PROGRESS CONQUERED!
Finished. All that remains is to add my initials and date in the lower corner(s), frame it, and mail it to the recipients at Vanderbilt Rehab. I will be framing it myself.
I’ll figure out a stock size, get an acid free backing board, maybe a piece of black fabric to put behind the linen to camouflage any stray threads on the back, some short pins, possibly some carpet thread to keep the back neatly laced and tidy, and a simple metal frame. No glass, no mat. But this of course requires a trip to a crafts store like Michaels’, or ordering sight-unseen online. I prefer to select these materials in person. I haven’t tried driving yet, but I can now sit and my right foot is as spry as it ever was. This may be the impetus for the Next Great Step of Independence. Or the Resident Male may deign to give me a lift. We will see…
Lessons learned from this piece (so far) have largely been in silk fiber management. I’ve written before about stretching the vintage Pearsall’s silk by splitting its six from-the-maker plies in half. It worked, although handling the stuff was a challenge.
I had not finger-spun flying filaments before. When the two strands that made up the commercial ply were separated and gently stroked to release the commercial spin, so that they unkinked and straightened out, they were certainly long staple, with the silk fibers running the entire length of the strand and without short fiber fuzz, but they were disassociated into a slightly shredded longitudinal mass. I rotated the new, narrowed strand between thumb and forefinger gently, while holding the other end, to impart new twist. Not enough to make the thing kink up again and knot, but just enough to get it to resemble a single thread. Then I waxed lightly, very lightly, to help set the spin. I didn’t want to compromise the silk’s sheen, and it was too easy to shred the new thread if I held it tightly against the wax with my thumb as I drew it across.
In the photo below the red thread at the bottom is a single “native” ply of my Pearsall’s six ply embroidery floss. Note that it’s structure is two-fold. This one strand is made of two plies of silk spun independently and twisted together. The green thread in the middle is what happened when I “unspun” those two plies. You can see the long staple filament fuzz that resulted. And the blue thread on top is what happens after I finger spun and lightly waxed the fluff. It’s a bit loftier than the original thread, but clearly half as bulky.
The re-spun thread was cohesive, and it handled well enough. It still needed attention and an additional spin or two as I stitched, to keep it as uniform as possible as I worked. Still, you can see spots, especially in the deep indigo that frames the outer border, where I was not entirely successful in maintaining thread spin/loft, and lines look a bit dashed, as thicker journeys completed previous lines laid down with a thinner, more tightly spun thread. But historical samplers have this look, too. Those stitchers, vastly younger than me, were learning to prepare their threads from reeled silk fibers and uniformity was a new skill to learn, and something that was a challenge even for them.
Picking out when I made the inevitable mistake was also a problem. It was too easy to latch onto only part of a strand, and shred the thread when a stitch needed to be removed. So I tried VERY hard not to make any mistakes. I was not always successful, and some waste did occur.
I still have the remainder of these colors, and more. I am not sure when I will get to use the rest of my vintage silk, but it will probably be on smaller, less densely stitched items; and again stretched to make use of every priceless inch.
Now. What’s up next?
I’m not sure. I will investigate my stash tomorrow. I just splurged on a pre-tariff large hank of antique red Au Ver a Soie silk. I want to do something with it. Possibly on leftover fabric from the coif, possibly on something less visually challenging. Maybe inhabited blackwork. Maybe strapwork. But no motto this time. Just a riot of pattern, with no lettering to center.
Or maybe I’ll finally do a faux Mexican style blouse in cottons. I have some well aged four inch wide finished edge cotton evenweave, sort of like the stuff sold for bookmarks but on steroids. It was last sold in the mid-1970s, and I got it in a stash trade a few years back. It would make a nifty base for a heavily stitched square shaped yoke, with a lighter cotton (perhaps muslin) full gathered blouse body below, and small cap sleeves. I might even have enough of the wide evenweave ribbon to edge the body hem, or to do a second blouse if the first one works out well. But instead of using traditional patterns, I might do something unexpected. Possibly one of my dinosaur strips, or the Pegasus strip – maybe even voided. Or something as-yet unseen. Suggestions welcome.
So many possibilities…
TWO COLOR DOUBLE RUNNING STITCH – TWICE THE FUN
As promised, here is a round-up of what I’ve been looking into on double running stitch, done in two alternating colors. First, heartfelt thanks to Melinda Sherbring and the gang over at the Facebook group Historic Hand Embroidery.
I knew I had seen examples of this type of work on samplers, but my own research notes are particularly poor in samplers. I tend to focus on the small fragments of household and body linen that lie quietly and largely unnoticed in museum research collections. Samplers receive far more attention, are often under licensing restrictions or have been fully charted by reproduction houses. So in a fit of laziness (it being vacation) I put out a call to the group and asked for assistance. Many people responded, Melinda especially so, furnishing 85% of the material I will cite below. So copious thanks, Melinda! I bow to your greater expertise on these, and will accept any/all corrections.
First, here’s what I am talking about. Here is a simple graph of a sprig pattern, worked in double running of a single baseline.
Note the alternating color stitches in the baseline. If I were to stitch this, I’d start with black, take that first stitch at the baseline’s left edge, then in double running work the rest of the first flower in black as a detour from my baseline. When I returned to the baseline, I’d continue on to the next black stitch, then I could continue working the whole thread of black until I ran out, carefully counting the units between black flowers. After that I’d start again from the left, filling in the missing green stitch, and taking detours to work the green flowers. Or I could do it the easier way – parking my black threaded needle, taking up a green one, and working green stitches until I got to the first green flower, working that as a detour in the standard manner, and marching on for a few stitches after, then catching up and leapfrogging ahead with the black. Note that using two colors means one will always be traveling along the baseline in the same direction. There is no doubling back to fill in second pass double-running stitches as one can if a single color is used.
After some experimentation, I found the “leapfrog” method far easier, in spite of having to be careful not to snag the parked thread. Less long distance counting means fewer errors for me. I suspect that close examination of encroachment on these historical pieces will turn up that leapfrogging was the way they did it, too. It’s just so intuitive and so much simpler.
One more observation – an alternating baseline is a giveaway that the band was done in double running. It would be quite awkward and wasteful of thread to achieve this effect in back stitch. And using back stitch to do the branching detour sprigs would mean having to terminate the thread on each one, or stranding over to return to the baseline. Again, something wasteful to be avoided.
Examples
Melinda provided far more than these photos, but I am cherry picking the ones with details that display the best. Click on the sampler institution/accession/date link to see the full pieces. A couple more of Melinda’s citations are at the end of this post, for those who want to do their own deep dive.
Ashmolean WA2014.71.3 (1631-1700) The boxers/urns panel has a companion border at the bottom with alternating pink/blue sprigs and a clear two-tone baseline. There’s also another pair of companion borders at the bottom that uses a band of green stitching with the alternating color sprigs and two-tone baseline immediately along its edge:
Ashmolean WA2014.71.27 (mid 1600s) has the alternating color sprigs on a two-color baseline on the topmost motif. This is the one I dimly remembered from tiny illustrations in a sampler book. Note that additional satin stitching was done in the centers of the motifs to bring extra dimensionality and color, but the double running outlines are still there.
Burrell 31.7 (1640-1670) Sadly, no high resolution image. But on the bottom-most strip – its framing border, top and bottom strongly looks like two-tone sprigs, and probably has an alternating baseline but it’s hard to make out the detail on the baseline. More investigation on my part needed. As an aside, it’s nice that the Burrell gives thread counts for the linen ground – 28 warp x 25 weft per cm, or 71.12 x 63.5 threads per inch. I’ve included the main strip because it or a close sibling pops up in connection with alternate two-tone borders in other works.
Burrell 31.9 (1640-1670) Third strip from the bottom. Again, certain ID limited by photo quality, but it does look like that much wider strip was done with a two-tone WIDER baseline (same spirit as mine, but a different pattern), with alternating color detours. Shares a lot of the aesthetic and some bands with Burrell 31.7 – interesting!
Cooper Hewitt 1981-28-70 (1600s) Love their high resolution photos. Another clear hit. The companion border around the bottommost wide strip, for sure – done in at least THREE colors (wow!) with a multicolor baseline and single color sprigs. A green, a blue, and possibly a red and a pink, the red and pink are very much faded. Or it might just be green, blue, and pink. It’s very hard to parse but it does look like the baseline was done in pink-green-red-blue-pink-green-red-blue, which would leave very long skips, overlapping on the reverse. I’d love to see the back to confirm that, and to confirm the number of colors.
There are more possibilities on this same piece, but for the most part they are heavily overstitched in satin stitch or (possibly) hollie point or another detached looping/weaving stitch, worked on the outline and for the most part obscuring it. It also looks like the second color was not necessarily used on the double running stitch outline for the sprigs, but was employed in the fill treatment Here’s one with an alternating baseline of blue and pink(?). The pink looks like it was used to outline the acorn and leaf shapes with double running. Pink and green were used for the detatched stitch fills for the acorn and leaf, but the blue of the baseline seems to have ben employed to fill the twigs between the acorns and leaves.
Fitzwilliam T.59-1928 (circa 1680) I stumbled across this one looking for the other items Melinda cited. I saw tiny black and white photo of this in one of the first embroidery history books I borrowed from the library – a book published before 1965 or so. I charted some of the strips from it with a magnifying glass, and used them on a piece I did in high school, long before I found the SCA. I haven’t seen this piece since. (People looking to chart now have no idea how much easier it is today with on line access to zillions of primary sources and high resolution photos, all of which can be enlarged right on the screen. A far cry from being smuggled into university libraries to stare at fuzzy microfiche images, or taking magnifying glasses to low quality black and white photos in books.) There is clearly a two-tone companion border with an alternating color baseline accompanying the prominent rose band:
By way of contrast, this bit from the same sampler was NOT done with a two-tone baseline. Even if there are pink straight stitches between the green diamonds and other motifs in the uniting center band, those sprouting leaves in pink are independent from the true baseline, which is solid, unbroken green.
Fitzwilliam T.61-1928 (1677) Also stumbled upon, and sadly a bit blurry. Two possibilities in the photo below – and the lower wide border to which one of the candidates is the companion one looks to a design that’s a cousin to the one from the Burrell sampler above. The two-tone companion is clearly not the same design, even though it’s difficult to see.
More citations:
Ashmolean WA2014.71.44 (1633) Not a sharp photo, but the red/green framing bands on the boxers strip does look like it is probably done in the dual tone baseline, alternating color detour method.
Fitzwilliam T.82-1928 (1691). Looks like there could be a couple of candidate bands, especially in the framing borders around larger strips, but the photo resolution isn’t quite there, and I can’t be sure that the colors are united by a two-tone baseline. I need to do more investigation.
Conclusions:
I have not seen this treatment in portraits, or in fragments of household linen – only on band samplers. I will keep looking, but I think Melinda’s generosity makes it clear that double running done in two colors, with a two-tone baseline and sprigs alternating between those colors was a 17th century innovation, popular in England of that era. She has given us lovely data points from 1629 to the 1690s. Given the paucity of extant samplers before 1600, that is to be expected. Thanks again Melinda!
But I never say never. All I can say is “I haven’t seen it yet.” And who knows, maybe someone out there HAS a citation for use of this technique before 1625, a sighting in works from other times/locations; or evidence on a textile fragment or portrait that it was used on clothing or household linen. If so, please add a comment with that reference here, and I’ll be happy to do a follow-up post.
And my own progress?
I’m up to the outer framing border. I just realized that I forgot to plot the way the wreath-springs work in the corners, so I will do that later or tomorrow, and concentrate on finishing out the upper edge tonight.
Yes, the colors are a bit disjointed, and I’m not entirely pleased with how prominent the diagonals turned out. But I am working under severe materials quantity constraints. Most of the colors were too light to show well in this style of work, and those that are are in single 8 yard six-strand skeins, most of which were already nibbled by the original owner for her prior projects. I am still splitting each strand of the six, to double the yardage, but it’s going to be tight.
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.
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.
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
ENSAMPLARIO ATLANTIO VOLUME III!
I am delighted to announce that the third volume in my free-to-download series of blackwork pattern booklets is now up and available here on String-or-Nothing.
Like the previous two volumes, Ensamplario Atlantio Volume III contains original (and a very few redacted) filling designs of the type used in inhabited blackwork. That’s the style that fills outlined shapes with fields of diapered fillings, as seen in my Unstitched Coif project submission, and in my current sampler. The new fills I created or redacted for the Coif are all in here (I had to do more – I actually ran out of suitable ones!)
It also contains most of the strips found on the several tribute and protest samplers I’ve done over the past several months – the various mythical beasts, interlaces, swords, and other fantasies in thread. (The ones not found in here are from Ensamplario Atlantio II, The New Carolingian Modelbook, or The Second Carolingian Modelbook.)
And to top that off, there are lots more designs in there I haven’t stitched yet, including tunic yokes and pieces with corners that could be used for framing necklines, or table linen. For SCA folk there are a few items of special interest – the populace badges of the East and Atlantia, and a belt motif that can be infilled with the colors that signify patronage relationships (squires, protegees, apprentices).
In truth, I’ve rushed this one to release. I apologize if there are errors or inconsistencies. I plead time pressure. If major errors turn up and I get a chance, I’ll go back and fix them. However, the very few source attributions in it have been thoroughly confirmed and are genuine. Except for those redactions, all of the other material in there is my original output.
Why free? Why not? My goal is to promulgate the spread of stitching, and to make it easy to do so. Yes, I could have bundled these books up and sold them on Amazon, like the Carolingian Modelbook series. But in truth, the yield is a pittance because I am under pressure to price the books low enough to discourage massive piracy. Higher pricing restricts access and defeats my goal of spreading the joy.
For the record, The Carolingian Modelbooks are the product of a lot of research, exacting redaction, writing, and indexing. The Ensamplario series is a lark. Largely just my doodle notebooks, produced with minimal effort. I felt justified in asking for recompense for them on the basis of labor alone. But EnsAtl books are candy to be shared just for the fun of it. You can pay me back by sharing photos of works you’ve done using these designs, teaching someone else to stitch, flaunting blackwork-embroidered garments or accessories in public to increase appreciation and awareness, or just by doing a good deed for someone in need (I release my pattern broadsides as Good Deed Ware, too.)
HOWEVER I retain copyright of my drawings, and release these designs for PERSONAL USE ONLY. For any other uses including including duplication, inclusion of the patterns on patterns or finished items for sale or charitable distribution, I request you contact me privately. I’m not an ogre, but neither do I want to see my goodwill answered with appropriation. My terms (if any) will be mild, and reasonable. Oh, and feeding them into AI for training is total anathema, and is expressly forbidden.
You can download Ensamplario Atlantio Volume III by clicking the link below, or by hopping to the MY BOOKS tab at the top of every page here on String. The earlier EnsAtl volumes are on MY BOOKS, too.
>>> CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF FILE OF ENSAMPLARIO ATLANTIO III <<<
Comments? Questions? Random remarks? Go right ahead.
CATCHING AN ASSIST
According to the posting date, it’s been about 10 days since I last reported in on progress on Assist. I’ve had a couple of mis-alignments due to low lighting and inattention. Some I’ve picked out, others I saved as cautionary lessons. And I’ve taken a slight departure from my usual working cadence.
Here’s the latest in-hoop view.
Obviously I’m working voiding on the row of snaky, vaguely draconic S-shaped flowers. But I’m only half-way done with that, yet I’ve gone on to start (although not finish) the row of smaller fills underneath.
Why the partials?
Because it’s very likely I’ll be attending Arisia over the weekend. It’s a big science fiction convention here in the Boston metro area. There will be discussions, panels, and lectures to attend. I like to keep my hands occupied at such things, so I can better follow along without distraction. Therefore to minimize lap clutter and make this project more portable I want to have enough started with established repeats, so I can work “off book/screen” for the balance of the weekend. That plus using the chatelaine means quick convenience – nothing can be dropped or left behind as we migrate from one panel room to the next.
As far as difficulty, the voiding requires no pattern reference once the foreground repeat is established. The partial fills each have enough detail that I don’t need to refer back to those patterns, either. I can just copy what I’ve already worked. Note that that second one is rather far along. In that case I DID get lost and decided to finish that square out here at home and not trust to luck on the go.
I’ll probably start on the foreground of the next voided strip, too. Either below the four-box fill row, or above the three-box fill row that sits on top of the motto (seen peeking out at top, from the folds underneath the frame). Which one I’ll do will depend on which design I pick next. I think one that’s as wide as or very slightly narrower than the Assist strip will sit nicely at the growing pile north of the motto. Something wider and more demonstrative for below. How wide and how demonstrative is going to be a function of the very narrow nature of the composition as a whole. I only have 102 units across to play with. Lots of my drama queen voided/double running strapwork strips have repeats significantly wider than that. We’ll see.
And a working hint. You can see that I’m not stitching up to the red double-running stitch boxes outlining my fills. I’m leaving a one-unit strip of unworked linen between the red outlines and the fills. Usually I “fig-leaf” any partial stitches when working fills in spaces buy doing them first, then stitching a heavy outline around the fill area to cover all sins. This time I opted for a lighter look. The hint is if you look at the on-deck set I’m currently stitching, and the two completed sets above (visible as partials in and above the hoop) you’ll see that I lay down the first pass of double-running, then work the fill, then go back and complete the double-running by stitching the second pass. I’m doing this because counting those little dashes is immensely easier to do than trying to navigate by counting the stitches in a completed line.
The uncorrected mistakes to date? There are four, and I hang my head in shame.
First, my original basted guidelines were off by three units. The natural vertical center of the piece is three units to the right of my first go at basting. That I didn’t catch until I had finished the voiding on Assist. Voiding is not something that should be picked out by the faint-hearted, especially in silk on somewhat fragile vintage linen. So I adjusted my alignments rather than picking out. When I frame or finish this up as a scroll there will be some compensation to keep the final field even all the way around.
Second, I’m off by an entire unit somewhere between the vertical center and right guide line, probably with two one-thread width displacements in an earlier slubby or worn/fuzzy bit on the vintage linen. There I didn’t catch that until the first row of fills and Assist were done. Oops.
Third, that interlace box. The interlaces are not centered, again they’re off. This error I blame on SWI – stitching while intoxicated. We had a lovely bottle of champagne that evening, to celebrate the close of the holiday season, consumption of the last of our leftovers and cookies, and (in passing) to toast our 43rd wedding anniversary. Obviously it went straight to my head. I left that one in to warn me against similar excesses in the future.
And last, the width of the rightmost box on the current fill line. All of the ones in this row are supposed to be squares of 24 stitches. Except that one. There was only room for him to be 23 units wide. Now four boxes of 24 units plus three separators of two units each equals 102. But there he is, one stitch unit narrow. So it goes. I’ll pick a nice scattered fill with a half-drop repeat and no one will notice. Plus an added benefit of the strident, visually distracting alternating strips is that they break cadence. I can correct the count after the next one is done, and the correction will be difficult to see because of the solid red mass separating it from the fills above.
Oh. I did get a side benefit from the dissolute evening of sodden stitchery. I took the cork cage/bail from the bottle and twisted it into a spool holder for my chatelaine. I may go back and redo this with a silver tone one I had saved from last year’s bottle, but for now, it’s working well. The tiny spool of Corticelli Size A embroidery silk spins with little effort; just enough to make inadvertent unwinding unlikely, but easily enough to reel off what I need.
Will this piece be absolutely perfect? Nope. Far from it. And that doesn’t bother me because I have the next stitching project already in sight.
ASSISTANCE AND ACCOMPLISHMENT
I’ve started the third sampler in the PERSIST – RESIST – ASSIST series. Persist happened several years back. The other two are recent reactions to the greater world and everything in it. Assist is longer and wider than Resist. It’s approximately 40 threads per inch x 46 threads per inch. I didn’t have a selvedge edge on this remnant, so I’m unsure if it is more densely packed in warp or weft. I’m assuming weft. It’s long – roughly 23 inches after hemming. Subtract about 1.5 inches for margin all the way around and that’s a stitching length of 20 inches. Lots.
I’ve decided to use some of my stash threads, a mix of the the Cifonda Art Silk I brought back from India, in a plum color; plus some very fine Belding Corticelli silk, size A in black. The plum works up a bit more on the red continuum than purple. This is what I have so far:
And a closeup of the work completed so far:
My intention is to fill the cloth with voided for heavy foreground pieces in the plum and black, alternating with boxed squares or rectangles of fill samples. The heavy solid foreground/voided pieces will be done in two strands of those threads. The fill samples will be outlined in double running using two strands of the plum. The fills so far have been worked in one strand of the black. I might do some fills in two strands as I go along, for increased line weight contrast, but there’s an equal chance I might not. Two strands produces a muddy look, and I want to emphasize the airy laciness of the fills with the densely stitched solid bands.
Oh, that bare bit below the knot to the right of the T? That’s an artifact of a big mistake. It’s very hard to rip back long armed cross stitch neatly, and by the time I discovered I had mis-counted the black outline for that knot, it was mostly embedded in the background stitching. So I am leaving that line blank, and will be using it at project completion to house my initials and date. And I bet if I hadn’t ‘fessed up, you’d never have noticed.
As for my productivity round-up for 2024, finished items inclusive of knitting, crochet, crafting, and stitching, this is what I can show.
Above are a couple of pairs of socks representative of the seven pairs I finished this year. The rest were distributed before I remembered to take photos. Also above is one of two knotted fabric scrap garlands, made to increase festivity levels at the kids’ homes; the companion stocking to the one I made for Elder Spawn (the wolf turned out a bit wonky, in a loveable sort of way); a set of 12+ crocheted snowflakes, also for Elder Spawn’s new home; and a shoulder shawl from luscious Australian possum fur yarn (the yarn was a gift from an old pal and was too yummy NOT to use immediately upon receipt.)
Above are the three samplers in the series honoring the Resident Male’s literary output, plus RESIST; the triangular headscarf (aka forehead cloth) I finished and gave to another dear friend (again, distributed prior to finished item pix), and the ribbon I stitched for my chatelaine, so its weight would not tear my favorite shirts.
Obviously there are also WIPs – things begun but not yet done. Chief among them are the sashiko covers for my thrifted Arts and Crafts style chair frame and my vintage barrel chair. These bits will be cut apart and reassembled as part of a pair of recycled denim patchwork cushion sets/upholstery. Lots more on this to do, but the project turned out to be less portable than I wished. Our nomadic summer interrupted. I’ll try to get back to doing more pattern snippets before the spring, with luck to get at least one of the cushions done by summer.
No. I don’t spend all day doing these things. I’ve got plenty more to keep me occupied during daylight hours beyond writing these posts. I’m at work on THREE books/booklets – Ensamplario Atlantio Volume III; The Third Carolingian Modelbook; and composing all of the charts, articles and commentaries on my Epic Fandom Stitch-Along into one downloadable (free) booklet, to make it more manageable for those who might wish to belatedly join in the fun. There are other things in the works, too – some volunteer assignments, charting that isn’t destined for inclusion in the books, mending or making other stuff as needed, and gardening (we grew a ton of peppers and eggplants in a small raised bed, this summer past.)
The projects seen above were all done mostly in the hours after dinner, while watching TV or playing video/console games with The Resident Male. With an extra hour or two stolen on weekends after chores are done; or an hour here and there when we are at the beach place. It’s not in my nature to be bored in retirement.
RESISTANCE IS NEVER FUTILE, AND OTHER MISTAKES
I continue my quest for distraction, working on the impromptu doodle sampler I mentioned in my last post. I still haven’t decided what it will bear, but right now I’m leaning towards the single word “RESIST.” Time will tell, but I’m already looking at typefaces. Warm and fuzzy/ultratraditional/edgy and threatening? All nuance the message and are under consideration.
In the mean time I go back to my mail and comment inboxes and note that there are a few notes that claim envy of my work because I “never make a mistake.” Few things could be further from the truth.
I make mistakes ALL the time. In spite of how well I try to idiot-proof my methods, I consistently prove that I am beyond idiot-proofing. I could throw out excuses – I stitch mostly with divided attention, while watching TV, armchair kibbitzing/team playing video or console adventure games, listening to podcasts or books on tape, or sitting in a conversation with family or friends. I also confess to “stitching under the influence” – often our evening TV hour is accompanied by a glass of wine. I pick patterns on whim, and don’t always hit the right contrast/compliment point I was after. And I suffer from Memory Hubris. Once I’ve established two or three repeats of a design (in any orientation), I go “off paper” and attempt all future iterations from memory and by copying the initial segments, even if the newly stitched bits are mirrored or rotated from the prior work. I also fall prey to the common double-running flaw of trying to get away with using a too-long strand of thread. Needless to say all of these contribute to a healthy stream of problems.
These problems include:
- Missing the correct start point or alignment line, so that the work doesn’t meet up with or is uncentered against established stitching;
- Stitching off grid (not hitting the exact over-2 or over-3 spot) so lines and angles are off by a thread or two;
- Losing my place in a design and repeating an element where it was not supposed to go, or skipping one altogether;
- Veering off into hyperspace – getting totally lost on the number of stitches I need and their proper placement, especially on long diagonal runs with nothing to steady me nearby; and
- Deciding that I don’t like my bungee-jump pattern choice, and would prefer something else instead;
- Confronting errors in thread management – for example, twisting, knotting, snagging, catching the tail, disrupting the spots of prior starts/finishes.
What do I do about them? In rare instances if the problem is just an errant single stitch that doesn’t upset placement of the rest of the design, I might leave it in. This however is rare. That single stitch will glare at me with dragon eyes every time I look at the piece, even if no one else can spot it. Mostly I pick the errant work out and start again.
There are comparatively few descriptions of how to rip back safely, without danger to the ground or surrounding stitching. I’ll try to outline my method for doing so in double running. Cross stitch, back stitch and the like would follow most of the same process, with a little accommodation for stitch structure and working protocols.
OK. Here’s the latest sin on the latest sampler. I made a very big alignment error on the unfinished bit at the bottom. The top of the hearts and arrows design as stitched here may look good, but it’s only half of the pattern. There’s a vertical flip that I had barely begun, with arrows that point up. As stitched, that second half won’t fit. (Oh, and I’ll be reworking the previously released chart to make the logic easier to stitch. )
I also felt that I wanted another narrower band here before working a wider one. So, since I would have to rip back 90% of the hearts and arrows band anyway, I decided to eliminate it totally.
Here’s my frogging kit – a laying tool, my best embroidery scissors – sharp all the way to the tip, with a rounded safety end on one blade, a pair of precision tweezers – the kind sold for electronics assembly, and Silly Putty, which I’ve written about before. Note the absence of a seam ripper or any other cutting implement. (Yes, I remembered to take this photo after I had already begun the Big Rip).
I could “unstitch” the piece, slowly drawing out each stitch in turn, reversing the direction in which the double running stitch was created. I will do this if I’ve got just a few stitches to remove because of an alignment misadventure, and then I’ll keep stitching with the same thread. But it’s not optimal for a big removal. For one, drawing the stitching thread through the ground that many times will degrade it and make it unsuitable for re-use. Long lengths of thread drawn through the ground also run a higher chance of crocking (depositing dye on the cloth), or leaving fuzz behind. When the errant bit is this big, better to snip and remove.
But you can’t just snip willy-nilly. Each snip is a chance to wound the ground cloth, and the condition of the cloth and the soon-to-be sacrificed thread must be taken into consideration. For example, if the thread is very soft and fuzzy or prone to shredding or crocking (think wool and most commercial cotton 6-ply flosses), I might make my snips in the front, but pick the work out from the back. If the thread is long-staple, structurally sound and unlikely to crock I will both cut and pick from the front.
The first thing to go is the long stitching tail. Snip. Gone. Then I start at one end of the work and snip two stitches side by side, preferably diagonals because they are longer and easier to grab. I usually do several of these pairs at a time. But I don’t rush in with my scissors. First I use the laying tool to gently “pry up” each stitch to be cut. Not enough to deform the ground, just enough so I have slack into which to insert the lower blade of the scissors. Here you see the laying tool making room under a stitch for scissor blade placement.
That lower blade is the one with the rounded bump NOT the thin and wickedly pointy other blade. This safety end helps guard against inadvertently catching and cutting the ground.
Once two stitches are cut I tease them back an inch or so, stitch by stitch, using my laying tool, and occasionally the tweezers. I work two at a time because of the every-other stitch construction of lines laid down in double running. One of those dashed lines will have been stitched after the other, and by cutting two adjacent stitches I can tease out both of them, quickly determined which path is newer and then do that one first, followed by the other. It’s always easer to remove the newer stitching first because it sometimes pierces the older stitching, which can cause snags as you rip. Once I’ve freed an inch or two I snip the freed bits off about a quarter inch from the surface. I’m about to remove that long thread seen in the piece above. I do this to minimize the length of thread pulled through (remember – crocking, fuzz).
Removal stitch by stitch, snip by snip, taking care not to hurt the rest of the piece is tedious. It takes me considerably longer to rip back than it does to lay down the stitching in the first place. One thing I was thankful for in this piece is my thread choice. Since I’m working in silk here there was very little residue left behind as I remove the stitching. That reside is where the Silly Putty comes in. I dab it on the surface to remove any remaining dye and fibers. No erasing or rubbing motions – I support the fabric from below with the plastic shell, and do a quick and light vertical press of the stuff. BEFORE you try this on your own precious work please check out the article I linked above. I am willing to accept risks for my work, but you might not want to. Know what they are before you attempt this.
Once everything is picked out, and surface fuzz/dye crocking has been Silly Puttied into oblivion, I have a blank canvas again. Some of the stitching holes are a little distended. I will use the tip of my laying tool and gently stroke the ground cloth at a 45-degree angle to the weave. That returns the threads to proper alignment. The result:
And what goes there? Bunnies.
And yes. There’s a mistake in the bunnies already. The rightmost finished bunny is looking at a partial leaf. I’ll go back and catch that “oops, I skipped over it” error when I’m done with the current thread.
Perfect? Not me. Never.
WHAT I DID SUMMER TO FALL
Starting 27 June and finishing yesterday evening, 25 October, I have cranked out three small samplers, one after another.
All three were inspired by books written by my Resident Male, although not all of the source books have been published. Here’s a better shot of the latest, fresh off the hoop. (Yes, I will eventually press and frame them all.)
The last strip at the bottom is in the tradition of 16th and 17th century band edging patterns that often accompanied a wider main band design. While most of these narrow bands were floral, foliate or geometric, some of them featured creature heads, occasionally bird-like, lizard or dragon shaped, but all cropped and facing in the same direction. Those edgings would present with the baseline against the main design, so that ones below the main design were upside down, and dance around the corners. With those in mind, I have ended my Treyavir-inspired piece with the severed heads of lantern-eyed goblin monsters, gelnids, among the formidable foes of the novel’s hero Reignal.
To recap, I used black Sulky #30, double stranded. For the accent color I used standard DMC floss, #3820, sometimes two plies, sometimes one ply. All of the black foregrounds were done in double running stitch. Several treatments were used for the fills and accents. Here’s the list of accent treatments along with pattern sources:
- Acorns – plain old cross stitch (POCS), two plies. My own design.
- Chain – double running, two plies. My own design.
- Leafy meander – mix of double running and four sided cross stitch, two plies. My own redaction of a pattern appearing on a sampler dated 1687, accents are my own mods.
- Geometric triangles – simple boxed fill in double running, one ply. My own interpretation of an idle doodle done by J.R.R. Tolkein, more on this here.
- Flower meander – contour lines in double running, one ply. My own design.
- Motto – four sided cross stitch, two plies in the black Sulky. My own alphabet based on a mashup of several Uncial-derived pixel alphabets from the early Macintosh era.
- Narrow bead – double running and single stitches, one ply. My own design.
- Falcons – Long armed cross stitch (LACS), two plies. My own design.
- Tulip buds – double running, two plies. My own design.
- Flower and rod meander – POCS, my own design.
- Sword interlace – POCS, two plies. My own design.
- Step birds – simple diamond fill, one ply. My own redaction of a sleeve decoration on a portrait, circa 1500. It’s on the Patterns tab, here on String.
- Roses in boxes – POCS, two plies. An adaptation of a pattern appearing in my Second Carolingian Modelbook, plate 27:4 – my redaction of a border from a historical artifact.
- Monster heads – POCs, single running stitch, French knots – two plies.
Everything described as “my own design” above, will be in either my forthcoming books Ensamplario Atlantio Volume III, or The Third Carolingian Modelbook – both currently in process.
Now with this sampler done I can’t sit idle. Progress on the next might be a bit slower because I have various holiday deadline related projects to complete and ship out. And I have to decide if I am going to continue the series immediately, with the next bit of embroidery dedicated to either the Resident Male’s mixed SF/Fantasy short story collection The Temple of Beauty, or one of his other in process works; or if I’m going to go totally off script and do a piece entirely on whim.
But to be prepared, I’ve already selected a small stash remnant, hemmed it, and basted my edge and centerline guides, shown here between the completed pieces for scale:
It’s not as long as the last two, and significantly narrower than Stone by Stone. And the linen is higher count.
By my penny method, the coin covers 30 threads north-south, and 30 threads east-west. Multiply by 1.33 (a penny by definition is .75 inch) and we get an evenweave thread count of about 40 threads per inch. Green and black Stone by Stone was stitched on 33.25 thread per inch evenweave. The blue and red piece for Fractured Symmetry was on skew count 37.25 x 32 threads per inch linen, and the black and yellow Treyavir piece was on big-as-logs 26 threads per inch evenweave.
While this next piece will be physically smaller, the available “real estate” for pattern display will be roughly similar to the previous larger pieces that were worked on coarser grounds.
I haven’t decided on whether this one will also employ two colors. Right now I’m leaning to an all black piece, but one that uses multiple thread thicknesses. The reason is because I have come into a wealth of black threads in various weights, mostly rayon, but some cotton and silk as well.
Back in late summer when I was getting ready to go to Cape Cod for an extended stay I noted that I was rapidly eating into my spool of black Sulky #30. I was unsure if I would have enough to finish the yellow and black piece. Not having time enough for mail order, and not trusting that mail order would find me at our beach place (no street address delivery, you have to pick up mail and most UPS or Amazon sends at the post office), I went hunting in person. I started at the store where I had originally bought the Sulky, three years ago. They no longer stocked it, nor did several other local possibilities. But as I was chatting with one of the sales clerks and commiserating about mid-project disappointment, the next person in line said that she had the thread I needed in stash, and would be happy to share. We exchanged contact info, and she went home to stash-dive. I drove over to her house (just the next town over) and found a delightful bag of goodies awaiting me – several spools of black in assorted weights. I left my own thank-you present behind and scurried home with the goods. So my possibilities have multiplied. And on the finer ground, the elegantly fine faux silk rayons provided by my ever so generous benefactor will shine. (Oh, if you are reading this Kind Benefactor, ten thousand thanks again for helping me out of that jam!)
Don’t be surprised if I now segue to crocheted snowflakes, both production and blocking, or other crafts. I will be picking up this stitching either alongside those efforts, or after. But you can be sure that in terms of embroidery, I’m armed and dangerous, and I can’t be stopped.
String-Or-Nothing 