My Punch Needle Adventure

There will be more of these!

Well I have had an adventure! The lovely peeps at Clover sent me one of their  embroidery stitching tool (essentially a punch needle by another name).

Everything that you need.

I am using the needle for medium fine yarn which takes a thin 4 ply wool easily.

I had to use mustard yellow on it somewhere!

I had never used one before but they are everywhere and having a real moment. Well, I can see why too. They are easy to use, you can use really cheap yarn for a good effect and it is just fun and satisfying - and strangely cathartic to repeatedly stab something. maybe I need to have some help with that last bit!

I have this thing for round things - I inherited that trait from my grandfather.

Because this was an experiment for me, this bog post is rather general and I will have another coming with some more coherent hints and tips.

I actually like the black braid. It frames it nicely and hides my dodgy edges.

When I was in primary school, if we had finished the set work, we were allowed to amuse ourselves quietly while everyone else caught up. Normally for me, that meant reading but on occasion, I would take a piece of paper and some coloured pencils, draw a random line and then colour the bits in.
I have actually been searching for ages (basically since) for a way to translate this fun-at-the-time activity into something more grown up.

I did end up with a lot of ends on the back and I don't think that this is right. Technique tweak needed!

I am a bit happy that I have found it! Because this was an experiment, I took a piece of scrap canvas and some very cheap acrylic wool and with a water soluble marker, I drew what I thought was a random line - a friend of mine pointed out that it looked like two people shaking hands. I later saw that one of the figures was pregnant with twins! I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of it all.

Smoothly repetitive work

Anyway, I drew a random and curly line. This sort of embroidery is worked from the back and in a hoop. I worked the black line first just to see where the design borders were.
Then I started colouring in...

Easy to do and filled in really quite quickly

Loved the texture on the front. Even with really cheap yarn, it looked nice.

On reflection, I would not use a fabric with a pattern - or i might turn it over so that the 'right side' isn't so dark. But it wasn't meant to work....

I can see the people now!

Well anyway, the great thing is that it is mindfully repetitive and at the same time, a total zone out. I did it in front of Netflix (as you do) and it was soooo relaxing.

I am sure that the ends are not supposed to be there!

Once it was finished, I glued it into the frame and added a black braid border...

It is not usual to put the braid border on but it finished it off quite nicely.

A bit of scrap interfacing filled in the back and then I sealed it off with some black felt. 

Perfectly boho

Well that's it until next time! I will do something else and put some proper instructions up. It is fun and it is a tool worth chasing.

You can find out about stockists in the UK from clover@stockistenquiries.co.uk

See you next time!
Debs
xx