First Anniversary Musings

I realized recently that my first anniversary as a blogger came and went without me noticing. As well as blogging myself, I have been reading more blogs this year, as I discovered the wonderful online community of textile lovers. I have a bit of time to reflect on this past year and I thought I'd share my thoughts on how it has gone.



My original reason for starting a blog was to participate in the Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge set up by Sharon B. I can't tell you how much I am humbled by her energy, expertise and artistic talent. While I haven't finished all the weeks (I've reached 47 although I haven't blogged it yet), I have been pushed into many new things by the challenge and I will be eternally grateful to Sharon for setting it up.


Once I started participating in Sharon's challenge, I realized that there were many, many textile blogs out there. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent looking at all the wonderful things everyone out there is doing. I've added many inspired ideas to my visual journal thanks to my blog surfing.


At that point, I was working a couple of consulting jobs from home, but in March, I was able to start working more outside the home. Many years ago I 'retired' from full time work as a library director to stay home with my children. While I was able to fit in part-time work back in NY, when we moved there weren't enough hours between my morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up times. With the change in grades I have a good stretch of time to get out now. It was great to get back into a library and work at a busy reference desk. I forgot how much I love a university atmosphere. Of course, it means less time for stitching and blogging but I usually do feel more energized and creative after a good day at work.



I have summers off for childcare, so I was able to catch up and try new things then. I wrote an article about the tapestry project I worked on with my daughter's art club (see the Dec. NeedleArts magazine). My biggest inspiration was going up to Plimoth Planation in MA to work on the reproduction jacket project. That has totally changed the direction I want to go with my embroidery.


I started back at the university again in September where I'm doing some things that I find professionally exciting (I know, you are wondering what is exciting about being a librarian, but really, it is fun) I was also asked to be on the EGA National Youth Program Committee and edit the Crayons to Threads column for NeedleArts. That was a great honour (plus I still do the chapter newsletter). And the Sampler Round Robin I am in seems to be moving again. At least I have finished one and have another to do, so that is good.


My blogging has been sporadic. I constantly question why I'm doing it and why anyone would care. But I am so inspired by others, maybe somebody will find what I do interesting as well. And since not many people blog stumpwork, I feel I need to keep going with that, just to encourage more people.


All in all, I am pleased with what I have accomplished in the last year. Especially since I have also been working at the barn one or two evenings a week for much of the year. I even took riding lessons for a while. Mind you, I can't be to complacent right now because the tree is only half decorated and there are still presents to buy.

I am looking forward to 2008. There are going to be some new work challenges, some column editing, and lots and lots of stitching. And I hope to do some work with the high school art guild in the coming year as well. I don't know if I'll participate in any more challenges though. I think I want to challenge myself to create the work that I've been planning since I first saw the 3-D embroidered gardens book. I'll keep you posted on that. I also want to explore some other ideas. Today Sharon b wrote about a new blog that has captured my interest, Red Thread Studio. Elaine Lipson writes about Slow Cloth, New Cloth and Art Cloth. I love doing hand sewing, so the idea of slow cloth really appeals to me. (One of my favourite places is the milliner's shop in Colonial Williamsburg) Elaine's third post mentions one of my favourite books Elizabeth Wayland Barber's Women's Work, The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times. There is a vague notion in my mind that somehow the ideas in Barber's book should combine with those in Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species by Sarah Hrdy to form an interesting take on why women feel and act as they do. I'm not sure what yet, but one day it will hit me.

I'm sure I've gone on long enough now, but I've at least interspersed my meanderings with some photos of current projects, and to end it all, some silk that I will be using to knit myself a lace scarf. If nothing else, over the last year I've learned that I can make something really special for myself, not just everyone else.

TAST Catchup 34-37

While my body is not entirely adjusted to the early school year wake up time, it has been nice to get back into a routine that allows for more regular stitching time. I also had a birthday present and class demo to make up (I'll post more later) but then finally I had time to try out the latest TAST stitches. I really like the challenge of something new and everything but the rice stitch was new, so I concentrated on stitch mechanics rather than creating a picture. Especially with something the Shisha stitch, I really need to know how it works to feel comfortable using it. What you don't see are the numerous trials as I tried to tie down a sea shell - I'm still working on that one and thinking that a small hole would be easier than Shisha!

TAST 34 Portuguese stem stitch. While thick thread and closely packed stitching can make a rope, it seems to work nicely as a snowflake with just a couple of strands of floss and long stitches.

TAST 35 Shisha stitch. This one was completely new but I can see the use. I don't recommend trying it with a slippery bead the first time - upper right. I did finally get it down. The red at bottom is with nothing so I could get a better idea of the form of the stitch without having to keep something down. I think the thicker floss is better as well.

TAST 36 Cable Chain. First I tried to actually make cables - like a sweater - and I think with the right thickness of wool and size of stitch you could really get something neat. Then I tried with floss and metallic thread. The metallic thread looks like a chain and could be quite useful in future.

TAST 37 Rice and boss variation. I think you could work up a really neat pattern with these stitches.

TAST 32 and 33 Crested Chain and Scroll

I've had fun this week working on quick little samples. Some weeks I can think of nothing to do other than just rows of stitches, and other weeks I get inspired, although this time some might say I've just gotten silly. Whatever the case, I've used only the stitch of the week in each piece. My stitch sample book is getting quite large and I think I might have to get a new and bigger book to hold everything? When you start adding cloth and thread, things get thick very quickly.

Hope you are all enjoying the challenge as much as I am.

TAST 31 Cast On Stitch

This was so much fun! I started thinking I'd do a pink flower but the first petal reminded me of a worm so I went with it. In keeping with my personal challenge, the dirt, beak and bird feathers are also cast on stitch. The eye is a French knot.
I did notice with this stitch that I had to be careful of twists. If I cast on lots of stitches it was hard to keep things straight - although sometimes I let it twist, like the worm. I regularly let my thread hang to keep the twist out.

TAST 30 Buttonhole wheel

I did another sort of experimental (at least for me) sampler this time on a piece of felt I made recently. It was very interesting to see the way the different colours worked on the different backgrounds. This piece has the highest form of compliment - my daughters like it! And I had fun which is even better.

TAST 29 Arrowhead stitch and finished Dragon CQ pillow

I've had stitching time but not blogging time the last couple of weeks, but I finally have a chance to sit and write. I'm very excited because this morning I sent off an article and some photos on the VA tapestry project I did this year with my daughter's art club. It will be in the December issue of the EGA magazine, NeedleArts. That has been one of the things keeping me busy.

On the TAST front, I was so taken with some of the multiple arrowhead rows in Sharon's samples, I decided to use that stitch on my last Dragon CQ pillow seam. First, since I've learned how important testing is, I tried some arrowheads on a counted thread doodlecloth to get a feeling for even arrowheads. I decided I liked the triple blue one best, with all the arrowheads in the row starting from the same seam. By the way, the green mess represents Sting singing a John Dowland song on the album Songs from the Labyrinth. It is a contrapuntal sort of round and it was going through my head. I don't think I'm ready to illustrate Fantasia style yet.


So, after the practice I came up with this seam. This was the third try at the bugle bead row. The first time, I didn't have enough to do the whole row so I took it out and tried using some coloured half bugles I had lying around for every other arrowhead. It looked horrible so I took it out again and waited until I could get out and buy a new tube of beads. I'm very glad I did because I'm happy with this seam.

And here is the final pillow. My first CQ project is done! As well as having help from Sharon's TAST challenges, I had help and encouragement from ktj in pa who sent me patterns and encouraged me to try crazy quilting.

TAST 28 Sheaf stitch and Dragon CQ progress

I had limited stitching time last week because of work, so I did a very small sheaf stitch practice before using it on my CQ block. I was glad I did because I tested different spacing, both of the uprights in the single stitch, and the spaces between stitches. When I tested the beads with the stitch, I realized that I had to give extra space between stitches to make sure the beads had space. Once again, I've learned the value of testing on a doodle cloth before stitching on the actual piece. You'd think after all these years I'd have learned that but I've always had the mistaken belief it would waste time, when really the time waster is pulling out stitches that don't work because they haven't been practiced.

So here are the rest of the seams I've done. This is the feather chain and wheatear intersection. I added beads since the last time I posted this block, and purchased more of the pearl coloured Krenick to finish the wheatear seam.

I added blue beads to the gold Basque stitch and charms to the Chevron.

I'm still not sure about the light blue ribbon seam. I've added gold spacers in two different sizes but it still isn't right. I'm thinking of weaving some silver filament thread through the ribbon. We'll see.

I think this will end up being my favourite seam. It is the bullion braid I worked on during TAST 27 with different colours. I'm not quite done yet, but it looks good so far.
Here is the whole block as of last night. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I've padded the dragon to make it stand out. I'm thinking of the best way to ground him, since right now he is just floating there. We looked at crystals for him to have his front paw on, but there was some disagreement about the size yesterday, so next time we are at the craft store I'll take the block so we are sure of the size. The last seam is in the bottom left and so far no inspiration. Any suggestions are welcome!

TAST 27 Bullion and a CQ block

As I thought about the bullion stitch, I wondered if you could use it to make something that looked like cording, so I used some gold to try and get the look. I started without enough of an angle, but I think the top bar of gold comes close. Then I played around with flower forms, then I wondered if I could make upright loops. The blue loops have over 20 turns of thread around them. I had to try fuzzy white crewel wool in raised loops to make a sheep, and I thought smaller loops, some raised, would make a nice grass or moss look. My final trial was a braid, which was fun, and I really like it so I'll use if for one of the seams on the dragon CQ block below, although in different colours.


I used my TAST stitch book to decide on seam treatments - I think it will be a great resource and with 27 stitches in it now, quite full. As I look at this block, I realize it needs more so I'm going to add beads or sequins to the seams. I'm also thinking the dragon's front feet need some sort of crystal to rest on, and I think I've seen just what I need in the beading and jewellery aisle at Michael's. I'll wait for the next coupon though.

Something new and TAST 26 Half Chevron

Well, I finally did it, I tried making felt. We had some roving from a needlefelting kit, and since the kids just wanted to make dogs, I decided to use the other colours to make felt. The photo above is the front (or at least the side I decided to use) and the photo below the back, which is also quite nice. It was a fun experience and my younger daughter also tried her hand at is and enjoyed it as well. Of course our pieces are only about 4" x 5" so they are only useful for so much. And they aren't thick or strong. We'll continue working but in the meantime, I had a new medium for my TAST practice.
Here is what I have done with the half chevron, including two beaded curves, also something new for me. I'm very pleased with this since this type of embroidery is such a new thing to me. It was very nice working with the cotton floss on wool felt, and the beads weren't as tedious as I expected. I just sort of followed the shapes in the felt and tried not to make the colours clash. All in all, a very fun experience.

TAST 25 Long and Short Stitch

In my stumpwork projects I often use long and short, or at least a reasonable approximation, for shading and filling petals and leaves and such. So I thought I'd try doing counted long and short to get a real feel for the stitch. I also wanted to experiment with colours and shading so I made a rainbow band of sorts. I had a harder time than I expected getting four shades of the same sort of colour, I guess that means I need to add to my stash:-) But it was very interesting to see how the shades worked together or in some cases didn't - although I guess it would depend on the look you were going for. The small red sample is done with 2 strands of overdyed silk. I love this colour and I love the way the shading works. It would be quite different with satin stitch covering the same area so I can see the use for this stitch with overdyed threads as well.

Below is a stumpwork version of the watercolour 'portrait' of Jane Austen done by her sister Cassandra. which I have stitched using long and short.

TAST 24 French Knots

Even though Sharon gave us leave to mix French knots with other TAST stitches, my personal challenge is to try and use only the stitch of the week with maybe a bit of another stitch. I've used French knots in many things, especially since they are quite useful when doing flowers. This week I decided to try French knots with as many types of yarn as I could find, and with different numbers of strands. I've used tapestry wool, DMC cotton floss, DMC linen floss, rayon floss, silk, silk ribbon, and Krenick braid and blending filament. I learned alot. Using blending filament (4 strands) to make a French knot is like trying to herd cats. Silk ribbon doesn't make a French knot different enough to make it necessary to use ribbon. Rayon is almost as bad a blending filament. And as always, I love silk!!!
For those who are wondering, I was thinking of the parterre garden at Hampton Court Palace when I drew this design. As usual, it ended up lopsided, although the initial drawing didn't look quite so skewed. I must work on symmetry!

TAST 23 Wheatear and Plimoth Jacket sample

I'm afraid after my excitement over the Plimoth Jacket project sample that I wanted to mail off as soon as possible, I had little energy left for wheatear samples, but I did manage a nice row of strawberries. The funniest thing about the wheatear, after seeing the amazing things people have done with it, is the comment in Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Needlework "Works best in straight rows, but may handle gentle curves."

This is what occupied my time, the stitch sample I'm sending off to Plimoth Plantation in hopes of participating in their jacket project. My favourites, which ktj concurs with, are the Ceylon stitch worm and the Spiral Trellis circle. The bottom sample is not in my test sample below, it is Detached Buttonhole Needlelace. The bottom right section lifts up.

TAST 22 Satin Stitch

I use satin stitch heavily in many of the pieces I've been working on lately, especially stumpwork. But since I slacked off last week by using what I had been working on, I thought I'd do something just for TAST this week. The inspiration for this was a fill stitch gone bad, done by somebody else, and while it didn't work for that piece, I thought it would be perfect for this. The leaves and flowers are also satin stitch.

Since I've mentioned recent projects with satin stitch, here they are. These two are petals and leaves for a wild rose stumpwork project. I'm planning a special finish for these so I'll post more photos soon.

This is the tail of a dragon I'm putting in the center of a CQ pillow for my daughter. I started the dragon back in February with the tail and discovered I needed more floss but I could no longer find the DMC colour variations I had started with. They had stopped making the all dark blue and now only had a dark blue with purple. So I blended it in by adding some purple to the tail and then getting on with the rest. So far I am happy and so is my daughter. She likes the scale effect of the chain stitch in the body. I love the way the satin stitch reflects differently with the different directions.

Finally, here is the Virginia tapestry project finished and framed. Most of the motifs were made with stain stitch because that was the easiest filler for the designs the kids drew. Some, like my daughter, thought about the direction of the fur or petal growth while stitching, others went higglety-pigglety but they still look good. This was displayed at a county festival today and well received by those who saw it. It looks like a local museum wants it for the summer, but afterwards the principal wants to keep it at the school - she even paid for the framing!

Stitching kit done

Despite having a few other things to do, I managed to finish the stitching kit I'm giving to the art club teacher who supported my VA tapestry idea. The last meeting is today after school and I'll post the finished tapestry tomorrow. For the top of the tin I decided on a real sampler of stitches so she would have a small reference library in hand. Being a part of TAST made this an easy project, although choosing what to do was a bit hard. The top row is cross stitch, the next a blackwork lozenge motif, both done with cotton floss, then Queen stitch, which is done with flower thread. The initials are cross stitch again, but this time in Vicki Clayton silk. The chevron stitch is done in linen thread (you may recognize this from my TAST work). Next Algerian eye done with Gumnuts Poppies wool/silk thread (really fun to work with). The up and down buttonhole variation is in floss again (this was from Elizabeth at Quieter Moments) and finally a row of flowers with herringbone leaves done in flower thread (remember TAST week 1) and French knot flowers in floss. The border is the crossed buttonhole from TAST last week.
Here is a side view show the ribbon I used to cover the tin. The lid has had dyed silk ribbon wrapped around 3 times. The bottom is some new Martha Stewart ribbon from Michael's. It is self adhesive and fit perfectly around the bottom of the tin. I used the same ribbon and a couple of the others in the pack to cover the bottom as well.
Inside is the biscornu and scissor fob, on a new pair of scissors. I put a magnetic bottom in the box, and included some gold plated needles and a needle threader. Below is the finished scissor fob since it wasn't completed in the last post.
I really had a great time doing this. I always wondered about people who specialized in 'smalls' but now I can really see the appeal. It was just so much fun deciding what to include and stitching up these things, and the change from stitching to finishing keeps the interest going. Mind you, I think I need to read up on how to finish tin tops. I sort of fudged it with some double-sided fusible interfacing and double-sided tape and I'm sure there must be a better way.

TAST 21 Crossed Buttonhole Stitch

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to devote my stitching time to making a small sewing set for the art club teacher who didn't think I was crazy when I suggested the VA tapestry project to her. So while I don't have a neat little picture or interesting set of variations, I do have this week's TAST as a nice border on a biscornu and scissor fob. This is the finished biscornu (can't begin to list all the sites I have seen this at, as well as seeing a couple done by an EGA chapter member at a meeting, just Google the word and you'll get instructions).

This is the top of the scissor fob. Both of these will fit in an Altoid's tin, so I'm also going to stitch something for the lid. I'm not sure what yet, but it will have the same blue crossed buttonhole border.

I'm using 28 count Monaco cloth for this project and it is the first time I have used this type of cloth. It is quite nice for the over one work I am doing on these pieces. One of the members of my EGA chapter did some hardanger work with it and she thought it worked quite well for that. Having recently done a pilot class for a pulled work project I think it wouldn't be very good for that, a bit too stiff.

TAST 20 Butterfly Chain

As I was thinking about what to do with this stitch I was also reading a book I received for Mother's Day, Medieval Gardens by Anne Jennings. It is a lovely book and one of the garden features it covers and gives instructions for is a turf bench. There was one picture in particular, which I can't find on the Internet to link to, that shows a woman reclining against a wall that seems to be set into a hillside. There is grass with flowers under her and extending out from the top of the wall as well. So I thought that closely packed butterfly chain would look like the wall, and then spaced butterfly chain would be the flowers on the lawn. I had no green linen for the lawn so I got out my trusty watercolours and made some green linen. Instead of plain butterfly, I tried a sort of weaving butterfly, hoping to get the effect of bricks, but as you can see below, it doesn't look at all like bricks. But it sort of looks like trellis work, so I changed my idea, but kept the green linen.
So I made really long foundation groups, with four threads to make trellising easy, and came up with this.
Then I decided to play around and this is what happened. Once again, if I was going to do this on something I'd plan a bit better so things weren't lopsided, but I really like playing around with weaving the threads under and over the foundation stitching.
Maybe I need to think about getting a loom!

TAST 19 Basque Stitch

I've been waiting for just the right stitch to do an underwater scene. The Basque stitch reminded me of seaweed and polyp corals. We have two in our tank, so I have put them here; green button coral and yellow polyps. We have live rock in our tank too. The Hawaiian rock has lots of red algae and the Tonga rock is pale with green and brown algae on it. We don't have a clown fish yet - we will need to get a tank raised one because we don't have anemones. The background fabric is marbled in blues and greys - I thought it would be interesting for this project. Would you believe I found it at Hancock Fabrics?

TAST 18 Woven or Whipped Wheel and finished knot garden cross stitch

For this week's TAST I combined weaving and whipping to make a knot garden - literally since I added a knot when I went around threads. I first did the black for paths, going under all the light brown base threads and knotting on the vertical and horizontal threads. Then I started with the green, making knots in a square for the boxwood edging in each quarter and weaving in between to give the idea of leaves for the roses. Then I went around with each pink making knots for the flowers. I am happy with this one except for my choice of path colour - I should have made it a dark brown. The green and pinks are DMC linen thread which I just purchased Thursday and had to try out. As you can see, I've gotten over the idea of saving threads for some important project! I really love the texture of the linen. I used 4 stands of the green and six of the pinks.

I was inspired first by the radially symmetrical pattern of the wheel, and I thought there was potential for multiple rows creating an interesting pattern. Then, as I finished off the knot garden from the Museum of Garden History below I thought a knot garden would be perfect. I did make an attempt at a more complex design but it was not to be, so I stuck with an easier plan.

TAST 17 Running Stitch

For some reason I had a different idea about what to do with the running stitch this week. I like all the patterns and ideas from Sharon B and Elizabeth at Quieter Moments, and we even had an darning pattern sampler class at one of my EGA chapter meetings. But I kept seeing something that was sort of like Assisi work in my head. I wondered if running stitch could be used for something more organic. So I drew a design from a Persian carpet book I am reading on some 18 count aida cloth and filled things in. I like the effect although I would use linen so I could do more threads per inch to get more dense colour for the background. It would also be easier with a higher count to pull out the details of the design. And I think it would be better to actually plan the design on graph paper, especially since Susan at Crazy Quilt Susan has provided a link to make custom graph paper. I'm sure you can see it is more than a bit asymmetrical.

TAST 16 Palestrina knot

Another new stitch for me this week, which is always fun. I've cropped out my boring learning rows and just put out the good stuff. The purple lavender flowers are closely spaced knots in linen thread which makes a great texture. The lavender leaves are a version of Palestrina from my old favourite, Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Needlework, called Palestrina knot with legs. I used two strands of perle cotton that had the right shade of greyish green. The trees are the opposite, tops in Palestrina with legs and trunks in close knots, all with 6 strands of floss.

With so many of the stitches we are learning I find it amazing that thread and spacing can make a huge difference in how a stitch looks. And it is nice to experiment on something small - I've never been a doodle cloth person and now I see that you miss something when you don't play around with a stitch. Thanks Sharon!