WIP: Sheep Metal

Welcome to the first non-365 project post of this blog! I'm looking forward to sharing other projects with you as I work on them throughout the year. I have a bunch of new projects ready to start at some point and the ideas keep coming. Not having a small piece to create every day has definitely given me some time back, and I intend to keep my daily stitching going. I try to spend about 30 minutes on a project each day outside of my stitch journal

First up: Sheep Metal. I can't find the original photo I saw online of someone using a grease guard for embroidery, but I loved it so much. I immediately purchased some grease guards and fine mesh sieves from the dollar store (I would love to find some vintage ones in the future) so I could try it out myself. I made a sampler of sorts on one of the sieves to see how stitches displayed on metal. Every stitch I tried worked, so I decided to actually start a project.



The project and design came together separately. I wanted to make something for my friend Kelly's kitchen using one of the grease guards. She told me to design whatever I thought would work. It wasn't until after I made the tiny sheep last May that the idea for the design happened. Kelly lives in a more rural area than I do, so the sheep seem fitting. They're also super cute and who wouldn't want super cute tiny sheep hanging in their kitchen?

I started working on the project last summer, but only in small snippets of time. Then I put it aside completely given the amount of work I was doing on the 365 project. I decided to make it my first project of 2022 - it needs to be completed. I've made some pretty good progress including adding four sheep and completing most of the sky.



There will be more sheep and I'm trying to decide if I want to add clouds. I think the sky will need something to break up the blue, so adding a few clouds makes sense. I may also add some grass blades sticking up so it looks like the sheep are grazing.

Like embroidering on paper (another favorite of mine), embroidering on metal does come with some challenges. Moving a needle through fine mesh metal is not as easy as moving a needle through fabric. I find thimbles and finger covers get in the way, so I don't bother. This is why I can only work on this project for short amounts of time. It can be harder to see where a stitch ends, so I finish a row completely before stopping. I did waiver on covering all of the metal, but I think you get the fact that this is metal and not fabric even with it fully covered. For my next metal project, I'm going to leave more metal exposed to see how I feel about that look. 

Overall, I highly recommend trying embroidery on metal. It's challenging (in a good way) and is such an unexpected canvas for thread. I bought all of the guards and sieves at a dollar store, so I didn't spend a lot of money on materials. Using vintage ones or gently used ones would be even better. I'll have to look online to see if I can find any. 

Week Two of the stitch journal is going well. I've been trying to scale smaller this week. I'm excited to share my progress on Saturday. 

Details:
Stitches: stem, split, and straight stitches, French knots
Thread palette: DMC Perle 5 800 (sky), DMC 904 (grass), DMC 310, B5200 (sheep) - 6 strands for all divisible threads. I may add two more colors to the sky (another blue and white) before I finish.

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