Stitching and Lace

Last night was the October meeting of the Trillium Embroidery Guild. It was a project meeting, which means we got a little project to do enabling us to learn a new technique. One of our members is Carol Arsenault, a member of our guild and the Northumberland Hills Stitchery Group and even more impressively, she's had her designs published in the Summer 2008, Spring 2010 and Fall 2011 issues of "A Needle Pulling Thread" magazine, and she will be an instructor at the CreativFestival this weekend.

Carol demonstrated a technique for wrapping a bead with embroidery thread to use as an embellishment. We were each given a paper bag with a cross-stitch pattern, beading needle, packet of beads and stitching fabric.

Carol gave us the instructions for wrapping the bead with thread and went around to each table to demonstrate. Here's my first one done! I think it looks like a little pumpkin.

Ever the over-achiever, I did a second one.

Carol also explained that one could attach a petite bead to the bottom or a little tassel and showed us how to do that as well.

I may even stitch the whole project (or will certainly put it in a ZipLoc bag as a quick project to grab).

On the way to Rhinebeck last week I started an Embossed Leaves sock with Cascade Heritage Hand Painted Sock Yarn.

This morning I finished my first sock. I think it's my October sock because technically, the other 'October' socks are still unfinished. 

This outdoor photo best shows the detail.

At my Cat Bordhi class at KnitEast, I learned that if one twists a stitch in the direction of the twist of the yarn, it strengthens the yarn (like adding more twist when it's being spun). To reinforce the bottom of the heel and the stitches on the ball of the foot and toe of the socks, I twisted the odd sts in one row and the even sts in the next row - in a checkerboard fashion. It does skew the sock to the bias in those spots but a good blocking will fix that. Note the difference in look between the different sts on the bottom of the foot. I think it looks pretty nice, too.