More on the Masterclass
Making Progress on the Queen Stitches
I’m making progress on the Tudor and Stuart Goldwork Masterclass. As I mentioned, I was a little anxious when I realised how much counted work was involved, but I am developing techniques to cope. Since the designs are large and simple, rather than being full of subtle shading, it is actually fairly easy to decide by eye where the next stitch goes. I count twice to place a new motif correctly, but then just do what seems right.
The other decision I have made is to help convince myself I am making progress – so here, instead of finishing the leaves, I’ve started on the flower. It gives me a better idea of the extent of the design – this is the top right hand corner – and I needed the reassurance!
Megan has produced a fantastic round-up of links and resources about Queen Stitch over at Elmsley Rose – well worth following up, as each different description contributes to developing a technique for working the stitch.
I am planning to set up another frame with a piece of cloth to practice the goldwork stitches on, since some of them will need it, but for the moment I am trying to apply some discipline to my stitchery…!
Such neat stitches! Does close needlework hurt the eyes?
Thanks for the mention.
Also I don’t feel so weird about my feeling of needing to grid (into 1/8ths, I’m thinking) after reading this, since you wanted to do a flower to help you determine the extent of the design, and personally I have counting issues. 🙂
beautiful counted work and as i’ve said before I quite like it, i find it very therapeutic. How did the sales job go?
Good idea to set up another frame to practise the stitches! I have strageies when doing counted work too. To the uninitiated it possibly looks like I’m just flitting about with no sense of order, but what I try to do is work my way from the centre to the edges (to get a sense of the size), but only moving on to a new colour when it joins an existing worked area, so that there are no long threads running behind the work.
You added a comment to my post in my Elmsley Rose blog about Pulling Queen Stitch
“The other point is that modern sized canvas for needlepoint isn’t intended to pull, whereas with the fairly open weave of the linens it’s more difficult to avoid pulling.”
May I add this into the main body of the post as it adds to what Tricia said> Acknowledged with your name and blog, of course 🙂
Please reply to my e-mail address
Goodness, I’m realloy enjoying watching the progress on this work. Are these naturally-dyed threads? They have such subtle coloours.