Disappointed

I was the week end winner on JMD  for the week ending 20th September and won two of Janets, lovely designs. But I was so busy and my net giving me problems, I failed to check her site for the winner. Actually I was not so sure of winning also. But I just knew about my winning only when she announced the next week end winner. Alas! thus I have lost those lovely designs.

Now you tell me which is more sad? Not winning or winning but not able to contact Janet and collect my prize in time? So I am so disappointed. Who would not want to try out some of her lovely designs that too free? I just love the variety of her designs, and so many different styles of embroideries. Its really amazing. Her tutorials on different styles are really good. Do visit the JMD site

http://www.jmddesigns.co.nz/
 
and try your luck at the week end winner...

http://weekendwinner.blogspot.comr.blogspot.com

May be better luck next time for me?

Blogs and Sites on Embroidery

I love to browse net when I get spare time which is very little. I specially love to read about arts and crafts, cooking and gardening.One of the sites which I first land on is Mary Corbet's NeedlenThread.
She of course needs any introduction from me. All the crafting people who love hand embroidery know her.
She covers a lot of things in her posts.Be it the tips and tricks, free embroidery patterns, online books and what not. Her reviews on embroidery books and various links she provides to resources are really very helpful. I just love her site.
Her video library on embroidery stitches is really very helpful for beginners as well as others alike. I am giving the link here.
http://www.needlenthread.com/2006/10/video-library-of-hand-embroidery.html
My favorite so far are the Lessons in Long and Short Stitch. Though it seems a very simple and easy stitch, I always had many doubts as to how to stitch different shapes and especially the shading part. No matter how hard I tried my stitches never came out as I visualised them. She has explained it very beautifully and after reading them, I am now more confident in trying out the stitch.

Thanks a lot Mary...Keep up the good work...

I am giving the link to her site here.

http://www.needlenthread.com


Happy  Crafting...

My Stash

I have this desire to learn something new every day, experiment with different media and create something new. Though I am a working person juggling between my home and work is really something, like walking on the rope-a balance act. However, at the end of the day before  I go to bed, there are two things I have to do. One read at least a page-I just love books and two at least go through one of my craft books and plan some creation. But actually creating some thing new is something altogether different. I don't have time. So at week ends and holidays I do try to attempt  my craft projects. But again I have so many unfinished ones lying with me.

Oh, when ever I visit the Bazaar, I just go through the craft shops and try to find out the latest craze. I also interact with the ladies who visit these shops and min you many a time I learned so many new crafts of techniques that way.

But every time I visit these craft shops, I am tempted to buy something. Now, I have ended up buying these things, thinking that I will use them sometime to create something beautiful and boy I have so much stash that storing them has become a real headache. My family teases me by saying that you have more stock than those shops. So now that I am a bit free I will pull out all these and experiment and also finish of at least some of my pending projects abandoned at various stages. Of course I will share all of them with you...

These are the silk threads in such beautiful colours, I just could not resist picking up whole lot of them and that too at reasonable prices since it was a whole sale selling point.Wouldn't you be tempted?

These are the beautiful blues...

The bight yellows and oranges...

Peaches and pinks...

After that I just could not resist purples, lavenders, greens and of course turquoise, and then whites, creams, black and browns....So I have this whole lot of lovely shades of silk threads...Well  I promised you some tutorials /posts on Indian Embroidery techniques...See how I use them...

These are of course tatting threads. At one time I did not know how to do tatting. In my teens I was fascinated by this art. One my friends knew it, but in spite of  a lot of begging she refused to teach me; knowledge is power. But that made me more determined to learn it. In those days Internet was not so very popular or reachable. So, I had to struggle to get the right reading materials, which is difficult In India, and then to read and understand the basics.

But then, hard work always pays off. I am self taught and today can do any motif or lace. But its a bit time consuming, so don't indulge in it much except when someone asks me for some motifs or laces. I will share with you some of my tatting .

These are kundans, all shiny like the real stones and gems and are the latest fad now...

Here are some more threads....

These are the pearl cotton threads, in single an double shades. I had to move heaven and earth for just finding where they were being sold. These days no one is using them here. But I wanted them for learning Brazilian embroidery, as we dont get Rayon threads here. But at last I found a shop where they were selling these and ended up buying most of the colours. You can see my BE sampler shortly....

These below are known as kora,  a type of hollow long springs which are used in Zardosi embroidery. I have many colours including the standard gold or silver and many varieties also. I will  write on them, where I will discuss in depth.

These are the knitting threads. One day I was just browsing through our old market and in a very small dusty shop I just enquired about pearl threads though not hopefully. The shop owner did not know what they were and placed before me some boxes containing these threads as well as pearl threads. Since the colours were so beautiful,I bought some just to practice my stitches and see how they work out with different weights of threads.

So keep watching my blog to know about my experiments...the count down starts now...