Stitching with a Shimmy

Shimmying through life with needles and thread…

Archive for the ‘What I’m Working On’ Category

October 29th, 2012 by deRomilly

It’s been too busy. Want to retreat with me?

One of the bands for the retreat sampler...

Wow these past few months have been busy. I’ve been stitching up a storm, dancing, too. And writing. All the freelancing came home to roost this summer!  Eesh. It takes a bite out of the day, doesn’t it?

All I really want to do is go to the beach. So I got to thinking. I’ve just designed a beach sampler, of which the pulled work mermaid in this post is part. I want to go to the beach for a week. I’m sure some of you do, too. So why not make it a “thing”?

BEACH RETREAT in February!

I put all the details for the retreat on this page, with a link to a registration form. The sampler will be photographed in its entirety sometime in November. It’s sand colors, has cross stitch, pulled work, and some specialty stitches, and a small cut-work design that doesn’t have to be cut (there’s a cross-stitch option). Don’t panic if you’re new to any of this stuff — we’ll go slow, just one stitch at a time! There will be lots of time for stitching and walking on the beach and exploring the area, and even dancing.  I’d love to have you join me!

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May 10th, 2012 by deRomilly

What I’m Up To…

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I always feel like I need to keep to a strict schedule on the blog, and then life happens and I fall off the wagon. When this happens, I feel like I’m disappointing you, and me as well, since I love the communication we have through here!

If/when I take a day job (which is looking more and more likely every day), this is only going to become worse. How can I write for others, write for me, update my shops and still crank out designs? Eesh! It’s overwhelming. And don’t forget, teach dance, workout and dance for myself in there!

And yet there is this inner need for schedule. For consistency. For putting very specific types of posts on specific days. It’s like these days my overly logical side is in a tug of war with my creative side – and I can’t get either to put down the rope and work together. Heh. My inner world is a lot like the US Congress!

So for now I’m going to try to ease back into blogging – and TAST, for that matter. The TAST weeks where I managed to stitch improved my creativity immensely, and that’s a good thing. I’m not going to fret if I can’t keep up every week though.

I am going to try to keep up with the Thursday posts about what’s on the design table or embroidery frame, however. That’s the kind of thing I really want to keep sharing with all of you, and your feedback makes my week!

That said, stitching relieves stress. (Unless you add business stress TO your stitching!) Here’s an article a friend passed on to me about how more people are picking it up and why.

Enjoy! (And go stitch something!)

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February 2nd, 2012 by deRomilly

Imbolc…

Spring/Summer EmbroideryImbolc, or St. Brigid’s Day… Spring is springing. And with the weather yesterday hitting the upper 60s, it feels like it. It’s not supposed to feel like it! I’ve been working on a spring design. Or maybe a Summer design. I know there are going to be four, and this is either spring or summer!

This one is an intermediate-level freestyle embroidery design. It’s intermediate mostly because Peking knots in gold thread are a pain to do; not because of any real difficult stitches. ;) But it’s almost tested, the fabric is ordered to stitch a model, and hopefully that means I can offer a kit to all of you sometime very very soon!

The knots around the bee have been removed, along with the gold running stitch (the latter by accident while removing  the knots) because they were just too big in the Kreinik braid. So now the dotted line is in the braid, and the knots are in one strand of DMC metallic – thought THAT is going to change, as I detest working with the stuff, and wouldn’t impose it on anyone if I can avoid it! But I don’t have any pictures of the new version.  Click on either of the photos to see more detail.

Today is also my TENTH wedding anniversary. Wow. Who’d have thunk it?!  The EO is a wonderful guy, my inspiration, and a good part of my strength. I’d probably do just fine without him, but he makes life so much better by being here. I hope I do half as much for him. We won’t be celebrating today. For 10 years, every time we’ve tried, something has interfered – often physically (like me breaking my elbow on the way to the sushi restaurant…). We no longer give it the opportunity-maybe in a couple weeks. Maybe. But we won’t tell the universe what we’re doing!

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