Finishing the Clarice Cliff Tote

There’s a reason I don’t do much counted cross stitch these days!

It’s repetitious, and samey, and it doesn’t offer the chance to play with texture and pattern that I get in other techniques.

Oh, wait, that’s three reasons.

In this case, add a fourth – working on aida which is already set into a bag, and a bag, what’s more, that is complete, and since the bottom of the bag is a fold and not a seam, I can’t even unpick it to make it a bit easier to work. This bag has been fighting back with every stitch, and reminding me why I laid it aside.

However, it wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t find a way to demonstrate a little bit of variation… I’ve used one of the variegated threads in two ways, once with the two strands in the same orientation and each cross stitched individually, and the other with the two strands in opposite orientations and each row stitched out-&-back.

And finally, after what felt like weeks of doing nothing else but this (which isn’t even remotely true, let me reassure you!), I’ve got the bag finished. All of the aida is covered, even the white clouds. But there are no loose threads on the back, and if I have doubts about some details, I’m not about to undo them now. It’s taken nearly thirty years to get this far!

On to happier things: Episode 34 of #SlowTVStitchery is now live! In which the final corner is finished, and inklings of new ideas arise…

Another UFO

I’ve been finding long-hidden projects again.

This one is a cotton fabric bag with a strip of aida inserted in one side, which I think was a subscribers’ gift for Needlecraft magazine, some time in the distant past. In DevaStitch Designs days, I created a range inspired by the Bizarreware of Clarice Cliff (with the approval of Wedgwood, the rights holders), and I suspect that my original idea for the design was to add it to the range.

And then something happened and the bag disappeared into a box for what feels like centuries. I’ve found it again, and this time I am determined to finish the wretched thing, and start using it.

It has become clear that the aida is slightly off-grain, but it’s not likely to show when the piece is in use. If I were to make a bag with a cross stitched element I would work the cross stitch separately and apply it afterwords, so that the straight grain was indeed straight.

The first thing to do was to finish the black outlines, which are such a distinctive part of the Clarice Cliff style, and which will make everything else simply a matter of colouring in.

I had to invent a bush or two, because my chart didn’t cover all the fabric I had available, but once the windmill and extra bushes were in place I continued with the sky.

Then I got slightly tired of blue and gave myself a bit of a rest by filling in the windmill. I have more to do, of course, but I think it will be quite cheerful when it is finished.

SlowTV Stitchery Episode 31 is now live, in which progress continues to be made, and some thought is given (again) to the eventual mounting of the piece.