Yesterday, nary a stitch was stitched on the Medallion Project! So much for the Weekly Deadline! What does this mean? Simply that next week, I’m going to have to double-time it. I suppose we shall see what happens!

In the meantime, here’s the update, and some answers to some questions that have arisen:

Tanja Berlin’s got something fun going on on her website, and if you love blackwork (or even if you love the idea of it, but haven’t tried it yet), you might want to take a look!

If you haven’t visited the website of the Royal School of Needlework lately, you should! The RSN is located in London, at Hampton Court. The institution has an interesting and unique history (book review coming up on the subject…), and has been a huge source of influence on the development and continuation of the needle arts in the past hundred years.

Welp, I managed to make a smidgeon of progress on the Medallion Project – and when I say smidgeon, I mean smidgeon!

One fleur de lis on the side of the monogram in the Medallion Project is finished. The fleurs de lis are embroidered in all four shades of blue that I’m using on this project. Unlike the rest of the monogram, they aren’t padded with felt, but they are worked in long and short stitch.

This morning, I thought it would be nice to slow down a bit and just look at some beautiful pieces of embroidery. To that end, I’m going to share with you some needle painting embroidery projects worked by Margaret Cobleigh.

Margaret’s the gal who will be teaching needle painting class here on Needle ‘n Thread in March. She’s one of those stitchers who has perfected her needle painting skills by adopting and adapting the techniques of good teachers, and then agglomerating them all into her own style, in her own projects.

These are some of the projects Margaret has stitched over the years. You’ll recognize a good many of them, as many are (or have been) available in kit form from teachers such as Trish Burr and Tanja Berlin.

Last time we looked at the Medallion project, I was venturing into the monogram area, working long & short stitch filling over felt. At the time, I saw long & short stitch as a good answer to the whole “filling the monogram” question – it provides a solid fill relatively quickly and it’s a fairly forgiving stitch.

I don’t regret the decision to go with long & short stitch at all. But one thing I didn’t bargain for was the fact that stitching that many stitches through felt and linen and backing fabric can be pretty painful – and I’ve got the holes in my thumb and finger to prove it!

So far, I’m pretty happy with the outcome and eager to get the central monogram in the design finished.

Pattern darning is a needlework technique that employs running stitch to create a pattern on the surface of the fabric or canvas – it’s basically just working lines of running stitches in such a way that a pattern develops according to the placement of those running stitches.

Because it’s running stitch we’re talking about here, pattern darning is pretty simple in concept. The only difficult part of pattern darning is making sure you don’t misplace a stitch, because that can throw your pattern all out of whack. Working on the silk gauze, I had better luck getting my stitches in the right spot when I was using my magnifying lamp. When I didn’t use it, I was more likely to misplace a stitch here and there.

And though it might sound boring to work lines and lines of running stitch, it really is a satisfying technique – it’s super fun to watch the pattern develop and grow.