Underwater scene 6

If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted for quite a while – the reason is I’ve been spending more time with my son. As a stay-at-home single mom who works from home on my computer, I was always busy. Since we live in a farmhouse,there’s always one work or another. If he had noone to play with, my son would be glued in front of the T.V. or engrossed in his computer games. Although we lived under the same roof, we were in different worlds. Nowadays, I make it a point to spend more time with him. Rather than cooping up inside the house, I take him outdoors, cycling, watching our cow grazing, birds making nests, peacock’s dance or just take a walk in this beautiful countryside, enjoying the lovely sunrise, sunset, moon and stars.

For this to happen, I finish all my chores before he returns from school. I encourage him to go out and meet people. Slowly, he’s building his self-confidence. He enjoys the outdoors more than indoors. When he has noone to play with, I’ll join him. Normally, I would do my shopping and pay my bills when he was at school. But, nowadays I take him wherever I go. My advice to all mothers out there – be there for your children, not only physically but also mentally. Expose them to the outside world – take them to gatherings, weddings, funerals etc. Let them mingle with other children, rich or poor. Take a public transport with your children just for the fun of it – they will enjoy meeting people. Start all this at a young age. Believe me, I’ve seen the difference in my son in a very short period (one month). Not only that, I’m beginning to feel the difference in my life, as well.

That’s my real world. Now to my virtual world – blogging. These days, I embroider only when he’s at school. To fill a vacant spot in my underwatwe scene, I’ve decided to stitch a jellyfish, though it wasn’t my favourite choice.

I started with the tentacles. I’ve made running stitch on each tentacle and then inserted one strand of pearl cotton no:8 thread into the stitch.

Here, I’ve made buttonhole knots on the thread with one strand from the six-strand thread. Work buttonhole/blanket stitch at the bottom of the body (pearl cotton no:8).Sorry for the quality of the picture.

With one strand of pearl cotton, work buttonhole knots on the buttonhole/blanket stitch (please refer frilled buttonhole stitch). Stitch horizontal bars on the body, as shown.

Bring the needle up at the top of the body, insert the needle under the first bar and pull the thread.

Continue downwards. This stitch is called ‘chebron stem filling stitch’. When you reach the bottom, enter the fabric.

To continue, come back at the top and repeat the process. After completing 2 columns at the left, I’ve decided to fill the right side. Please note the position of the needle.

This is the stitch in progress. Alternate between left and right. For convenience, use 2 sets of needle and thread.

Here, the body is halfway filled. As the whole top has been filled, bring the needle up at the position shown and continue to fill.

The whole body has been filled up. There’s a slight difference in the shades of white since 2 different types of threads were used.

To view completed pattern, please click here.