Interlude- Drawnwork and Needlelace

The shift is very slow going. I'm possibly intimidated by the scope of the project, or possibly the actual size of the panels that need to be embroidered. The motifs themselves move quickly- 40 minutes or so. So I should be much further along, but I'm trying not to feel too guilty about it.

It occurred to me that perhaps I needed to do something smaller for a break, so I could finish something and feel like I accomplished things. I have a tendency to choose huge projects requiring hundreds of hours, so I needed to do something smaller.

I was considering the categories for Athena's Thimble, and realized I still had no ranking in 4 of them- drawn/open work, lacis, needlelace, and padded work. I had started working on a raised-work bee at Pennsic, and I may go back to that. But I decided to give drawn thread work a try.

I began by taking a piece of 3.5 ounce linen (approx. 80 threads per square inch) and remove 6 threads together. This may have been slightly more than I wanted, but I wanted it to be visible. I did a hem stitch to create a half-inch hem, and then went back and worked the drawn threads in both directions, creating, in theory, little boxes. Somehow, I got a torque in the material, so my lines slant- this may be a result of tension, hemming, or of removing too many threads. I should experiment in the future. I then decided to add a simple needlelace border, using 40/2 linen thread. Ideally, I would like to use 60/2, or perhaps 90/2, but I couldn't find those in my stash. the 120/2 was simply too lightweight too work. Overall, I'm happy with how my border came out, but it is a little "thick", probably due to the thread weight. The border was worked by making bars and covering with a buttonhole stitch.