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Saturday, December 28, 2013

Fun With Blackwork

I love blackwork: the geometry and symmetry please me but I'm never sure what to do with it and I usually end up making biscornus. So I was very happy to find Tanja Berlin's free blackwork project, which is a little different and not biscornu-suitable.


I started it back in February of last year when it was still a mystery and only part one was out. But then, in classic "me" fashion, I put aside after a truly horrendous counting error that meant half of what I'd stitched had to be frogged. Since it was black on white I thought that the leftover black fuzz would be too obvious to overlook so I just put it away and pretended it didn't exist. But after discovering how useful a lint roller is (something I'm sure everyone knows but I didn't) I thought I'd give it a try. It worked and I decided to put a few more stitches in and then sort of forgot to stop.


The original project is meant to be a greeting card holder which I have no use for. I don't send physical cards and never get any. So I've decided to turn into a key holder. This is supposed to be used as individual pieces to separate the cards, but I changed it to a band because I thought it would work better for the key holder. Whether I actually get around to making the key holder is something best not discussed LOL


I really liked stitching the animals. And while the bands in between look intricate and complicated they were really very easy. The instructions are incredibly detailed and very well done.


And speaking of things that need to be finish-finished: I actually have a set of smalls that I finished last week and haven't posted because I wanted to shock everyone by actually having them finished. I, uh, don't think that's going to happen so I'll be posting those sometime soon.

TitleBlackwork Mini Mystery Project
DesignerBerlin Embroidery Designs
Start dateFebruary 11, 2012
Finish dateDecember 28, 2013
Total time17.75 hours
Fabric32 ct White Lugana
Floss DMC 310

9 comments:

The Knitting Cross Stitcher said...

What a beautiful pattern.Thanks for the link.Your stitching is really lovely.
Wishing you a Happy New Year:-)

Miss Lilly said...

Beautiful stitching! The rabbits and mice look so cute :)

gracie said...

Very nice stitching....

Jennifer M. said...

This is so lovely! Love the detail of all the little animals. Very nice job.

Myra said...

Your blackwork is gorgeous! I love how it looks but I don't like stitching it. :o) Those little animals are so cute.

Dani - tkdchick said...

That's beautiful!!! I often stitch things because I like it not because I ever intend to do anything with it.

Zeb said...

Yup! I'm another person who stitches just because I think the design is lovely. If I do something with it in future, bonus!

Love the blackwork design. I've collected several old school books of blackwork designs with the goal to create my own design.

Catherine said...

So pretty!

onemore4gsus said...

I like that! Never tried blackwork, but I've seen some tempting designs out there. Is there a good tutorial on the stitching that you would recommend?