CONTINUING EXPERIMENTS
The Grand Experiment of splitting the individual plies of my vintage six-ply Pearsall’s silk floss into component strands continues. So far it has worked out. I’ve only lost one of the separated strands, and that was to it catching on something after I had unwound it, but before I restored some twist by finger spinning, and a very light application of beeswax to set the new spin.
I’m liking the look of the separated strands. Very much a historical look, with the long staple fibers being shown to advantage, and the occasional thick-thin variance of the finger-spun strands. Note that in the photo below in the salmon thread you can see the kink set by the original spinning, but that the kinky texture is not evident at all in the stitched diamond filling. A win.
Too bad the Pearsall’s is such a discontinued unicorn. I don’t think I could do this with Au Ver a Soie’s Soie D’Alger. The staple isn’t as long, and the twist is both different and tighter.
One thing I did to eke out my colors was to work with two at the same time, alternating color stitches on the baselines, and working sprigs and inner ornaments in one color or the other. I hadn’t tried this parlor trick before.
You can see at the bottom of the motto rectangle that I hop-scotched the two colors – working one a bit along, then filling in the other. There are also TWO baselines in this strip due to the use of two colors. One handles the edge along the diamond infilling, plus the alternating squares-and-diagonals inside the border strip, and the other handles the top line and alternating sprigs. That’s because logic prevents doing the top and bottom edge PLUS the sprigs in two colors off of one baseline. In alternating colors you have to keep going forward along a line unless you want it to be solidly one color or the other. I could do the single color wreath sprigs easily, but those three stitches between them (or between the bottom legs of the squared diagonal boxes) would also have to be a single color because they would require doubling back to fill. Therefore, two baselines. Not a problem, and pretty easy to parse for quick stitching, once I realized the problem and stopped stitching myself into cul de sacs.
Except for the dark outlines of the letters, all of the stitching so far has been done with the split strand Pearsall’s. And I intend to continue working that way for the rest of the project, because of the look, my need to stretch my very limited quantities, and the challenge of doing something new and unexpected.
The next design will be one I’ve done quite recently, but worked up a bit differently. I did this Tolkein-sketch-inspired strip on the sampler I did in tribute to the Resident Male’s novel Treyavir. I worked the outlines in navy blue, and then went back and filled in selected areas of the design with squared filling, in a deep gold-tone yellow.
This time I’ve added a corner (very easy to do because of the clear diagonal elements). I’m plotting out a way to do it in multicolor because I don’t really have enough of any one (or two) colors to ensure that I can stitch the entire thing all the way around as a full frame. And I certainly don’t have enough of any one color to do a fill treatment as I did before. Doing multicolor will be problematic because of the design itself, too. The long diagonals “cap” the petal like elements. Possibilities include:
- Skipping over the end cap petal stitches and using a separate color for the top and bottom lines, and to work any stitches between petal caps on the diagonal. All petal elements will be entire, with no truncated end caps.
- Dividing my colors into two groups – possibly cool (blues, greens, purples) and warms (oranges, salmons, tan – no true reds in the pile to speak of). Working triangles in one direction in cools, in succession, alternating with warms, BUT letting the cool color triangle edges dominate, letting the warmer colors recede.
- Working the top and bottom baselines and hard diagonals in the same color throughout (possibly two very close shades of the same color, alternating stitches), then filling in the rest of the triangle patterning in alternating warm and cool colors. All cap stitches will be done in the outline colors.
- Some variant of 1, 2 or 3, with the smaller center triangles being worked in a different tone or possibly even the opposite color group from the larger, outer triangles.
Now to finish off the salmon diamond fill behind the letters, plus the remaining bits of the wreath sprig two-tone edging on that box. Then on to the outer frame.
Also, I will write more on two-tone double running history in the next post (with special acknowledgement to the ever generous Melinda Sherbring who shared copious notes and examples with me) – but I can only sit for so long at a time, and that’s an entire saga all on its own.
AND SO WE BEGIN AGAIN…
Never will I be someone who has a long hiatus between projects. Aside from the fact that I always have several concurrent ones, the final phases of any project are usually fueled by advance planning for the next one.
As I mentioned in the last post, I was prepping the ground for RELENTLESS FORWARD PROGRESS, the piece I am doing as a thank-you for the therapy and nursing staff at Vanderbilt Rehab/Newport Hospital. I’ve finished the truing, decided on a size, hemmed all the way around, and basted my centers and edge borders. I also completed the atypical (for me) task of plotting out 90% of the chart for the entire piece, and started in on the stitching:
I did the extreme layout because I wanted to center the motto properly, inside a surround that used as little fudging as possible. This meant working up corners, and making sure the repeat count was congruent with my usage, and with the available space. Oh, and the lettering. I didn’t find a vintage alphabet with the right flavor, so I decided to make the piece rather abstract, with a quasi-futuristic typeface, instead. I went looking for Just The Right Thing, and didn’t find it among charted alphabets, either. So I drafted up my own. Taking four or five different vaguely science-fiction-movie style typefaces, I rammed them together and drew up my own outline-only interpretation. Before you ask, I don’t have the whole alphabet – only the letters I needed for the motto. But except for an H and I, I have all of the top ten letters from the frequency table, and those two are easy extrapolations.
As the photo above shows, I’ve matched up the center of my chart with the center of my cloth, and started in on the stitching. If you look reaaalllly closely you will see the pink basting threads marking my center lines. And even just starting out I am loving the Pearsall’s. Smooth, sleek, easy to stitch – a dream to work with.
My intent is to do a narrow inner frame around the lettering. Inside that frame I will do very open voiding, possibly just diamonds in a complementary but lighter color. I might experiment with the Pearsall’s 6 ply floss. Each of the separable standard plies is clearly made up of two constituent strands. The silk itself is quite long staple and very strong. I may try to separate a standard ply and work those background diamonds with just one of those strands – what is in effect a half-ply of silk. That would stretch my limited supply, and keep the lettering in front as prominent as possible. Stay tuned for that experiment. I’m not there yet, and have to finish the motto first.
As for my continuing rehab from surgery – I am still improving. Every day a bit stronger and more capable. I can walk further, sit longer, and do far more things on my own than I could in May when I came home. At the end of this month I will start a program of Proton Beam Radiation aimed at eliminating any last possible but otherwise undetectable cancer precursor cells; to knock the chance of recolonization way down. It will run through October and be a daily appointment, Monday through Friday. An inconvenience for sure, but anything that tips the odds even more in my favor is most welcome. In the mean time, my job is to get as strong and as fit as possible prior to radiation commencement. I am taking that job VERY seriously.
JOYOUS ENDING
I’ve finished the latest piece – the sampler in tribute to the Resident Male’s nascent book Forlorn Toys. He is still writing it, so I won’t give spoilers beyond what I have already cited: the motto, the very obvious panel of aforesaid toys, my attempt at spaceships, and the band with the curious feathery rabbit like creatures.
All in all, I am quite pleased with it. Joy now goes to join my Wall of Shame – the place where my completed but as yet unframed/not-ready-for-public-display pieces live side by side with my unfinished projects. As you know this one like so many others is stitched on reclaimed household linen. I did not notice a bleach-weakened bit along a patch of the edging at the lower left. When that was hooped over and tension applied, the neatly done hem stitching failed, leaving a hole. I will eventually mend that, but other priorities assert themselves.
First among those priorities is a piece I promised to the community of therapists and nurses that tended to me at Vanderbilt Rehab Center at Newport Hospital. It’s fueled by a gift of silk floss from Occupational Therapist Abbey. She admired the work I brought with me intending to stitch. She had an inherited stash of silk threads but no use for it, and asked if I would like it. Always happy to have such things, I agreed, and she sent me a wonderous assortment of Pearsall’s silk floss – long discontinued – in jewel tones.
A princely gift, indeed. And only fitting that I use it for a gift back to the caregivers who got me back on my feet and moving again.
I’ve selected a tinted linen to use as ground for this one. I am not sure who gave me this because I didn’t put a note into the package (possibly my spawn, so apologies if it was). It’s custom dyed Zwiegart 36 count linen (big as logs for me), from Hollis Hands Create – a frosty barely blue tint called Silver Moon.
The first step is to begin the design of the motto. In this case “RELENTLESS FORWARD PROGRESS,” furnished by the Vanderbilt Physical Therapy team. Done. And then to begin thinking about how the rest of the piece will be worked. Not a band sampler this time, it will be a “framed” piece, with one or more bands of design running around all four sides of the motto, complete with corners and any improvisations to make the bands’ designs work out correctly with minimal fudging. Therefore I will be doing a some on-screen work to prepare for this one. More than I would have needed had this been a simple band sampler. For example, those corners will have to be drafted out even if I chose band designs I’ve previously devised. And I will have to plan to use multiple colors effectively because while there are many hues in my bag of silks, there are no duplicates, and most of the skeins are partials. It will be fun to figure out how best to use my limited quantity treasures.
And then there’s selecting a size for the piece and preparing my ground. For that the first bit is to true the edges of the linen cut. To do that I find and pull the warp or weft thread at the narrowest point of the cut, withdrawing it entirely from narrow end across to the widest end. This gives me a clean line along which to cut, and ensures that my edges are parallel. On this piece of ground with one selvedge edge, you can see that the left and right sides perpendicular to the selvedge each are slightly skew, one by about an inch, and the other by about 3/4 of an inch.
Note that regardless of the retail source, or whether or not the edges are serged or otherwise finished, if I buy a cross bolt full width cut or a fat quarter I always inspect the edges and true them in this manner. I have yet to receive any cut that was done completely congruent with weave direction. Sometimes the deviation is minimal, and there is only an inch or so lost all the way around. Sometimes, especially with lower price precuts sold in big box crafts stores, up to four inches can be wasted all the way around
This is why if you purchase pre-cut yardage, even if you have added on extra width to allow for easy hoop use and framing, it doesn’t hurt to add an additional inch or two all the way around. You never know when you will get a cut so skew that after the cloth is trued parallel to the weave, the cloth ends up being much smaller than you thought you were buying. Charles Craft prepackaged cotton and cotton blend evenweave was notorious for skew cuts. Their products started me doing this “proofing” step, and I have not regretted it since.
I won’t be using this entire fat quarter on this project. I will measure my ground cloth piece after it’s cut and the left and right edges are hemmed. I’ll decide then on the orientation of my sampler, cut my ground accordingly (also on a pulled thread line), and hem that last edge. The remaining bit will be returned to stash. And I will get a start on selecting my framing pattern(s) and drafting up my new corners.
On the non-computer work side, while the design work is going on but after I get my piece of cloth sized and hemmed, I will baste in guidelines: centers and stitching area edges. The final count of the available stitching real estate between the area edge marks will help inform final design tweaks.
I don’t think of all this pre-work as being very complex or onerous. The physical prep is mostly mindless and gives me plenty of headspace for the rest of the planning.
Now off to select my patterns… I toyed with using icons representing progress from sitting to walking, but I decided that was too limiting. The rehab therapies offered go far beyond simple sit to stand to walk, and I wanted the piece to be as inclusive (or non-specific) as possible. And the logos for the various institutions and professional certifications involved are too fussy to be easily charted at my scale. So it’s a mix of florals, geometrics, and possibly a pet or mythical beast or two thrown in. After all, who doesn’t identify with dragons or kittens?
PLAYING WITH TOYS
As I mentioned before, there’s no point in honoring a book called Forlorn Toys without showing some of the toys. So I drafted up a representative sample.
I’m still filling in the background stars, but that should not take long. Then another plain band of long armed cross stitch, and selecting the first of what will probably be the last two strips on this piece. The final touch will be to revisit the motto section, adding themed elements left and right of the lettering, and perhaps jazzing up JOY a bit so that it doesn’t look so pitiful against the darker typeface used for the rest of the lettering.
As to the remaining strips – I’m actually running out of material. I either have to spend more time drawing, or stitch slower. But in the interim I have decided that designs used on pieces I have given away, never to be seen again are now fair game for repetition. So if you see something that piques a sense of deja vu, you are exactly correct. Done before, but not precisely in this way. An old friend returning for a repeat visit.
After this one on to the next. No clue yet as to what that might be. I have a couple of outstanding promises in queue. Possibly one of those. And those teddy bears… I may doodle up a couple of strip variations featuring just them, for folk who want to do up birth commemoration samplers, or bibs and toddler clothing trims for particularly favored children. Provided there is interest, of course.
PROGRESS ON A WEALTH OF FRONTS
It’s been half a month since the last post, and all sorts of things have happened.
First, I’ve finished the wildly intricate interlace panel on my current sampler.
Second, as I was doing so I found an error in my chart for it as it appeared in the original edition of The New Carolingian Modelbook. The error was a minor one, a copyists/flip and mirror problem with two side by side crossings. It’s my guess that no one has attempted this particular design before, otherwise they would have either contacted me about it, or trumpeted my incompetence on social media. So of course I had to correct the problem. For a legible copy of the correction, including the original TNCM source attribution, and two chart versions – one for the border as shown, and one for a wider border or all-over design, please click here download a PDF file.
I have also been able to draft out a couple of tribute specific bands for this sampler, referencing the in-process novel Forlorn Toys in specific. They will be coming up after I finish the latest leafy strip. So stay tuned!
In other news, at long last, the Victoria and Albert Museum has updated all of the pages for the individual contributors under the Unstitched Coif Project. Again thanks to Fearless Leader Toni Buckby! My page can be found here, and has both the essay I did to accompany my work, plus ultra high resolution ZOOMABLE photographs of the back and front of the piece. For some reason the museum chose to lead with the photo of the backs of all of the pieces.
And for those of you who have asked about my personal health odyssey – I am improving. I’m in the middle of graduating from walker to cane. I can get around well with the cane, but I am still shaky with it over uneven terrain, so I mostly stick to it indoors, and continue to rack up practice distance. I have also been able to sit longer, as my stitching and blogging progress demonstrate.
There are still some hurdles to go, including a stint of proactive/preventive radiation to minimize any chance of chordoma recurrence, but I will take that in stride like all the rest. In the mean time, I’m feeling further along to being my old self than I have in months. No doubt due to the incessant care, coaching, and excellent cooking of my Resident Male.
OFF AND RUNNING!
On the ground, it’s more like walking slowly getting used to the transition from walker to cane, but in stitching, we’re galloping. Here is progress since the last post.
Several strips so far, a combo of reach-backs to my older books, and to the more recent Ensamplario Atlantio Volume III. I am still drafting up the custom bands that are specific references to the content of Forlorn Toys, the book that The Resident Male is writing right now. When you see them you will realize what’s taking so long (other than limits on how long I can stand at the computer in a day).
I do have to report an oops. One that dates back to the publication of The New Carolingian Modelbook in 1995. I hadn’t stitched the current strip before, mostly for reasons of size. It’s quite tall. But this being a very long piece of cloth, I thought it would work well on this piece. Lo and behold. There is a small crossings error in the original. It’s small enough to be an easy fix, but I will put redoing that page in queue and eventually publish it in here, and on the errata section on the “My Books” tab elsewhere on this site.
In the mean time I’m at the point in this complex interlace that I can go off-book. I’m just copying what I’ve stitched to date now, flipping/mirroring/inverting the crosses as required. Yes, it’s an eye-bender, but each subsection is logical, and if I keep the precision up so that all of the subsections meet up nicely, no where near as difficult as it looks.
ASSIST FINISH AND TOYS KICK-OFF
At long last, ASSIST is complete. It still needs to be ironed and framed or otherwise prepared for display, but the stitching is done.
The tumbled columns on the top are there because my life was pretty much tossed around the time I started that strip. I had just gotten the chordoma diagnosis, and was racing to get as much done as possible. At the same time I was working on an early release for Ensamplario Atlantio III, and the Epic Fandom Stitch-Along compilation. I ended up not completing ASSIST, opting to leave it unfinished, that I would get back to it as a sign of hope. Well, slowly over the past two weeks, I’ve made steady progress. I trained myself to recline at an angle. That freed 1.5 hands for embroidery employment, and with practice my speed increased.
But now on to the next one. The Resident Male is working on another book (his 7th counting both published and as yet unpublished works), and I having marked the presence of most of the others, I need to welcome Forlorn Toys, too.
Again I pull out a battle-weary rescued bit of linen, yet another thrift store find. Yes, it has some flaws and stains. I don’t care (the title after all is Forlorn Toys). Most of that will be overstitched and very difficult to see. It happens that this piece is the longest yet, with the entire cloth (stitchable area plus margins) being 12 X 35 inches. And it sports nifty hand-done bits of Italian hemming done all the way around it. I’m leaving those intact. (Excuse the sickbed photo, I’m doing the best I can).
My penny method gives me a thread count of 37×39 threads per inch. Although this hemstitched cloth was done with a less than 100% adherence to accuracy have set my margins averaging out discrepancies, leaving a stitching area of 9.25 inches. That means that that after the margins are removed, the stitching area will accommodate roughly 171 stitches across ([smaller thread count x width/2]).
Armed with that info I can begin thumbing through my favorite reference site looking for a typeface in which the longest part of this one’s motto will fit. Minor complication here – GIMP, my workhorse solution for dash and dot pattern drafting is not working well with my templates since yesterday’s update. I will eventually get that sorted, but it will take a bit of effort. If you or someone you know is a GIMP Wizard with a little time to spare, please let me know.
In the mean time I am well into the first band (an edge accompaniment from T2CM Plate 25), although the final style for the Toys sampler has not yet been set. All I can say is that it will be worked in green DMC #890 cotton, and mostly in linear stitching. Nice view of the hem stitching here, too.
Onward and upward. As my Resident Male has written before, Stone by Stone.
AND FROM THE FLIP SIDE
Here I am. A bit less than I was, in terms of body parts, weight, and height, but overall what remains is whole and mostly functional.
I am not going to go into the all the details, but I will say that I am incredibly lucky. So many things can go wrong during and after a 12-hour surgical procedure that involves many tricky bits near major nerve centers. But I am happy to say that my chordoma tumor was removed successfully, along with my coccyx and more than half of my sacrum. I will have to have a deep survey next month for surety, then be on lifelong watch to make sure it doesn’t recur, but for now at least I am cancer-free.
The surgical team was able to avoid some nerve damage, and to install a rather elaborate truss system to support my spine and hold my pelvis together. Those two things let me walk again, and even climb stairs – things I had hoped to be able to do, but realistically was accepting that I might not. I’m wobbly with a walker, and need a spotter on the stairs, but each day brings new strength as I exercise and practice. I am hoping that by the holiday season I will be off the walker and on a cane, headed to unassisted ambling.
The one area that is lagging behind is sitting. As you would expect, with that much alteration to my fundament, sitting would pose challenges. So far I am able to sit on a special cushion for about 4-5 minutes. I continue to train for improvement.
Weight is an expected loss during cancer treatment, and that did happen. But height? In my case because my lower spine was amended, a certain degree of shrinkage has occurred. I used to be 5’8″. I’m now 5’7″. So it goes.
And as you can tell by the presence of this update, I have computer access again. I’m using it as an inducement to get out of bed and stand, above and beyond the various exercise routines recommended by my physical therapist. Time however is limited. I can do a couple of short sessions a day, but no more. That means posts here will continue to be few and far between, and that no substantive work will be happening on The Third Carolingian Modelbook, or on corrections to Ensamplario Atlantio III (or for that matter EnsAtl IV).
I can however stitch again. I can do it laying in bed, sort of. Like the computer work, sessions are limited by endurance, so progress is slow. But there has been progress.
Compared to the last post, the dragon square is finished, and I’ve begun the voiding on the top strip. Nice and mindless, simple work.
So there it is. I’m still here, slowly recuperating. I do thank my spawn, siblings, mom, inlaws, and everyone else who sent encouraging notes, showed off their work from my designs, phoned, sent gifts, memes and silly bits to cheer me up, or visited. Your sharing buoyed me through a very challenging two months.
I also want to thank my surgical team, attending specialists, nursing staff, therapy staff, cleanliness/safety staff, and everyone else I interacted with at Rhode Island/Brown University Hospital, and in Newport Hospital’s Vanderbilt Rehab wing. That I write this at all is testament to the quality of their handiwork and care.
And it goes without saying that he who is precious to me – my Resident Male – deserves major thanks for his constant presence and support, gentle nursing, firm coaching, and patience. He drove hundreds of miles back and forth to Rhode Island between 17 March and 29 April, and has catered to my every petulant wish since returning home.
Stay tuned. I intend to keep these posts coming, and pivot away from tedious health updates back to the needle arts.
SEE YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE
That time has come. Tomorrow is the beginning of The Great Eviction, in which my invader and I will be separated. I am ready, packed, prepped, and armed with great ferocity and the single minded determination to overcome, outlast, and outwit my adversary and come back as unchanged as possible (except for the obligate scars, of course).
I’ve marked my level of optimism on my latest sampler. I haven’t mentioned progress in a while, but it quickly became my Emotional Support Embroidery after receiving my diagnosis last month. Not ironed, but as a WIP, it’s too early to think about doing that.
Yes, it’s still unfinished. I’ll do some more on it later today of course, but I won’t be done. That’s on purpose. I have every intention of future completion. And note the victory wreaths on the top as-yet-to-be-background-stitched strip. That strip is also deliberately placed skew to the centering of the rest of the sampler. My life has been tilted akilter, so this bit is, too.
I’d also like to everyone for the unexpected outpouring of support. I am overwhelmed by the vast number and generous sentiment of the comments here, on various social media platforms, and sent to me personally by direct message and email. I had no idea I had reached so many people around the globe. I am not a spiritual person, but I can say that if Providence can be petitioned, perhaps the wide ecumenical spread and volume of promised prayers in every major worldwide religion (and many of the less well known ones) will tilt the odds even more in my favor.
See you soon!
-Kim
SERIOUSLY, FOLKS…
This is post that’s not easy to write.
Some of you have wondered about my rush to release both Ensamplario Atlantio III, and the single-download edition of my Epic Fandom Stitch-Along. And there may be more coming out in the next few days. There is a reason.
In gamer’s parlance, sadly I’ve rolled a 5. Not a 1, thank heavens, but nothing good.
I join the legion of folks who have been handed a surprise cancer diagnosis. In my case it’s another over-engineered and uncommon Salazar project – not breast, lung, or any of the usual suspects. I’ve got a chordoma – an exceedingly rare form of bone cancer that’s eating my tailbone (coccyx) and the area immediately above.
The bad news is that I’ve been subject to this invader for a while, with the symptoms it generated being masked by the all too normal day to day annoyances many post-menopausal women have, most notably lingering lower back pain. (Side hint – if you have pain that the oft resorted to palliative modalities like physical therapy and medication don’t address, insist LOUDLY that your doctor engage diagnostic mode. I it would have been better off had I done that earlier.)
The good news is that while my growth is large, it’s contained, has not spread, and is operable. I will be headed to the hospital later in March to have at it. Best outcome is that I although I will be physically diminished, I will regain basic mobility. With healing I should be able to sit, stand, walk, and climb stairs. Some bodily functions and systems will also be compromised, but nothing that modern medical technology cannot address.
I choose to fight, and fight hard. I will not let this thing daunt me. I will pass through, and emerge much as I am now, although I will be moving more slowly, and with more care.
What can you do to help? There’s not much, but I know I will appreciate your companionship, dark humor, and distraction as I move through post-op and rehab. I will especially enjoy seeing what you’ve been up to playing with my knitting and stitching “pattern children.”
I know folk feel awkward at times like this, but please don’t be shy about contacting me. I might not answer right away (especially in the weeks just before, during and immediately after the procedure), but your notes, memes, embroidery/knitting/crochet/other hobby pix, and assorted shenanigans will brighten my day. One thing though, please don’t send flowers. The sentiment is deeply appreciated, but they make me sneeze.
Oh, and look out for Fernando (aka, The Resident Male). He’s going to be especially grumpy.
I leave you with a thought from the science fiction TV show Babylon 5, from the character Ranger Marcus Cole:
“I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?’ So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”
String-Or-Nothing 
