TRIFLES, ANYONE?
When I last wrote, I was just getting underway with my Trifles sampler, a special request from Younger Daughter. Some of you expressed surprise that I don’t plan out these larger stitched projects all at once, graphing them up in their entirety before I start. But I don’t, although this one is shaping up to be a bit less chaotic than my usual process.
To start – here’s what I’ve done so far:
First off, I hemmed all the way around the edge of the cloth. This is something I rarely take time to do, and always regret skipping. It was furiously frustrating – to have the ground in hand but put off stitching, but I steeled myself to it and completed.
Second, I basted lines indicating the centers, north-south and east-west. Long time pal Melisande will smile at this because the thread I always use for this purpose is plain old sewing cotton left over from the bridesmaid’s dress I sewed to wear at her wedding. It’s a pale baby blue – dark enough to be seen on white ground, and light enough to show on dark; non-fuzzing, quick to pull out, and non-crocking.
Yes, when originally stitched the two center lines intersected, but it’s my habit to pick out the guidelines as I no longer need them, so that they don’t get caught up by the embroidery stitches. I determined my center and began from there, removing and clipping my basted guidelines prior to working the cross stitching.
Cross stitching? Yup. Plain old cross stitch for the alphabets on this one. Also for the Daleks, one of which can be seen adjacent to the big “P.”
In this case I have actually graphed up the entire center section that bears the inscription and the offspring-mandated Daleks. Younger daughter prefers symmetry to chaos, and she specifically requested that I do everything I could to align the words neatly.
Now, what to do for the rest of the piece, once the motto is complete…. Originally I thought I’d do more strips from my upcoming book, just for the fun of trying them out. But the late 19th century alphabets in brown and gold silks is giving the piece a particularly steampunk look. Again welcome, since Younger Daughter is a big steampunk fan. I suppose those bands could work, but now I have been seized upon by a Concept, one that has affixed itself to me like a tiny homesick kraken.
Instead of strips, I will probably do this as a montage in inhabited blackwork – the style that features solid outlines, with various shapes filled in using geometric fillings.
Off I fly to draft and cut some standard stencils for my shapes, and to play with their placement. Stay tuned!
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
Some of each to report.
First, goodbye, this year’s crop of giant grass:
I cut it down with our hand-sickle. Younger Daughter is stripping leaves from the longest stalks. Elder Daughter and she bagged the remains for yard waste recycling, setting aside the best canes for use in next year’s bean trellis. Resident Male took a heavy maul and split the clumps, which after two years unsupervised, were threatening a massive campaign of lawn-conquest. So goodbye grass! Hello, next year’s beans!
Second, Swirly is finished!
I like the way the mitering worked, even on the very narrow green strips. I also used a sawtooth with a ten-row repeat, so I was able to easily fit it around corners, letting the natural splits between the teeth accommodate the direction change. Swirly now goes to Elder Daughter, to replace the last blanket I knit for her, back when she was born.
Third, I can’t just sit. Especially when I am thinking or listening. I have to have something going. So, as a think piece, to keep my fingers occupied, and because I haven’t knit a pair of socks for me in so long my own sock drawer is looking more like a darn-me convention, I finished a quick pair for me.
This was done in Plymouth Happy Choices – a yarn that comes pre-knitted into a long scarf strip, then dyed. The idea is to unravel the thing and re-knit it. Depending on what you make the resulting pattern will be different, and always a surprise. These are standard 72-stitch toe-ups on US #00 needles, with figure-8 toes and short-rowed heels. I started at the same place in the color cycle repeat for both, but you can see that slight variations in dyeing produce fraternal instead of identical twins. I happen to love it, but others may be more fastidious. And yes – there’s a simple double YO diamond detail on the ankles, just for fun.
And another beginning – this time a stitching project.
I begin my Trifles sampler. This is a promised/bespoken piece. I made a sampler for Elder Daughter for her to take with her to her university dorm room. It bore a motto, as a subtle bit of parental nagging, embedded in a loving-hands-from-home wrapper:
Younger daughter is now in 11th grade, and wants one, too.
Hers will have a different motto, chosen just for her: “Pay attention even to trifles,” – one of Musashi’s nine precepts. She’s also asked that it bear at least one Dalek.
Here is the materials set – the remainder of the 30-count linen I used for her sister’s, plus a pile of autumn colors chosen from the stash of silk floss I bought in India:
In addition to Amy Schilling’s Dalek (chart at link above), I am using several alphabets from Ramzi’s collection of vintage Sajou and Alexandre leaflets, available at his Free Easy Cross and Pattern Maker website – a fantastic resource that should be better known. You’ll note that for once I’ve actually laid out the motto ahead of time, rather than trust to luck and eyeballing. This is because Younger Daughter is a creature of logic and symmetry. I accommodate her preferences with a bit more precision than I usually use.
More on this project as it develops. This time I’ll try to document what goes into my rather ad-hoc pattern selection decisions, and any tech tips I can.
Fall is after all, a time of endings and beginnings, and my favorite time of year.
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.
KEEPING BUSY
In all of this observational and research posting what’s been missing has been reporting on my own projects.
I’ve been busy since finishing the Ganeshji piece. I’ve finished Younger Daughter’s red pullover:
Purists will note that we ended up eliminating the belled lower sleeves. They ended up being a bit too much for India’s climate. The thing fits quite nicely. My only caution is that in the chosen cotton DK it’s quite warm.
I also knit up a small teddy bear as an as-yet ungiven gift. I used the free Berroco Foliage Bear pattern, and Bernat Mosaic on US #9 (5.5mm) needles. There’s enough in one skein of multicolor Mosaic to knit at least one more bear of this size. Stuffing was cannibalized from an inexpensive throw pillow bought at the local supermarket; crafts stores and virgin stuffing materials not being exactly common in Pune.
Special thanks to long time needlework pal and multi-century enabler Kathryn, who gave me this wildly bright acrylic skein to share with my kids. I sheepishly admit that it crept into my backpack, and I diverted it to my own use.
I also finished yet another pair of socks. I’ve taken to knitting at the bus stop while waiting with Younger Daughter in the morning. This pair is done, and there is another behind it, well along on the needles:
It’s my standard figure-8 cast-on, toe-up sock, but done on log-huge US #1s – 64 stitches around. The lacy meander on the side is from the first Duchrow collection (page 35). I’ve used it before on a baby blanket. These stripy blue socks are also meant as a gift, along with the men’s pair I’m working on now.
And I’ve started doodling with Kasuthi embroidery. I’ve got a large piece of somewhat even-weave fabric. Big enough to make a half dozen napkins. So I am doing a different motif, totally double sided, on each one. I will stitch all six motifs, then cut apart the cloth and hem the napkins. Motif Number One is complete:
You can see the stepwise logic of the filling pattern in the star flower’s petals. The resemblance to stepwise Western band patterns (like Jane Seymour’s famous cuffs and Anna Meyer’s sleeves) is even more pronounced in Kasuthi border/edging designs. A couple of those are on deck for future napkins. But first, I’ve GOT to do one of the traditional elephants…
HEMMING AND HAWING
Well, not “hawing.” Just hemming.
In answer to the question, “What do you mean by ‘Italian hemming’ since there are so many things that go by that name?” I trot out this picture of my Lord Ganesh cloth’s corner:
The person who asked the question is spot on. There are many types of hemming with confusing, occasionally overlapping names. Some are single pass rolled or folded hems like mine, others are double rows of stitching. I don’t remember where I learned this, but “Italian hemming” was the name attached.
Basically, the stitch I learned is similar to a hemming technique employed in withdrawn thread work, but in this case is done without removing any threads, as a pulled thread stitch. This style of hemming is worked on the reverse, and folds up/fixes the hem/makes the decorative pulled thread “dots” all in one pass. The stitches that make the vertical legs (as opposed to the stitches that do the horizontal bundling), are worked solely through the hem fold, and do not pierce the front or display side of the piece. All of the folding up is done with finger-pressing, neatly crimping the edges tight between thumb and forefinger, just ahead of the actual stitching. The same for the mitered corners – no ironing here, just careful folding along the threads of the weave, going slowly and working under a strong light.
I’m not the neatest at it, being long out of practice, but I’m finished, and not entirely displeased with the final product.
LORD GANESH–ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
The stitching part of my Lord Ganesh is complete:
All that’s left now is a little bit of finishing around the edges of the cloth. I may try out some Italian hemming, just for the fun of it.
Although I didn’t create this stitching specifically in honor of the festival, it is fortuitous that the project’s completion will coincide with Ganeshotsav or Ganesh Chaturthi.
Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated throughout India, although it holds special significance in western areas of the country, including Maharashtra, the state in which we live. Lord Ganesh is venerated at the time of his rebirth. He is beloved as the patron of arts and sciences, who watches over the good beginnings of any venture. As I mentioned before, Ganeshji is a daily presence in life here. His images protect almost every vehicle on the road, and guard the front door of most homes. His shrines are everywhere.
In spite of this ubiquity, the festival itself is not all that ancient, becoming popular as a protest movement in the 1890s. It was revived as a unifying, mass assembly of people for a very public celebration, in opposition to anti-gathering laws in place during the British rule of India.
Modern celebrations include the erection of decorated avenues and temporary platforms, on which images are displayed. These festival areas are also the center of both scheduled and street performances – everything from music and theatrics to impromptu dancing. During the festival, offerings and devotions are also performed at the platforms (pandals).
You can see signs of the upcoming festival now all over Pune, with street constructions sprouting in neighborhoods, near temples and shrines, and along commercial streets, as civic, religious or community affinity groups try to put on the most beautiful and elaborate display. Some of the modern displays and performances are dedicated to additional causes, especially those of social justice. Families make (or buy) special delicacies for the celebration and reunite to enjoy the time together. Devotions culminate at the end of the holy week with huge processions, in which the images are escorted to bodies of running water, where they are immersed and destroyed, in a ritual that echoes the impermanence of the universe – be it of gods or men.
This ritual immersion presents a number of logistical and environmental problems. Many of the images are crafted from plaster of Paris, and are decorated with paints containing heavy metals. The sheer number of these can produce major pollution events, and can leave toxic residues in the bodies of water used. There is growing awareness of this problem, even among the most traditional of the devout. Clay, as opposed to plaster of Paris statues are more widely sold, albeit at greater cost. Some people are making their own rather than buying them. There are even calls for volunteers to recover immersed floral offerings, similarly retired to the waters after the festival, in order to reduce the effects of a large biomass of decomposing vegetation.
Logistical challenges include crowd safety, personal security, and fire awareness for unbelievably large throngs of people, all of whom are intent on getting the best view, having a good time, and enjoying the day and night time displays (complete with light shows and fireworks). There are also civic infrastructure challenges – in the cities, pandal construction damages the streets when holes for the supporting poles are drilled. Electricity for lights and loudspeakers is leeched off street poles, with improvised connections. And construction of the platforms and drapery-lined avenues can also be problematic, with enthusiasm often outstripping engineering for the anticipated loads or required clearances.
Still, for all of the challenges, the city is poised for what looks like it will be a major celebration. I’m hoping we can experience some of the edges of the festival, and come back with memories and pictures to post here.
CROSS-CULTURAL STITCHING
Lord Ganesh is a beloved and hard-working Deity here in India. His image is omnipresent. Aside from gracing his many temples, Lord Ganesh rides on dashboards all over the nation, protecting almost every car, truck, and bus. He wards the door of most homes; and blesses many shops, schools and public buildings. His image has been rendered in just about every medium, from exquisite woodcarving to molded pink plastic. He has been sculpted, printed, woven, painted, and stitched. Hmm. Stitched.
So of course, I had to work my own.
I tried to draw up my own freehand design, but decided in the long run that it would be easier to use an established image. That way I couldn’t get the iconography wrong. I found a kids’ coloring book page via Google. Its simple shapes were particularly suited to inhabited blackwork – the traditional form with heavy outlines enclosing counted thread fillings. I sized the design for some cloth I had on hand, and printed it out. Here you see the cloth and the design taped to a window – a free version of a light table – for pattern tracing:
And here’s progress to date – about four days’ worth:
He’s red because red is a happy color. I’m about two-thirds done, with one ear, some “filler” and some of the lotus frame left to go. I’m very pleased with the way he’s turning out.
For the record, I’m using plain old DMC six strand cotton floss, color #498; two strands for the fillings, three four the chain stitch outlines. I’m working on a coarse cotton/acrylic “linen” that’s not quite even weave (you can see the distortion in the floral pattern in the face, with the north-south axis looking slightly squished compared to east-west). I’m doing this at (for me) a huge gauge of 16 stitches per inch, and the entire piece measures across from lotus-point to lotus point is approximately 8 inches across. All of the fillings above are from my free Ensamplario Atlantio collection.
I have a special purpose for my Lord Ganesh, which will be revealed in time.
PRECISION IN ALL THINGS?
First, for Davey – the wildly loud sofa pillow covers to coordinate with the wildly loud rug:
I picked the blue, red/orange stripe, and turquoise/gold from memory, and they work, even in spite of my equivocal photographic skills, and the flash-wash that makes the red pillow look paler than in real life. There are six pillows in total, two of each fabric.
Moving on, here’s progress through Row 103 of the Dozen shawl that I’m test-knitting:
It’s growing into a feral, interlaced dahlia of a design, which you can begin to see in this rough pin-out. Additional width will be more of the same.
And then there’s the Sarah Collins sampler kit, upon which I’ve started but have made no real progress:
Maybe I’ve ridden at liberty for too long, working at whim instead of direction. Maybe I’m too much of a tinkerer to do a stitched design laid out by someone else, or I have a touch of compulsive perfectionist in my soul – but for whatever reason, this kit is already driving me nuts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a complete kit, thoughtfully laid out and as a reproduction, extremely well documented. The unruly element is me.
For example, it pains me to mindlessly duplicate the mistakes laid down by the original stitcher. See that twist column to the left of the frame? That’s verbatim to the pattern’s directions. But I tried, and tried, but just couldn’t let it sit that way. See the twist inside the frame, with the completed centers? I **had** to do it. I’ll probably pick out the offending imperfect twist and re-do it to match the edited bit.
There’s also working up the double running for this panel in two colors of sienna. The blue flower doesn’t bother me, I find that adorable. But using two threads for the framing spiral, alternating colors is maddening. It’s clear to me that dear Sarah might not have marled and finger-spun her threads properly, or perhaps ran out of one of the two shades, and that’s why the panel is done in alternating two-tone. It’s all I can do to grit my teeth and work as directed, because if I don’t, I risk running out of a color before the kit is done. Getting more matching thread, especially here, would be difficult in the extreme.
And then there’s the format of the charts. They’re huge, and orchestrate a stitch for stitch path, with every single one numbered. There are sufficient map pages in the thing to chart one’s way from Boston to Mumbai by rail (including the sunken parts via Atlantis). Paging through them is an exercise in where-the-heck-is-page-2b-left-got-to-now?” – then finding it under the sofa.
I’m also not fond of the indicated stitch logic. The paths described are not the ones I would choose. I tend to key off established bits, so that I can proof new sections against clean counts as I work. There’s too much “where no man has gone before” in this piece, with extremely long runs worked in advance of the growing body of work, and no way to confirm fidelity as one progresses.
Is there a moral to this story? Perhaps, not. But I have to admit that today’s post reveals that I’m a ruthless stickler for detail, caught up in color matching from memory, precision adherence to knitting patterns (where forays into originality are better left for after one has grokked the source design); but temperamentally incapable of similar fidelity to oh-so-obvious stitching directions. Mark it up as another character flaw, pass me a glass of wine, and move on, please.
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.
COMPULSION
Today I try to appease both my constituencies – stitchers and knitters.
First, for the knitters, I make confession that I’ve been seduced. I recently came into possession of a true one-skein wonder, two balls of Skacel’s Zauberball Crazy. One is an addled mix of red, turquoise, yellow and green (#1701), the other is chocolate, teal, cranberry and according to the official photo, on the inside somewhere – tan (#1507). It’s a lofty and soft fingering weight, 100g/459 yards per ball, enough to knit a pair of socks for me. Here are Skacel’s own photos of the two, at a color fidelity much better than I could achieve:
But looking at this stuff made me want to do something other than socks. Given the number of variables in play right now, I decided I didn’t want to take time to design my own pattern, so I began poking around the ‘net and found the Wingspan scarf. I’m working up this variant. It’s all garter stitch, with the demonstrative shaping formed by short rows. You can see the play of the extra long color repeat even in this traditional blurry String snap, taken at dawn:
A quick knit, totally on autopilot, with a clever system of traveling markers that make it impossible to make a mistake. More on this as the thing grows.
And on the Big Green Sampler, I’m inching along the fiddly bits at the bottom edge, filling in my voiding. The tightly drawn two-sided Italian cross stitch goes more quickly in an open field. Around these odd little bits – especially the Y-shaped extensions in the top and bottom borders (a detail done exactly this way in the museum original) – it’s a slow and exacting ride:
The little empty rectangles at the base of each Y are especially tricky to leave unworked. Still, I am making incremental progress none the less.
Now, why did I start the knitting project?
Compulsion. Plain and simple. I do 98% of my yarn acquisition at Wild & Woolly, my local yarn shop – a heaven on earth for knitters. But driving across the state to drop Elder Daughter off at college put me within striking distance of Webs, the Northampton, MA yarn hypermarket. My rule is not to buy stuff elsewhere that I can find locally, so Younger Daughter and I took a quick jaunt through the place looking for stand-outs – things I haven’t seen anywhere else.
That’s where I was attacked by the Zauberball. It fairly leapt of the shelf in a direct assault on my magpie color sense. It’s hard to describe this compulsion to a non-crafter. I HAD to get it, and I HAD to find something good to knit with it, and I HAD to cast on right away. That’s the way the best projects work – the absolute mandate to watch the piece take shape. Time flies on its own. Any encountered problems melt away. I look down and see more done than I realized was happening. Oddly enough, the final product while valued, is not the goal. It’s the process, the journey, the materials, and the sense of progress.
I’ll split my time between these two. Maybe I’ll figure out something myself to do with Zauberball #2. Or maybe not. But in any case, both balls have to be cooked, chewed and digested before I return to normal.
String-Or-Nothing 