Yesterday I launched my latest design, Making Waves: A Drawstring Bag in my Etsy Shop! I also made a short video for it. My instructions are very, very detailed. I include everything from how to begin, to how to stitch this bag together and film all stages of the process. YouTube videos demonstrate every step so you can follow along. Each video is embedded within the instructions using Hotlinks. As I spend, literally, hundreds of hours video taping, editing and posting each video before embedding it within the instructions, my downloadable patterns are a bit more expensive. Not much. A little. People tell me they are well worth it.
This project began as a Stitch Along with a group of 17 hand stitchers who signed up for the class, which took place over Zoom. Over the course of 8 weeks we stitched this bag together and had a blast doing so.
A couple of people have asked me whether I will be doing this class again, so if you’re interested let me know as I will do it again, if there’s enough interest. The Zoom classes consist of eight one-hour classes although I would be open to doing a five-day workshop with classes running a 3-4 hours each. You can use your own threads or opt for a thread kit. If you choose a thread kit I will need to order in advance and we will have to wait until everyone has theirs to begin. This can take anywhere from one to two months, depending upon availability of the threads and how many people want kits.
I am also beginning a new design, which will be another Stitch Along, meaning that I will be designing this project as we go! What’s fun about that is that each week I unveil a new part of the design, which is fun and exciting. Once I have the basic background concept designed, I will post more about it. Right now I’m in the midst of throwing a lot of different ideas around and seeing which one I like best as well as determining which will make the most sense to add a lot of embellishing to it. As with the Making Waves design, I will be incorporating a great many different techniques and materials, such as hand dyed t-shirt scraps, hand dyed cheesecloth, wool roving, Dorset Buttons, beading, ribbon work and other fun things like that.
Dorset Buttons in the Background of Making WavesHand-dyed and Ruched CheeseclothHand -Dyed t-shirt
I’ve been busy. My Zoom class: Making Waves ~ A Drawstring Bag, which was an eight week “stitch along” is concluding today. We had SO much fun! I cannot show the finished bag in this post, but I will in next week’s post when I will also launch it in my Etsy Shop. Very exciting. Oh, okay, here’s a sneak peak…
Then a couple weeks ago my friend Pat Pauly sent me some amazing hand dyed linens that she did and I was just astounded once again by her artistry. She does such beautiful work! If you have any interest in learning how to paint, stencil and mono print fabric consider taking one of her fabulous workshops. She is a terrific instructor and has a great sense of humor. Her workshops are a blast.
This one I began stitching on. I admit I was a little apprehensive at first because I didn’t want to ruin the beauty of her work, so I just added a few wool shapes and did a tiny bit of stitching in one small area using a 3 wt Soft Cotton. I will continue working on this one and may add one of the above pieces to it. Who knows!?
Oh, and did I mention how much I love Pat Pauly’s silk scarves, which she hand-dyes and sells? I wear one every day. Seriously. That’s not an exaggeration. In the YouTube Video – A Snowy New York City that I posted on Tuesday I’m wearing one and pretty much any other video I’ve posted in the past few months you can see me wearing one of them. I have a few. Okay, in truth, I have SIX. I know, I know. I totally have this under control, I promise. I do. Really.
In the above photo I’m wearing one of Pat’s silk scarves wrapped around three times AND my brand new glasses, which, wow, what a difference!! (I promised my mother a photograph of my new glasses. So here you go, Mom AND you’ll be pleased to know I’m drinking lots and lots of water. I love you.❤️)
I spent at least 16 hours this weekend analyzing and stitching examples of the Trellis Stitch. Specifically the spiral trellis stitch, which was one of dozens of stitches that adorned the Plimoth Jacket, a women’s waistcoat, made in the early 1600’s.
Photograph Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Another heavily embroidered jacket is in the costume collection at the Metropolitan Museum here in New York City, which I would LOVE to see one day.
While I have done dozens and dozens of Spiral Trellis Stitches over the years, and have used this stitch in a number of my designs, I had never tried to figure out why it was often so difficult to replicate, and to replicate consistently.
So this weekend I decided to do just that. I experimented with a couple of different ways of stitching it, how to best add a new length of thread when your thread, which it inevitably does, runs out, how to consistently get good results when decreasing, stitching in all kinds of different threads and thread weights, and I even tried my hand at stitching a non-circular Trellis, which I will need to do a bit more experimenting with before I am completely satisfied. I had to fill in the center part with French Knots because I couldn’t figure out how to decrease the inside in a way that looked flawless.
I then posted my results to my Youtube Channel: Ariane Zurcher ~ On the Other Hand.
As I am left handed all of this was even more tricky because none of the embroidery books give instructions for the way I finally ended up stitching this beautiful, yet challenging stitch.
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