kofi

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Embroidery cover-ups

I don't know about you guys but I love charity shops. Charity shops is one of the things that I am missing badly on Fuertevetura, so during this year's holidays in the UK I kept buying and buying stuff in the charity shops. Fortunately, by now I learned stopping myself from buying something that I definitely not going to use — woollies. I concentrated on summery things, with one exception — this jeans jacket, which hopefully will be useful when Canarian winter strikes with its usual fierceness.

Now to "what I've done" bit. Charity shop things often have small defects on them, which I guess are reasons why the previous owners part with their much-loved stuff in the first place. This jacket was no exception — although in good condition, it had a small hole on the back of the right sleeve. And that was a good reason to exercise my (not-that-extensive) embroidery skills.

Of embroidery I know very little, practically nothing, and do even less. But one thing that I do I learned a while ago — creative darning using the chain stitch. It's an extremely useful stitch, as it is very flexible and once you've decided what figure are doing, you just sort of fumble you way along, correcting and adjusting as needed. I did my first cover-up years ago embroidering a little lizard on my best, but by-then-old, sweater. People who know me and Kirill personally might now go "ah-ha!" finally discovering the explanation for sudden appearance of color matching animals, flowers and other patterns on our garments.

This little tribal sun is not the best thing I did, but it'll do and this jacket will hopefully serve another few years.

Other crafty pics on Shutterstock