AT LONG LAST, LONG GREEN IS DONE
Not quite a record for the interval between commencement and completion, but close – but after years of languishing, my long green sampler is complete, signed and dated.
I used Au Ver a Soie’s Soie Alger silk thread, 40×42 count linen (you can see the slight distortion), and began it on 11 Feb 2012. I employed several stitching techniques including double running stitch, long armed cross stitch, plain old cross stitch, Montenegrin Stitch, and Italian four-sided cross stitch (pulled very tightly to achieve a meshy effect, and worked at two scales) . All of the designs here except the top one will be appearing in my ever forthcoming The Second Carolingian Modelbook. The top panel is from The New Carolingian Modelbook.
Long Green will languish again for a bit before I finish it off for display. Given that there is only about an inch of fabric at the bottom, due to the unfortunate destruction that happened over the years the thing sat waiting for me to resume stitching, I do not have enough fabric to frame it on a stretcher. And I really don’t want to frame it with a mat. With a stitched area of 10.5 x 34 inches (26.7 x 86.4 cm) that would be a very awkward and expensive piece. With the sewing machine out for the duration until our basement remodel is complete, I’m shelving this and moving on.
So. What to do next?
A couple of weeks ago I ran into a small DMC tote bag kit on our town’s freecycle/reuse/give-away exchange. I snatched it up. Although I didn’t want to stitch the rather boring roses intended, the kit with its big-as-logs 32 threads-per-inch evenweave was perfect for other counted work.
The bag itself was 90% assembled, and fully lined. There was an unfinished area at the bottom of the lining to allow access to the inside of the bag, to make working easier. But it was insufficient. I tried, but was unable to either hoop or work in hand as the kit stood. So I separated all of the side seams and laid the whole bag out flat:
I basted guide lines at the longitudinal center of the bag, and a half inch all the way around the edges. The total stitching area is two sides, each about 8.75 x 10 inches (21.6 x 25.4 cm). I am unsure if I will work just one design on this, front and back; or if I will do something different on each side. But the intent is to stitch, then use a decorative seam stitch on the visible parts, and a less fancy treatment on the heavier white twill lining, which won’t be very visible after the whole bag is put back to rights.
This being a rather small project, it doesn’t fit nicely in my sit-upon hoop, so I am working it in my hand held 6 inch (15.24 cm) hoop. Slow going compared to the two-handed approach I prefer, but even so this should be done quickly.
Here’s what I have so far. Two strands of standard DMC 310 black. I wanted the outlines heavy and prominent because I am considering working an open voided ground in a second color behind. At least for this all-over. And yes, it’s yet another T2CM pattern.
And finally it being eating season, both with first-run and leftover bounty, to celebrate the end of the Passover season, I transformed our leftover pot roast into a rather curious family specialty. Meat blintzes. It’s the standard blintz crepe outside, but with a mix of finely chopped leftover cooked pot roast, any remaining potatoes and carrots or onions that cooked with the roast, a handful of cooked rice, and just enough leftover gravy to keep the filling moist inside. I know of no one else who had this way of eking out an extra dinner in this manner. I suspect my grandmother or one of her sisters faced with hungry kids and a quarter pound of meat, made virtue of necessity, and passed their discovery down to me. There’s no real recipe here – it’s just doing the best with whatever leftover meat and sides are available.
So now I have about 3 dozen in the freezer, to be defrosted and pan-sauteed to finish prior to serving. Obviously these are not intended to be accompanied by sour cream. Instead, as a quick to fix/light dinner course they are usually preceded by a big bowl of chicken soup (also pre-made and stowed away against need), and are accompanied by a vegetable side dish.
If you are looking for the recipe for the blintz skins/crepes and a more traditional mixed cheese filling, it’s here. Just to be evil and make you extra hungry, I leave you with what they look like during the final sautee:
INFLECTION POINT
Yes, it’s true. I have reached the Age of Post-Employment.
After decades of proposal management for high tech companies, I’ve packed it in. No more deadlines. No more herding cats. I could go on listing the things I will not miss, but it would quickly turn into a rant. What I will miss are the in-the-trenches comradery; the energy and off the wall ideas of all the mad inventors; seeing technologies evolve in real time; and the thrill of visiting, viewing, or reading about the final projects that came from the bids on which I have worked.
Still, I’m happy to walk away from it, noting that the average span of tenure in proposal pursuit is something under 5 years. Very few people make it a lifelong career as I did. And even fewer can boast that they survived ulcer-free, and never missed a deadline in 41 years.
To celebrate my new freedom, The Resident Male, a specialist in surprise rather than programmed gift-giving, has presented me with a Wonderous Treasure Box: a tabletop jewelry armoire, shown here on the dining room sideboard, but destined for my dresser.
The drawers are fitted out with small compartments, both sides open up to reveal hooks for necklaces and bracelets, and the top hinges up with a mirror on the inside, and another storage bin beneath. I will add some canvas inserts to the side door inside panels, so I have mesh on which to hang hook-style earrings. The wood and build of this piece are magnificent. I adore it, and have showered him with copious thanks.
What will I do with myself besides organizing my slovenly dresser and precariously piled bling-midden? Well, there’s plenty going on here, and I will be in the thick of it.
We are at the cusp of a major basement renovation project, with the goal of updating a smelly, always-damp, slightly moldy cavern of 1960s vintage cheap paneling and suspended ceiling tiles into a comfortable, clean and usable space. This includes the area where my desk sat, the kids’ old TV area (including a ramshackle home bar, repurposed into shelving for my needlework library); the craft/sewing room; a strange “leftover” alcove at the back of the house; and what can be described as a bathroom only in the most generous terms (right now it’s just closet hiding a fitfully inoperative toilet and a population of house spiders).
The goal is to make a great room with a comfortable TV/sitting area at one end, that can also be used as guest space,plus an exercise area at the other end; a true half-bath with a sink and working fixtures; a functional storage/pantry alcove to house our freezer; and a craft/sewing room with actual useful and accessible storage and organization space. My office area and needlework library will go upstairs to one of the spawns’ former bedrooms, now that those are no longer tenanted year-round. Demolition should be beginning on the project by the end of April.
In addition to that, there are all my own projects. I can (gasp) STITCH DURING THE DAYTIME on a weekday! A strange concept for sure, and one I am still getting used to. It still feels wrong, like ducking out of class, or skipping an appointment – but I suspect that feeling will eventually pass.
One problem I have to solve is with Big Green. Remember that worn area I noted a few posts ago? When I unmounted the thing to try to capture the ground above the abrasion, it gave way before I put any stress on it – falling to pieces and making an enormous hole. The hole is beneath the “keeper bar” that holds the fabric in the frame’s roller, and is clearly seen here. I’ve flipped the thing – this is the right side, but it’s on the frame with the rollers on top rather than behind, in an effort to make the largest possible area accessible for stitching.
See that narrow border that’s part of the [grapes, hops, berries] strip? I have just enough room to complete it below, with about an inch left over. Obviously when I go to finish this piece I will need to trim it out with a border strip of fabric, and do it hanging scroll style. But that’s in the future. Right now the problem is that I don’t have enough room in the frame to stitch that narrow bit. Once I am done with the main body of the current panel I will have to take the sampler off the big frame and figure out how best to work on it in my sit-upon hoop frame – how to avoid abrasion and distortion of the established stitching as I relocate the hoop, and how not to stress the already-fragile threads of the weave itself. I may even end up having to work in hand, something I dread doing.
And yes – I brought this on myself, both for letting the piece languish so long and suffer such abuse that it weakened in the first place, and for choosing an overly wide and ambitious border to finish. I should have picked my second choice, one that was about an inch less tall. Live and learn…
Oh. Folk will also be happy to hear that I’m diving back into T2CM – updating some of the blurbs to synch with scholarship that has evolved since I started the project (museums have revisited the dating and provenance of many of their fragments in the past 15 years); and with nothing to stop me, I hope to have it buffed, re-proofed, and ready for publication later this year.
RATS, RATS, RATS
A couple of things to report this week. First a quickie start and finish. This piece was bespoken by Younger Offspring, who has taken up bookbinding. The finished volumes largely feed personal journaling, but are also given as gifts; and some are done on commission. This bookbinding plus other artistic ventures all are done under Younger Offspring’s Rat House Studio banner, So when I saw the rats in the same work as the drawing that inspired the cats and yarn repeat, having the perfect target audience, I had to draft them up. Additional foreboding iconography was added to emphasize the “eyes only” and personalized aspect of journaling in particular.
This piece was worked on DMC/Charles Craft Monaco, a cotton 28 count evenweave in a light tan, using two strands of DMC cotton embroidery floss, #814 – a browner red than I usually use. I haven’t cut the stitching from the greater piece of cloth, and I’ve left the easily withdrawn basting thread in place to aid in centering the piece on the eventual book cover. And since the stitching is in just one quadrant of the cloth, I will be sending it uncut, with the leftover thread in case Younger Offspring wants to do something original on the back, or on the other half of the ground, following the household precept that it’s always fun to encourage and abet creative expression
In truth after using the Monaco, I am not a fan of this ground, and I can see why so many people who have only used this type of fabric are disenchanted with evenweave in general. First, it’s not really even. Look at the rats. They are NOT size symmetrical as they go around the corner. The weave is a tiny bit compressed north/south when compared with east/west. Rats at top and bottom are shorter nose to tail, and heftier vertically than are the ones on the left and right – those are more elongated, and not quite a chinchilla-chubby. I get comparable results from non-purpose-woven mass market faux linens. Why should I pay a premium for off-proportion custom purpose ground? In addition, the cloth is extremely thick especially compared to the high-count linens and blends I am used to. Wrestling it into my round frame (and this is my 8.5 incher – my largest hoop) was a challenge. It was extremely difficult to tension properly and evenly. Maybe it would have fared better hemmed out and laced into a slate frame, or mounted on a scroller, but it was a beast in the hoop.
In any case, I would not recommend Monaco, especially as a first-ground for people transitioning from Aida to evenweave, with one exception. The heaviness and stiffness that I found so annoying would be a boon to those who hold the cloth in hand, and stitch without a frame or hoop.
But I do admit that the thing was an extremely quick piece to stitch. The ground cloth was delivered on Tuesday. I finished this yesterday shortly after dinner, after a final consult with the recipient. I estimate no more than about seven hours of work, parsed out to accompany evening TV viewing over several days (plus subtitled TV does slow me down a bit.)
Here is the original inspiration, and the chart for the Ring of Rats. Yes, I omitted the interlaced tails at the center. While that was striking, it occured to me that the image would be more useful as a frame. Four corners are presented. The individual rats can be repeated to make a wider or taller frame, either as a series of mirrored pairs (head-head or tail-tail) or marching in the same direction until the center of the side, and mirroring only at that point. Plus, I think that with their little curled tails, mine are irresistibly cute (the original being rather threatening.)
Once again, credit where credit is due – the original plate was from Ernest Allen Batchelder’s Design in Theory and Practice, New York: Macmillan, 1910, which appears to be a seminal work on graphic design during the period of transition from earlier styles including Art Nouveau and Mission/Arts & Crafts to what would become Art Deco.
Oh, and what am I up to now that my quick fling with Rats is done? Back to Long Green. Obviously another design from my Ever Forthcoming Second Carolingian Modelbook, this one is done entirely in long-armed cross stitch (LACS), but without any accompanying outlines.
It’s challenging to stay on target, while preserving the plaited texture of the row-on-row courses of LACS. To get that texture, lines have to alternate directions, like an old raster printer. But it does move along more quickly that the meshy ground. This design will be the last on this sampler – a nice strong and dark strip to anchor the work’s bottom edge.
And what to do after this? Ask me again in a month or two when this strip is complete. By then some things will have changed here at String Central, and I should have both time, and plenty of ideas of how to occupy it.
AAALLLMOST THERE
The hounds and pelican strip is finished!
I know of two mistakes on it, which I may or may not go back and pick out. I’m also thinking of adding another heart-bud immediately underneath the hounds’s forepaws. It’s not in the original, but that area looks a bit barren to me.
Now to go on to the next strip. Here’s the whole piece laid out, so you can see the (problematic) real estate that remains:
I was originally planning for two more strips, one medium dark, and one quite dark to add balance to the piece as a whole. But there’s this…
Damage! And not just distorted weave that can be gently stroked back into place – actual breakage of multiple warp threads, and too many to compensate. There’s no going around this. I have to end my sampler out about three or four inches short of my intended length.
How did it happen? Many reasons:
- Very gauzy, fragile linen ground to begin with.
- Abuse during two shipments back and forth to India. While it was unmounted from the verticals, I left it on the horizontals of my frame, scrolled up so that the unworked portion was on the outside. The resulting bundle was then wrapped in a thick cloth, and put into the shipping crate that held my hobbies. Where it probably abraded somewhat against the surrounding objects.
- Abuse since returning. I’ve been schlepping the thing around with me to show off at gatherings where embroiderers might be present.
- Not sufficiently padding the unworked portion. I put a couple layers of scrap muslin in between the stitched portion of the piece as I advance the scroll while working. But I did not pad the unworked portion. That was a mistake, leading to extra tension when I remounted my Long Green for work last month
- It has been what… nine years since I started this?
The aggregate result was that the area that had been rubbed and abused over time, and that had been fragile to begin with, under tension of my re-mount, began to give way. Note to self – no matter how tempting, avoid gossamer grounds and stick with more beefy linens…
So now instead of two or three strips to finish, I’m looking at one or two, in order to leave at least three inches between the breakage area and the bottom of the stitching. I may also reinforce the bottom bit by actually basting on some muslin to help take the strain of remounting for stitching – an extra precaution that I would remove before mounting for display.
OK. What to finish with. I’m not sure. First I have to measure out my area to figure out the maximum height of what can be stitched there. Then depending on how tall that workable area is, there are several classic designs I’m considering. But a couple of them I have not yet drafted up (T3CM fodder?), so I may take a quick side journey into another simple piece while I’m thinking it over.
Stay tuned!
BUNNY-HOUNDS AND PELICANS
Last week’s columns and plume flowers strip was a quick one. Not the least because it was in plain old cross stitch. I am pleased with the darker-but-not-overwhelming density. And as you can see, I’m on to the next one, featuring the hounds and pelicans, yet another design that will be in the ever-forthcoming T2CM:
I am looking forward to unrolling this piece when this new strip is done, to see how much more real estate I have to cover, and to make plans for how dark or light those strips will need to be. Then I get to go hunting for what to stitch next.
This week’s strip is an interesting one on a couple of fronts. First, in terms of history, it has a specific point of origin – in 16th century Sweden; not Germany or Italy or any of the other countries better known for linear embroidery at that time. It’s in the Swedish History Museum, Inventory number 19600.
The museum citation says that the piece is from a chapel in Uppland, Östervåla; stitched in red silk on white linen. It also includes the matching vertical border which I haven’t graphed yet, plus a sweet row of heart-shaped cartouches bearing heraldry, the frames of which are also on my futures list. I haven’t stumbled across another piece of linear stitching in this style from this region/time, so it’s a bit of a mystery. How prevalent was it? Was this type of work limited to church linen? Did it appear also on clothing? Obviously more research is needed. If you know of any other pieces in this family, please let me know.
Now on to iconography. While this piece has non-secular origins and was part of a chapel’s furnishings, its religious symbolism is not as direct as most church hangings. No martyrs. No pascal lambs, sacred hearts, or other standard symbols. Just pelicans and hounds. Even slightly misshapen, the quadrupeds are identifiable as coursing/sight hounds of some type. They are collared and belted, slim waisted and long legged, with floppy ears and pointy muzzles. Dogs, especially hunting hounds would have been seen as symbols of fidelity, determination, and loyalty. Pelicans are a bit more esoteric. Here they are shown “vulning” – piercing their breasts with their beaks, in order to feed their young with drops of blood. This was a standard bit of common folk legend at the time – along with the belief that worms spontaneously generated from the soil, and hedgehogs carried berries home to snack on later, impaled on their quills. Obviously the imagery was associated with self-sacrifice, devotion, and parental care.
Therefore, we have a cloth covered with symbols of devotion, loyalty, and self-sacrifice – something that would have special meaning in the religious setting. The background for this may be Sweden’s departure from the Catholic church in the late 1520s. Perhaps this rather humble, non-demonstrative bit of stitching (no gold, no gems, no saints) with its generic paean to virtues fits into the schism between Catholicism and Sweden’s developing Lutheran-based faith.
I admit I knew the pelican story courtesy of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). It’s no secret that I’ve been involved with it deeply in the past, and continue to have many friends active in the organization today. The highest SCA award for service is the Pelican, and its badge is a pelican vulning. This highly respected honor recognizes those vital individuals whose labor, largely voluntary, is the fuel that keeps the organization running. If you ever attend an event and see someone with a brooch or pendant with a pelican, know that the person you have met is Very Important, and widely respected by their peers. My sampler will have pelicans on it, but I am not a member of that order, nor do I intend to display it in an SCA context. I could wear a badge with a laurel wreath, but that’s another story for another time.
Finally, I announce that we have embarked onto another Great Home Improvement Journey. This time it’s the basement. I will post before/during/after pix, but right now I am still packing up and stowing my needlework library, office area, and craft room. The chaos is palpable. Here are a few of my stitching and knitting books. I’ve already had reason to refer to them, but have had to sit on my hands and just contemplate my wall of boxes. Work on the basement proper should begin by April. Until then, it’s lift, sort, box, and stack for me.
ANOTHER WEEK. ANOTHER MOTIF
Moving on from the dolphins, we leap to the next motif. I wanted something both darker and less dense than the massive meshy panel, and hit on this column/flower meander. It’s another one from my ever-forthcoming The Second Carolingian Modelbook (T2CM – it includes both linear patterns and block unit designs).
The columns design appears on Plate 70 of my book, but it’s source is a 16th century Italian openwork piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession 20.186.27
The museum description is rather cryptic. It says “Bobbin lace, buratto, punto a rammendo.” To me it looks like buratto – darning on a woven gauzy ground, and not bobbin lace or a withdrawn thread technique (punto a rammendo). Buratto and lacis are very close, with lacis being worked over a hand-knotted net mesh, and buratto being worked on a purpose-woven gauzy linen fabric. It’s structure is not unlike Penelope canvas, but made from much finer threads with much wider gaps between them. It’s effect is entirely that of an open mesh – no where near as dense as the Penelope. Admittedly this piece might be lacis. I am not seeing knots at the junctures of the meshes, but sharper photos might reveal their presence.
While my treatment of it in plain old cross stitch isn’t necessarily something that can be defended as a common historical usage, the use of these designs for both openwork (lacis or buratto, or even withdrawn thread designs) and surface embroidery on the count is well documented. Since I am not doing a historical piece I chose POCS because it on this ground with only one strand of silk, presented an airy and lighter contrast to the mesh technique, and the long-armed cross stitch and Montenegrin stitch that I’ve used in elsewhere on this piece.
Oh. And the source for the dolphins? Plate 29 of T2CM. But it is my rendition of an illustration in Lady Marian Alford’s Needlework as Art (Plate 42), originally published in 1886. There it is cited as 16th century Italian. I tracked it down. That piece from Lady Alford’s collection and shown in her book is now in custody of Belton House, Lincolnshire UK, and registered with that country’s National Trust (#426944). I know of no no on-line photos of it. If you do, please share the citation in the comments.
As mentioned before, the original shown that I drew up for T2CM features the dolphins and connectors (but not the rondels) and the background of the original is voided – filled in, but with a grid of tiny one-unit squares.
When will T2CM be out? I know it’s been a very long wait, for which I apologize. However I do know that if all goes well, my schedule will emerge from some significant time constraints in late spring, and I will be able to devote myself to publication. I am loathe to promise after so long, but 2021 has every indication of being The Year.
MESHY DONE, PLUS KITTING OUT THE FRAME
Yaay! A bit of self discipline imposed, and the forever voiding on the meshy lettuce pattern panel is complete. I have to admit that while I adore the look, I am not wildly fond of the hard-pulling needed to achieve it. I might try it again if I ever find a linen that’s the right combo of threads-per-inch plus nice soft and lofty constituent threads, instead of skinny hard-spun ones.
How does this strip fit into the growing project? After all – it has been about 8 years since we’ve seen the whole thing laid out. For the record, I’ve filled about 45% of the available real estate – there’s a lot more to go.
Now for the next. I don’t think I’ve play-tested these dolphins before (another design in the ever-forthcoming T2CM). The original showed them with a squared fill background in voided style, but I wanted something lighter to follow the dark band I just finished. I left off the voiding, but then decided that the bit looked rather spare. My dolphins needed something to play with, so I added the round elements, and am now pleased. A quickie, this bit took just Saturday and Sunday evenings:
I will add the roundels to the dolphin at right of center, but I left it off so you can see the rather unfinished look it had without something there.
After this one? Probably another narrow strip, possibly a bit wider than this one, and possibly darker for contrast. Then after that I have a double running stunner queued, but it’s rather wide and needs a bit more spacer ground between it and the giant meshy lettuce panel.
In the mean time, as I get up close and personal with the frame I am making little improvements to my set-up. For example, the jaw of the Lowery is steel, and well loved by magnets. But it’s not exactly accessible with the large frame extender unit. BUT when I flip the thing over to terminate a thread, it is. Add a strong classic U-shaped magnet, and I’ve got a handy place to park my snips (the red magnet is just behind the red snipper).
My needle minder works quite well, and sometimes I use it to park my threader. It often does double-duty as a holder for my pattern page. But that can get in the way of the stitching area. So I glued a magnet to the flat side of one of my Millennium frame scroll bars – on the flat side (yes, I tested it to make sure the correct side was up – that’s the one that attracts rather than repels the other magnetic goodies I wanted to use):
I can use this as a rather plain needle minder all by itself, or I can park my fancy one there instead of in the hidden spot where you see it now. Or I can use another magnet with it to hold my pattern page. But best of all, I can use it in conjunction with this page holder I picked up years ago (it used to stick on my fridge door, to hold tickets, recipes, coupons, or whatever).
By just gluing on a magnet, I’ve left the door open for all sorts of other magnet-enabled organizers. There are other styles of clips. Hooks and loops with magnetic bases could accommodate scissors, for example. Finally, I’m still looking for it to test out, but because the rare-earth magnet I used is so strong, I’m betting it can hold my smaller flat metal magnet board. That would allow me to use placeholder magnets on my pattern page while the page is displayed right on my work area.
And where to find inexpensive strong-hold magnets? I recommend the geeky source, American Science & Surplus. They are a clearing house for engineering tidbits, science gear, weird surplus items, kids’ educational toys, and other miscellanea. They are especially good for containers, magnifiers, bags, precision scales and measurers, cutting implements, office supplies, and magnets. Like any surplus store, their inventory turns over quickly, so if you don’t see what you want there today, visit again next week.
REACTIVATION AND SPOILING
I admit it. I was horribly spoiled this holiday past.
My family has fitted me out with all sorts of stitching goodies for the new year. There were silk threads and linen grounds from my mom and the Elder Offspring – enough to keep me going for quite a while. In addition, The Resident Male drew inspiration from a recent Facebook post (plus the general state of the stitching supply midden next to my favorite chair), and gave me a mercer’s chest from Sajou in which to store my embroidery supplies and tools. A princely gift. And yes. It’s already full.
Younger Offspring hand crafted me a Special Object. That book next to the chest – assembled and bound, with an embroidered and beaded cover all of their own devising, it’s full of graph paper pages – perfect for stitch design and doodling. I think my family knows me very, very well.
During the supply sort and consolidation to populate my new tiny chest, I stumbled across the thread I had been using for my Long Green Sampler. That’s a project from about six years ago. I was working on it just before we departed for our expat stay in India. I brought it with me but had no well lit comfortable place in which to work on it, so it languished. I poked at it a couple of times in the years since, but I hadn’t set it up for reactivation. I remounted it and set in again yesterday evening.
No, that’s not a real cat. I would love to have one, but I am very allergic to them. It’s a stuffed toy, liberated from the Spawns’ menagerie. It usually does duty as a very conveniently sized elbow rest, but here he’s blocking sun glare. He can be both obliging and versatile, although (sadly) not very affectionate.
To reprise, Long Green is a long strip sampler, done in Au Ver a Soie’s Soie d’Alger, in color #1846 on 40 count linen (20 stitches per inch). I am picking my strip patterns on the fly, mostly from my ever forthcoming book, The Second Carolingian Modelbook. This particular strip features my attempt at the tightly pulled and totally overstitched meshy background found on so many historical artifacts worked in the voided style. The design is one that appears in museum collections, and that exists in several clearly related versions. I’ve nicknamed this one “The Lettuce Pattern” for obvious reasons.
My redaction with its curious Y-spring companion edging is largely based on this version in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts collection, Accession 99.176:
The date attribution has wandered forward a bit over the years, but is now listed as probably 17th century, possibly being of Spanish or Sicilian origin. Here is another example of Lettuce, also from the MFA, now cited as being Spanish and 17th century, Accession 95.1116 :
Although this one shows quite a bit more in-motif detail than the one above, it is still clearly a closely related pattern, and not a slice off the same original artifact. Both of these have meshy grounds, worked by tightly stitching and displacing the warp and weft, bundling them tightly together – NOT by cutting and withdrawing threads, then stitching over the remaining scaffolding. That’s another technique but distinctly different from the one employed here.
Here’s another example of the Lettuce family. This one features a simple boxed ground (no drawn meshy work here). The original is in the Brussels Museum of Art and History, Accession 20048516. The description cites it as being stitched in red silk, and dates it to the 1500s, but does not include a geographical provenance.
The Brussels example has another special spot in my heart. You can’t see more than a sliver from my clip, but it pairs Lettuce up with another favorite design, proving them to be contemporaries.
As you can see from the photos of my green piece, I’m about half-way done with this band. Here are the others above it, a photo montage shot and composed by fellow India Expat, artist, and friend Tamar Alsberg. I’m a bit greyer now, but so are we all in these salon-challenged days.
Some highlights – bit of braiding in the lower left was a ton of fun – the solid stripes are done in Montenegrin Stitch, and the bit between my hands in the center top – that’s the back. Double running rules!
If you still want more info on these individual bands, you can call up the whole project (in reverse chronological order) here.
FOR SOMEONE DOING NOTHING, I SURE AM BUSY
It’s a fair question – “Where have you been?”
The answer is “Busy.”
I’ve been out fabric shopping with friends; trying to establish a regularly meeting needlework circle at a local mall on Fridays; battling the Sacred Dust of India as it tries to repossess the flat; writing a presentation and workshop on the style intersection between Kasuthi embroidery and Renaissance counted work; dealing with assorted technology annoyances; working on TNCM2; trying to parse out more interesting blog entries from my London pix; and playing with various stitching and knitting projects.
First off, I’ve taken up Big Green again. It’s tough to do here. I need very strong light, and even with a small task spot in the living room, the only place bright enough is next to a window in the middle of the day. I long for my comfy chair and spotlight at home.
It’s hard to spot the progress on this strip because it advances at such a slow rate, but it’s there.
Then there’s a new stitching project, as leggy and coarse as Big Green is fine. I bought a pack of ultra-cheap dishtowels at the supermarket, because I always seem to have run out of non-terry ones when I am looking for something to toss over rising bread. One quick wash later, and as expected for bargain basement Indian cotton – they’d faded and shrunk. But wait! That dark indigo one is now a pleasant, mottled chambray. And it’s almost even weave:
So into the stash for some ecru DMC linen floss (which I’ve now learned has been discontinued. It figures…) Because I’m stitching over 3×3 threads to even out inconsistencies in the weave, and because the linen thread is fuzzy with its own rustic character, I decided to play on that folksy appearance rather than going for crisp, tiny detail. The pattern is yet another one that will be featured in in TNCM2. This, when finished out, will be a strip decorating a pocket edge of a zippered stitching caddy. The entire outside of the case will also be worked in one of the larger all-over patterns in TNCM2. Without cutting up the dishtowel, I intend to origami it into a series of graduated pleats, then stitch perpendicular to the folds to make pockets opening “up” and “down”.
The final step will be to fold the entire thing in half, then take an over-long large-tooth jacket zipper (toddler size), and run it around three sides. This should make an organizer pouch that when zippered, lies totally flat. I may sew one of the smaller interior pockets shut, stuffing it with some sort of padding to make pin cushion (perhaps with a finer gauge fabric as liner, so I can put emery into it). And I may also stitch in a couple of pieces of sturdy felt, so it has an integrated needle-book on the inside. The details of this finishing are still idle speculation at this point. Right now, it’s just a quick doodle.
I’ve been busy with knitting, too.
I’ve finished the body of the beaded red lace scarf. I’m drafting up the companion edging, with more beads and mitered corners. I also have to “kill” the acrylic yarn so that it lies flatter. Not quite sure how I’ll achieve this, since the beads make ironing problematic. But I’ll figure it out, even if I have to do up a couple of sacrificial beaded test swatches.
Also in the photo above is the latest pair of socks. That’s pair #5 in the past two months. I work on them while we wait for the school bus in the morning, or any other time I’m waiting on a line, for a car, or find myself idle outside the apartment. After this pair I’ll have to get creative in combining the leftovers on hand. I’ve gone through most of the sock yarn I brought with me. I have a couple of balls of Noro sock yarn left, but I’d prefer to use that for some other accessory. The yarn is beautiful but I prefer wearing (and washing) other sock yarns, for comfort and durability reasons.
10,000 SNACKS
France may be the land of 500 cheeses, but India is the land of 10,000 snacks.
They take their snacks very seriously here. There appear to be micro-regional specialties, and a dizzying variety of basic types – far beyond the chips (crisps for my UK readers), pretzels, tortilla chips, and smattering of other items seen in American supermarkets. I suspect if a new vegetable or grain were to spontaneously appear, the US FDA would study it for two years before decreeing wholesomeness, the European Union would ban it because there is no established tradition of farming or cooking it, but India would throw open her arms and overnight it would appear in fifty new packaged fried snack foods, each with a distinctively cheerful bag.
We’ve been trying some as our weekend treat, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s available at the Hypermarket down the street:
Yes, those are potato sticks. The particular variety we tried is (like much of India) perfumed with cumin. Potato (aloo) sticks come in dozens of varieties, some spicy/hot/salty, some herbed, and some plain. We really liked this one, they’re easy to nibble and go great with roasted little red-skin peanuts, smaller than those in the US, but tastier.
Oh. I forgot to mention, combining these nibbles into one’s own custom snack mix appears to be a national pastime, so we’re following suit, mixing and matching these as whimsy overtakes us.
This one is a bit messier to eat. In texture, it’s like fuzzy dust studded with little bits of roasted lentils, cashew nuts, and other seeds and spices. It’s so fine it almost needs to be spooned. It’s also intensely spicy. I love the product tag line “A Munching Device.” A good mixer to use with other, less intense varieties.
These are The Resident Male’s favorite. They’re crunchier than Cheetos, and flavored with onion and chili instead of Mystery Orange.
Puffed wheat! Very roasty tasting, and a perfect background foil to these other hot and spicy treats. I knew a little about the variety of Indian foods and was prepared for that exploration, but the wealth of casual nibbles here took me by surprise. I find it a very amusing arena for small discoveries. I’ll post more about these as we try more.
On the needlework front, I’ve made a bit of progress on the Dragon Stole:
I’m just about up to the body, half way through the first dragon.
And I’ve unpacked my stitching. I’ve set up my big green sampler.
Unfortunately, there’s no good place in the apartment to work on it. I need very bright light, and even though we finally found the exotic flavor light bulbs used in the fixtures here, and have more than one 40 watt light source in the living room, there’s still not enough light to work it by. So as a stop gap, I’ve started the Sarah Collins kit I picked up at Winterthur in 2011:
I’ve never done a kit before, preferring to muddle about on my own. I am having mixed feelings about this. It’s cumbersome, with a zillion large scale detailed charts that require constant cross-referencing. The design is pleasing, the colors are o.k., not my faves, but well suited to the design. The linen is nice, and working 3×3 is a refreshing change, quite large compared to what I’ve been stitching of late. I opted for the cotton rather than the silk threads, in part because the silk kit was expensive. That’s why I’m working it on the padded round frame. Were this silk, it would fight for space on my flat frame with Big Green.
Oh, and yes – I’m working on T2CM, too. I’m up to the exquisitely boring part, where I add proofed counts to each pattern.
String-Or-Nothing 