Goldwork on damask

 I have embarked on this goldwork adventure

the way I embark on most of my adventures

by doing the research, buying a bunch of books,

These are two of my favorites

 

watching a bunch of videos and pictures, 

inhaling the the knowledge within, 

And then trying out the techniques, 

through small projects and kits 

that is to say 

enthusiastically jumping in with both feet

SO far, so good

Gerry's Block

It was past time for my own project

So I took an old Embroidery Idea I used for the 

False gold Round Robin with Crazy Quilting International

In which we used all the cheep left over christmas ribbon, 

gold lame and what-not we could find. 

This was the block I did for Gerry Kruger,^  somewhere around 2012

re translated that block for this project and

Working from the goldwork masterclass book

Using actual tools and techniques this time

I am coming up with much better results

outlined in gold passing thread the pomegranate and leaf 

looks much better It's such a tiny detail but it adds so much

Mr.Snail got his Shell using 1 strand of  a 3 strand 

silk wool, I don't know which brand 

this is a remnant that has been kicking around 

for a decade or more.

I needle wove it separately with a simple stumpwork Detached Buttonhole  stitch

Then tacked it down around the batting shape and stuffed it a little more

12 Point Star

Here she is!

The star quilt is done.

She is 98"x 96" Squarish

In spite of the tension snafu at the beginning that had to be picked out 

and the timing going wonky on the last yard of quilting, 

Necessitating the need for an emergency visit to the vac&sew

with a 4 day wait whilst the machine got fixed 

My Husband started to call it the Quilt of the damned as 

Every damned thing kept happening with it!

In spite of part of the back looking quite awful from the picking 

and some truly terrible decisions in design at the beginning 

It looks quite nice on the bed.

 

A Goldwork start

Today I start a goldwork journey

We will be following some of the instructions in

"A Gold work master class" by Alison Cole

Starting with the basics, stretching your base layer of muslin fabric on a frame.

then pinning and stretching your main fabric over that, baste it to the muslin.

Marking the back and basting stitch the outline through the layers.

add your underlayment of padding,many different types!

Here I have flat padding, board padding, layered padding, 

lofted padding, sculptured padding and stuffed padding

Each will have a different technique

Here we have started with a couched flat gold filament

Here's what it looks like on the back so far

 Ladybug is in a colored hollow wire and beads

So that happened

Life sucks when the tension is wrong

*Sigh*

This is going to suuuUUuuuck

 

On the bright side I now have a new pet!

What should I call them?

Fribbls maybe, feeling a little like Rimmer right now

They really need a set of googly eyes

the 12 point star

At the beginning of august

 I experimented with a paper piecing block

And took the seminar my quilt guild recommended

Don't one and one make two?

Apparently not.

The stars are all the most flashy fabrics I could find

The centers were the last of the orangy yellow from my daughters quilt

And the between points is all low definition ecru

The only thing I had to buy was the buff color 

That held the whole together, I ran out at our quilt retreat

And forgot to bring it with me

I used  a lot of my scraps and as is usual, barely made a dent

But we keep trying right?

I made enough of them to make a  vEry large quilt

30 whole 12 point stars, and 17 - 4 point stars for the edges 

Now I need to find a back for the quilting

RSC Orange

 goodness I all the kerfuffle with the trees I completely forgot about my RSC! 

I did it but never posted Oopsie-Poopsie.

Here is the Orange for last month

Dark neutrals are on for this month and 

Light  neutrals are for next month

So if your black and brown bins are overflowing these are your months to use them up!

More Paper piecing and a rant about trees

So the paper piecing started with this star

The method is a 'new to me' no waste system

Where you fold your sections and  sew along the fold and not through the paper.

I like this much better as it eliminates the annoying, to me, bits of Paper piecing

The paper waste the ripping and the picking.

I can reuse the initial paper pattern over and over 

instead of spending hours picking whats left out of the back and distorting my stitches

The pattern maybe broken up into more pieces 

but the process, I feel, is more streamlined and easier for me to wrap my brain around.

So far I have 6 full stars and one half star

only 20 more to go!

And it fulfills my RSC Quota (Self inflicted, of course) with the center star! 

I still haven't decided if I want it dens-packed with stars or 

hexie rows with diamonds in between.

I have drafted and cut a pattern for the diamonds bUUT.....We'll see

*Rant incoming*

Poplar #2 and hubs taking photos for the neighbors who weren't home

In other news I have been dealing with another power outage due to tree
fall and trying, yet again, to get the city to take down the danger trees. No one was hurt by this one either, thank goodness, just 'inconvenienced' for a few days by power and cable/internet outage issues, and the neighbor across the street now has to have the roof redone because the tree hit the ridge line, which left trunk limbs on the roof and dropped the tippy top in the backyard. Oy.

and half of it still stands!

We have finally gotten to what, we think, is the correct department to do that. But it was so obscurely hidden in the Snohomish county web page it took ages to find! and it's not like the will just give you the phone number when and if you
get a human being on the phone either. the appropriately named department "Vegetation Management" was hidden at the very bottom of the Street maintenance under several sudinonomous tabs. it's like a state secret or something they don't want you to know!

They usually have a driveway and a bush on either side

Very annoying! But finally, hopefully, taken care of. Though a week after the tree-fall and initial surveyor, we have been informed we are on the "list" for tree removal. Great you got a time line on that? there is this other 80' ft tall poplar that is just as punky (I can stick my finger through the bark!) as the other two that came down, in what I can only describe as "barely enough wind to blow out a birthday candle". Waiting for the #3 to come down on it's own, is not an option. t's bigger than the other two and the only reason they haven't managed to kill someone yet, is by providence alone! 

You know the law of threes.

The power pole down the street about 800 feet

 and oopsie-poosie, does not cut it this time!  Whew!

Anyway I am going to make of myself a pest, until this is resolved, if I have to stay on hold till the next ice age or whatever it takes to get it done!

There rant over, thank you for letting me vent.