The first results - vintage pastorals

Over the last few weeks I’ve had a horrendous ear infection – it’s kept me away from anything remotely resembling counted work – which meant, no model stitching on current projects.

It didn’t’ stop me from stitching, though, and I got the following embroidery projects completed, along with about 4 thread crochet doilies – yes, I know, those require counting, but it’s a lot easier to rip back crochet work than cross stitch!

As usual, click on the pictures to see them larger (and in their entirety!).

Twin sized embroidered & tied comforter

I say “almost first” because I remember three embroidery pieces prior to this, other than my two first forays into counted cross stitch… This IS my first big huge project that actually got finished (with the exception of my first fisherman knit sweater…).

This project was finished in about 1988, and I’ve used it almost constantly since then.

The motifs were iron-on transfers from a huge book of them that I still have, from the only section that appealed to me! I fit them on a twin-sized cotton flat sheet that I bought on sale and then started embroidering.

Stitches are very basic – mostly stem, with some satin, french knots and a little bit of couching in the central motif (I’d do that differently now!).

It’s backed with another sheet – cotton flannel this time;  filled with a three inch polyfill batt and then tied, because I wanted a thick fluffy comforter look rather than doing a bunch of hand quilting. I had no idea how to make a quilt, so it’s bagged and turned, as if it were just a pillow — no binding.  My sewing machine wouldn’t take the strain of even the side edges, so for the most part, they are hand stitched seams.

So it’s now 2011. That makes it 23 years old. It has had hot wax spilled on it, gone to several SCA events as part of my bedroll, and generally seen very hard use. Thrown into the washing machine AND the dryer (in apartments and laundromats, so on HOT) with no respect for the work I put into it… And yet I’m still using it.

At the time, DMC floss was about 25 cents a skein, and I could often get it for 10 for a dollar. I think the entire quilt cost me about $20.00 all told – and I was annoyed because the batting was “expensive.”  Pretty good bargain for 23 years and more usage!

The stitching is beginning to wear thin (gone in some places), but the colors are still bright. I’ll put closeups of some of the motifs  below.  It will never be an heirloom – I’m going to wear it out long before my non-existent children get their hands on it! But it’s six months of work that I’ve never regretted. And it still makes me smile when it’s thrown on the bed or over a sick husband on the couch.  Such is the power of embroidery.

A really bad area for lost stitches

The wings close up. Even worse magnified!

The red bird motifs are a pretty bad area for lost stitches. The leaves were couched into a very open chain stitch and have all but gone. The stem stitch wings are missing parts of themselves, too.

French knots with many wraps often take the worst of the damage from the washing machine because they stick out. Many of the birds now have eye stalks instead of beady little eyes!

The blue birds didn't take as much damage.

Closeup of Flower Motif

The blue birds didn’t take quite as much damage as the red ones, but the stem stitch still wore. Part of this is due to the fact that I was young and in a hurry, and my stem stitches were not as small nor as even as they could have been at the time.

You can see the disappearing french knot effect on the Flower motif to the right.

And the worst damage was in this red flower motif.

The worst damage.

You can see the needle holes for the missing stitches when you enlarge the photo. It’s lost most of the red & pink flower and some of the leaves and stems, too. Strangely, on this one the french knots are doing fine! But you can also tell that over the years the “permanent” transfer ink has finally washed out with the stitching!

Stitching I found at Dad's apartment

We finished cleaning out my father’s apartment last night. At Christmas he sadly told me that he had finally thrown out the pencil holder I made him out of contact paper and an orange juice can back in kindergarten. It had finally fallen completely apart. Or maybe his cat ate it. I can’t remember the details.

But while sorting through the various pieces of ham radio gear, metal lathing tools, and other such, we found three pieces of embroidery that I had done for him over the years.

The biggest is the cross stitched sailing ship I gave him for his birthday one year. It’s the one and only pattern I ever did from a color chart, and it’s the ONLY color chart I will ever use. No design, no matter how beautiful, is worth the pain I went through trying to identify various shades of brown in that pattern!

Embroidered box in perle cotton and plastic canvas

In addition, there is the matchbox style box that I made from plastic canvas and perle cotton. He used it to store q-tips in, and obviously pulled on the edge to open it rather than pushing it through the box… The inner box is starting to fall open from use.

And there’s the small sampler I knocked out from scraps in my stash when I wanted to give him a father’s day present and was unemployed.

Sailing band sampler in Caron threads on old polyester lugana

Not needlework related, there’s the pencil portrait of my mother that I did for him while we lived in California.

Small pieces, mostly. Well loved. He preferred things from me that he could use.. and didn’t really want or need a lot of  “things” around him.

I miss him. And it’s hard having these things, as well as his Christmas sweater around right now, although I’m sure I’ll change my mind about that as the heartache starts to heal.

Angled View of Poppy Embroidery

Yesterday on  whim, after telling the staff at my Father’s favorite restaurant about his passing, I stopped at the local antique store, with the hope of finding a copy of Priscilla Magazine or Home Needlework or somesuch (I’m an antique publications fanatic).

Instead, I found this treasure. As usual, you can click the pictures for more detail. I highly recommend it. The stitching is exquisite.) It’s  about 22 by 22 inches, still with the original price tag of 50 cents from Kindall. So I need to go do some research and track it down.

The design reflects much of the art needlework done in the 1890s through about 1910 in the U.S. This one is poppies. It’s stitched on linen in a thick filament silk – not twisted at all,  it looks like they put enough strands in the needle to be about the equivalent of 4-5 strands of cotton floss. But because it’s so much softer, it blends much better than that much cotton would.  I’m sure that this was packaged in this size as thread… I’ve seen the advertisements for it.

As you can see, it’s not faded at all, and the stitching is exquisite. There is a small triangular  voided area in the poppies shown above, where the petals meet, that I thought was an error, but then I realized that all of the poppies in that position have identical voided areas.  It was designed to be made into a pillow – the linen to back the pillow is attached to the embroidered linen, ready to be made.

Coveting the threads I can no longer get, and feeling very pleased with myself for finding this.

Edited 3/12/11 to add the photo of the poppy with the voided spot.

Pretty pretty! Now… WHAT should I do with him? Suggestions?

His feet and leaf:

Click to enlarge.

The pillow in question

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have a phobia about REALLY finishing needlework. I’m working on it. But I’m always terrified (and it really is terror) that I’m going to ruin a piece of stitching that I’ve spent hours and hours working on. If it entails more than just lacing it to a back and sticking it in a frame, I freeze.

But I’m taking it gently. I have several pillow designs that I want to release this year. They’re going to include finishing instructions as well as the needlework design. (There, I said it!) So I’ve been trying to get myself to finish the pillows I have half finished around the studio so that I can do it.

I started with this candlewicking piece. I got the kit at a garage sale for about 25¢. The stitching was finished in about a week other than the three months I spent trying to find enough thread that matched for FOUR knots after I ran out. Candlewicking thread is NOT all the same. Ick. But I found it, finished the stitching three years ago and put it in my “Finished Objects to Finish box.” (As usual, click the photos to enlarge for more detail!)

The "scary" zipper... Not so scary after all!

Last week I dug out my Singer Sewing for the home book that my heart-sister the former interior stitcher recommended, teased the instructions out of three different areas in said book (not the best organized, but really good instruction!) and to paraphrase Nike, “just did it.” I’m pleased. I’m not completely happy with the zipper, which I wanted because we always have pets and cats like to bring up hairballs right where you don’t want them: In other words, the pillow cover NEEDS to be washable! But it’s more than serviceable. I’ve made a pillow form for the crazy quilted pillow I posted about ages ago, and now I just need to attack it with the black backing, black zipper and the same book. I figure by the time I get to the models, I’ll have enough stitched that I’m not QUITE so terrified any more.

The full dragon banner. Has tab hangers at the top.

FINALLY!

My godson/pseudo-nephew turned 13 yesterday. In honor of the event, I made a point of finishing his dragon banner – that he still doesn’t know he’s got, since he spent the weekend at his father’s. After I post this, I shall be delivering it to him.

Dragon Detail

Remember the banner? This has been a LONG year for me. While I finished the stitching back in the summer, I still have a phobia of ruining my embroidery during my attempts to really finish things. So it took me until this weekend, when, in a fit of  “I feel much better after a week of being sick, thankyouverymuch” energy, I just went and DID it.  I’m proud of the results. The EO says if the kid doesn’t like it, he’ll take it himself.

Click the images for more detail!

Edited 2/26/10 to add – Well, when he opened it he hugged it to his chest and went dancing around the room with it, so I guess it’s a success!

Last year was hectic on the family front, and although I managed to maintain my art development, and got some designs completed, nothing quite got finished the way I intended.

This year promises to be an improvement. The family issues should be mostly resolved by the end of March, and I hope to have things up and running by June. (Note that this is a goal: It’s subject to slippage.) What I’d like to do is get Golden Circle Designs back up and running completely, business license and such so that those of you who have asked me about designs I had for sale five years ago can have access to them again.

In addition, there are several knitting patterns in the works, a companion piece to Lucinda in the Rose Garden, and quite a bit of one-of-a-kind artwork that is ready to go. I’ve included a photo of Lucinda for you, I’m sorry it’s small and not the best: my original image is my old business disks, which of course need different hardware to read. I’m going to have to do some conversions… and soon!

I’m considering making some of these available via Etsy or Ebay before I can get the website up and running. I’d love opinions on this option…

Knit on size six needles with KnitPicks Shine yarn. I love this stuff. And it really DOES wash well!

Anyway. On to the bad picture!

I think when I knit it again I’ll make a couple of changes: First, despite the called-for amount of garter stitch edging, the hem rolls. I’ll double it at least. It’s not a big deal right now, but I could see it being a problem in a silk top intended for something other than my casual office.

I’ll add a half-inch to the armhole depth . Although I like the fact that they come up higher than most, they just aren’t quite deep enough to be comfortable for me. That extra half-inch should solve the problem.

Highly recommended. On me it doesn’t look very good with more than an inch of ease. Your mileage may vary.