BOUGHS, HOOPS AND STRIPS
More progress on the big sampler:
I’ve finished out the excerpt from the big Lipperheide repeat and started another. This pattern appears on the same plate as the one I just finished. Like it, this one was originally worked voided. It turns out to have the exact north-south stitch count I need to eke out the horizontal row, getting ready for a darker, wider strip at the project’s bottom edge. It’s also an extremely quick one to stitch up. The bit above only took about an hour or so.
Anna asked me what kind of hoop I’m using, and whether or not I’ve padded it. I reply:
It’s a 7-inch Hardwicke Manor hoop I bought from Hedgehog Handworks, about 10 years ago, but didn’t use until recently. In part because I’d been on an extended vacation from stitching, and in part because I didn’t like the way it tensioned the fabric. At 5/8″ wide it grabbed nicely, but never maintained the tightness I prefer for double running stitch. So finally tiring of my ancient dime store bamboo hoop last month, I got some standard fabric store issue half-inch white twill tape and carefully wrapped the bottom of my Hardwicke frame. It’s hard to see, but the tape is angled at 45-degrees, and overlaps by roughly half a width on each wrapping. The end is tucked underneath and stitched to the bottom hoop’s inside (left on the image, where the lump is), to keep the outside perimeter bump-free. The hoop’s screw closure is long enough to handle the extra diameter of the wrapping. About six turns of the screw’s threading are visible, and I had just popped the thing off the work for the photo.
I now love this hoop. The twill tape cushions the work and minimizes crush and holds the ground cloth drum tight. However wrapping the bottom hoop does reduce the effective stitching area by decreasing the inside diameter. Even with cushioning I would not recommend using a hoop for anything other than flat surface stitching using cottons. When I stitch with silk, metallics, or use any sort of raised or heavily textured stitch I pull out a flat frame.
Where is the crowdsourced pattern of the week? I’ve got a very nifty motif queued ready to go, but it’s only one panel. I’m hoping for at least one more before I post the next update.(Hint, hint…)
Aside: Hoping all on the East coast were spared overly much grief with Irene. Only minor damage here in the leafy close-in suburbs outside of Boston:
Half a tree down, blocking our street, and another big limb in our back yard. Thankfully both fell with surgical precision, missing every structure, vehicle, power line and comms wire. I bow to the courtesy of my neighborhood vegetable friends. Also to the amazingly diligent Arlington, MA DPW crew, that had this cut up and hauled away within 45 minutes of the tree’s fall!
Finally, for folk who landed here looking for Ensamplario Atlantio. (Word is still spreading about it.) It’s here.
STREAKING ACROSS SKIES- CROWDSOURCE #5
Although it is in the periodic nature of comets to come and go, I owe apologies to The Person Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous for inadvertently omitting her tribute to the Bayeux Tapestry from the crowdsource project updates. The inbox management blunder that made that mistake has been taken out and shot.
This week brought five additions to the project, including the belated comet:
- 27. Comet – a tribute to Halley’s Comet as it appeared in the Bayeux Tapestry – Karen Isaacson.
- 28. Mesmer-Flower – A mind bending cross-style flower from from Alexandra Rule
- 29. Anchor – A continuation of our maritime sub-theme also from Alexandra Rule
- 30. Bumblebee – We need more insects if we want to pay homage to the spirit of historical era stitching. This one is from Laura Kathleen Brashear.
- 31. Strawberry – Another for the traditional motif sub-theme, again from Laura Kathleen Brashear.
I’m having way too much fun with these. You can see that we’ve still got room for eight more full-diamond designs, and for about five more that are symmetrical and that can be represented in the half-diamond boxes at top and bottom.
With some overlap among categories, our sub-themes so far seem to be piratical/nautical (1, 16, 20, 21, 3, 29), science fiction (26, 23, 24, 11), sweetness-and-light (31, 22, 6, 10, 18, 13, 4), traditional (31, 30, 26, 5, 6, 3, 25, 13, 7, 16, 9, 12, 14, 10, 12), astronomic (27, 20, 31, 11), beasties-and-bugs (30, 19, 16, 6, 17, 3, 2, 16), and floral-fruits (26, 5, 25, 13, 7, 9, 12, 14, 10, 8). This leaves poor ennui (15) sitting in the corner and sulking, unless you think that by virtue of “Meh” being a popular Think-Geek t-shirt, he belongs in with SF.
If anyone has started stitching something using these, I’d love to hear about it.
BIGGER INSIDE THAN OUT? – CROWDSOURCE #4
First, thanks this week to our crowdsource design contributors – the patient Jane Wyant, and (as always) Long Time Needlework Pal Kathryn Goodwyn:
- #25 – Grapes – Kathryn’s own needlework sigil, offered up to our collection. (Kathryn’s deep love of grape motifs is legendary).
- #26 – TARDIS – From Jane Wyant, a Whovian tiny inter-dimensional call box should we wish to stitch in two places at the same time.
We’ve still got a few open diamonds. With some repositioning I think I can fit in seven more motifs. Feel free to send yours along.
On my own blackwork sampler, progress is being made. My Lipperheide panel is proceeding apace.
I am not going to have room for the entire repeat. There’s a head of one of the four winds (possibly Boreas), and a horn tooting satyr that will have to wait their turn on a future piece. Unless Kathryn gets there first. 🙂
After I finish out this strip to the left hand edge of the stitched area I will fill in a narrower band below the sprigged chimney pots. Then I’ll edge across the entire bottom with something nice and dark – probably worked voided style. I haven’t picked out the designs for either of those strips yet, but as folk following here know, I enjoy bungee jump style stitching. Once the dark area is done that will leave only the top. Believe it or not, the part you see stitched here is only about 65% of my total piece. I’m not sure what I’ll do up there, but that’s still down the road.
SUNSETS AND SPANIELS
A break from the crowdsource project this week. No new designs came in, so unless I cheat and post more myself, there’s no update. Feeling shy about submitting a design – please don’t be! We’re delighted to see your efforts, whether it’s your first venture into drawing a pattern, or if you’re an old pro.
Instead I share progress on my own sampler. As you can see, I finished the last band, described as “sprouting chimney pots” by Long Time Needlework Pal Kathryn:
And Kathryn is also to blame for the new band. She was gracious enough to lend me Kathleen Epstein’s Old Italian Patterns for Linen Embroidery – a redaction of one of the legendary Lipperheide volumes. This is the only design on the sampler that will not be offered in my upcoming sequel to TNCM because it’s in that book. If you’re familiar with the original you’ll see that I have adapted slightly:
My variation differs in the way that the background’s handled. I won’t be working this one voided like the original. I also tinkered a bit with some of the interior elements, the banding for example right under the central cherub. In the original the darker little vertical elements are filled in with cross stitches. Mine uses plain ladder like elements, which I repeat elsewhere in the piece. Thanks, Kathryn! You remain my chief enabler, even after all these years. 🙂
Now where do spaniels and sunsets come in? For spaniels, that’s easy to see: the odd little critter in the lower right hand corner. He’s got a spaniel-like fluffy tail, foot feathers, and floppy ears. Even the stylized dark area on his middle is reminiscent of the classic saddle-area markings on a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (a breed that was fashionable at in the 1500s-1600s.) As I worked him I could almost hear him barking at the cherub that will stand to his right (you can see the cherub’s hand and lower face at the edge of the stitched area). And if you’re eagle-eyed you’ll see the two mini-mistakes at the left hand edge of the completed work. Hint: I’ll be picking out the left hand lady’s upper arm and the hairline of the central angel-face.
Sunsets? That’s implied. This week’s vast amount of progress is brought to you by an impromptu mini-vacation the Resident Male and I took for part of last week – sans children, the youngest being in summer camp and the oldest being trusty enough to leave on her own. Three blissful days of embroidering while watching the tide roll in and out, basking in Outer Cape sunsets, wiggling toes in hot sand, snarfing up some fine food, and enjoying a production of A Winter’s Tale. I am now armed against the inexorable slide back to fall, school, heavy deadlines, December, and snow.
Finally, for folk who landed here looking for Ensamplario Atlantio. (Word is still spreading about it.) It’s here.
String-Or-Nothing 