Needlelace and Palestrina

Needlelace House and Tree

Needlelace house

Well, this was fun but a bit fiddly. The border is Palestrina Stitch, which I got to grips with more this time round after seeing a video on Mary Corbett's Needle'n'Thread. I need to work on the winding on the tree - mix of winding and buttonhole to secure it. The thread got very twizzly in it's behaviour. Didn't think to untwizzle in the opposite direction before winding round. You live and learn. For the house the hill is up and down detached buttonhole with lattice stitch - I got the hang better on the left than the right. The house is filled in with wide needleweaving.

I'm learning about design. I wanted it to look like an open door with the light shining out down the path but looking at it it's too small for that to be clear - a narrower path would have shown off the hill better and would have given me more space to work with on the left . Also tried to do hills in the distance off on the right but didn't really work so snipped it out. Learned lots of lessons - draw out in one thread so the links to the side are paler. Can always add in more lines of thread after. Was pleased with the way that using knots like in lattice st held the initial lines of the house and doorway in place.

Palestrina Stitch

'Teaspoon Shisha', Buttonhole Stitch, and Palestrina Stitch surround. TAST 24. Fancied doing some Shisa but haven't got any of those pretty little mirrors. My inner "Monty Python" whispered try it with something out of the kitchen. Learning curve - If the stitches don't over lap enough they slip off - old clever clogs trying to do it with a spoon :-)