01.30.12
Posted in Monday Treasures at 9:20 am by deRomilly
Dora still loves to sit in boxes. Her mother sculpts them into shreds.
My Monday Treasure for this week isn’t actually embroidery. It’s a kitty. This is Dora. She’s our kitten. She came with Pookah, a stray we adopted with the house. (Little, sad, starving black face poking her head over the windowsill and wanting to come in, but scared of the people… now she’s a happy love… she came pregnant with 4 kittens, and gave birth 5 days after we had her checked out by the vet.) Dora is Dora the Explorer. Last out of Mom, first out of the box… (and now back IN a box).
Dora’s had a hard life, you know. She has to be tormented by those birds outside, and NEVER gets fed enough! The things she puts up with living with us! She has to fight back by stealing thread, and making sure that her fur gets included in all stitched items I produce. She’s also the only striped kitty in the world, you know. That makes her special. When she was born, we had 3 cats living with us in addition to Pookah. ALL of them were black, including Pookah! Dora, her sister and brother were striped, and her other sister was solid grey. But otherwise all kitties she knows are black! So, she’s special.
The year I was laid off from my day job, in fact the day AFTER, Dora got really sick. It turned out that she, at 5 years old, had kidney failure. It happens, though rarely in a cat that young. She took all our emergency pet fund that year, but she recovered, and now has to have subcutaneous fluids pumped into her every other day. (How fun!) But she’s doing great, and her numbers come up normal at all her checkups now, so I have hope that we’ll have her around for quite a while yet.
She’s my treasure. Mondays or otherwise.
Permalink
01.26.12
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Stitch Dilettante. That would be me. 
One of my defining characteristics as a stitch dilettante is that whenever things get stressful I have a tendency to start a new project with string – often in a technique I’ve never tried before.
Things I’ve learned this way include: needle tatting, needlelace, reticella, pulled work, drawn work, lace knitting, and thread crochet. Add to this the fact that I’ll also start a new project just to try out something new, or because I like the “pretty picture,” and you can see how I might end up with unfinished rugs, ornaments, pillows, cafe curtains, and more tucked into nooks and crannies all over the house.
Last year was especially stressful, with my Dad passing, and my husband fially recovering from a fight with lyme disease or Starry, or whatever they’ve decide to call tick-borne diseases in Carolina, because we all know deer ticks won’t cross the Mason-Dixon line. (Sorry. That’s another rant.)
Rather than starting new techniques last year, though, I became a designing fiend. And I drew a lot – filled many sketchbooks with small doodles that really only belong in the trash can. 
I played in mixed media – how do you feel about mixed media cross stitch designs?
And I actually started finishing my UFOs from those nooks and crannies – especially the knitting. And I started slipping out into the world more – in January I found that two of my designs had made it onto the pages of the Nordic Needle catalog – the printed one!
This year I feel in a much better position to keep moving on into the world. It will be an adventure.
Permalink
01.13.12
Posted in TAST at 5:14 pm by deRomilly
I don’t believe I stitched this much. A stitch I used to hate with a passion because I could never get it to lie flat, I mastered it last year, and this challenge just gave me a chance to play with it — a lot. And there are still ideas that aren’t’ going to make it to this sampler! Click to see details!
The flowers and leaves are all buttonhole stitch. Stem stitch flows easily from buttonhole, and can be seen as a very shallow buttonhole stitch, if you really stretch it!
Stems are stem and chain stitch. I especially like the little yellow-green leaves with the open buttonhole, and the buttonhole flower tips are a traditional crewel technique. Stitched in silk and cotton.
Permalink
01.11.12
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
I’m putting the Elmow program on hiatus for a little while until I can figure out what I want to do with it. I’ve got so many ideas, that I’m getting a little overwhelmed by them!
Remember that Elmow #16 was complimentary, if you’re looking for something to stitch right now, and the last 12 Elmows are still available for purchase.
Permalink
01.10.12
Posted in TAST at 4:20 pm by deRomilly
I’m going to shift my TAST posts to Fridays/Saturdays, I think, so I can get them up faster so people who are perusing them can. I think I can manage that.
Last week’s TAST was Fly stitch. I did a small sample, but I’m afraid this is a stitch that I’m just not very creative with. It’s not one of my favorites, and it really felt like an extension just to get this little bit done. I’m happy with the results, though, and have ideas for dandelions done in fly stitch now… so I did get quite a bit out of it!
And yes, all the lettering was done in fly stitch. THAT I may work out a whole alphabet in! With more care than I gave it, it could be really cool.
I think what I really liked here was the opportunity to work with Vikki Clayton’s silk threads again. The red is her 6 strand floss. The purple is from a skein I picked up at the needlepoint shop – it’s called “High Cotton,” and is a six strand matte floss that is thicker than normal strands. It doesn’t shine, but it didn’t knot up either. I can see quite a few things this thread would be really good for, and I look forward to trying it out on them. It’s a bit spendy, though.
This coming week is buttonhole stitch. Yay! options. LOTS of options for creativity with that one!
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
