Elegant Things, Continued

Crewelwork.



I've taken a break from needlepoint to try crewelwork, but it doesn't look like this. I adapted a Florentine intial "G" for a pillow for my mother-in-law, which I am doing on natural colored linen in one strand of needlepoint wool. It's coming out pretty well, but I need to stop reading books and get cracking on it a little faster. Then I have to finish the needlepoint I left, which is almost done. Then I think I will get some proper crewelwork yarn. What I'd really like to do is curtains, but I don't think I'd finish such a large project between now and age 80. I'm pretty squirrelly, attention-wise. I just really love Jacobean designs. Hm. Maybe a purse or something.

I like to embroider, but I intensely dislike cross-stitch because of the projects I had to do for Girl Scouts, which were booooring. What I really enjoy is designing my own, and carrying them out. Here are two embroideries I designed and worked when I was in college, and gave to my parents. They now hang in our bedroom. The first one is a design of roses, and the second is a design of purple and yellow violets. I got inspired by the craftsmanship of tapestries I'd seen in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.: