What Embroidery Style Should I Learn?

I don’t get any results back from this, but I’d love to know what your results are! Feel free to post in the comments. I got “freestyle” which is funny, since I started with and design cross stitch and crewel designs before I expanded out. But I guess we all change over time!

If you know how to create a quiz I can post IN my blog – please give me a heads up. My google-fu is failing mightily on this subject! And I’d rather not make you all click more than necessary!

What we did was the following:

1. Find an iron on transfer or a line art/coloring design she liked from a clip art book.
2. Transfer it onto a piece of counted fabric. In this case, aida.
3. Now fill in the various areas with the stitch of your choice. In my friend’s case, I taught her long-armed cross stitch. You can also use tent stitch, cross stitch, satin stitch, or any other filling stitch, lacy or solid that you like. Or a variety of stitches.
4. Stitch over the outlines with stem or back stitch.
5. Voila! apparently counted work that wasn’t counted.

Note: I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be posting for the next few weeks. Our old lady cat is in home hospice care, in the last stages of thyroid disease AND renal failure, so I find myself watching her and worrying more than I ought to, perhaps.

As usual, click for the full picture and details!

Just offhand, I can think of bargello, berlin, broderie anglaise, hardanger, mountmellick, stumpwork, cutwork, punto in aria, zardozi, bunka, japanese embroidery, wessex embroidery, counted cross stitch, band samplers of every ilk, canvaswork, goldwork, shisha, macramé, blackwork, or nué, crewelwork, schwalmwork, Dresdenwork, Assissiwork, and so on…

My problem, of course, is that when it comes to thread I am a glutton. I want to learn everything and try every technique, no matter how complex. Of course, this isn’t feasible, especially when you realize that I include all thread work in that desire – including knitting, crochet, bobbin lace, needlelace, sprang and any number of other techniques that escape me at the moment, including plain sewing. (I have made a conscious decision NOT to try naålbinding — knitting on TWO needles was confusing enough for me. I don’t really want to try knitting with only one, however historical it is.

There isn’t, of course, enough time in the day to explore everything I want tot do. I try not to let that stall me, and just keep going. I do find myself back at three in particular that I love: cross stitch, silk shading, and crewelwork. I’m sentimental, and these are the three that my mother and grandmother taught me. Somewhere I still have my first cross stitch sampler — the one that took me four years to finish because I kept getting bored. When I find it I’ll post it. I have some sort of idea of charting it (it was stamped on cheap muslin) and doing it again in my current ability level and then framing them side by side. I think it would be cool. Will I make the time? Who knows.

Yeah. Rhys. I miss him.

Click to see the entire image in a larger format.

Sad Sampler

I thought I’d written about this before, but I don’ t seem to have – maybe on a forum or rec.crafts.textiles.needlework usenet or somesuch.

So here goes again.

Years ago I was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (that’s also where I got the name Romilly, but that’s another story). I don’t fight, so I needed something to do with my hands — I started a sampler, taking historic motifs from various patterns I owned and mixing them up, adding a few of my own and such.

It was also a way to use my stash of Gentle Arts Sampler Threads and Weeks Dye Works threads.

What I learned, the hard way — they mean it when they say “don’t wash.”

How I learned it. Squirrel pee. Or bird. Whatever it was, it’s three drips on the sampler. In retrospect, these were not thread or fabric choices I should have made for a piece I was going to be carrying around in the woods with me!

I tried to wash out the stain – it’s still there, though I can’t get a good photo of it. I think it melted some of the fabric threads. And the red threads (aren’t they always the culprit?) ran. All over the old-formula lugana – the stuff with NO cotton or natural fibers in it at all (OK, so it was also a way to get rid of a fabric I hated stitching on…) so it stains easily.  It’s sad. Both the situation and the sampler.

The sampler sits in my UFO (unfinished objects) box to this day. I keep meaning to try overdying it in a tea color to antique it a bit – or just cut it up and use it in a crazy quilt as is. I never seem to get around to either of them, though. And so it sits. Waiting for me to do something – anything with it.

Details below. As usual, click to see closer.

This afternoon I pulled up the post and l copied all 25 comments into a word document, turning them into 2 column layout and then cutting the comment out. I then removed the comments from me. *grin*\

I then removed the three extra posts from Michelle (who had inadvertently mistyped her url). Then I had my godson, who is 2 weeks away from being 12, draw the name out of my hat. And draw it out he did. He wouldn’t give me the slip of paper.

He started spelling…

M…

I…

C…

Yup. Michelle, you didn’t get any extra tries for the extra comments, but you still won the book! For those of you who didn’t win, and still want a copy…

Here’s the link to the Amazon. It really is an amazing book. When I was reviewing it so I could post the giveaway I kept finding reasons I should keep it. . . I could do this with this pattern… or that with the other one. But I knew I’d never get around to it!

So Michelle, email me your address and I’ll get it shipped out to you.

This is the sampler in question – see? I’ve made LOTS of progress! Two pages out of 18 already stitched. Yeah. Right. I AM really proud of this. It looks better stitched than it did as a bitmap on the computer! Unfortunately, one of those pages has to be entirely ripped out.

This is why. See that red circle? That’s the spot where I left out a little line of three cross stitches. Just three blinking stitches. In the first motif I stitched. And I didn’t even notice. The EO noticed on Christmas that the balancing motif didn’t look like the first one. He’s proud of himself for noticing. Actually, I’m glad too. It could have been so much worse. If this was for me – if it was a true sampler and not something I think I might want to put on the cover of the pattern, I’d just fudge it. But it isn’t. Because I based all of my counting on the location of stitches in that motif, everything in the sampler is off by one row vertically and three several horizontally, too. So I’m frogging the thing. That’s going to take time, and I have to admit I’ve been really tempted to just pull out another yard of linen and start completely over.

The thing that really grates on me? I made a conscious decision not to grid the thing because it was so big. I look at it now and realize I could have gridded it in page-sized pieces. A grid on the fabric would have saved me most of this grief, because none of the stitches would have lined up on the fabric grid where they do in the pattern grid. I hate the prep work for stitching. I am very tempted to skip it. And every time I skip it I regret it. Hopefully this will teach me. It better, because it’s a very painful lesson.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been taking Sharon Boggon’s class on Studio Journals — something I signed up for at the last minute, after months of waffling about it. Knowing it was something I could use, but not really thinking through the time commitment. The result – with typical summer busy-ness, a deadline at the day job (that slipped at the last moment, durn them), and prep work for a dance class (that ended up cancelled after all for lack of students, grrr, apparently I’m not the only busy one this summer!), I haven’t done as many of the excercises provided for class as I’d hoped, and I haven’t blogged, either.

Part of the reason I haven’t gotten as much done in class as I’d like is a good result – the class has spurred me to actually WORK! My studio journal is bulging, both wiht the few class excercises I’ve managed to churn out – usually one or two a week – and ideas for “real” work.

I’ve finished the design work on two small spot samplers (8 X 10 inches ea), and a huge one, inspired by this post (she had a followup here) at Inside number twenty – I’ve started one of the small ones, and have the full yard of linen on order now for the big one and the humongous thing will fall to my needle as soon as it arrives. Maybe I ought to stock up on block DMC.

The little one, “Esther”:

The biiiiig one! As yet unnamed, and unstarted. Ideas?

And that leads me to a question. I’m still notiating my way around the business license process in my “new” state. How many people do you think would purchase cross stitch patterns via Etsy? Some other site? Or should I wait until the license has gone through and go ahead without a middle man from day one? Which would you rather I did?

I have to admit, it’s very nice to be back in the design game. The past 8 years have given me some real challenges with my health and family to overcome, and I’ve felt that I’ve ben neglecting an important part ofme. Between actually dancing (and teaching) again and designing/art-making, I really am beginning to feel whole again.

It took me longer than expected to get to the computer to convert patterns for you. But I’ve got one! OK, so I’ve got two. These are from a very large sampler I’m designing. Wish me luck, ’cause when it’s finished I’ve got to actually STITCH the thing!

Have fun with them. If you use them, let me know how!

Standard copyright notice applies. Feel free to use for personal use only, please don’t sell the design or mass-produce stuff from it. If you want to use them commercially, please ask and we’ll talk. If you link to it, please link to the entire post, not just to the chart.

Click to enbiggen. Note: the first one prints better than it displays, at least on my monitor.