Scenes of Country Life Casket

 Progress

It's been a while since I posted about my casket progress...or lack thereof is probably more accurate. I don't know what I do all day long, but whatever it is, it sure goes by quick cause every time I turn around, it's time to go to bed again. 

Whatever happened to the days dragging on like they did when we were little? I might be able to actually accomplish something if I had that kind of time on my hands...

There are two scenes on the front panel~ one of me fishing, and the other milking a cow. Because I have them framed up with the top panel on the same slate frame, the only way I can reach them to stitch is with them upside down...which in itself presents some challenges. One of the best qualities or reasons for stitching with flat filament silk is the effects that the light has on it. A person can stitch with a single colour, and just the position of the stitches and how the light bounces off them creates shadows and illusions of there being different shades of colours there, when in fact it's all the same colour. 

So shadows play an important part in stitching with filament silk...insert stitching tip here...very important.....

Your stitching can look one way upside down, and drastically different once turned right side up! So check it often if you find yourself in my same situation...

I started with the ground as usual, and decided I wanted to work a basketweave pattern for one of the fields, as seen above.

I have to continually remind myself that this is a FLAT work casket that is supposed to be mainly satin stitch. It is very hard. I actually worked the entire forefield and then decided I didn't like it...didn't like the colours, and most importantly, ever so slight as it was, the field stood too proud from the surface. The milk jugs were going to be long and short stitch, so very flat, and hello, you can't have milk jugs in the foreground that sit behind the field that is supposed to be behind them.

So the field got ripped out el mui pronto, which actually made me quite happy as the colours I had chosen for the field were giving me flashbacks to our 1970s kitchen with orange, brown, and green mushroom wallpaper...

I kept the diagonal direction and worked stripes in satin stitch~ love it! It set the field off dramatically from the one in the background without it being too obnoxious.

Once the field was finished I built the fence and planted some long leg french knot trees. Worked the milk jugs next and REALLY HATED them. I mean, seriously close to ripping them out. As I am typing this you can see EXACTLY what I'm talking about with the difference of how something looks upside down....the jugs above are the same ones as shown in the picture below~ I think the ones below that are upside down are much nicer than the ones above....anyways, I decided to leave them and see how they looked after the cow was finished.

Everything is so tiny on this piece, as I was stitching Cow, I had to stitch the milkmaid's head and hat. They are seriously small and the lines were seriously hard for me to see. Am I overusing the word seriously? This should give you an idea of how stressful this panel was for me~ it wasn't much fun. The girl's face is literally half the size of the fishing panel's face, I think 4 mm from top to bottom, and not even that wide. R*E*D*I*C*U*L*O*U*S*L*Y* small. 

Enter stitching tip here: Don't draw things so small you can't stitch them with modern materials available today.

Cow complete, it's on to the costume. 

I wanted to make the costume bright so the girl would stand out against the fields...but not so bright she looked stupid...A farm girl does not dress in her best dress to go out and milk a cow! The addition of an apron and headscarf helped to keep her simple.

Rows of French knots for the foreground in blue-greens set them apart from all the greens in the background. A few strategically placed tiny silk gimps finished off the scene.

 I am actually really pleased with this panel which is odd because I think out of all of them thus far, this one had the most things I was not happy with in it. I ripped a LOT out, but I also left a lot in. One thing is so true with 17th c stitching it can be very easy to become hyper-focused on a single aspect of it~ be it a stitch or a colour etc....but there's so much going on, that once everything is in place, all the glaring things just kind of blend and disappear. 

Sometimes they add just the amount of quirkiness that is needed to make it perfectly 17th c

Whatever your stitching, I hope it brings you joy