08.11.10
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Crewel Bird...
While I’m finishing up the design work for the big huge shower curtain project from the depths of my over-commitment (yes, I’m getting cold feet… a little!), I’ve been working on this little bird – he’s 8 inches or so tall, and so far worked in long and short stitch. I’m sure there will be other stitches soon, but I do tend to lean towards the simple, effective use of a few stitches, despite my love of the baroque!
He comes from an old Dover iron-on transfer book Jacobean Crewel Embroidery. (It looks like this is out of print these days…)
He’s being stitched on cotton canvas, and I’m doing him in the Paternayan tapestry wool I’ve had in the cupboard for years. He’d fit in in the new bathroom, but won’t be remotely washable. Maybe I’ll actually make him into yet another pillow (I seem to have gone pillow-happy since I broke my fear of making them…)
A Bird in the hoop...
Interesting slant on things
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08.09.10
Posted in Stitching Genres at 11:18 am by deRomilly
The linen for the shower curtain arrived Thursday, astonishing me with the speed of its arrival. It is, as I write this, drying after its quick trip through the washing machine.
It wasn’t quite what I expected, but I can blame myself for not ordering a swatch before I bought it — and it is very pretty in a rustic way. I may wash it a couple more times to soften it before I stitch it. Linen gets softer with use, but I don’t really want to wash the wool stitching — even washable wool – constantly.
So I have the linen, the design is being enlarged – almost 1/2 way there at this point. The leaves are about 10 to 11 inches long. I think it will be gorgeous in the heavy wool on the coarse linen.
Now I get to play with color. I haven’t ordered the yarn yet. Much fun!!!
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08.02.10
Posted in Stitching Genres at 8:28 am by deRomilly
Liberty Sofa Cover Design
So, I decided to go ahead with a new shower curtain — we’ve been talking about going gothic in the hall bathroom – gothic the time period, not gothic the lifestyle, although there is some overlap there….
Really, it’s going to end up being a Victorianesque pastishe of the medieval period, which is fine by me. A long time ago I started stitching a shower curtain that inluded a border of German Brickstitch work. That border broke me. There’s no way I’ll finish it!
What I have decided to do instead is based on last week’s post, and a Victoran design from an old book from Liberty of London. The original was designed for a sofa cover – 36 inches by 62 inches. I printed it out from the catalog at just under 8 1/2 by 11, and am currently enlarging it using the old fashioned grid method to 42 X 63 inches, which will fit our tub nicely. I think eitehr the reproduction scan was skewed, or I stretched it in printing, because I can’t get the ratios to work out to what the catalog says the original is, but I don’t think it matters TOO much.
There is a nice heavy plainweave linen on order from fabrics-store.com, and I am going to attempt this in washable sock yarn from Knitpicks.
I’ll walk through this project as I go, although it’s not high on the priority list for finishing right now, but it is a lot of fun to plan!
I’m still contemplating the Art Nouveau piece — I’ve traced it to size, and simplified for stitching, but I’m still debating fabric choices! I thought I had picked out the one I wanted to use – a nice, soft black cotton that I had on hand, but now I’m not sure again. I’m wondering if something a bit smoother might go better. <sigh> When the right fabric jumps out at me I’ll know and be able to start work for real.
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07.28.10
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:00 am by deRomilly
The Design in Question
One of the things I’ve been doing in this heat is reading out of print Victorian needlework books on my kindle — doing research for new crewel designs and new embroidery designs in general.
The other day i was happily bouncing through Ada Wentworth’s Jacobean Embroidery, its Forms and Fillings, Including Late Tudor, when I came across this description of a bed hanging or valance:
…measuring about 5ft. 8in. in length, and 1 ft. 8in. in width. Each leaf was about 22 in. long and 19 in. across.
I did a double-take. The length and depth of the work made sense to me, but the sheer size of each leaf amazed me. Crewel work today, even when “reproduction” work, is so much smaller in design? Can you imagine the detail and stitch variety available in just one of those leaves?
I’m going to need to reevaluate my understanding of this needlework genre. The largest leaf I have ever seen modernly is about 5 inches long – and that was considered huge. Working them so much larger, and in a heavier tapestry weight wool would make it much quicker to stitch a set of bed hangings than i have been imagining. I know the smaller designs existed as well – I’ve seen some of them. But my mind is still boggling from the idea of this scale… Maybe that shower curtain is in my future after all… I could use superwash sock yarn instead of crewel wool and it would be washable! …. hmmmm.
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06.01.10
Posted in Stitching Genres at 1:41 pm by deRomilly
I’ve had a few emails asking me where to find my posts on crewelwork, so I thought I’d round up a bunch of my bigger posts and put the links here in one place where you can find them more easily…
My finished projects:
To learn Crewel:
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