The First Sip - The First Post

Current Progress

This week I started work on the Hazel Blomkamp kit I received, called The First Sip. I have a few other projects to get started on as well, but have been really looking forward to starting on this one as it should teach me a lot of new stitches.

Above is my progress so far - some weaving, satin stitch, silk shading and some needlelace.

The weaving I found a little tricky to do with an irregular shape on a plain linen, but I got there in the end. The trickiest part was working out the spacing for the warp of the weave - I originally started with the stitches too close together which meant that the weft had no room to show up the pattern. Once I redid the stitches further apart it all came together.

I'm currently working some needlelace over the petals towards the top. Having been worried that I would find it very difficult to do with only written instructions, I've made better work of it than I expected, but its a work in progress - I can feel myself getting more confident with it as I go along. Its using a thread called special dentelles, which is a fine crochet thread, rather than the other threads which are a mix of stranded cotton, nylon and perle threads. Maybe I'll try crochet again some time!

Next up some sating stitch for the flower centre - with a nylon thread, and more weaving for the topmost petals.

The whole design

I started out putting the design in this large hoop, but it didn't give me the tension on the fabric I wanted, so I've shifted into a smaller hoop which I'll move around the major elements before moving back into the bigger hoop to do the connecting elements and the edging.