Stealth Project Revealed, Starting A Big Wessex Project, and Finding the The Right Fabric

I can finally reveal the project I've stealthily been working on. It's a scissor pillow for my friend, Marilyn's birthday.

I was inspired by one that Jeanette made from one of The Cross Stitch Guild's patterns. Basically it's a long piece of stitching, folded to make the pocket. A coordinating fabric is used for the backing and it's stuffed like a little pillow.

By some miracle, I had the PERFECT coordinating fabric in my stash! Squeeee!

Marilyn likes early 20th century style so I found the art nouveau iris pattern, assigned colours, and stitched it. Then I agonized over what font I would use for her initials.

Then came the search for coordinating scissors with a guard. I found them on Amazon.  The whole thing came together so nicely. I could hardly wait to give it to her.

Last night I started the Wessex Hussif project. I ordered the pattern directly from JC Embroidery in New Zealand. The shipping was more than the pattern but Wessex patterns are so rare, I just had to treat myself.

I'm using a pearl grey 28ct linen and Sulky Petites thread in white, yellow and blue. The pattern is very 'squinchy' - small scale and little. I did start it last night and got a bunch of the first section done.

There's a LOT of counting. White is the main colour. Those blue dots are actually crosses over two threads one way then two threads the other.

This morning I did much of the blue and white part, then this afternoon I started the diagonal running stitches.

My eyes are tired but it's going well. 

By definition an embroidered hussif is "an alternative form of 'housewife' which originally meant a sewing-case. Traditional hussifs were a long strip of fabric 6 to 8 inches wide, with pockets stitch across the width of the fabric to hold sewing tools". ~ from Pintangle.com.

So the inside will be a series of pockets to hold my embroidery needles, scissors, needle minders, and possibly a pair of magnifying glasses. The stitched part of mine is 7 5/8" wide and will be about 20" long. Each section is a new stitch but once I figure out how to do it, a rhythm is developed and it moves right along. 

After having food truck lunch for Marilyn's birthday today, I stopped into the Ultimate Sewing Centre in Oshawa to see if I could find a fabric that would work with my Drawn Thread Simply summer piece - a fabric that would be good for a project bag. I think I lucked out.

This batik had the blue and beige colours from the pattern and fabric.

The zipper is a good match to the hand-dyed threads and batik fabric but I might pick a red or gold one just to give it a bit of contrast. I think it's going to look really cute.

Wouldn't the house, tree, and bee skep make a cute needlebook?