It's been a while

It's been a while. After getting married and submitting my phd thesis in the same month, I felt soo tired.. I took some time off and I'm slowly regaining my energy now. My thesis was accepted, so I don't have to worry about that anymore :-)

I found these treasures at the Apeldoorn Antiques Fair: silk from India and the most amazing gold thread from Singapore. It's a less than 0.5 mm thread, with metal wire wrapped around a cotton core. It's perfect for this type of embroidery.

Just married

Blog break

I will start writing again (and doing embroidery) after the 30th of may, see you then!

Interlacing stitch tutorial

Laren pointed this great interlacing stitch tutorial out to me:


http://www.bayrose.org/AandS/handouts/Interlace.pdf

I haven't got much time for my own embroidery these days: I'm preparing for my wedding on the 9th of may, my thesis defense will be the 26th of september, but the thesis still needs a lot of editing before I can send it to the evaluation comitee, and in the meanwhile, there are a lot of interesting projects in my new job.... And I'm not such a multi-tasker :-)

So, I'll be posting less frequently

Update

I can't seem to find the right type of linen to start with the "real" tablecloth... I'm planning to visit Sanny de Zoete, who has the most mouthwatering (vintage) linen shop I've ever seen. I you ever visit Delft, go see her shop! I used to live in Delft and I talked with her about the tablecloth, so I'm sure she can advise me about what to use. It will probably be march/ april by then, so in the mean time I'm finishing some 14th century silk embroidered pouches and I'm reading about medieval knitting (OK, I confess, I also ordered 0.8 mm knitting needles to give it a try...)

I have a soft spot for pouches. If I ever get tired of medieval stuff, I can always turn to this, a gorgeous 17th century sweet bag from the Burrell Collection:

New job: blog break in january

I wish you all the best for 2008!

I've got a new job and I start this January :-) , so I won't be writing this month

A beautiful painting by Zurbaran

One quick post: I saw a picture of this beautiful painting in Kunstschrift

Virgin Mary as a little girl doing blackwork embroidery
Francisco de Zurbaran, ca 1635-1640
Metropolitan, New York