At October Crown I bought 2 bone needles for embroidery; I figured I would use them when stitching on wool. Stupid me, I never realized that they would break so easily, or not so easily. I was doing a simple chain stitch on a wool project and broke the tip off one of the needles. I was showing it to Josephus, and POP, off came another piece of the needle; so now I have a shorter needle than I started with. I almost tossed this in the trash, but thought “Hey! I can sand the tip to a point and I can still use this needle.”



At Collegium, I took an IKINS class on Or Nué. I actually got ¾ of it completed (the piece is a 1 ¼” X 1 ¼” square), but the gold diapered threads drooped on the sides and I ended up with a very bad wave on the upper part of the chalice. Normally, when I screw up this badly, I just trash the piece; then I either “forget” about learning the technique, or I rip it out and start over. If you have ever done Or Nué, you know the stitches are tiny and it is very tedious work to rip out the stitches. Well, I spent 2 hours ripping out the threads (very, very carefully); I did not damage the design, did not cut the linen and only lost about 4” of gold metal thread. I was pleased with myself. Now I do plan on redoing this piece and completing it soon.
Here is the photo before I ripped it all out....