Princeton EGA has a blockbuster October General Meeting

Our program for October was a goldwork session, led by Carol P. and Liz A., with two main motifs: a dove presented and taught by Carol, and a hedgehog, designed and taught by Liz, both on Thai silk provided by Carol, and intended to be ornaments, hung for the holiday season.

There was a great turnout, and six members did the dove, six did the hedgehog, very symmetrical!  the dove involved couching with Jap thread, the hedgehog needed couching, with the addition of working with purl thread, brought from India by a friend of Liz for our use.  Everyone plunged in bravely and it was a great afternoon.

Here's the how-to for the hedgehog, which Liz created, to show how to proceed. The red color on the lower piece is nearer the actual rl color of the silk.  Some members also worked on a beautiful blue-green piece.

Finished hedgehog here, with couched face, curving irregularly,  to give an idea of character and personality, stitched black eye and pink nose.

And here you see the drawn motifs under the work,  the cutout motif pinned to the silk, then on the right the drawn outline, and in the hoop the hedgehog in progress.  The hoop you see is a four inch one, to give you an idea of the size of the motif.  The doves came in choice of sizes, also fitting within a four inch hoop.

 Members were able to create their own outline, using the hedgehog cutout,  then adding in, freehand,  the curve to form the face.  This is an intermediate step to creating your own design. 

On the left you see the sueded fabric used for cutting the purl thread onto, and for easily lifting it off onto the needle.  This saves a lot of flying purls, since it's a tightly curled spring in form, and will vanish as you cut it unless you cut right over this kind of surface where it clings.  Velvet works great for this, too. 

A reminder: cut your purls into short pieces, a quarter inch or less,  slide one onto your threaded needle, then using both hands, gently stretch it slightly, before proceeding to stitch it on as if it's a bead.  The thread goes back into the fabric at the place it came out, causing the purl to create a hoop shape.  Another stitch locks it in place before you do the next purl piece.  Just do this until your hedgehog has a full coat of curls!

A future Princeton EGA blogpost will bring you pictures of finished doves and hedgehogs, at least that's the plan.

We also had a Show and Tell, with two terrific works from Cynthia C., who shows here a Shaker box, with the addition of her work on the lid, which she attached using magnets on the inside, very inventive idea. 

And there's a detail, so you don't miss just how skilled this work is.

 She also brought us a marvelous piece of fine needlepoint, many ideas and stitches and color decisions in this piece

Tom's finished Santa tree skirt is here, 

and a detail showing some, guess what, goldwork.  

This whole large work is a real tour de force of stitching.

And then there was what we might call Tom's Great Shopping Find -- two very fine pieces of goldwork, bought for a song at an antiques fleamarket. 

Tom, having embarked recently on goldwork, realized just what he was looking at, and snapped them up.  Karen G. commented, when we saw them, it was just as well the rest of the group weren't there, otherwise there might have been a brisk competition for ownership of these pieces!

And in the category of This is Such a Great Idea, why Didn't I Think of it, presented by Lyna, is the organizer, a three ring binder with zip closing, which she populated with ziploc freezer bags each containing project materials.  

She punched holes in the bottoms of the bags, leaving the ziploc tops available to open easily, reinforced the punched holes with tape, and created a great idea which several members plan to steal asap!