November samples

2018/Week 44, Hairy Loch
The reeds in this loch above Leverburgh on Harris have always appealed to me. Out of context they look like fine scratch marks on metal.

Thinking machine stitch would be too clumsy, I hand stitched a little section on silvery satin fabric. Not quite the effect I'd have liked but as much as I had patience for!

18/45 White Line
Once you start looking, there's inspiration everywhere... this was a badly eroded white line at the side of the road.

I free machined a section on Lutradur 70 over black cotton fabric, using a fine white cotton thread (Madeira Tanne 50). Then I zapped it with a heat gun. The unstitched areas vanish altogether.

18/46 Map Lichen
The last of my Harris inspirations, though this lichen grows locally on Skye too. Rhizocarpon geographicum is called map lichen because it looks like a map in an atlas, or an aerial view of a patchwork of fields.

I free machined my piece on Solufleece, filling the areas with different colours and patterns without worrying about realism. Some are dense and solid, others open and lacy. The challenge as always is linking everything together so it remains whole when the Solufleece is dissolved away! Only stitched thread is left, no fabric at all in this piece.

18/47 Full Moon
Binoculars gave a wonderful view of the scars and craters on a spectacular full moon this week.
I embroidered a circle completely filled with little star patterns to resemble craters.

The thread was shaded pale grey, though that doesn't really show up in the photo. I was disappointed that the white guideline made with a fine SewLine pencil wouldn't quite go away... lesson learned.  

18/48 Crocheted Blanket
Just had to commemorate this... I finally finished the blanket I've been crocheting on and off for 18 months or so! I never meant to make a blanket, didn't need one, I just started playing with yarn left over from a couple of cushion covers. Then I liked the hexagons so much I just kept going, and, well, we haven't got a single bed in the house so it had to fit a double to be any use at all...

So here it is - 425 hexagons, each in six colours so that was 5100 yarn ends to darn in, groan. Pretty, though.

And here's my stitched sample based on the hexagonal motif.

Free machine embroidery on Solufleece, of course. I domed the "popcorn" stitches by stitching round and round. 

Look, no fabric!

 

Now, what to do with all those yarn ends? Of course I saved them, wouldn't you?!