Japanese Embroidery

I woke up to snow this morning. The dusting on the evergreen bushes and lawn was pretty.  The sheet of glaze ice on the sidewalks and streets was not. I had an amazing amount of trouble trying to get the car door open with my arms full of packages going to the post office. I'm glad no one had a camera filming my flailing and struggles!  I finally managed and went off to physical therapy and then took everything to the post office.  another task done!

We held our monthly Japanese embroidery meeting a week late this month--it was yesterday. I got a lot done--all of the second layer of the fan blade laid and tied down.  The photo really highlight spots where the bottom layer was moved out of place--I can tweak it back into place easily. (Finding things like this is one reason I like to photograph my work as I go along.)

I also learned a lot this week. A few weeks ago I lamented that I'd laid some of my basting lines right on top of the design lines and I'd had to go over them to cover the design lines. Hmmm, well. I didn't.  Ruth reminded me that a gold border that goes around each fan blade and that covers the design lines.  I'm not taking it all out--it's just going to be a slightly fatter fan blade. But I'll know better when I do the other blades. 

I was very careful as I laid this second layer. It should form equilateral triangles and the third layer of the hemp-leaf pattern goes on top of this. If this second layer isn't even, then the third layer is more difficult to do.  I used both my triangle and a sheet from a set of 7mm guidelines on a transparency. Between the two and measuring each stitch carefully, the triangles came out pretty accurate. (These transparency sheets also come in handy for crewel fillings.)

I want to begin on some of the flower and leaf motifs, but I need to get some of the other solid fan blades completed first. (In Japanese embroidery you stitch the foreground before the background, the opposite of most European-style embroidery.)  The other fan blades are all flat silk (this first one has a twisted silk foundation). Flat silk can be a challenge in winter, between static and rough hands. I'm working on keeping my hands in good shape.

I'm tracking the time spent on this piece. So far--15 hours (that includes mounting it on the frame and couching the design lines for accuracy). 

I've also worked a bit on my crewel piece. I plan to have a photo of that next week.