Stitch A Long with Opus Anglicanum
Thread For Dragon StitchALong
Do I really need another project to fit in, I wonder?
Well, yes, I think I do. Over on her blog, Opus Anglicanum, Tanya Bentham is running a medieval stitchalong, and quite simply, when she showed us a picture of the dragon she’d designed for us, I fell head over heels in love. He’s absolutely adorable, and I really didn’t care that I’m running short of time in any one week to do anything at all!
I decided not to buy a kit, since I have more wool thread than I know what to do with (remember my stash-busting canvaswork?), but I did buy some of the wool fabric Tanya suggested, and then rifled through my stash. Most of the wool is Appletons, but the creamy-white for highlights is a remnant of something rather smoother and silkier.
Maybe I’ll make some progress with the stash-busting, after all!
Wings In Laidwork
As it happens, I’m trailing slightly behind the stitchalong – and my blog is trailing behind my progress, because I’ve been enjoying stitching too much to stop and write about it.
The “colouring in” element of the design is worked in laid and couched work, which consists of three layers, in modern terms – surface satin stitch, with long couching stitches at right angles, which then in turn are tied down at intervals. Furthermore, it fairly romps along, which makes a lovely change after all that painstaking or nué earlier in the year!
There are several people taking part in the the stitchalong, not all of them bloggers, so Sue set up a Flickr group so that we could encourage one another..
It’s looking great. Is that Bayeux stitch? Such a variety of colour choices on the Flickr group too. How is the stash looking now…..?
That’s going to be a lovely dragon.
I had resisted this one but seeing your lovely wools and the gallery on Flickr is tempting me in. I must resist, I must resist, I must ….
I look forward to seeing your progress.
Love the dragon and your laid work looks great!
I’m really enjoying seeing all the different dragons taking shape on Flickr.
Very rich texture and color. Looking forward to the finished
wow, that wing is beautiful….
Love the dragon design. Can one ever have too many stitching projects going?? Probably not!!
I can understand why you had to have a dragon in a your life! Anyway variety is the spice of life. Looking forward to seeing his progress. Is he Welsh?
I resisted it too, on the grounds that I’d bought a baby dragon kit a little while earlier and have still yet to find the time to start him! But seeing your bigger brother/sister…
it looks like it’s going to be a lovely piece, so much texture
I wanna do him too…..