Travel Stitches

Behind the Scenes

4 Mar

I learned an important lesson this morning!

Before I left for my trip to India, I had posted a nice little story about the small embroidery project I intended to take with me. This morning, when I opened my laptop, the very vague beginning of said post was still open - so I happily closed it. Well, it turns out I must have finished and uploaded the story from my desktop and the cyber-space gremlins will revert anything to ‘the latest open version’ so Bam! No more nice post….

Well you live and learn. I won’t make that mistake again in a hurry, that is for sure. I am not going to rewrite, but while I gather my thoughts and photos from my amazing trip, I will just quickly show what I popped in my luggage before I took off.

I Always travel with Needlework

I am just no good at not having anything in my hands to keep me busy. I have often taken small pieces of what I call ‘Doodle-Stitching’ - make it up as I go, pieces of embroidery with me. It is relaxing and fun to just play. So for the trip to India, I figured I would bring a piece of Doodle-Stitching for my monthly #coloricombo Challenge. It is my goal to stitch one of these small pieces each month. You can read more about it Here if you missed it.

The colour prompt from Esté MacLeod for the first week of February was: Tangerine | Lime green | Deep Red | Orange

Could it possibly be more perfect for a trip to a country as colourful as India?

The colour prompt for February was:
Tangerine | Lime green | Deep Red | Orange - Could it possibly be more perfect for a trip to a country as colourful as India?

The design fits into an 8cm square. I chose a firm linen/cotton blend fabric for this piece because I plan to cover it quite densely with stitches, so I needed a background that will support the embroidery.

Embroidery supplies for small project. — Picking colours is the fun part

I found a selection of threads in my stash - two shades of each of the four colours plus a couple of neutrals. They are mostly cotton, but I also have a bobbin of beautiful lime green silk.
My proper embroidery scissors go in my suitcase and the small travel scissors are fabulous for the plane trip.

Looking forward to my adventure, I planned to spend my time on the flights and on the bus trips between cities with needle and thread.

… the bus was too bumpy and the days too busy exploring but with a little stitch and there…

Of course I didn’t finish!

I am having fun with this and still have a small corner left to do. The colours are so vibrant, and there is not much contrast (except for the lime green, of course), so it has been a fabulous exercise in creating textures and lines in stitch so the individual shapes don’t blend into each other and get lost.