What To Do in 20 Minutes

The New Year has gotten off to a SLOW start with Vestment projects.  With long hours at work, and year-end book-keeping, there was only a tiny window to work on the Ash Wednesday projects this week. Sometimes when life becomes a little chaotic, it’s far to easy to skip working on a project when only a few minutes are available.  And this was about to be the fate of one particular evening this past week.  But, my fingers were aching for a few moments to handle fabric and floss. If nothing else, it is sometimes as much fun to pull things out and look and play with fabric and floss, waiting for that AH HA moment.  And, a deadline is looming…..

Time to get busy, even for a few minutes. Let’s see what can be done.The clock is ticking!

The Design for the Chalice Veil Passion Cross is small. There was a tiny scrap of linen, washed and pressed, and just the right size, along with a piece of Kona Cotton to use as a backing. This was the perfect project of a small round hoop. The linen is Alba Maxima from Hedgehog Handworks. The cross was pinned in place, centering the design, and making sure it would be on-grain.  The pounce is charcoal powder made from sticks of drawing charcoal that have been crushed. (Zip lock bag and a rolling-pin work great).

The most challenging part is finding something small enough to fit inside the back of the hoop for support.  I usually prefer something solid, such as a book, when the embroidery frame is larger.For this project, folded pieces of fabric were used. They worked, but did not provide the firm surface I usually like for transferring an embroidery design.

The tiny dots did transfer, are visible and easily connected with a fine tipped micro pen. My favorite is a .3 or .5 micro tip pen in a Sepia colored pigment ink which is archival safe.

Tracing the design through the pounce powder takes a steady hand, and gets better with practice. After the tracing is finished, the design still looks a bit messy until the charcoal is removed. Sometimes all that is needed is a “flick” with the fingers on the back side to remove the powder. Sometimes a bit more persuasion is needed. Then it’s ready to go.

Felt padding might be an option for the Passion Cross to add a bit of relief.  But time will tell.  And for this evening, time is up. It wasn’t much, but a bit was accomplished. Now its time to sort through thread options and see what is available that might work for the Passion Cross. I’m glad I spent the few moments available and have the design ready for stitching.  Little bits of progress can add up!

Until next time.

Solo Dei Gloria

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