More on the Canvaswork Penknife case

When you last saw this panel, there were gaps. They’ve now been filled with green cross stitches.

Yes, that works, I like the way the Caron Collection Watercolours thread runs from yellow to orange, the brown provides a bit of stability, and the green ties the inside and outside together. . It’s not the stitch pattern I was aiming for (I’m not sure what went wrong), but I like it.

However, that was, if I am honest, the last easy thing about this canvaswork!

I wanted to put a different stitch on the back, maybe more hardwearing, because I was considering using the finished object on belt loops. This, however, isn’t it.

Again, somewhere along the line it’s not the stitch pattern I was aiming for, and I’m not sure quite what happened. Suffice it that reading charts and diagrams seems to be a somewhat episodic skill for me, and I am at present in an “Off” period!

Furthermore, the coverage I want is requiring too many passes, too much tangling, and looking altogether too busy. Out it comes!

In the end, I went back to Mosaic Stitch.

It is built up in a rather haphazard fashion of zigzags, starting with two rows in the Watercolours thread, again, then moving outward with soft cotton in two shades of brown and adding a few details in a goldeny mustardy pearl type thread that I think is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately I’ve not the vaguest idea where I got it from, or when. It might even be silk – and here’s me putting it on a cover for a penknife!

Oh well, better to enjoy using it than have it sitting in a box asking me When it will Get A Chance To Play!

---

Penknife Case In Canvaswork

I’ve decided this penknife needs a case. (Of Course I Have!).

Canvaswork is often a good choice for this sort of thing, and I’m going to try to keep to stash. That may make things a bit harder, because my canvas is not especially fine, and as it turns out I don’t have much that’s suitable for that count of canvas.

I have prior experience of making something that ended up too small to do the job, so this looks very much too big. By the time it’s done, it might be the right size, but if it’s too big, even with padding and lining, I’ll simply start again, and use this for something else!

I actually started with the grey flecked yarn. It has flecks of green, and a browny-orangey colour, so I thought that might make an interesting challenge to combine. The panels are outlined in Mosaic Stitch, using a soft cotton in a green that goes with the green flecks. The grey had to be used double, so I think this is going to be quite a close run thing to get to the end with enough yarn to do the job!

The next panel started as Pavillion Steps, from Jo Ippolito Christensen, but I couldn’t quite make sense of the diagram, so it’s become something much simpler. Caron Collection (Wildflowers, I think) in one direction, soft cotton in the other, both of them used double to achieve reasonable coverage.

It’s clear I need to fill in that gap with Something, so now I need to rootle around in the stash to find something suitable. Several somethings suitable, in fact, as I don’t think the remaining stock of these threads will be enough for the rest of the case. I can do more Mosic stitch on the back, perhaps, but making sense of the top flap if I can’t run the same pattern across it is going to take a bit of thinking about.

---