Just stitching…

Blue silk on organdie with orange running stitch

Finally, after what seems like months of procrastination, I've managed to get down to some stitching. I'm at that lovely stage where everything is just play, like doodling with needle and thread the way you might with pencil and paper. And what a perfect time of year to doodle with stitch, Christmas is just a few days away and it's cold outside, so what could be better than cosy afternoons spent sewing and eating the occasional mince pie?

Drawn and cut thread with needle lace picots

More drawn and cut thread

 I don't have anything too specific in mind, which is why I'm working in miniature, however everything I'm drawn to involves either needle lace and cut or drawn threads.

Needle lace and French knots on the left,
trapunto and needle lace on the right.

These little squares are the perfect quick stitch fix when the seemingly lack of progress in hand quilting my new quilt gets too much. I swear there's an elf who comes in each night and unpicks all my work when I'm asleep, because no matter how much I do, the amount still to do never seems to decrease! The inevitable lack of speed is the price you pay for being a hand stitcher rather than a machine stitcher, but I do sometimes feel like a bit of a Luddite* when I see the output of others.

Lots of drawn threads! The fabric is barely held together
with new stitches and needle lace.

Having said I don't have anything specific in mind, for a long time, I've wanted to make a pojagi panel for our porch. The porch gets beautiful light at sunset, so I think some pojagi would give a wonderful stain glass window effect at this time of day. Of course, I would like to make my pojagi seams by hand, but that might be a hand stitched project too many. Perhaps then, there could be a compromise, stitch the seams by machine, but incorporate something like the above samples into little pojagi pockets? I could keep the actual pojagi a single colour and introduce flashes of colour by way of tiny bits of embroidered patches?

What are your stitching plans this Christmas, whatever they are, I hope you have a lovely one!

Merry Christmas.
Elizabeth,
x.

* albeit one without the need to smash up machinery