Fortunately, the present itself wasn’t belated, but my announcement of it is. Several months ago I started making a piece of needlework to give Hero Woman for SOME event or another—Christmas, or her birthday, or something. It all depended on how long it took me to get done. (I have pieces like that, as does L—we know who we mean them to go to, but sometimes it takes a Really Long Time to get them finished.) This project went quickly, despite my having never worked with silk floss before and having to pick up the tricks of the technique as I went along, but it still took me from October to January to finish the work, and another several weeks to get it to the framer’s. (Thank heaven the framer is much less poky than I was.) What with one thing and another, it wasn’t ready until about March, which turned out to be in good time for Hero Woman’s birthday earlier this month.
At the instigation of a needleworker friend I took a picture of it before I gave it to her—the day before her birthday, so in quite good time—but I mislaid the picture files until today. So in the spirit of “better Nate than lever,” I give you Hero Woman’s birthday present!
Click the thumbnail to see a larger image of the piece
The hatpin itself is worked in Continental stitch four strands over one on 24-count canvas, and the background is worked four over two using condensed mosaic stitch. The silk flosses are a mixture of Splendor and Soie Cristale and the metallics (the leaves, the veining and the spike of the pin) are a combination of DMC and Kreinik. To finish it, the framer cut down a 1930s-era frame whose tone picks up and complements the metallic floss.
If I do say so myself, I’m very pleased with the way it came out, and Hero Woman certainly seemed pleased when I gave it her.
A Callistian calliope recaptures the screen of an outdated business card. Fnord.
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