Good morning, and Happy Monday!
I would love to tell you how great things turned out last week with the eye procedure, but in fact, it hasn’t happened yet. It was delayed until today, so I’ll be heading in for that shortly. There’s nothing quite like extending the anxiety factor just a little bit longer!
I love starting a week this way. It’s get better, though! The front half of my house is being demolished this week. I admit, I’m keen to watch the progress on that.
In any case, that’s where we are. 2023 is off to such a great start. There’s nothing for it, but to laugh!
Today, I’m just doing a bit of housekeeping on the website again, by way of another project index, this time for Jacobean Sea and its bird variation.
One of the most popular projects here on Needle ‘n Thread in the past couple years is called Jacobean Sea. It’s a Jacobean design, interpreted in colors that I associate with the seaside – blues, blue-greens, sea glass shades, coral, and sand.
The design is embroidered in silk on white linen, and it incorporates some beaded accents as well. It involves a wide variety of stitches and techniques.
At the same time that I embroidered Jacobean Sea, Anna embroidered a variation of the design (Jacobean Bird) with DMC threads in a similar color scheme.
Eventually, Jacobean Sea will come out as a kit and as a downloadable PDF – this year, I hope! We have the supplies ready to go. I just need to finish the instructions.
I blogged about the progress on both projects, but I never created a project index. So here’s the index of all the articles associated with Jacobean Sea (and bird). It starts at the very beginning, including trials and re-dos.
If you browse through the articles, you’ll find tips and ideas and thought processes along the way that might be useful for your own embroidery projects. Enjoy!
Early Attempts & Trials with the Design
Beginning in 2019, this design experienced many starts and stops. At first, I couldn’t seem to get into it, no matter how I tried to approach it. It wasn’t until the next year when I finally went with silk threads in a completely different color palette with a complete different vision for the project that things finally started to tick.
Here’s a list of the earlier attempts:
A New Embroidery Project & the Start-Up Thrills (March, 2019) – This was the first time I approached the design. I had something completely different in mind for it at that time, but it morphed into something else eventually.
Weekend Stitching: Thinking through Whitework – Still working with the whitework concept for this design, on a blue ground fabric.
Embroidery Ground Fabric Matters – Here, I play with the same design on a different ground fabric.
Rethinking & a New Start (April, 2019) – I decided to try a different approach with the ground fabric… again.
Project Preparation, Color Selection, & Beads – at this point, I consider floche as a thread for this project, in shades of blue and white. With beads!
Jacobean Blues (July 2019) – Still not quite getting there with this project. Stitching a bit with the blue and white floche, but not quite feelin’ it!
Weekend Embroidery: Changing my Mind – Still testing various approaches.
Finally Moving onto Jacobean Sea
In 2020, I restarted the project and chose a completely new color palette with silk threads, with a white linen ground fabric. At the same time, I set up a variation of the design on natural linen, featuring a bird in the design and using DMC stranded cotton instead of silk. Anna stitched the bird variation while I worked out the original design.
First Embroidery Projects of 2020 – (January, 2020) Setting up Jacobean Sea and some other projects for early 2020.
New Color Palette – Not So New Embroidery Project – (April, 2022) – selecting silks and the color palette for what would become Jacobean Sea.
Stem and Fillings on Jacobean Sea
The Other Jacobean Project – Introducing the bird variation, worked in cotton
Jacobean Progress: Embroidery, Beads, and Mistakes – this shows progress on both projects
Jacobean Thing 1 and Thing 2 Progress
Rippit, Rippit – Removing some stitches and trying again on Jacobean Sea.
Gertrude is Back and Better than Ever – the Jacobean bird progress
Two Down, Two to Go – Jacobean Sea progress
Ta Dum! The Finished Project with Close-Ups – at long last, the project is finished.
Jacobean Sea & Jacobean Bird Plans
As mentioned above, I plan to release Jacobean Sea in a limited kit a little later this year, with the project instructions also available as a downloadable PDF. The downloadable PDF for the project will include the bird variation, in case people prefer working the bird or want to work both.
So that’s the plan with this project. I’m not promising any deadlines because, as you can see from the way things are going so far this year, Life has a way of intervening in the best-laid plans.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy browsing through the progress on those projects and that you find some worthwhile information in the series!
You’ll find this index listed under “Tips & Techniques” in the main menu on Needle ‘n Thread.
Oh Mary! This is exciting news indeed! I have been waiting for such news to be released by you. I so hope I will be able to purchase the kit before it sells out, for I’m sure it will go oh so quickly! I hope you will offer a sign up for additional kits as I just know I won’t be fast enough, being on the west coast. (Those early birds always get the worm before I even know it’s up!) 🙂
Hi, Erin – Thanks so much for your enthusiasm! I’ve been pretty good about running new launches later in the day, so that the West Coast has a chance. 🙂 Also, if you’re on Patreon, patrons usually have an early shopping time. It’s a difficult balance, but I do know that the first run of this kit is not nearly as large as the first runs of most other kits. It is a fairly expensive kit, since it contains full skeins and pools of many types and colors of silk. It’s a “big” kit!
I’m glad you’re excited about it! It will be a little while yet before it comes out – I don’t expect we will have it ready before mid summer.
Dear Mary
The project Jacobean Sea & Jacobean Bird piece above is beautiful and such lovely bright colours. I do like the added bird with its bright colours, it reminds me of spring which is not to far away. It’s a shame you can’t send the kit outside the US, but I do understand, it’s so expensive. Anyway thank you for sharing with us the forth coming project Jacobean Sea and Jacobean Bird project, it’s lovely.
Regards Anita Simmance