Beginner's Crewel - Lesson One

Arriving at Embroidery House for my first class, Beginner's Crewel, I was surprised and delighted to meet 10 other students all as eager as myself to get started. Our teacher Marj was ready and waiting to get us all going with the first task to get the base design transferred onto our fabric.

By now I had bought a 'blue' transfer pen (the type that could be removed with cold water) and used a light box that was available to trace the design lines from the original template supplied.

My original template was much used along the way as you can see. But first up, I did redraw the original design lines with a heavier black texta to make it easier to see for tracing. Some wayward pen strokes suggest I might have rushed this a bit!

But regardless of how heavy handed it looks on the template, using the blue transfer pen provided enough direction for stitching proving to me the thick bold lines I traced on the Majestie design with a regular HB lead pencil are simply not necessary (sample upper left corner).

As we sat down to learn our first stitch, I did notice all the ways students had interpreted the Requirements List. Some used a hoop, others stretcher bars with drawing pins or like me, used a frame. I had sourced a piece of linen twill for my background or rather 'ground' fabric as it is known, but others had cotton drill or evenweave linen. Did these things matter? Well actually they did.

For one, using a frame meant I needed an extra hour to get set up than those with a hoop. Stretcher bars were an efficient option as well. And the student who had a beautiful piece of evenweave linen found it too 'open' to handle the density of the wool thread with the fabric starting to separate and break as he progressed. Most upsetting.

Demonstrated by Marj were:

• Stem Stitch
• Coral Knots
• Fly Stitch
• Split Stitch
• Long and Short Stitch

Being able to do these stitches meant we would be able to complete about half the design and what wasn't done in the first lesson was homework, to be completed by the next class in two weeks.

And you know what - I now love homework!