My sketch for this project had rough, thick lines for the oval shapes, and I wanted to recreate those in embroidery. Paper string, maybe, or a thin ribbon, couched. That’s where I paused at the last embroidery club meeting.

In the intervening two weeks, I had completely forgotten this plan, and was only reminded of it when I took out and unfolded the fabric. I did not remember it at all when packing my backpack this morning. Grabbed the embroidery project bag and that was that. No paper string.

Not willing to compromise with my vision, and also not interested in making up some random time-filler task for today, I improvised. Went on a material hunt through the community centre. Found a crumpled-up paper bag. Cut off a thin strip, coloured it mostly-black with an ordinary pen, and twisted it into my own black paper string. Not as durable as the store-bought stuff, but it doesn’t need to hold up to anything, so it’s all good.

The embroidery club isn’t just a group of embroidering together, with chatting and fika.

We have themed projects, we learn new stitches together, we arrange workshops.

We also share inspiration and ideas. People bring books, old or new, for others to browse. Embroidery books, of course, but also for example books on sewing with African printed fabrics. We share tips about ongoing and coming exhibitions and events. We show off older works.

I have been thinking of sewing a loose pocket or a small everyday handbag, and mentioned it two weeks ago. Another member said she’d made several. Yesterday she brought a bunch of them along and showed them to the rest of us. The design with a single band of fabric binding the sides together and also making up the shoulder strap seems like a good one.

Finished the rectangle shapes during today’s embroidery club meeting. I’m glad I didn’t use appliqué to make them. Stitching gave me a lot more to play with: stitch length, direction, density.

The embroidery I started on Thursday.

When my embroidery design has a solid-colour block with a relatively simple shape, my thoughts always go first to appliqué. I’m trying to break that habit and use stitches to fill the area instead. I get a more interesting surface this way, and I can challenge myself to learn new types of stitches.

This one is called “oriental stitch” in the few books where I’ve seen it, although most other sources use that name to mean something completely different.

The embroidery club has agreed on a theme for the autumn term – make something inspired by the books of Renée Rudebrant. I had been planning to not let myself be sucked into any kinds of themes again, but I do like Renée’s books, and her embroidery style, so I gave in. Put my cardigan decoration project aside and switched tracks. I still have a bunch of sketches from the workshop series with Renée Rudebrant that I attended a year ago. Back when I was in the middle of those workshops, I wished I had time to realize more of those sketches. Here’s my chance, I guess.

This design one was from the “shapes” exercise – one of the designs I really liked, but nevertheless discarded because it didn’t quite fulfil the requirements. Now there are no requirements (or, just a single, very loose one) and I can play with this again.

Our usual room at the community centre was locked for some reason, and no staff were around at this time of the day to let us in. We made do with a smaller room, which didn’t feel as cramped as it could have, since we were fewer than usual.

We’ve got everybody’s works in progress to fit on the table. Boxes or bags with threads and yarns and notions. Snacks, teas, water bottles. Phones and glasses. Embroidery-related books that someone has bought to show to the others.

Some of us make small projects with small stitches. My recent projects have been on the larger side, and I do like to spread my stuff out so that I can work comfortably.

The embroidery club started up today. I had considered continuing with some of the ideas from an embroidery course I did a year ago, or maybe with one of the printed fabrics from the workshop this spring, but I haven’t had time to look at what I have or what I want to do. Instead I picked something where I could just get going.

This brown cardigan is great but also not. It fits me well, the yarn is soft and warm, the colour is nice, the knitting is tidy. But: I made it an awkward length that I’m not happy with. It is unflattering on me, and I find it more and more difficult to ignore that. I already have a relatively long torso and shortish lower body; a too-long cardigan emphasises that even more. And the bottom hem hits right where I am broadest, which makes me look even more unproportional.

The way it’s constructed, I can’t just unravel the bottom and make it shorter. The next best thing is to redesign it to make it look shorter, by breaking up the long vertical with something horizontal, and to draw the attention away from the hips to the waist. Hence, a discretely colourful waistband.

Finished the embroidery on the long black cardigan. Even took the time to sew down all the ends with sewing thread so that I can allow it to flap open and the inside to become visible without being embarrassed about it.

Just after finishing it, I couldn’t decide whether it was done or needed more. Should I go over each line again, doubling its thickness, to give it more oomph? Adrian suggested adding leaves to the vines.

Now that it’s rested for a while (I’m catching up with the blog two weeks later) I do like the way it came out. It’s hitting just the right balance between restraint and wildness.

Simple stem stitch all the way, with wool thread. Two threads held together, of different colours, so the colour shifts slightly with each stitch. Greens at the bottom, fading to yellows in the middle and oranges and reds towards the top.

Today is World Embroidery Day. No more basement cleaning – I spent the whole day embroidering.

I have this long black cardigan that I bought online, second hand, a few years ago. Great quality, 100% wool, fits me perfectly – but it is so black. I’m not sure if I’ve worn it a single time, because I feel so dull and boring and washed-out in it. The plan has been for several years now to add colour to it, and I even had an idea for how that would look. I just hadn’t gotten around to it.

That wide unused space in the middle of my bedroom? Turned out to be a great place for planning and sketching out a large embroidery project. Spread it out without running out of table space; walk all around it without navigating around chairs and other furniture. I rather like working on the floor.

I was going to take a photo and then scribble on it digitally, but it was easier to “sketch” using contrasting sewing thread on the cardigan directly, and then take a reference photo of that.

Then I got stitching! Enjoyed stitching for the whole day, and was done with half of my design by the end of it.

Closing session for the embroidery club for this season, with a mini-exhibition and a potluck meal.

I almost managed to finish mounting my work in time, but gave up at midnight yesterday and left the last bits until later.