Trust Your Instincts

I have to confess that I’m not very good at taking a design and the suggested fibres and adjusting either to suit my own preferences. I have a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that the designer is perfect and I couldn’t possibly improve on their choice.

Case in point: Linda Driskell’s Wildflower Drawn Thread Sampler.


In kitting this up, I toned down the colours for the flowers as the originals were just too bright for me. I also replaced the specified ribbon with a more readily accessible one, and in stitching, added some additional beads. (Hmm, maybe I’m better at this amendment thing than I originally thought.) However, I still made a significant mistake – the design uses white fabric and thread for the drawn thread bands. Why, oh why, didn’t I change to an off-white/ecru colour scheme? It’s what I wanted to do at the time, but that little voice at the back of my mind kept saying , oh no, the designer knows best!

Well, I enjoyed stitching the drawn thread bands in the last few weeks before Iona was born, and I do still like the design, but I do wish I’d gone with my off-white colour scheme. As such, the design remains unfinished and I don’t see myself finishing the stitching in the near future. All that white looks too cold and just puts me off!

I now have another project where the designer has given us stitchers free-er choice of the fibres to be used. Such a dilemma for me – it took me a couple of months to choose mine!

Here is my progress so far on Gay Ann Rogers’ Mystery in a Corner.

My inspiration for the colour scheme was the Watercolours thread in Shenandoah which shades from green through turquoise to pink. I’ve roughly matched the green and pink shades to equivalent DMC perl/stranded cotton and am using them as some of my other fibres. I’ve been a bit more creative with my choice of metallic threads, using DMC Pearlescent Effects (rather than Kreinik braid) to match to the pink and turquoise threads and Kreinik fine braid to match the green. I also wasn’t able to easily get hold of a matching colour of Impressions and am therefore using stranded cotton.

I do like the end result, although I do still doubt the distribution of my colours in the end design. I was about to change them round a bit until I read Pierrette/lovetostitch99’s blog and her account of stitching this part and thoughts on the distribution of the colours. Now I think I’ll persevere with my original choice.

So lesson to self – trust your instincts! Other stitchers, even when they are designers too, don’t know me as well as I do, and everybody (even a designer) is allowed to make a mistake once in a while!

Drawn thread stash

During May, I had a couple of days off work with a cold during which I made a rare visit to a LNS. The shop I visited also frames completed work and had a few framed pieces in front of the counter. Among these was a beautiful white drawn thread sampler that set me on the hunt for some drawn thread pieces to stitch myself.

I had eyed this book up before, as I have tried drawn thread embroidery before, and I do like Patricia Bage's designs. This time I bought the book. Details of the book, including some page scans, can be seen through the publisher here or Amazon here.

The Drawn Thread techniques included in the book are Hemstitch over 2 and 4 threads, Ladder stitch, Zig zag hemstitch, Interlaced hemstitch, Interlaced hemstitch with beads, Diamond hemstitch, Herringbone stitch, Coral knots, Modified coral knot clusters, Woven wheels.

The embroidery stitches include backstitch, running stitch, double running stitch, cross stitch, three quarter cross stitch, Smyrna cross, double herringbone stitch, alternating Scotch stitch, four sided stitch, three sided stitch, Satin stitch, Satin stitch blocks.

There are four samplers in the book – Summer Garden, Roses and Lace, Flower Garland, Rosebud Trellis.

My only complaint is that sometimes the instructions seem rather over simplified. For example, this is the first book where I’ve noticed instructions for threading a needle! I do realise that the book is called a ‘Beginner’s Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery’, but I would be surprised if a complete beginner started drawn thread embroidery before trying other forms such as cross stitch. I would therefore expect readers of this book already to have a familiarity with basic techniques.

However, having read through the book, I do like the clear, detailed diagrams accompanied by clear instructions, particularly for the specific drawn thread techniques.

It remains to be seen whether I’ll agree with these comments after stitching one of the designs!

But this is not the end of my purchases or of my stitching ambitions! Thanks to ABE, I now have the following to drool over.


I will definately be stitching the Wildflower Drawn Thread sampler, but I think I'll use one of the Patricia Bage designs to practice first! Now I only need to find some time actually stitch these ......