Tag Archives: hardanger

Again with the Hardanger!

Posted on May 16, 2007 | 12 comments

Niamh-thief
Be wary – the little people, they strike when you are least prepared. And nick off with your latest finish!

Haha. Moments after this shot, Niamh was ‘posing’ the ornament up against the wall, just like Mummy :giggle: I have photos of that too, but they’re just too blurry, and besides, this one captures that glint in her eye just perfectly!

Hardanger-Ornament-1
So here then is my latest finish – Scissors Keeper (only it isn’t) from the book ‘Hardanger Embroidery’ by Jill Carter. It’s stitched with one of my hand dyed #8 perle cottons and a couple of DMC pinks which I don’t think were perfect choices, really. I just grabbed whatever I could find because I was itching to start this. Both sides are identical, and it’s finished this as a pillow-style Christmas ornament instead of a fob.

Can you spot the suspended beads in the Dove’s eyes? How about now:

Hardanger-Ornament-3

Good trick, no? I like this a lot, and I’m planning to do another in a different colourway, and with larger beads (again, I just grabbed what came easily to hand). There are a couple of other pieces in this book that I’d like to stitch, too. Next up – the Pincushion, I think.

Hardanger-Ornament-2

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, Finished, The Kids

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Hardanger-y Goodness

Posted on April 24, 2007 | 9 comments

With good intentions, I sat down after my last finish to work on an existing WIP – the Wee Beasties dragonfly. I think I managed about three hours or so before I gave in to the temptation to start something new instead :giggle: To be honest, that dragonfly is not fun stitching. It’s full of finicky little fractional stitches and lots of blending filament. I need more concentration to work on it than I usually have in the evening after the kiddos are asleep, so it’s slow going at the moment.

So, I started, and then finished, Teenie Hardanger I by The Sweetheart Tree, instead. Pretty, no? The chart for this was a gift from my Secret Stitcher last year, Allie. She sent me II and III as well (among other wonderful things).

Teenie-Hardanger-I-lg

I’m much happier with my cutting this time. Well. Except for that one bit. That bit where I snipped one thread too many. Whoops! I ended up having to reweave a piece of linen so that I could do the woven bar properly. But all’s well that ends well, hey?

Hardanger-y goodness part two is this:
HardangerExchange-Haze

Haze stitched me this lovely candle wrap and mat for the Hardanger exchange on the Rotation BB. It’s taken a little while to arrive, it’s been on a bit of a world cruise, actually 🙂 Thanks Haze, I love it!

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Finished, In Progress

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Show & Tell

Posted on February 28, 2007 | 15 comments

Far overdue, may I show you in full the hardanger exchange which I stitched for Jenny. You can see it hanging on the wall in her post – here’s a slightly different angle for interest:
Hardanger Exchange

Or, you can get up close and personal with the stitching here. Although I thought finishing it as a ‘wall ornament’ was kind of uninspired (hey, I was really tired!), I was really happy with the quality of my finishing. I have a bag (or, um, three) of finished-but-not-finished projects which I’d really like to start making a dent in – Anne and Karen have started up the Focus on Finishing blog, have you seen it? That should provide me with some inspiration.

The reason I’ve taken so long to post this is because my ‘spare’ time (insert maniacal laugh here) has been taken up with Suz’s UFO for the Round Robin. She sent around Black Swan’s Lily Pond Dreams. Confetti stitching ahoy! It kicked my butt, and once again I didn’t achieve as much as I would have liked. Here are the before ‘n’ afters, clickable for biggering.
UFO-RR-Suz-1UFO-RR-Suz-2

And, just in case you aren’t all pictured out, here are pics of the three pay-it-forward packages that I know have arrived. (Should check up on the other two – Angi, Debbi, are yours there yet?). I dyed a fat 1/8 of linen or evenweave, and some stranded cotton (plus a perle for Jenna) for each person in their colour preferences. So far, so good, everyone seems to like these:

For Jenna
PIF-Jenna
For Tash
PIF-Tash
For Jinger
PIF-Jinger

Phew! I think that’s about it.

15 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Dyeworks, Finished, In Progress, Other Craft

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Happy Dance #1/07

Posted on January 31, 2007 | 9 comments

We’re back! We had a great time, the small people were both (relatively) well behaved, and not even the 4am-faulty-car-horn incident (not our car) on the first night, and the blustery oh-heck-will-those-trees-drop-their-limbs-on-the-tent-? weather on the second night could ruin our happy-camper-spirits. It was nice to be back in a tent – a brand spanking new one, what’s more 🙂 Our next expedition is the Port Fairy folk festival over the long weekend in March. The enjoyment factor of that festival is always heavily dependent on the weather, so all fingers are crossed.

Hardanger-Exchange-tWe spent a couple of nights at my father-in-law’s place after the festival ended, where I was able to (finally) get a move on my Hardanger Exchange piece (an exchange on the Rotation BB). I’ve dilly-dallied over this for so long (mailing date was today), but finally today I had my first HD of 2007. I didn’t quite get it finished into something yet, so it will still be delayed a bit, but hopefully I’ll have it in the mail by Friday. I can’t show you the whole thing yet, obviously, but I wanted to show a sneak preview, simply because this is the first time I’ve done ‘real’ Hardanger – I’ve never done woven bars and Dove’s eyes before, just Kloster blocks and a little bit of cutting. Obviously my cutting needs work to get those little end bits right off, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, nonetheless. The thread and fabric used here are both my hand-dyes (though this fabric turned out almost solid, which is why I used it for this). Can’t wait to show you the whole thing once it reaches its destination.

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, Finished, The Kids

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