The pieces on this page (link below) can be seen individually enlarged many times and I'm learning to recognize the filling stitches such as wave, offset 4-sided, stepped satin, cobbler (how did it get that name?), regular and small ringed back stitch, festoon stitch, double backstitch and many more. Good to be able to see them large enough to see details. Page is one of Lorelei's. Wow. What a ton of work went into that site. …

Thanks for all the encouragement, Lorelei! 

Top: net ground in tatting cotten

Upper left: diagonal drawn ground, size 30 Cebelia

Lower left: double fa99ot stitch, self thread & #30 Cebelia

Upper right: back stitch: #30 Cebelia

Lower right: 3-sided stitch: #20 Cebelia

Urn from top: Spaced satin stitch,…

Now to plan the fillings. Yes, plan. Think ahead for once.

Pick one from A and apply it to B.…

Remember, I am not very accomplished yet. Now I am outlining the flowers as you can see on the left. Trying to use different outline stitches for each one. #20 Cebelia chain on mid-left, #10 Cebelia on upper left. The urn is plain reverse chain stitch in #10.

For the stems, some of them are chain stitch in a smaller thread, like tatting cotton, whipped with larger thread like Cebelia. That does a pretty good line. I believe the middle (tall) one is #30 whipped with #10. Another good…

How I squared up this wiggly loose-weave cloth to trace the pattern onto:

1. Cut out a piece 2 inches wider around the sides than the pattern.
2. Laid it on the top of the washing machine and squared it up.
3. Laid a piece of typing paper over the center where the design will go.
4. Sprayed all around the edges with heavy spray starch.
5. Let it dry.
6. Slid the design paper in under it; I should have put it under it before step 2.
7. Carefully…

Enlarge to see notations. Oops, misspelled "Palestrina".

Enlarge to make the notations readable.

Back sitch border.

Cushion stitch and combination of stitches

I was going to do all the outlines, wash the starch out, then do the fillings, but in all the excitement I got started doing some of it already and filled up one of the vases with cushion stitch. This kind of embroidery requires a lot of counting threads. Fortunately, double backstitch is easy to pull out and restitch. Since the picture was made the corner has been filled in.…

Stitching the starched material seems to not be working as well as non-starched, but it had to be starched because it would not stay square for the tracing otherwise. Solution: Trace the lines, embroider all the boundaries and lines, wash it, do the fillings. 

The DMC "Embroidery transfer pen" came in the mail and works fine; that is, it draws just fine. I haven't tried washing it out yet. Before I do the finished vase pattern, I'm going to work the motifs on a practice piece. To do that, I copied the motifs so there are two of each (three of the top one) printed on a piece of paper, then I traced from the paper onto the cloth. 

Happy new year, everybody! This is a great day to start a project.…

I have looked all over and can't find any good (or bad) fine, somewhat loose-weave linen or even cotton cloth for pulled-thread work. I know it's out there because I have some samples from the past, but can't remember where I got it. I've looked at Joann and also online. Right now I'm not going out, so no going to the cloth stores to inspect the wares in person.

Also I've lost my good linen tester (device to measure threads per inch). Need to order a new one, I guess. It was iron (!)…

Found out why the marker hasn't arrived. I forgot to click on "Complete Transaction."

Done. 

It will be here next week.

No experiment is a failure - you learn from what doesn't work. Spraying heavy starch on fabric laid on printer paper will not make the fabric stick to the paper even if both layers are soaked. Starches the fabric nicely, though, and it's worth knowing that a water-based product won't make laser printer ink run.

Lorelei likes my proposed design. Good. I respect her opinion. I will carry it out as soon as I figure out a way to get the design on the cloth - either with a marker or with…

Most of these wouldn't work, but they were fun to draw.…

Here's the design I want to do next. I printed it to fit 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and now I'm trying to see if I can glue it to the back of the fabric (where it shows through) with heavy spray starch. This does not look hopeful. The paper seems to be sticking to the top of the washing machine more than the cloth is sticking to the paper, but I will let it dry and see what happens. This is in lieu of basting it like Lorelei said. I am lazy, and don't want to get the sewing machine out, and doubt my…