to stitch motives that have some meaning - so, the strawberry is in honor of all the strawberries we ate while holidaying on a strawberry farm in Norway and the Hardanger embroidery is my very first attempt ever at Hardanger, inspired by the few days that my husband and I enjoyed up near Hardangervidda (the Hardanger mountain plateau) last week. We didn't technically stay on Hardanger, but when we climbed to the top of Gausta Mountain, close to where we were staying, we could SEE Hardangarvidda, so that is close enough for me!

Anyway, here is a list of stitches in this part of the sampler (from the top):

1. Brighton Stitch (actually, I am not sure if this really counts as Brighton stitch because it is supposed to be done as a grid in needlepoint and I only did one row, but anyway.....)
2. Colonial Knots
3. Outline Stitch
4. Leviathan Stitch
5. Rope Stitch (a type of twisted chain stitch): Strawberry Stem
6. Buttonhole stitch: Strawberry leaves
7. Padded Satin Stitch: Strawberry fruit
8. Split Stitch: Outline of strawberry flower
9. Straight Stitch: Inside strawberry flower petals
10. French Knots: Center of strawberry flower
11. Backstitch: writing
12: Drizzle stitch: strawberry tops
13: Honeycomb filling - pulled thread: left hand side pattern under strawberry
14: Wave filling stitch - pulled thread: second pattern from left under strawberry
15: Drawn Faggot Filling Stitch - pulled thread: second pattern from right under strawberry
16: Ridge filling stitch - pulled thread work: far right pattern under strawberry
17: Interlaced Band Stitch (Interlaced Herringbone)
18: Raised lattice band
19: Kloster Blocks
20: Kloster blocks - needlewoven
21: Satin Stitch (star)
22: Detached Chain Stitch (flowers)
23: Cretan stitch (2 rows overlapping)
24: Up and Down buttonhole

Hey, cool, that's 24 different stitches already! Now only about another 200 to go....!

Back to stitching....

It's now been exactly 2 months since I picked up a needle! The earthquake work really has derailed my stitching year, that is for sure. Since my last post we have been working really hard on the Wenchuan earthquake response, including having visited some of the hardest hit parts. It was a really moving experience to actually go there and see the devastation and the millions of people living in tents, and the trip has spurred us all on to do more if we can....and it looks like we will be doing more (much more) come the end of July when reconstruction starts. I've never connected my work with this blog before, but seeing as anyone can google my name and I come up many many times and it isn't hard to work out who I am, I'll just come out with it here by pointing you towards a couple of posts on our work blog that I wrote while I was out in the earthquake affected area:

http://eapblog.worldbank.org/blogs/mara-warwick

So much for work. Yesterday was my birthday (not a big one that involves a hill, that one is coming awfully soon but not this year), so I decided that my birthday was THE right day to pick up the needle and start again. But I haven't had the time or inspiration to work on TIFC (I hope I can come back to it later in the year), so I decided that for the next few weeks, I will do something that requires less planning and inspiration - more of a "doodle" with thread. Hence I have started the "stitch a-long" on the Hand Embroidery Group on Stitchingfingers. In this stitch-a-long Sharon B posted a list of stitches (more than 200 of them!), and we can stitch a long (as the name implies!) at our own pace and in any order. I decided to use this opportunity to make a band sampler. I don't have any fancy inks or dyes, so I can't do anything as spectacular as Sharon's stitch-a-long sampler, but I do have some nice 25 count linen and I am going to use that. I particularly want to try some pulled thread stitches (which are in the new A-Z of Embroidery Stitches 2 book) because I haven't tried any of those before. I wonder if I can do something contemporary like this sampler of Sharon's, which I particularly like.

On Tuesday we are off for 2 weeks to the Land of the Midnight Sun (which I guess means the girls will be up at 3am every morning, not the normal 5am) so as my husband said, that should give me 21 hours a day of sunlight to stitch by!

Oh, and today was a bona fide, not to be disputed, clear, lovely BLUE SKY DAY in Beijing. It was as hot as hell but nevermind, beggars can't be choosers!