Jacobean Leaves

I can't believe that it has been nearly a year since I wrote my first blog post. Amongst other things, I talked about turning some of the projects that I have been teaching over the years into kits and patterns, boldly showing a larger crewel piece, Jacobean Leaves as one such design.

This brings me to why I haven't been stitching (or blogging) very much for the past couple of weeks. I have been working on getting this very pattern ready. I originally thought it was going to be a quick and easy job to do - after all, I just had to tweak my teaching notes, right?

Wrong. I taught this project ten years ago and the way I like to present my work has - shall we say 'evolved' quite a bit over the years. Hopefully for the better. So getting this pattern to a point where I am happy with it has required a lot more work than I had anticipated.

The biggest part was developing new diagrams and there is quite a few of them! I don't usually photograph as I stitch, and if I do, I find the images don't often show what I am trying to convey clearly enough. Besides, wool is fluffy and hairy that really close-up pictures look terrible. I used to draw the diagrams by hand, but really - I am not very good at drawing so I have turned to the computer. It has taken a little bit of practise, but I am beginning to get the hang of it. My issue with digital diagrams is that the colours are flat and boring - well, I am sure clever graphic designers can do some really beautiful stuff, but I am not a graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination. I could leave the diagrams as just line drawing I guess, but I do find that colour is so helpful to relate the diagram to what you are actually stitching, don't you think?  So I print my line drawings out, colour them in by hand, then scan them and pop them into the text. It is a lot of work but I like it that way and hopefully if you ever work from one of my patterns, you will too.

I am just doing the final check this week and then they should be ready - fingers crossed.

Of course, working on this pattern has given my ideas for new designs... oh if only there were more hours in the day. For now - it has stopped raining, so I might venture out for a bit of fresh air, then I have a week ahead full of other work part of which s preparing a 1 hour beginner class. What would you suggest you were to introduce embroidery to someone and only had an hour to do so?

Hope you are enjoying a lovely Sunday.
Happy stitching,
Anna X