Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Buttonhole Stitch continued

I added more to my buttonhole stitch sample for the TAST challenge.

I finally plucked up the courage to just pick up the needle and start sewing somewhere, without marking any shapes, and the result is the section lower right. I actually started to enjoy it when I made the discovery that stitches can be very forgiving and can look rather nice just done freehand. The section at the bottom reminds me of rolling hills and I've decided that the spirals (which I initially added just cos I like spirals) make me think of the wind. So that fits in with my initial thought that the circles were balloons blowing away.


I did pencil draw the flower before I stitched that though. The centre of the flower is 4 french knots, apart from that the whole sample is buttonhole stitch. I really like the bottom section where the pairs of stitched rows face each other, so the stitches overlap a bit. And I like the effect that the different shades of green thread produces.

What I'm learning....
1. It's not that scary to just do it - it turned out ok. You don't always need guidelines.
2. I like the effect of graduating colour. Lucky for me I'm a cross stitcher of old and have fifty trillion floss colours tucked away. :-)
3. That filling in a space with stitches can be done randomly, it doesn't have to be pre-planned.
4. Use my journal more to quickly note a simple shape or pattern I see somewhere and like.



This is the 'deep and meaningful' part, you may wish to leave this blog now. You have been warned! :-)

It's funny how joining an embroidery group turns out to be a lesson about oneself, well for me anyway. I knew when I joined that it would test me and the reason within is what I hope to discover and conquer. It's not about comparing myself to others, I don't have a competetive bone in my body, it's some inner demon that needs bringing out and smacking!

As much as I was happy with my simple buttonhole sample from the previous post, I was feeling a bit like I'm not doing this right. That I didn't truly explore the stitch. Well, I did, but in my journal. I'm excellent at research '0n paper' and in my head. When I get the bit between my teeth there's no stopping me. But when it comes to ACTUALLY using my own ideas, that's the hard part. It's not that I haven't got any ideas, in fact I may well bombard myself with too many - when I found out which stitch it was last Tuesday, I whipped up a page of journal thoughts within minutes.

But do you know, it took me 6 days before I picked up a needle and thread to actually TRY anything. I'm scared to try, how pathetic does this sound.... big grown up Dy versus one tiny piece of fabric. Like, what is the harm if I don't like what I do - it can just get tossed into the bin right? Or, it can be displayed and blogged and used as a reminder to me of what doesn't work - it's called learning by experience right? And what's really stupid is that when I eventually take the plunge I usually like what I produce. It just takes me a lot of work and effort to just_take_the_plunge.

Who'd have thought a little ol' stitching session would end up like therapy eh. :-)

And do you know, after all that inner fuss and stress and stuffing around I absolutely LOVE this buttonhole stitch sample. Go figure.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dy, great design! Your journal looks like it has more good things tucked away for future stitching. And thanks for posting the last section. It was an encouragement to me. I had a tussle with myself over the buttonhole stitch this week and came through on the other side really loving it.

Dy said...

I must admit that I nearly deleted that whole section of the post! I had to press the 'Publish' button quick smart before I changed my mind. :-)

Anonymous said...

I completely understand where you're coming from! sometimes its feeling inadequate, sometimes it doesn't feel like a good use of time blah blah. I've found blogging helps. its keeps the stitching moving along. Now I feel I'm 'capturing' my ideas I don't mind so much that I'm not immediately acting on them.

Anonymous said...

I love the additions you made to your pattern! I can almost feel the breeze in my hair. ;)
About the deep and meaningful stuff, here is my inspirational story of the week: For all of the later part of my studies I was afraid of this one seminar. You are in groups, and work on a project, and then at the end of semester one member of the group has to present the project, standing at the front of the lecture hall, talking to somewhere between 50-80 or so people (never been there, so that's just an estimate). So, I left this seminar until the latest semester possible (which is this one). Wanna know what I did? I volunteered for being the speaker of my group. As in, taking on what was my biggest fear for ages head-on, sort of.
Now, obviously, you haven't had a fear of stitching like I have had a fear of doing presentations, but I mean, what is the biggest thing that can happen? Maybe we make some small mistakes, but in the end we will have accomplished something fabulous. Right?
The 4 presentations I had this past week have been so much easier than all the ones I had before. And when you look at the samples you already did, I think it'll get easier for you as well, because you will know that you can do it.
And now I've blabbered on, because I'm dead tired, so if this now is complete nonsense, sorry. I just always feel when I 'hear' talented people saying that they have some self doubts or whatever that if I can manage something, then they surely will as well, and better. And if I can do presenations in front of a whole load of people, then you can do great stitch samples. ;)
(I hope noone else reads this :P)

Anonymous said...

Loved your design.Iam going to try it with due credits to you.:-))