Some parts of quilt-making are focused on speed: quick methods of cutting or piecing or quilting, but how about doing some deliberately SLOW stitching? I’ve been enjoying working on the needlepoint piece pictured below.
This came to me as a gift. It was brought, along with a number of other unfinished projects, to a group I attend, by someone who no longer wanted to finish them. I was drawn to this pretty needlepoint design of flowers in a vase and longed to rescue it from being discarded forever.
The design is printed onto the canvas and the stitches are made with stranded cotton. The brand is ‘Penelope’.
Much of the centre part of the design has already been stitched, leaving just a few gaps. Almost all the background, however, has not been completed. This is rather like the point in doing a jigsaw when there are acres of sky left to complete! So I am mostly filling in rows and rows of taupe-coloured stitches. It is surprisingly restful! This quiet sewing is a useful counterpoint to the intensity of designing and making in my ‘work life’!
I do love the look and texture of needlepoint. I found the (completed) pretty piece below on a sale table a few years ago. All I had to do was add the cushion cover back and insert a cushion pad.
The finished cushion rests at the back of a Lloyd Loom chair in my sitting room. The needlepoint is the work of an unknown maker. Here, the thread is wool.
The other Lloyd Loom chair in the room hosts a needlepoint that I completed many years ago. The design – of a brick and flint cottage – was custom printed onto the canvas. This item is precious to me because the kit was a gift from my mother, who died when I was 28. The cottage was my childhood home.
I plan to steadily complete the piece at the top of this post and then set it into a cushion cover, so it can take its place with its companions in my small sitting room. In the meantime, the slow-stitching of the needlepoint is very pleasurable…
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Here is a fun baby quilt pattern which includes templates for all the shapes required and full instructions for the appliqué. along with all the steps for making the quilt and quilting suggestions (which could always be done by hand if you want to go for some slow stitching!) Buy the pattern here
Amanda Jane Textiles 