Wall Hanging-Blackwork

When I was sitting in a Library couple of years back, I found this book called Black Work Embroidery. At that time I was a student doing my MS in Computer Engineering and I had loads and loads of homework to complete. But, picked up that book, took it home and was amazed to see different designs. Then I had to keep it aside as I had to concentrate more on my paper work.

Then after few years, married and when pregnant, I wanted to learn something new to remember that I did something useful and not just sat around doing nothing. That is when I thought about this Black Embroidery and went back to the local library. Actually I had forgotten the name of the book and had to do a lot of search but luckily found it and the next project was to buy the aida fabric. I then started searching on eBay and found it to be very expensive. Later made a trip to Michaels and found the aida fabric and the price was less, so I grabbed a large piece and walked home. I picked up a nice design from the book that had various stitches and then started drawing the outline with a pencil. Half way through realised that it is going to get very big, so I took it only 1/4th of the design and made it shorter and here is how it looks.

I badly wanted to work this on a white fabric to make it as a saree for my mom, but never got the fabric. Someday, I will and someday I will make it.

Velvet Black and Red Wall Piece

I made this one with Black and Red velvet paper. I searched for this kind of paper everywhere, online, stores like Michaels, A.C Moore, Ben Franklin crafts but nobody even knew about this paper. Back in India, I used to make a lot of designs for walls and greeting cards for friends with this paper. This paper is so versatile that you can make anything out of it. But, unfortunately it is not available in the US. I had to ask my mom to bring all colors avaialable in India for me when she came to visit me. The one I have at home in India is a similar one but the colors I used were yellow and maroon and I added two peacocks on the two sides. I made a simple one for me.

You can make this too in just 2 or 3 hours. All you need is a black and red velvet paper. Cut Red velvet into mini circles, gel them as you wish and put a jewel in the center. I bought these jewels from Michaels, these are called acrylic jewels.