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.
