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.

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.

I have several of her books on my shelf, and in reading them for fun last year I found the answer to “how to transfer that huge design onto my shower curtain” question that I’d been annoyed about! I’m still looking for a source for tapes of her television show, Needleplay.

Rest in Peace, Erica. You’ve earned it.

I finished the bottom two motifs last weekend. The top one is all in Appleton wool, and it was a stitch exploration that turned into a color test. The pink actually turned out to go with the golds quite well! The design is the crewel work design out of the Anchor Little book of Crewel stitches that goes with the basque stitch – which is the stitch around the circles and in the center of two of the leaves.

I relearned that I really dislike working with Appleton yarn – it’s quite fuzzy, although the fuzziness does hide some of the little stitching mistakes. It also stretches out and thins faster than some of the other yarns I use.

The bottom motif is an art deco design that I tried using some of the Art needlework techniques I’ve been reading about – and all of the strands of Eterna Silk floss. I got the look that’s so prevalent in my antique Poppy Piece, but I ran out  of green silk before I could put in the stem — so today I used a green hand dyed that I won from Sharon Boggins years ago. Finally actually using the pretties! I can’t save them for the “perfect project” forever– and it WILL be forever if I try that!

I’ll go into detail about these four little motifs later.

Dora (front) and Pookah, her mom-cat, (behind)

We’re all exhausted. Especially the cats.

Begging for turkey is hard work, you know! I’ve been stitching — more news on that front later. Hope you US folks all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that the weekend is wonderful for EVERYBODY!

Not all Elmows are counted work – but this one is!

I’d love to see what you make with it!

Stitch count – 42 X 42

Size when stitched on 14 count fabric – 3 x 3 inches.

Note: Elmows are distributed as a pdf file. If you don’t have it on your computer, you can get the free Adobe PDF Reader here. This creates a nice clean chart or pattern that you can print on your printer (and size up or down using a copy machine, or even work from the monitor, if you want.

What ARE these things? What can I do with them and is it safe to buy them from you?

If something goes wonky, PLEASE email or call me
(919-265-7059, 9-5 ET). I want you to be happy!

Reminder – please read–

Because of the size of my downloadable shopping cart (relatively small), after Elmow #12 I will have to begin rotating Elmows. This means that as I add a new one, the oldest remaining one will no longer be available. When Elmow #13 goes up, Elmow #1 comes down. #14 loses #2 and so forth. If you want older Elmows, now is the time to get them.

I love the way information travels around the web. I received a lovely comment on my post pointing out that she had shared the information and linking to her Yahoo group that is teaching blackwork techniques:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Blackwork/?yguid=460107685

Her blog includes the informational posts – patterns and other such will be included at the Yahoo Group.

I had had the thimble longer. It was part of a tin box of embroidery things my grandmother gave me before she died. But then I didn’t use thimbles — and it was too big for my 12 year old finger anyway. Somehow I managed to keep hold of it, though the embroidery supplies have disappeared over the years – some used, some lost in moves…

My great-grandmother’s thimble has a hole in it. People aren’t usually surprised by this, until they find out that it is in one of the dimples on the top — worn through because she always used it in exactly the same way, pushing her needle with the exact same spot year after year.

The thimble fits my finger perfectly now. This is surprising because I am not a small woman – I stand 5 foot 9 inches, and have fingers of a size to match. Modern thimbles have changed shape to make them easier to manufacture, I suspect, and their angles don’t fit my hand nearly as well as that old one.

This is sad. Because perhaps more surprising than the fact that she wore a hole in it is the fact that I wear and use it exactly the same way — which is to say that I can’t use it, because it no longer serves its primary purpose– the needlew goes right through that hole and into my finger whenever I try!

The thimble now lives in my sewing cabinet: I can’t trust it in my workbox, as it always finds its way onto my finger. But I keep it to remind me of my connection to an amazing needlewoman — a lady who has inspired my stitching since I first saw hers, and in whose footsteps I dare to follow.

Please don’t take this as disparaging to either my grandmother’s or my mother’s skills with a needle. Both of them did exquisite work as well. But the level of fineness that is apparent in my great-grandmother’s linens is not there. Mostly, I suspect, because styles changed between the late 1800s when my great grandmother learned, and the 1920s (when my grandmother was stitching). My mother’s work that I’ve seen was typical of the 60s and 70s when I saw her doing it. She was a painter by preference, but would pick up a needle on a whim every so often.

This has both.

Short post today. That is all.

Bleeding Sampler Motifs

I’ve been thinking about comedy and humor recently. Remember way back when in my Welcome post, when I said I wasn’t a needlework humorist? I’ve been trying to figure out why. Some of my current thoughts on the subject make me think that while embroidery is inherently healing, friendly, and beautiful, it doesn’t lend itself to humor like knitting or sewing… Why? I asked.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to really write humor well may be from a position of pain. Pain is where we find the truths about ourselves, and that kind of truth is whence humor really stems.  Even the Yarn Harlot’s humor stems from the mistakes that happen with gauge or with working through a misunderstood pattern.  Maybe that’s why it’s hard for embroiderer’s to move to humor about their work — when I don’t get gauge on a sweater I can end up with a finished project that would alternately fit André the Giant or a Barbie doll. When I mis-stitch a flower petal in a piece of embroidery, I end up with… a misshapen flower petal. Or, when the sampler threads bleed all over the bottom of the fabric and it never comes out… is that funny or just sad?

Yet I can see many opportunities for humor in my sewing – the T-Rex T-tunic for example (always remember to put eas in the arm measurements or you will have T-Rex arms when you put it on!) Turning something flat into something 3-D is ripe for humor. Whereas flat work, like the misshapen flower petal, choosing the wrong color in a needle painting, or my struggle to get the eye in the right place on a profile figure doesn’t have quite the hilarity factor (for the record, I just now realized that my problem is always putting it too far back on the facial profile — drawings will now improve, probably dramatically. Funny though? Probably more pathetic.)

So I’m still trying to find humor in my stitching. Anybody know any funny stitching stories you want to share?