08.22.11
Posted in Monday Treasures at 7:00 am by deRomilly
I know, it’s only Monday. The week in question was last week. It built up pain, and then ended on a sad note for me. It shoved my brain into a tailspin. I’ve got two friends right now going through some really nasty health issues. And then I found out that my fantastic model stitcher had passed away last month. Very very sad.
So I wasn’t in much shape to concentrate on anything in the way of stitching – especially things I have to think about, like cross stitch counting, or figuring out what stitch to put where or what color to put where in one of my own crewel designs. So I started DaisyChain ABCs by Posie, which also counts as a Monday Treasure! I fell in love with the pattern and ordered it when I saw it on the Spinster Stitcher’s blog. She’s currently working on Needle Delight’s Aquamarine, and I’m fighting the urge to go buy a copy and start it, too, because it’s just so…. so… watery! (I’m winning this particular fight because it’s counted… and I’ve got counted projects galore right now!)
Because I just cannot do anything the way a pattern tells me to, I’m using the back of one of the EO’s dead dress shirts as the fabric – I love the color. And since I don’t particularly like Appleton crewel wool because it’s so fuzzy, I replaced it with Renaissance Dying wool that I ordered from Hedgehog Handworks. Don’t go to that link — you’ll want everything on the site! (Don’t say you weren’t warned!) Otherwise I stuck with the colors specified, and the stitches specified. The only thing I’d do differently is use a slightly darker shade of blue – the blue in the “C” is very pale, and looks almost like the white in the “D” next to it. And now that I’ve spent the weekend goofing off, I’m feeling much more coherent, and I’m back to stitching. The big blue thing now has a name – it’s “Chelsea” after my late model stitcher (she stitched the Alhambra model for me… I’m going to miss her). And I’m happy to be working on the Elisabetta sampler again. (Details of her, soon.)
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08.01.11
Posted in Monday Treasures at 7:00 am by deRomilly
I was browsing blogs Sunday and found this wonderful vintage purse (and a crewelwork screen below it). It really is amazing what we can find in little shops around our own towns!
If you enjoy quilting or other textile arts, the rest of her blog is also a wonderful read…
I highly recommend sliding into your local antique or junk shop. You might find a treasure like my poppies or the purse above…
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06.20.11
Posted in Artwork, Stitching Genres at 12:14 pm by deRomilly
Trish Burr has a lovely interview today with an artist who paints portraits in crewel wool. And I do mean PAINTS. Go look.
The artist is Cayce Zavaglia, and her work is amazing.
I’m going back to nursing an ear infection now. 
New Elmow on Wednesday!
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05.25.11
Posted in Threads at 11:27 am by deRomilly
Isn't it pretty?!
Last weekend I went to the Carolina Fiber Fest with some friends. It has been a long time since I’ve been to one of this type of event, and I’m afraid I forgot what the wool fumes do to me. For the most part, I was good, and didn’t spend a lot of money.
Unfortunately, I volunteered to teach my friends how to spin (Note to potential friends: Romilly is an enabler… you don’t want to shop textiles with me unless you want a new hobby, or a new toy to play with an OLD hobby…) And to do that, I had to have some of the same wool they were going to be using!
So I came home with five ounces of colonial roving. Pretty blue, turquoise and red. It sat in my bag until Tuesday. Tuesday I broke down.
More yarn shots.
I borrowed my friend’s new spindle – both of mine had yarn on them already… got to finish that! and I wanted to play with the weight on hers in any case so I knew what she could expect… it’s light. And two hours of work later, I have a skein of 130 yards of fingering weight singles… I may ply it later, I might not… and a little bit more. And I still have 2/3 of a bag of roving to go! I think I’m going to have a new shawl next fall. What do you think?
*I* think it’s time to dig the spinning wheel out of storage and see what I can do with it. I originally learned to spin with the intention of spinning my own crewel wool… Maybe I’ll pull that idea back out. Drop spindles are perfect for that, because you can spin a small amount of fiber pretty easily. I’ll keep you posted as to how that works!
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02.11.11
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Lucinda in the Rose Garden - the first design I created
I have a confession. It may seem strange coming from a cross stitch designer, but while I really love designing cross stitch, as I get older, I’m finding myself stitching less and less of it. This isn’t to say that I don’t still love it. In fact, last week I found myself very pleased with the meditative qualities I remembered while stitching a new pillow design (and boy did I need those meditative qualities at the time!)
For me, counted cross stitch was a gateway drug. It was the thing that got me beyond the hatred of that stamped cross and stem stitch sampler I started when I was six and only finished at 12 because I wanted to learn crewel, and my mother insisted that I finish EVERY project before starting another one (even if even SHE couldn’t figure out the instructions for the turkeywork stitch on that second crewel piece I tried…).
I taught myself counted cross stitch in the mid-80s for two reasons. One, I couldn’t find a crewel kit on the shelves to save my life. And second, I still had a bit of trepidation about starting a new crewel pattern when I hadn’t finished that first one.
My first cross stitch project was a little 18th century man with a no-smoking sign. I was hooked. My second… Theresa Wentzler’s Fantasy sampler. (And just to make Mom roll over in her grave, I’ll admit here and now that I STILL haven’t’ finished the thing, even though I love it and want it on my wall.) People have told me that I didn’t finish it because it was too complicated for a first project. If that were the case I would have gone back to it, knuckled down and finished it later. No, I didn’t finish it because it still makes my eyes cross with all those blended threads! I’ve learned a lot about design from those projects that I haven’t finished, and I went on to start my own line… which kind of sidetracked me from stitching other people’s designs. The image above is of the very first design I ever created myself, with a link to the pattern purchase page. I’m about to send her companion, Talieson in the Rose Garden off to my model stitcher! Finally.
There are still three pieces by other people in my workbox: That Fantasy Sampler, Ink Circles Cirque des Cercles, and Indigo Rose’s Millennium Sampler, which is now hard to find. (There are more in the UFO box… But I’ll rotate those in later.) I do take a few stitches on them once in a while, which means that they will get finished at some point… but it’s not going to be soon.
And you can expect more than cross stitch from Golden Circle in the coming months/years. Now, back to stitching that newest cross stitch model of mine…! (psst – it’s another pillow!)
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I know, it’s only Monday. The week in question was last week. It built up pain, and then ended on a sad note for me. It shoved my brain into a tailspin. I’ve got two friends right now going through some really nasty health issues. And then I found out that my fantastic model stitcher had passed away last month. Very very sad.
Because I just cannot do anything the way a pattern tells me to, I’m using the back of one of the EO’s dead dress shirts as the fabric – I love the color. And since I don’t particularly like Appleton crewel wool because it’s so fuzzy, I replaced it with Renaissance Dying wool that I ordered from Hedgehog Handworks. Don’t go to that link — you’ll want everything on the site! (Don’t say you weren’t warned!) Otherwise I stuck with the colors specified, and the stitches specified. The only thing I’d do differently is use a slightly darker shade of blue – the blue in the “C” is very pale, and looks almost like the white in the “D” next to it. And now that I’ve spent the weekend goofing off, I’m feeling much more coherent, and I’m back to stitching. The big blue thing now has a name – it’s “Chelsea” after my late model stitcher (she stitched the Alhambra model for me… I’m going to miss her). And I’m happy to be working on the Elisabetta sampler again. (Details of her, soon.)
