08.27.10
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Liberty Sofa Cover Design
The great shower curtain (which I’m now considering prick and pounce for transferring after all… ) is a Victorian variation on the tree of life pattern that became so popular in Renaissance needlework.
No one is really sure whether European needlework influenced middle eastern and Indian woven textiles that were imported, or whether it was the other way around. Like so many things in history, the truth is probably that they influenced each other, and both developed because of it.
Often at the bottom of these designs live lions and lambs in harmony, hunters chasing deer as a symbol of the human journey (no harmony there!) and every other emblem and symbol the Jacobean embroiderer could fit in — these were the people who sewed rebuses into the hems of their dresses, after all! (I’ll look up my reference for that later…. it’s in a book upstairs in the extremely hot studio (the AC still not fixed… we’re getting there, slowly!)
I’m partial to the quiet little plant-ridden hillocks on the bottom of this design. Although I might be tempted to slip in a rabbit (or squirrel) if my husband isn’t watching.
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08.25.10
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Choreography? 
They have a lot in common, really. Kind of surprising on the surface, but not so much as you dig deeper. Everything has a structure, and physicists are finding that mathematically, everything is related.
I’ve been playing with stitches in crewelwork lately. Often I fall back on old standards that I know work, because they have for centuries – long and short stitch, satin, chain stitch, stem stitch, the occasional french or colonial knot. Blanket stitch and I don’t get along particularly well if I’m not covering wire, and I’ve just recently re-discovered a love for Palestrina knots.
Repetition and Variation
I got to thinking about how similar placing stitches into a design is to placing dance steps in a choreography. The same design rules apply. You need repetition to make sure that your viewer doesn’t get overwhelmed or lost — it creates a safe place – and you need variation or it gets boring quickly.
In dance, we call it the “rule of four.” It takes four repetition for a viewer to get to the “Yeah, OK, I’ve seen that” point – so you can change it up with a bit of surprise on the fourth repetition – 3 hip circles and a figure 8 with the hips for example (or three 8s and a big circle, for that matter…) I can achieve an undulating flow by alternating moves, a-b, a-b, or hip snap, circle, hip snap, circle.
Click for larger image
And this is applicable to needlework, too! (Really – watch me!)
For example, you can use color as in the top wing feathers here – red/blue, red/blue. Or in stitches – stem stitch filling, chain, stem, chain. I did the latter on the bottom wing, with a subtle color addition, too. (And note that the top feather is the equivalent of the 4th rep variation ( it’s a raised stem stitch right now… but I’m considering ripping it out and making it plain stem stitch… it just seems jarring.)
The trellis work grid pattern on the leaves provides repetition and the size change gives it variation.
How do you use repetition and variation? Even if all you do is geometric cross stitch designs, do you ever replace a color with beads? Use more than one color?
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08.18.10
Posted in Artwork at 11:53 am by deRomilly
Precious Kitty!
It’s something you sometimes hear in art circles – “Don’t get too precious” “Don’t be precious about it!” “Keep your work fresh, not precious.” Precious connotes perfectionism – sometimes overworking, sometimes underworking a piece in order to get it “just so.” For some reason, this is considered bad. (I’m a perfectionist…) But who am I to talk? When a friend complained about a town being too “twee,” I said, but I LOVE that town! (I also never told her that I was planning ot move there… and in fact, I didn’t – I fell in love and moved 2500 miles away instead!) maybe “precious” is in my blood.
You don’t hear the word precious thrown around in American needlework circles very often – sometimes I’ll hear it in the more avant-garde UK textile forums. I have, however, have had acquaintances tell me that American stitchers tend to replace creativity in design with perfect craftsmanship. Indeed, needlework kits feel the need to underscore “the back should look as good as the front.” And there is a fear here that someone will turn over your work and analyze the back… (I do, but not for neatness… I want to know HOW they did what they did!!)
Note on the photo – I’ve never met a cat named Precious that wasn’t psychotic and scary. 
Dora is NOT named precious, but she has the nickname of The Cuteness… does that count?
I’m not sure where I’m going with this ramble. So let me ask y’all a question – are spontaneity and craftsmanship deadly enemies? Can we have spontaneous, fresh design and still keep quality of stitching? Can stitching be taken into the “real art” world without sacrificing this?
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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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