11.30.10
Posted in GoldenCircleDesigns.com at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Photo by timetrax23 on Flickr.com
So. I’ve been derelict in reading the myriad of newsletters that turn up in my email on a daily basis these days. So I was surprised today when I opened the newest one from my local needlework shop to find that they are closing in December. I suppose I should have seen it coming… they closed out all of their needlework other than needlepoint canvases last spring, and the owner told me she couldn’t afford to keep a stock of canvases in the store. But the threads she carried were amazing — I don’t usually stitch painted canvases, but I’ve bought several there, and I kept spending my money there on thread at the least.
When I first moved to North Carolina in 1998, this area had five needlework stores within a 40 mile radius. FIVE! By the time I had moved away and come back in 2001, we had lost one of them, and there were only four. We are now down to two. One of them is a needlepoint only store that also has a web presence and shopping cart. The other is the cross stitch – focused store near where I first lived out here and that introduced me to colonial knots, twisted cording, and many other lovely techniques. It’s is now so far out of easy travel distance that I have to plan for a whole day trip there, to the art store, and to Costco to go. It’s been years since I’ve been in it because it’s so far away from where I now live, and the other shops were so much more convenient – and just as friendly.
I don’t have an answer. Sometimes when I go to a new-to-me LNS I am saddened by the way they seem to have developed their own cliques and exclude potential new customers. One of the stores I tried to go to in Oregon years ago would never sell me anything without trying to convince me that I had to be doing something wrong since I was only a college student so I couldn’t know anything about embroidery (usually they were trying to convince me that I needed a cross stitch pattern for my silk shading work, or that I couldn’t do cross stitch on linen, I needed aïda, the owner’s preferred fabric…). I wasn’t surprised when they went out of business.
There’s a lovely post on the FluentSelf.com titled “It’s not the Economy” about a store local to Havi. I think the sentiment can often be applied to the needlework stores I’ve been in over the years. We need to become more inclusive. Be found. Be willing to market ourselves. Run needlework as a teaching opportunity as well as a business. I don’t have the answers yet. But I’m looking for them. And considering expanding into threads and freestyle designs from patterns. Interested?
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11.25.10
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Pumpkin left over from Halloween. Hey-it's a harvest!
I figure a lot of my readers aren’t actually IN the United States, where we’re celebrating Thanksgiving today. But all of us can enjoy a harvest festival… (Even if you’re in the southern hemisphere and just thinking about planting that garden, rather than harvesting all the goodies!)
I’m not one for what I’ve heard described as “forced gratitude” where you HAVE to be thankful just because it’s Thanksgiving Day, but I do think that making myself look at what I’ve been given in my life, even when it feels awful is a good thing. I keep a gratitude journal, wherein I try to list 5 things a day to be grateful for… these can be as simple as “got to pet my silk floss” or as complicated as “my husband not only remembered my birthday but made it spectacular.” Getting to pet my kitty is often on the list.
Even my local snails are having a feast!
I love Thanksgiving. Even when things are going wrong (I threw my back out a bit on Monday, and haven’t been able to move as much as I usually do) cooking for lots of people is something I really love to do. and it’s something I’m good at. The one time in my life when my timing seems to be good and things get finished when they’re supposed to. Watch though. Now that I’ve said that, this year I will screw something up in a big way and we’ll end up at the local Golden Corral!
Take good care of yourselves and your families this weekend. I’ll be back when I recover. 
(next week sometime, probably!)
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11.19.10
Posted in Free Patterns at 2:30 pm by deRomilly
This was not quite as intended...
OK. I was going to post the wonderful work I’d done on the goldwork flower this week. Unfortunately, I was stymied. I put Japan Gold #5 in the supply list, because I knew I had it, and I thought it would work.
It doesn’t. I have it on hand because I was working on a cuff in Imperial Chinese embroidery long ago, and I forgot just how tiny it is. It’s not a passing thread, by any means, but it’s definitely thinner than I really want for this piece. Click on the photo to see just how small. That’s one strand of Zwicky silk floss holding it down – and a size 8 needle! And I don’ t have any #7 gold. Yet. So. Step 2 for me is to log on to Hedgehog Handworks (I love Joady and company-not affiliated!) or Threadneedle Street (my old LNS) and order more thread (In this case, I’ll probably call Threadneedle street, because I also need some threads that Hedgehog doesn’t carry. This project is now on hold for a little while. Sorry about the bad supply list, and sorry about the postponement! I feel like I’ve led y’all down a primrose path, and a bit guilty!Back to knitting while I wait for it to come in, I guess. (I’ve also got about an hour’s work left on the cafe curtain, then it needs to be sewn together… so I guess there’s enough for me to keep busy with!)
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11.12.10
Posted in Free Patterns at 3:56 pm by deRomilly
Transfer the pattern to your fabric. (We’ve been car shopping this week, and that’s actually all I got done on this!). My studio is still a wreck – mostly now because I’m actually in the process of revamping it, starting with making the shelves in the closet actually stay up – they fell on my head last year and I haven’t’ had the chance to empty it out an put the supports up properly (like into studs rather than loosely into drywall without anchors?!!!?) Anyway, between car hunting and searching for just the right ground fabric, I didn’t get much done!
So. Use any method you prefer, and transfer your design onto your chosen ground fabric. I’ll add my photo here when I get it off my camera card. 
Supplies list can be found here.
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11.05.10
Posted in Free Patterns at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Pattern - click for full-sized printable version
I have decided that I need something small to work on – something I can actually complete relatively quickly while I wait for gold thread for the curtain. So I am digging out the little Jacobean pattern again and doing it in goldwork.
Want to join me?
The image to the right will enlarge to a full-sized gif at 300dpi. Sometimes this prints huge. If you need the actual 4″ design, you can click the following to download the PDF version. (You’ll need Adobe’s free Reader or something compatible to open the file.)
Jacobean Flower Pattern as PDF file
Note: When I stitch this, I plan on using the Chinese preference of a red thread rather than yellow for the couching threads. This accomplishes two things: first, it is still a traditional method of working couching threads, and second, it will provide a greater contrast for the photography so you could better see what I was doing. Feel free to use whatever color couching you want – even something contrasting such as green for the stems or blue for the petals can be effective!
Supplies
(I usually get my goldwork supplies from Hedgehog Handworks. Not affiliated, but a very happy customer!)
- Japan gold or silver – size 5
- Pearl purl in gold or silver
- Check purl in gold or silver
- Silk or cotton sewing thread in yellow or white (or red, or green for couching)
- embroidery hoop – 6 to 7 inch diameter
- 2 10 inch square pieces of a firm fabric – one for a lining and one that will show.
- Scissors that can get dull without causing trouble
- Embroidery Scissors
Always use an old pair or scissors or a craft knife to cut metal threads. Metal threads are either real metal or they are man-made materials. In either case, they are not kind to scissors. They will not only blunt them, but can also put nicks and grooves into the blades. Once you use a pair of scissors for metal thread work, they will never be the same for cutting threads or fabric. I have an old, cheap pair of stork scissors that are designated my “goldwork” scissors. They have a fob on them that lets me know they’re the ones I use.
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