Practicing the caterpillar stitch

Now that I'm done with my girlie glam from Traci Bautista's Strathmore workshop, my attention must return to my caterpillar stitch book that I've set myself to do.  I looked again at Keith Smith's book (Volume III) as well as at the wonderful online tutorial posted by some generous Aussies.  Oh--and I also watched this great video of someone demonstrating the caterpillar.

Yet I was still strangely reluctant to begin.  But I am sick of tiptoeing around this, I want to get the book done and its parts off my dining room table, and I need to get it done pronto so I can make a quick trip journal for our long-weekend-vacation that we leave on in one week exactly.  So, no more delaying.

But . . . I still wasn't ready to poke holes and blaze forth.  I have decided to be an adult about this and actually do a prototype.  In general I never do those--waste of time and materials--but if I screw up my nice book covers, I will be disappointed, so I thought some practice might actually be in order here.  I grabbed a piece of scrap kraft card stock and some linen thread I picked up from WalMart for 99 cents, intending it for just such an occasion as this (i.e., one not to waste the good supplies on).  I used a candle flame to bend myself a second curved needle, and I used a black Copic marker to color half of the thread black in order to replicate using two different colors of thread.  (In reality, I just cut one long piece of thread and put needles on each end.)

Much to my great surprise, this was pretty simple.  I think watching the video and understanding that the back of the caterpillar looks like ladder rungs helped a lot.  And now I get it that one just continues onto the signatures from the front board (thanks, Risi).  Doing the practice was good because I realized that I need to poke my holes a little wider to allow the legs to be longer.  I am still not sure how one turns around to attach the back board, but I will go back to Keith's book and figure that out--although I guess I do have to do that before I start because I need to punch the holes for it.  Hmm.

I am encouraged by this!