06.21.07
Posted in Historical, General at 1:25 pm by deRomilly
Old needlework patterns: the collecting of, the attempted stitching of, and the storage of, are going to be the death of me. I know this because my pseudo-sister points this out every so often (people with like stashes have to keep each other in line, you know. My husband is very gracious about my stash, so long as I’m equally gracious about his. It’s a good system!)
But the needlework patterns. Oh dear. I have issues of Cross Stitch and Country Crafts back to 1988. I am slowly collecting the entire line of facsimile Weldon’s books. I’ve got the Weldon’s Encyclopedia, printed in the 1930s, a gift from a dear friend. I have old Theresa Wentzler patterns (some still hand-drawn charts) that have been gathering dust since the dates on the Cross Stitch and Country Crafts mags were purchased. I’ve got needlework magazines that don’t exist any more, and needlework magazines that do. I would LOVE to collect sajous ( As much as I love them all, this has got to stop. I haven’t looked at some of these in over a decade, except to pack them for a move!)
To that end, I’m having a culling. Some of these magazines have rare patterns in them that people want. Some of them are just taking up space.
Some of them aren’t going anywhere: My Weldon’s leave my studio over my dead body. Same for my copy of Schuette’s Embroidery (mine’s in French. If you really want a copy, there’s a French online bookstore that still offers it http://alapage.fr/ (Enter Schuette broderie in the search box and click Rechercher). You have to navigate a French site to get it, though.) Used English copies go for over $600. This one is about 50 Euros.
I’m packaging the magazines up in nice little one-year bundles and put them up on Ebay. You’ll find them starting Monday under my username, deromilly. (Oh, my husband’s culling his Science Fiction magazines as well! We want our wall and shelf-space back.)
PS. At some point soon my rubber stamp collection is going, too — most of them aren’t angel companies, so I can’t use them in my art, so I am culling entire hobbies!
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06.18.07
Posted in Historical, "Freestyle" embroidery, General at 10:56 am by deRomilly
Embroidered book bindings, when I hear the words “Embroidered book bindings,” I tend to immediately think of the book embroidered by Elizabeth and given to Katherine Parr. And, of course, that is the most famous.
The British Library has a Guide to Embroidered book bindings, and images of the bindings online to view . Well worth the time to snoop around them. Very very pretty. To get the best results from the binding search page, search for “embroidered” rather than “embroidery.”
Project Gutenberg has a book on embroidered bookbindings that was printed in 1899. The illustrations were not transcribed into the online copy, but there are detailed descriptions of the objects illustrated. In addition, if you download the html version, the plates are reproduced within it.
However, embroidered book bindings were extremely popular in the 17th century. The blog Mindsigh has a post on these embroidered bindings…
Then, of course, there’s the fact that one of my best friends was/is a bookbinder. I remember well the time in college that she did an embroidered book binding for an art assignment — it didn’t go together very easily and as frustrated as she was at the time, I’m surprised our then-roommate survived when she told her –but it will be so pretty when it’s done! I, also, made the mistake of pointing out that the roommate was just trying to help. If it helps, 15 years later, it WAS beautiful when it was finished! I wonder if that book still exists?
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06.10.07
Posted in Counted work, General at 4:59 pm by deRomilly
I can’t remember where I first saw mention of these rugs. I think I was researching long armed cross stitch for an SCA project at the time. But I know I fell in love with them as soon as I did. The needlework form is originally Portuguese, and currently they are also created in Brazil, which being the only South American country that speaks Portuguese, probably shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. There is a picture of a 16th century rug at Britannica Online.
The rugs are created using a long-armed cross stitch on an evenweave jute (historically it was linen) base. The fabric is usually ten threads to the inch, stitched over two threads so that there are five stitches to the inch.
The idea of having a hand stitched rug is luxurious to say the least. Last year I finally rummaged up a copy of Portuguese Rugs: by Patricia Stone (it took me 8 months to find a copy, but I jumped at it when I did), and started playing. I’ve finished a small pillow-sized pattern from the book, which I did as a test of the technique, in something I had on hand instead of the original materials. I did it on 14 count cotton aida cloth with DMC floss. It came out beautifully at about 8X8 inches (Click the thumbnail for a larger picture).
Now I need to figure out how to finish it – I’ll probably put it together as a doll’s house rug. There is, after all, still that doll’s house in my closet that needs finishing. (Have I mentioned that I have too many hobbies?)
The technique is easy and quite fun. It’s worked in long-armed cross stitch, all from the top of the fabric, weaving in ends under the stitching (and still on the front). Finding the evenweave jute for the base fabric has, however, been a bear! (and I haven’t succeeded yet, although I know it’s out there…any suggestions are more than welcome!)
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