I was asked by Carla from Sceal Teach to answer a few questions about my TeresaWenztler stitching and a bit about myself. I’ve sent her some details but I’ve answered the other questions here. The interview on her blog is February 4th and she’s had some great interviews this month.
How many Teresa Wentzler patterns have you stitched?
Completed:
- Think Snow! (on a sweatshirt for my brother – a skier during a drought year)
- All Six Rocking Horses (Chestnut, Dancer, Diamond, Misty, Sweetheart, and Trotter)
- Knotwork Bookmark
- Stretch (on Pillowcases)
- Tempest (on the pocket of a shirt)
- FutureCast
- All the freebie ornaments
- Under the Evergreen
- Fantasy Sampler – The 1994 DMC color change almost ruined this piece. However 6 years hanging in full sun fixed the issue.
- Winter Carousel Horse
- My piece of Peacock Tapestry for TW (a group on the board stitched it for her since she didn’t have it)
- The Byzantine Ornaments
- The TW Round Robin (Seven Samplers, Seven People)
On the WIP list:
- Fruit Bellpull
- Spring Carousel Horse
- Fall Carousel Horse
- Summer Carousel Horse
- Fortunate Traveller
- Dragon Ride
Patterns I have all kitted up and ready to go once I finish something on the WIP list
- The Carousel
- Peaceable Kingdom
- Carousel Rabbit
- Carousel Goat
- Holly and Ivy Sampler
- Tracery Dragons
- The Dragon and the Princess
- 12 Days of Christmas
- Gentle Creature
- Pegasus
- Unicorn
- Peacock Majesty
What made you decide to take on the Peacock Tapestry?
Teresa often came to her Yuku board and in conversation with some of the stitchers she mentioned that she didn’t have stitched copies of some of her pieces. Peacock Tapestry was one of those. So we hatched what was known on the TWBB as “an evil plot.” We decided to stitch PT for Teresa. There was an organizer who divided the pattern and gridded the fabric. We each did a section. I believe my section was 4 x5 blocks part of the border, some of the leaves and an edge of tail.
For you, what was the most difficult part of stitching the Peacock Tapestry?
Getting my section done in the 3 week time slot before I had to mail it to the next person. Oh, and I hate backstitching.
Any advice for those stitching or planning to stitch this pattern?
Teresa has said many times that PT is the hardest of her pieces. The Castle is usually the recommended starting piece after the freebies for getting into her designs. Teresa is often called the Queen of Blended threads with good reason. The detail in a Teresa Wentzler design comes from the subtlety of her color changes. She achieves that with blended DMC.
With all the confetti stitching, it’s really easy to lose count of where the stitches go and where you are. I find it helps to take either Sulky thread or Accentuate and grid out the blocks of the pattern. I pull out the grid threads as I finish the block in that area. I like the Accentuate because it’s difficult to pierce while stitching.
Oh, Please tell us about the World Wide TWBB GetTogether, how you ended up moderating the Diminutive Dragons forum and what you are doing with it now..
The cool thing about Teresa is she enjoys talking to her fans and she loves to see how they do her designs. Back in 2000, I was invited to Pennsylvania where Teresa suggested we have a get together for the stitchers on the board. It took some time but we put together an event in Las Vegas in 2004. Teresa gave us all the first shot at Knotwork Bookmark and Futurecast. We also had a lesson on Hardanger from Julie Norton, a trip to Stitcher’s Paradise and an awards night.
I was approached by an all board moderator and asked if I would be willing to take the diminutive dragon since I had stitched them all (this was pre-Rampant) . As for my plans for Diminutive Dragons, I would love to just get people visiting the TWBB again. It seems that since we all joined Facebook and Teresa had life hit her hard so she didn’t have a lot of designing time, the place is a ghost town. When it was active we used a lot of acronyms and there is an acronym page which is announced in one of the forum titles. Teresa does still answer questions in the Ask Teresa section but usually someone else knows the answer and will point you to where it is.
Also, 2011 was the year of Carousel Horses – feel free to browse the posts..Archive is on the right.
If any of the TWBB crowd see this and want to help support Carla with her year of TW stitching – feel free to leave comments here or on her blog.
Just So you Know 
Annette
/ February 3, 2014Holy moly – this brings back serious memories! LOL Did you know the hotel we stayed at in Vegas no longer exists? Kinda sad… 😦
Sylvia
/ February 3, 2014I’m with you. I wish we could get more people to visit the TWBB. I loved it there when there. It was easy to get any info you wanted about any of TW’s designs. When Teresa announced her retirement and Blogs became big the number of people visiting went down greatly and then Facebook came along and drew even more people away. We only have so much time to hang out online if we are going to stitch all those TWs and other designs in our lifetime. I have started stopping by several times a week. Often you and Jen are the only people who have posted. Can we create a button to but on our Blogs to promote the year of TW and link it to the TWBB? I don’t know how to make one do you?
shondratasha
/ February 3, 2014Carla created one. If you click the link to her blog – you’ll see it. Ask her if you can use it. Also, please volunteer to be interviewed.
Nancy
/ February 4, 2014Thank you so much for doing the interview, The year of TW is a small group that is having a lot of fun, and meeting other stitchers is becoming a great aspect of it. I’m now off to check the TWBB.
Leonore Winterer
/ February 5, 2014Wow, it’s really impressive how many of the patterns you already have done – this coming from someone still struggling with her first TW =) Thanks for the interview, it was a real inspiration. I visited the TWBB at some occasions, but thought it was mostly dead so I didn’t bother posting yet
Maybe I should change that soon!
Magical
/ February 5, 2014An awesome interview – thanks so much for doing this
Having just received TP in the post I can see how it is considered to be one of the more difficult pieces… the list of threads is scary!