02.18.11
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:00 am by deRomilly
For those of you that received this via email back on Feb 10 and then couldn’t find it again, my apologies. 
I mis-scheduled!
This is the first in a random and un-organized list of stitching terms that I think people should know. These are just the first things that come to mind when I think of needlework terms today. Tomorrow there may be something completely different!
Beading - Oooh there’s a can of worms. Stitchers and knitters go not near the bead store for you know not what temptations await you there. Oh, ok. I’m an enabler. Shiny little things, beads can be added to knitting, crochet, embroidery, sewing, macrame, tatting or what have you and all be called “beading.” And guess what? You can perform the act of “beading” all by itself with some wire and a pair of pliers. Defining beading is like defining “embroidery”.
Batting - the cotton or wool or polyester filling used between quilt layers. Originally, the etymology comes from the word “batt,” which is the name for the carded fiber mass that is the step before spinning into yarn.
Calico - In the USA, a cotton fabric often used for quilting. It is usually printed with a design, and traditionally this is a small print, often floral. In the UK, for calico, see Muslin.
Crochet - making fabric with one hook and a thread (can be thin for lace doilies or thick for afghans or something in between). Uses lots of thread, and is faster than knitting although often mistaken for knitting by random people on the street. (I’ve also had people see me cross stitching and ask me what I’m knitting, but that’s a bit extreme…)
Counted Cross Stitch - Using the cross stitch and a pattern to create pretty pictures. In many ways it’s similar to the Berlin woolwork of the 1800s, but now days is usually done using cotton floss on linen or other evenweave fabric.
Embroidery - Any surface embellishment created with a needle and thread. For example, all counted cross stitch is embroidery, but all embroidery is not counted cross stitch!
Frogging - Ripping out, whether embroidery, a seam, knitting, or what have you.
Knitting - the making of fabric with two or more sticks and one strand of yarn. Usually uses less yarn than crochet, is slower, and is often mistaken for crochet by random people when doing it on the bus.
Muslin - a 100% cotton fabric either natural or unbleached in color. It’s a plain tabby weave, and can be sturdy or less sturdy, often depending on the price you pay for it. It’s used as a ground for crazy quilting, as an inexpensive way to test out sewing patterns, and many other uses. In the Victorian era, muslin was available that was fine enough for high-end clothing.
Muslim - A follower of Islam. I include this because the misuse of this term instead of muslin is one of my pet peeves. I know they’re similar, but people, if you try to stitch a crazy quilt patch onto any of my Muslim friends, you are going to get at least an earful about sticking people with needles and pins.
Needlepoint - Know who you’re talking to when you use this one! To a “normal” person these days, the word needlepoint brings up thoughts of that tent or half-cross stitch wool on canvas monstrosity that Grandma made in the seventies. To an historical reenactor, it might very well mean very delicate lace made with a needle and thread instead of knitting needles or bobbins on a pillow! But if you go into a store specializing in needlework you will find many many wonderful designs stitched on canvas, and many ways to stitch them. (Even though I rarely do needlepoint, I haunt needlepoint stores for really neat fibers to use in my other embroidery styles!)
TINKing - Knitting backwards. (Ripping out one stitch at a time.)
Wadding - UK terminology for batting.
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02.14.11
Posted in GoldenCircleDesigns.com at 10:14 am by deRomilly
Geometric Heart Pillow!
I’ve been stitching a model for a piece I hope to release to shops at the Online Needlework Show in April. It’s another pillow, and seemed appropriate to share a small bit of it today of all days.
Happy Valentine’s day, all! Don’t forget to let the people you love know you love them. (Do that every day, really!)
Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time getting over my fear of finishing things. Not finishing the embroidery I start, per se, but after the stitching is done actually cutting into the fabric and CREATING something out of it.
Starting on the 15th of February, (that’s tomorrow) my newsletter will become monthly, at least for this year, and include finishing instructions for various things to make with your completed embroideries. No embroidery patterns, just ideas for things you can make.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, you might want to sign up for the list. February’s issue is on basic knife-edge pillows. March is going to be knife edge pillows with a zipper. And we’ll go on from there! I’ve got ideas that include bulletin boards, cup holders, and lots more!
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02.11.11
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Lucinda in the Rose Garden - the first design I created
I have a confession. It may seem strange coming from a cross stitch designer, but while I really love designing cross stitch, as I get older, I’m finding myself stitching less and less of it. This isn’t to say that I don’t still love it. In fact, last week I found myself very pleased with the meditative qualities I remembered while stitching a new pillow design (and boy did I need those meditative qualities at the time!)
For me, counted cross stitch was a gateway drug. It was the thing that got me beyond the hatred of that stamped cross and stem stitch sampler I started when I was six and only finished at 12 because I wanted to learn crewel, and my mother insisted that I finish EVERY project before starting another one (even if even SHE couldn’t figure out the instructions for the turkeywork stitch on that second crewel piece I tried…).
I taught myself counted cross stitch in the mid-80s for two reasons. One, I couldn’t find a crewel kit on the shelves to save my life. And second, I still had a bit of trepidation about starting a new crewel pattern when I hadn’t finished that first one.
My first cross stitch project was a little 18th century man with a no-smoking sign. I was hooked. My second… Theresa Wentzler’s Fantasy sampler. (And just to make Mom roll over in her grave, I’ll admit here and now that I STILL haven’t’ finished the thing, even though I love it and want it on my wall.) People have told me that I didn’t finish it because it was too complicated for a first project. If that were the case I would have gone back to it, knuckled down and finished it later. No, I didn’t finish it because it still makes my eyes cross with all those blended threads! I’ve learned a lot about design from those projects that I haven’t finished, and I went on to start my own line… which kind of sidetracked me from stitching other people’s designs. The image above is of the very first design I ever created myself, with a link to the pattern purchase page. I’m about to send her companion, Talieson in the Rose Garden off to my model stitcher! Finally.
There are still three pieces by other people in my workbox: That Fantasy Sampler, Ink Circles Cirque des Cercles, and Indigo Rose’s Millennium Sampler, which is now hard to find. (There are more in the UFO box… But I’ll rotate those in later.) I do take a few stitches on them once in a while, which means that they will get finished at some point… but it’s not going to be soon.
And you can expect more than cross stitch from Golden Circle in the coming months/years. Now, back to stitching that newest cross stitch model of mine…! (psst – it’s another pillow!)
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02.04.11
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
I had a dream the other night. Now I don’t usually remember my dreams, unless my subconscious mind is REALLY trying to tell me something important. And that’s usually about something I don’t realize I’m frightened about, but is stressing me. This one was different.
A bit of background: in the Society for Creative Anachronism, which I haven’t participated in in years, they choose the monarch to rule for the next six (or four, or whatever the local bylaws state) months by holding a great tournament, wherein the worthy people who want the title for themselves and their consort fight it out with rattan swords. Winner take all. Usually, for perhaps obvious reasons, there is a King chosen this way, and the Queen is his consort, but not always.
I dreamed that I’d won the Crown Tournament. Never mind that I wasn’t authorized to fight, hadn’t declared my consort (the EO of course), said consort wasn’t at the field for me, and that I wasn’t actually a card carrying member of the group any more at all! I somehow had been allowed to fight, and I won.
So I started pointing out all these rules violations and why I couldn’t possibly be Queen, because I had broken them. I was told by a needle worker I admire, (and in no uncertain terms) that I had won fairly, and that those were just pesky little issues that could be solved easily. Then she flat out told me that I had succeeded, and now I had to accept the rewards and responsibilities of that success. So when the EO picked me up, I got in the car with him to go home, and told him “congratulations, I won crown tourney, and now you’re King. Sorry.” He started grinning like the Cheshire cat who had just eaten a canary.
Heh. Thanks, subconscious. I guess I needed a clue-by-four to figure that out! This past year I’ve been living one of the lives I always dreamed of. I’ve been writing. I’ve been designing, and people actually seem to want to stitch my designs! I’ve been able to spend time with my 76 year old father almost daily, and able to look after the sick kitties when they needed it. The INCOME is coming, albeit not as quickly as I’d like it to turn over. I’ve got a supportive husband. I am succeeding, even when I look at all the little things that I haven’t done — all the little “rules” that I’ve broken getting here. I haven’t done things the way they traditionally are done. Strangely enough, that doesn’t seem to matter. The world is changing, and solving the little (and the big) problems are the things that make us grow.
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