Gosh, it's been more than a month since I posted anything to my blog but I haven't been lazy, just busy. More gnome work, of course, but I've also been pushing myself to renew old crafting skills as the hand coloring and card making crafts seem to be less and less possible.
It's been nearly 50 years since I did any amount of hand embroidery, though I loved it during those years when it was a regular activity. A few weeks back, my granddaughter gave back to me a huge pile of embroidery flosses, needles, and other supplies which I had given to her when she wanted to try her hand at embroidery. Seeing all those luscious thread colors whetted my appetite for trying it again, despite the eyesight problems. (A large, desktop, magnifier helps tremendously!) I ordered some white Aida cloth online, and as soon as it arrived I began practicing all the old stitches I once knew so well. I found that I'm much slower (and more careful) with the stitches than I used to be but it's coming back.
For those of you who don't know, Aida cloth is a stiff, woven fabric with evenly spaced threads which are a specific distance apart and that makes it so much easier when one can use the tiny "holes" between threads to keep your stitches even. While I was working stitches on a practice piece of Aida cloth, I began to wonder if I could use Aida cloth to make clothes for gnomes, thereby being able to have lovely, even embroidery work on the clothing. I was concerned that the stiffness might make it unsuitable for clothes but I knew of no way to find out other than to try it! :-D
I want to share with you the end result. I must tell you that this particular gnome took hours and hours to complete and that the embroidery itself took me more than 6 hours to complete, simple as it looks once on the gnome. All the white parts are the Aida cloth (both coat and top hat), but Aida cloth also comes in colors and, now that I know it works for gnome clothing, I'm going to get some of it in various colors. Doesn't it give great visual texture?
Here's the gnome:
