Blackwork Peacock Start

The Blackwork Peacock is a Tanja Berlin design and is one of my 2013 New Year’s Resolution projects.  At the Louisville EGA National Seminar, I took the Blackwork Pheasants class with Tanja.  I finished it and had it framed in 2010.

I purchased the Kingfisher and Peacock blackwork kits and have been wanting to work on them for some time now. Since I acquired the Peacock before the Kingfisher, I decided to work on the Peacock first. The first step is to trace the design outline on to tissue paper and baste it to the 32 count fabric with red sewing thread. After basting, the tissue paper is removed.  The red thread provides the outline of the areas to be filled with blackwork and will be removed later.  The project uses DMC black floss, DMC black #12 perle cotton, and four colors of Kreinik #4 very fine braid.

 

I’ve worked on the wing,

 

The shadow under the wing,

And the neck and stomach.

 

I like the evenness and the repetition of blackwork.  I can hardly wait to get back to work on this today.