INTERLACED!
Yes, I’m still working on my long green sampler. Both of the patterns below will be in TNCM2:
Thanks to the Montenegrin book I’ve been able to do all those twisty, bendy parts where diagonals meet horizontals or verticals. It was a lifesaver! I really like this interlace. You’ll note by comparing my piece with the original below that my ground cloth is off square – not quite even weave. So it goes. I’m working that distortion into my pattern selection and placement.
“Strip,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession 79.1.13. 17th century, Italy, possibly Sicily
It’s very hard to see, but it looks like there might have been spangles in the empty spaces between the internal curlicues. There may be a spangle in the upper left (better seen at the full photo at the link), where the work is the least damaged, plus some evidence of now empty holding stitches, and some corrosion aligning with where the spangles would have been. This pattern would make a killer coif or all-over sleeve panel with spangles there, and maybe a few more replacing the little four box free floating squares. I’m thinking of working it in black and gold with spangles for a modern envelope clutch style evening bag.
In any case, that strip is now done and I’m on to the next – a rather complex urn and branch with a very dark and solid background. It’s going to take a lot of stitching to cover all that real estate in long armed cross stitch, so progress on the piece, once the double running foreground is all laid in will be very dull to watch for a while. Good thing I have other content lined up.
I am however less than pleased with the Zoundry Raven blogging composition software I’ve been using. The last few posts have killed it. I can get them composed and loaded if I do all the work in one session, but I can’t call up a previously started piece for additional work – not even to copy out text and recompose in a new post. That means that I’ll have to re-draft the next several Long Lost Twins pieces. Stay tuned!
GREENS BOTH DARK AND LIVID
Laying down the double running outlines for the latest strip, with the intent of going back and filling in the Montenegrin cross stitch spines along them in a second pass:
I’ll probably do the long straight runs first, while waiting for the Montenegrin stitch book to arrive. I don’t particularly like the way I handled the bent spines and am hoping that Autopsy of the Montenegrin Stitch will help.
In other news, I spent the weekend knitting a hat. An outrageous black earflap cap, encrusted with a lime green crest. Bespoken, of course:
I started with Interweave Knits Army Girl Earflap cap – unisex despite its name (available in the IKE 7 Free Knitted Hats booklet). I added a bit more height just above the forehead, before the crown decreases because the recipient is a tall guy with a slightly longer head than average. I’m using Brown Sheep Lambs’ Pride Bulky. If you want to make this hat as published, one skein of it is more than enough for the whole thing. My green crest adds about half of a second skein, in that screaming color.
I’ve got some more of the ruff to add, then I have to snip it back, barbering it from floppy/sloppy to a uniform and threatening length. But all is on schedule for a hat-ETA of later this week.
MIXED STITCH INTERLACE
Another strip well started. This one is a mixed stitch interlace, graphed out from yet another museum artifact, and another pattern that will be appearing in TNCM2:
As my dawn-lighted picture reveals, I’m working it in two passes – first setting up the double running stitch outlines, then going back and filling in the dark center stripes. After some initial experimentation, I’ve settled on using Montenegrin stitch for those stripes. Although it’s a legitimate historical stitch contemporary with this style, and is spot on in terms of raised texture and density, I’m not entirely convinced that all artifacts labeled “punto spina pesce” use it (or in fact- employ the same stitch).
Contemporary work of that name more commonly refers to plain old long-armed cross stitch (LACS) but LACS doesn’t give the raised, tightly plaited appearance of the older pieces. Plaited – yes, but the angles in LACS are more acute than those in the museum artifacts. Montenegrin is closer in terms of texture, but is also not spot on. I’ll continue to experiment, but I will finish out this band using Montenegrin, and play further on later band.
To answer Ellen, this is done on 40 count using one strand of Soie d’Alger in color 1846. As you can see from the proportions of the work however, the ground is not exactly square. The 3×8 rectangles used to “bind” the interlaces together clearly show the skew. The bottom band of pulled thread work was done over units that are 4×4 threads. The double running band above it and the one I’m working now are done over 2×2 threads – approximately 20 stitches per inch.
To answer Rachel, yes – holding large frames is a pain. I much prefer working with my small round frame. But I don’t want to compromise the silk I’m using. I use my frame stand as that extra “third hand” to hold my frame, and then stitch with one hand above and one below it. If I can get a comfortable angle, it’s actually faster than stitching using the round frame, where one hand holds the frame and the other does all the work. The round frame does provide a more even tension in all directions. I suppose I could seam on a carrying cloth edge and then lace my piece left and right to improve side to side tension on the flat frame. I’ve done that before on others. But the Millennium provides much better overall tension than my old scroll frame, and I like being able to advance work at a whim, or collapse it for transport. I would not have been able to do this type of work on my old frame without lashing the sides.
To answer Anne, I don’t as a rule endorse retail outlets, I don’t accept recompense in money or kind for anything mentioned in String, and I don’t accept “review copies” or gifts from makers/sellers hoping for positive exposure. However I will say that the source for the frame was Needle Needs in the UK. I bought my silk from Needle in a Haystack in California, and the ultimate source of my ground cloth was Hand Dyed Fibers (I bought it from the original purchaser). The needlework stand I’m using is a Grip-It, which I bought about 20 years ago at The Yarn Shop in College Park, Maryland – long out of business. I altered the Grip-It to accommodate the Millennium by replacing the original jaw bolts with longer ones. It appears that the Grip-It is no longer being made.
THISTLEATION
Marching along. As you can see, I advanced the piece on my rollers. Due to the orientation of my chair and frame stand, I’m most comfortable stitching in the lower third of the available area. Plus, being a new gizmo, I wanted to see how full slack, restacking the bars and tightening worked.
My working thread is marking the center point for the next band. That one will probably be in long armed cross stitch, worked both horizontal or vertical, and on the diagonal to create the foreground. Some museums call this “Punto Spina Pesce.” Modern stitchers probably know it better under the name Montenegrin stitch.
I’ve been having a lively discussion in another forum on useful needlework tools. In addition to the standards, I can offer up this:
Tweezers! Not just any dime store pair. I saw some specifically made for electronics assembly at work. They were so perfect, I went out and bought myself something similar. Electronics tweezers are long and pointy, with precision grip ends. The final half inch or so is nicely rounded, and is a good stand-in for a laying tool (for those who like the economy of a minimal tool set). Further up the shaft the profile switches to more of a D. On mine the 90-degree sides of the D are just sharp enough to cut through thread, so inserting the rounded end into a stitch and pushing ever so slightly will break the stitch without harming the ground cloth. Then the fine grip tweezers can be use to remove any thread detritus left over from ripping back. Electronics tweezers are available in many price ranges. Since nonmagnetic/non-conductive isn’t important for stitching, the least expensive pairs work just fine for my purposes.
I also made a blindingly obvious discovery about needles. I usually use fine tapestry style needles on ground cloth that’s 40+ threads per inch. But I often stitch those finer cloths with one strand of embroidery floss. One strand of floss has the annoying habit of falling out of the needle’s eye, something that drives me batty. But over the weekend I found these:
Ball point hand sewing needles, made for use on tricots and fine knit fabrics. You can see in the un-thumbnailed photo above that the eyes are tiny – just big enough for one strand of floss. The points are not quite as blunt as tapestry needles, but they are far less pointy than embroidery or plain-sewing sharps. They slide nicely between the threads of my ground cloth. And the small eye retains the single strand, reducing the time and annoyance of re-threading mid-work. Not orthodox perhaps, but effective.
MESHY AND THISTLES
More progress on Long Green.
You can see that I finished the mesh strip and have started on a simple double running band. The thickness of the darning on the mesh varies because I was trying out several stitching logics. I’m still working on the illustrations for the best of them, more on that to come. Also, there will be more on how these mesh styles were achieved in historical works. There look to have been several ways to do it – there is no “This is the only right way” method.
Here’s a close-up for Kathryn, who wanted to see the mesh more clearly. This photo is back-illuminated by the sun, and was taken with a piece of printer paper held behind the stitching:
Today’s double running band is yet another pattern that will be appearing in TNCM2.
It’s adapted from a drawn (rather than graphed) strip pattern appearing in Egenolff. The drawing however is clearly intended to be geometrical, and as you can see – translates easily to linear counted stitching. I will say that this gauzy linen is far better for the mesh darning and possibly solid voided work than it is for delicate double running. It’s tough to NOT distort the threads when stitching, which may be optimal for the pulled thread mesh, but is problematic for the other styles.
LONG GREEN – OFF TO A GOOD START
I’m having fun with my new frame, and playing with the mesh background voided style. As you can see, I’ve started with a very simple pattern:
This style is totally two-sided. And I can now see why so many fragments representing it are present in museum collections. It’s dense and tough as nails. Even with the mesh background, there are no loops or fragile surface to catch and no ends to fray (they’re all easily buried by overstitching). From looking at museum samples, the mesh background of mixed line stitch/voided pieces is rarely damaged. It’s usually the double running element that has breaks or skips. I’m very pleased with this and will do more with it. I’ll even try it at a smaller scale on this cloth later downstream.
I’ll also draw up some stitch diagrams on how I did it. I didn’t use standard gridded-cross-stitch (Italian two-sided cross stitch) logic. By noodling around I hit upon something that I was able to both count with greater ease, and use to achieve a more “meshy” output. But more on that when I manage to sketch up what the heck it is I’m doing.
FINISHED!
At long last I can present my finish photo. Not my mounted and ready to display shot, but my “all stitching done” pix:
and proof that I’ve signed the thing:
I finished it up within 24 hours of my last post. Where have I been since then?
Wallowing in post-project ennui. Knitting socks for Elder Daughter. Treating myself to a flat Millennium Frame for the next stitched project, which being silk, is not a good candidate for a round frame. Working on a lecture on embroidery patterns, to be given at the Hrim Schola XVI (also here)– an SCA event focused on sharing learning about needlework, to be held on 17 March. Working on TNCM2, which now looks to be topping out at 60 plates of source-annotated historical patterns, more or less. Handling work deadlines. Shuttling said Elder Daughter back to college, and Younger Daughter to fencing class. Mocking The Resident Male for being a latecomer to blogging. The usual.
Imminent Death of wiseNeedle
On a more serious note, I am also preparing to take down wiseNeedle. Some of the content will be salvaged and re-offered, like the patterns and the glossary. But the rest won’t be.
Why do this after a on-the-Web run dating back to 1995? Mostly economics. I’ve supported the thing out of my own pocket since the beginning. It wasn’t cheap because we need a commercial grade SQL service to support the yarn review collection, plus incorporation to protect family assets from potential suits by folks upset by yarn review content. Ad revenue made it a business, and taxes on that tiny income stream had to be handled, too.
Thanks to the advertising, wiseNeedle broke even for several years, but no longer. Yarndex made a slight dent in readership, but our independent non-sponsored stance preserved interest. Folk knew that when they saw wiseNeedle reviews posted, the information was all-volunteer and totally unsponsored. But when Ravelry broke loose, traffic here nosedived and never recovered. It’s now at about 8 percent of what it was back then. They now take up the lion’s share of knitting traffic on the Web, with their own advice boards and yarn review collection. It’s clear that concerns beyond the hobbyist level – small time independents like wiseNeedle no longer have a place on the ‘Net. Ravelry as a newly minted 500-pound gorilla, wins.
String and its URL will continue although we will be porting it to a lower cost service later this year. I am hoping to preserve String’s back content, but I’m not sure how to handle wiseNeedle’s sublinks. All of those (plus String’s) may break. It’s a shame that the yarn review back catalog of info will be lost. It covers lots of yarns dating back through time and is still a valuable resource for people looking to make substitutions. Unless there’s an entity interested in buying and hosting the database (sans contributors addresses, to preserve their anonymity), it will be going away soon.
ONLY INCHES AWAY FROM DONE
O.k. Here I am:
Only inches away from total done-ness. Just a tiny bit more gridded void fill at the uppermost left hand corner, and to finish out two narrow strips in the final section:
I’ll probably finish all of it up tonight or tomorrow. Then the only thing that remains is the signature strip.
I’m plotting that out right now.
Post-project separation sadness has already set in.
BLACKWORK SAMPLER – YEAR 2
This is new for me. I’ve had projects that spanned years (decades, even), but never before have I had one embroidery project that I worked on without stopping, that has taken more than a year. Even my blackwork underskirt was done in 10 months. But as of mid December, I have now spent an entire year working on my big blackwork sampler. I’m not quite done. Almost, but not quite:
You can see that I’m filling in the area to the left of the dragon. I’ve finished the first dark band, and am now on a lighter one just above it. Two more to go, balancing the progression of shade values on the dragon’s right. Then it’s a sliver of the voided leaf panel at the top of the work, to finish that off even with the edge of the strips below. And finally – I will sign the piece in the strip beneath the dark panel on the leftmost edge. And it will be done. Maybe two more weeks? More if work deadlines intrude.
Here’s a close-up of the latest two strips:
The sharp-eyed will note that the voided one on the bottom is included in TNCM, on Plate 28:4. It’s from Jean Troveon’s Patrons de diuerse manieres…, published in Lyon in 1533. Those of long memory may remember that I’ve used it before. It’s doubled, and appears on the left and right-most edges of my filet crochet dragon window curtain.
The Troveon’s original is shown single width, but the halved fleur-de-lys motifs seemed to beg use as an all-over pattern. Also, the graph of the original is shown in reverse of mine color placement, with the foreground emphasized rather than the background, more like the treatment in the crocheted piece. (Come to think of it, that knot strip along the top of the curtain might be a candidate for the dark strip at the top of my current sampler section. Hmmm….)
The lighter strip I’m currently working on will be in TNCM2. It’s adapted from a non-graphed (but oh-so-obviously-intended-to-be) design in Ostaus’ La Vera Perfezione del Disegno…, Venice, 1561 and 1567. I’ve chosen to augment it here with the frilly edge treatment.
In any case, the holidays have departed here at String. The tree is undecorated, the cookies, panforte, goose, cassoulet, and other goodies have been consumed or distributed. And the long slog through the year commences.
SNEAKING UP ON A YEAR
O.k., I’ve finished the upper right hand corner, shown here in a traditional String pre-dawn fuzzy photo:
And here is all that’s left to go:
Just the upper left. You can see I’m finishing out the leaf strip that runs across the entire top. Then I’ll find several smaller strip patterns for the area beneath it. I’ll use two relatively narrow dark strips to set off the space, similar to what I did on the right, then fill in with lighter ones. But they will be different from the set on the right. I used five total there. I might use six on the left. It will depend on what strikes my fancy when I get there. After that the only thing that will remain will be signing the piece in the small blank area immediately beneath the mega-dark strip on the left hand center edge.
I get notes from folk marveling on my rapid progress. But it hasn’t been all that speedy. The first note I posted about this project was on 2 January of this year. I had already been stitching on the piece since around the second week of last December, but hadn’t written about it because I was in the middle of posting my tutorial on graphing line unit patterns using GIMP (November-December 2010). Here’s the first snap of the thing, so you can see the progress since:
To be fair, just the small area I completed yesterday is larger than many contemporary commercial samplers, but even so, a project in a simple technique that takes more than year to finish even when working with daily diligence, isn’t exactly being worked at light speed. Or is being stitched by someone with a day job…
In other news, there are major seasonal celebrations afoot. First is a happy birthday to Long Time Needlework Pal Kathryn Goodwyn -she of “Too many centuries, too little time.” Long may she research and stitch! And I tease readers here again about her forthcoming Flowers of the Needle series, which I’ve had the opportunity to see in preview. It’s worth every bit of slavering, panting anticipation.
Plus it’s Cookie Season again in String Central’s kitchens. That means the obligate ten varieties, plus Panforte again this year. I delight in having an apprentice baker now, and no longer having to staff the entire manufactory myself.
String-Or-Nothing 