Crewel, sort of

But it’s finished after all these years! Probably 8 or 9 years ago I embarked on a crewel embroidery correspondence class through the EGA, or Embroiderers’ Guild of America.  As always, half the fun was collecting supplies and tools and notions specific to this type of embroidery, which is traditionally done with very fine wool on a linen twill weave fabric ground.

After a trip to Needle in a Haystack in Alameda, to collect the crewel-specific supplies, I was ready to start. And stop. And start. And stop. Again and again and again. I never got further than one short line of stem stitch because I simply couldn’t stand the tactile sensation and sound of the wool as it passed through the fabric. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. So I’d put the project aside and then come across it again in a few years and wonder why it wasn’t further along. So I’d hoop it up, thread up a piece of wool, start stitching and remember. Eeew. Scritch, scratch and back in to the cupboard you go!

Finally this summer I decided I could embroider this design with cotton floss and even try out some DMC floche. Ahhh. So here it is:

There’s plenty to critique about this project even without mentioning that it’s not done with the traditional wool, but I’m so happy to have it finished I’ve decided to ignore its flaws, put it into a display hoop and hang it up in my sewing room.

Here is the original inked design after I made revisions to the original design given by Judy Jeroy. Her design is copyrighted so I cannot post it here, but I mostly changed the shape of the motif from an oval to a heart. And in the final stitching I removed a large tulip like flower and added a few tendrils here and there. Making changes to the original design was part of the assignment. As was changing colors and even stitch choices. The class was quite enjoyable, all up to the point of dragging that wool through the linen. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out what the problem was and then solve it.