Elsa Williams Small Tree of Life Finished

 Finished .....and I,m reasonably happy with it .. there are a couple of things...such as the pistils on the large blue flower stamens , the bullion knots not covering the printed lines of the pattern ... but its time to move on  .  Which brings me to the very long , tediously boring , instructions for blocking ........ yawn !    I have never had to block any piece of  my hand surface embroidery ever .
          I also didn't use an embroidery hoop and it is perfectly fine and straight  .

I gave it a little press , face down on a double layer of thick towel and a very slightly damp flannel . This way , the iron does not flatten ,but rather plumps up the crewel wool embroidery on the under side .

I think that tapestry , such as the above cushion , can get out of shape whilst working  , even when done in a frame ......and would definitely need blocking .
  Then again  , I have made up slightly wonky tapestries into cushions  for my own use and I think they're fine .
 I think there are way too many  finished tapestries just lying around out there !  They should be made up into cushions or lovely shopping bags  , loved and used !
  The lovely toadstool cushion above was one that I bought from a nice lady on Ebay  ..she told me  , that her husband had said that they had too many cushions and not enough chairs for them all , so some of them just had to go !
                                  Lol ! Glad to have been able to help her out .

I have another Elsa Williams Kit waiting in the wings  , but I might do something else first.
 I need to finish a piece that I designed myself ....a much larger piece ...I had taken a break from it .
      I need to tidy my workroom .   You want to see my work room ?  O.K. Well , maybe next time .

 Remember those little pieces I embroidered  ?
 I ,ve prepared some linen with few more patterns  from " A Scholehouse for the Needle " by Richard Shorleyker published in 1624 .  I love these early English patterns .
 I,ll gather some more pretty crewel wool , my new cute scissors , a fresh needle , put all into my embroidery travel bag along with a good book and I,m ready for our next trip . Fun little pieces of history to pull out and work on , as and when I have a few minutes to spare . I,ll make them up into little things later on .
                       I cant wait to embroider that sweet clove scented Gillyflower .

Elsa Williams Small Tree of Life Crewel kit , nearly finished

Having saved the best bits till last , I,m now really enjoying this crewel kit . I,m working all the " Bittersweet " flowers and berries now . There are three shades of this colour , which are so subtle that it is very hard to distinguish between them ...but not impossible and the shading does make a difference . At last the picture begins to sparkle .
On the large blue flower ,F on the instruction leaflet , it says to do the stamens in gold  stem stitches and the pistils in gold bullion stitches ....however if you look at the picture of the completed  project on the front of the leaflet , it interestingly shows the stamens worked in medium light citron gold with a little bit of Bittersweet at the base of the stamens , which  I have done and think looks really nice . I just need to perfect the centre of this flower where the two upper petals meet .
 I,m going into some detail about this lovely vintage kit , in case anyone else should be thinking of doing it .
      A few more French knots to the flower centres and we should be done .