10am:

This project is one of many patches that will go onto Catherine Lorraine’s Pelican cloak. I was asked to participate in this project because I’ve worked with Catherine before and it was thought that I would want to help. And I do, and am honored by being asked; this patch is one of the two filled Pel-Laurel patches that will go on either side of the bottom of the cloak, the other being done by Lady Felicia Margerye Amondesham. This is a secret project, which Catherine is unaware is being done for her. She will be Pelled at June Crown of this year. My patch is due in the hands of Countess Kaaren by May 25. Let’s hope I can make that deadline!

I’ll be working the embroidery on gold dupioni for the upper layer and white cotton broadcloth for the lower layer. The design came pre-inked onto the dupioni. The threads are DMC cotton, and I am using a small sharp needle, which is proceeding to chew up my left pointer finger. I was given the following specific colors: 729 and 301 for light and dark orange, 3012 and 935 for light and dark green, 3768 and 3750 for light and dark blue, 414 and 3799 for light and dark gray, 816 for red, ECRU and BLANC. I am doing the outlines in stem and outline in two strands, and will be filling the shapes in with chain stitch in one strand. This will go faster than split stitch – but barely.

This scan was taken this morning after about 2 ½ hours worth of work last night:

From now on, I will be keeping a time log, which is something I’ve never done for a project before. I would like to see exactly how long this stuff takes me.

11pm:

This is how it looks after an additional 7 hours of work, putting the total at 9 ½ hours.

I’m doing pretty well at keeping the time, but I have to be careful about watching TV during that time. Carlos Mencia + embroidery = not much done + stabbed fingers x lots of tears of laughter and pain. I should really just stick to listening to Owain Pfyfe, who makes excellent music for listening to while embroidering.

The red stitches in the middle are my first major mistake on this project – I forgot that we’re going to put a little garnet bead in the bottom of each of the two blood drops, and I realized I could use the additional red thread to sew the bead down. Problem with doing the red first is that any embroiderer will tell you that beads go on LAST, so I have to keep moving the red tail in order to get at other spots. Sigh . . stitch and learn.

I’ve changed the stitch I’m going to fill in the spaces with – I’m going with stem now, and will use lines of different colors for interesting details. I think after filling in one of the water drops with chain that my exact words were “oh, HELL no.” While tightly packed chain stitch would look and feel really good and smooth, I just don’t have that much time. I have a little over a month to get this done, along with my other projects and moving. So the thicker stem stitch will have to be good enough. I like how it’s turning out so far; the colors show up well, and the stitches are turning out well. It’s just the look that irks me.

Did I mention the needle is chewing up my finger? I really ought to get a leather thimble, or something that gives me both dexterity and protection.

The total time is up to 17 hours. I really like this time log thing, but I am NOT liking how the stem stitch fill is turning out. Because I am ending my lines and starting new ones at each corner, a little seam starts to form as I work my way inward. This is happening most clearly in the bottom middle water area. It’s far too late to take it out, but now that I know what’s happening, I can fix that in future fills. I do like what I did with the lines of alternating light and dark colors, and want to do that in the bill and leaves. I have ideas of realism for the body of the pelican. I am, however, running this idea by the heads of the project, as I’m not sure this is what they want. There are two patches in this pattern, and I’m assuming they want them somewhat similar to each other. However, if they wanted them exactly the same, they wouldn’t have written “do whatcha want for detail” on the instructions. Hopefully they’ll go with it, as it would be cool to continue that style throughout the pattern. And I found out it’s actually good to do the red drops first, as the blue follows the line of the red drop. So I was right after all; it’s just a pain to keep moving around the red thread.

And the needle continues to chew at my finger.

In honor of my 27 th birthday this last month, I am putting up a picture of the patch at 27 hours worth of work:

For some reason, my scanner is making the green of the leaves look almost brown. Work continues to progress, and I’m feeling ever so slightly better about getting this project done on time. I fought with the leaves trying to figure out how to make them look right; a dark outline almost mandated a light fill, but I wanted the leaves to look a little more realistic than that, with light veins and dark flesh. But I still had to make them stand out from each other, hence the one line of light on the interior of each leaf’s dark outline (except for the top left leaf – I’d hadn’t figured out my plan in time to catch that one).

My plan is turning out okay. I would have liked to do two lines of the light outline, but space precluded that from happening. The one-light, two-dark, fill-light pattern will work on the pelican’s bill, however, so I’m happy with that. I plan to put some gray shading in among the pelican’s wings and feathers. And I’ve somewhat fixed the seaming effect on the fills. One slight problem – as you can see, the fabric is beginning to pucker a bit. I’m hoping that it won’t get much worse than it is around the completed leaves. And I’ve tied off the red thread; I’ll use a fresh thread that can take wax for the garnet.

And the needle continues to chew at my finger. But one isn’t enough – it’s moved on to my left middle finger, which I use to push the needle through the fabric. Sigh . . maybe after this project, I’ll do an intensive moisturizing effort.

‘TIS DONE. I actually finished it last night, but today I have the energy to do a final write up. And here is the final piece:

This is a digital picture instead of a scan, and this time, the green looks like it should. Total time: 73 ¼ hours. I know, it’s been almost a month since the last picture, but I was just focusing on getting it done.

There is one garnet bead at the bottom of each blood drop, which I think adds an interesting dimension to the piece. As you might be able to see, I experienced Death by Spirals twice, on the eye and in the middle of the round wing feathers. The problem with stitching in a spiral is that the center will start to pucker in. This proved to me that I really ought to have strung this up into stretcher bars, but oh well. Otherwise, the puckering wasn’t so bad.

So now it’s off to Kaaren’s hands. And yes, this project continued to chew at my fingers. The pointer, middle, and ring fingers of my left hand. Hopefully now they will have time to recuperate, but we’ll see. I will do my best to get a picture of the patch once it’s placed onto Catherine’s cloak. But right now, I’m just thrilled that this one’s over with! While I enjoyed working on the project, I’ve never been much a fan of tight deadlines, especially when it involves creativity and an activity that under normal circumstances would be quite enjoyable. But I have a feeling that seeing Catherine’s reaction over the patch will more than make up for the rankling of the deadline.

June Crown and the ceremony are long since over, and Catherine is still reeling from everything she was showered with. Her words when she saw the coat were “Oh my God.” I wasn’t close enough to hear, but apparently that’s all she could say after that. I will admit that after seeing the outfit come together that it is quite a masterpiece and collection of hundreds of woman-hours. My contribution was dwarfed by other items on the coat I saw, like Iulitta’s goldwork elephants and Isela’s ginormous Pel-Laurel in the back. I’m very proud to have been part of such a work. To show her gratitude for all that we did, Catherine sent a personalized thank-you note, CD of collected pictures of the ceremony and the outfit, and elephant-shaped sachet to everyone who worked on her vigil, ceremony, or outfit. These last three images are from the photo collection on the CD, and are of my patch once it was finally on the coat and decorated.

The first five pictures on this page were taken by myself.

The last three pictures were taken by Catherine Lorraine (Conny FitzSimmons), who gave me permission to reuse them on my website on 7/10/06.