A new entry.....

Recently we had a new entry in our Feline family so let me introduce you GEO !!
He appeared in our garden in October and he was wearing a collar so we where thinking that he surely had a owner, but no ! Nobody was looking for him and the cat was hungry and used to go to sleep in a basket inside our garage, no way to touch/catch him at all.
So I said: "OK you can live in the garage if you like this place", its warm and he could always find food so no problem; the other cats also liked him and this is a strange thing believe me !
The evening before the snow when we came back from work ,we find a surprise in our home: Geo was in, resting on the sofa !!
He finally decided that he wanted a new family; it's incredible but the same night he sleeped near me on bed making a lot of prrr, prrr, prrr, and following me all around his new home.
Now he is the sweetest cat one can desire so.... WELCOME HOME GEO ! we already love you so much !

From Paris

As always my days are running fast so I'm able to show you some pictures from l'Aiguille en fete that I visited in Paris from 8th to 11th just now; isn't a dream for stitchers ??










Only the weather was really cold, - 7 C° so walking around the city has been a little hard, but me and my dearest friend Silvia had a good time anyway !
Would you like a candy from this beautiful old style store ??





Or a cake ??

Is this Rome ?

Can you believe this is the sunny Rome ?? YES !! I'm living only 20 km away from the city and this is what we found on Friday morning ! 2 feets of snow, never happened before !
Beautiful....

This and that..

Not a lot made in the last days, I'm spending most of my free time researching about historical stitches and materials used, having lost a lot of time reading and testing uncorrect istructions referred to detached buttonhole/ trellis needlelace that were given for historical reproduction but where in reality modern versions of those stitches and not the original ones.

As possible will post about this with a little polemic....

By now, here is the Tudor rose mounted i the lid box, the Parrot progress and my new,larger, stitching tools case.

Also an idea for a thread waxer made with a real mother of pearl shell container; I did it when I could not achieve a autentic vintage one, have you seen those lovely ivory carved or mother of pearls one ?? love them, but unlucky in auctions, so this works fine too and is unexpensive.

The shell is one used for making bijoux bought in a little market, just fuse the beeswax in, clean a little and is done !

A Victorian frame for Morris project

Morris project has now a new frame, have found it from an antique store on Ebay and comes directly from England.
Love the "taste" of the old things and the idea that another stitcher in the past was sitting in front of it working on her project.....

Mine is still a long way to go !

Raised embroidery progress

Sun an clouds are nearly completed, only the right side little cloud is still on the way.

I started padding all with beige felt, then I couched the Japanese gilt thread for the body of the sun.

The rays are made with gilt whipped plate. A pearl purl surround completes all.



The left cloud was made using single Brussel stitch needlelace.




The other clouds where made with cotton/linen slub thread from Stef Francis using natural colour and an overdyed one; about the overdyed I have used part of it cutting pieces of thread that where right in colour and not the entire strand.

Then I have surrounded the clouds with DMC Desirè memory thread; it's a nice stuff made of a thin copper core wire wrapped with a coloured thread, this was colour 6030.
I still not have found the right gimp thread made of silk that are the correct historical material for this kind of embroidery, the one I have bought from Texere yarns is too thick and uneven.
I decided that don't want to become crazy trying to find all the exact materials used in the old times but I want to learn the tecniques and most important....have fun !
I'm trying to do my best about this but must not be an obsession, don't you think so ?

Life is...

Life is .....what happens meanwhile you are making other projects, isn't this true ?
In my case I was planning to have a quiet period dedicated to my job, family and embroidery and....I had the three last months full of things that I could never imagine; mother in law ill and then passed, my old mother changed her home, an insane man stalked me and my husband, something else ? these are only few words but has been a really complicate and difficult moment... BUT...is gone !
Seems we all are back to a normal life, so I'm here again writing on Blog, have worked a little on my projects and will post soon some pictures.
Hope that the new year will be for all us a good year !
Hugs !!

New threads

Have received some new threads for my Stumpwork project: on left side the ones coming from an Ebay seller:
http://www.ebay.it/itm/LUXURY-HAND-DYED-PURE-SILK-THREADS-SELECTION-MADRAS-/160649689673?pt=UK_Thread_Floss_1&hash=item256777ba49
they are silk bouclè, silk chenille and cotton perlè in 3 thickness plus a stranded one.

On right side threads from Stef Francis, overdyed and naturals that I can paint with silk painting colours; have made a test and the result is nice.

I'm still not ready to start and still not sure about the other colours that I will use in this work.

Need time to arrange the whole thing ....

Have made some changes to the pattern shown in previous post, the new one is more balanced I believe.

What I did yesterday ? Have traced the design on silk duchesse and came out very well but....which pattern ? The wrong one !!! I mean the first I did and not the last corrected...aaaarrrrghhhh, so a beautiful peace of silk is to throw away, the pen was a permanent one.

I'm having a bad cold and, for next time, have learned that when you don't feel well is better to stay in bed instead of making delicate embroidery things !