Going forward in March Elmows will be released as follows:

• 4 weekly patterns and individual designs as always at 99 cents each.

• The last Wednesday of the month I will post the entire monthly set, including one additional bonus design for $2.99.

They will be available for one month additional. So patterns posted in February will be available through March, and so on.

A month after they are pulled, the design packs (NOT the individual designs) will be available on Etsy and GoldenCircleDesigns.com for $5.99. The format will probably be PDF, although I may make these designs available to shops in printed format as well.

Last week’s TAST was Fly stitch. I did a small sample, but I’m afraid this is a stitch that I’m just not very creative with. It’s not one of my favorites, and it really felt like an extension just to get this little bit done. I’m happy with the results, though, and have ideas for dandelions done in fly stitch now… so I did get quite a bit out of it!

And yes, all the lettering was done in fly stitch. THAT I may work out a whole alphabet in! With more care than I gave it, it could be really cool.

I think what I really liked here was the opportunity to work with Vikki Clayton’s silk threads again. The red is her 6 strand floss. The purple is from a skein I picked up at the needlepoint shop – it’s called “High Cotton,” and is a six strand matte floss that is thicker than normal strands. It doesn’t shine, but it didn’t knot up either. I can see quite a few things this thread would be really good for, and I look forward to trying it out on them. It’s a bit spendy, though.

This coming week is buttonhole stitch. Yay! options. LOTS of options for creativity with that one!

But Watch this Space! I am determined to take this opportunity to experiment and expand my design abilities…

Join us! (This week is Fly stitch).

Sharon has also updated her Squidoo pages on Hand Embroidery and on Needlework Samplers. Some very interesting links there!

The design in the book was stitched with Anchor cotton floss. While it gives it a nice, smooth, shiny look, I tend to not call it crewel. The defining word for me with crewel work is wool, which is apparently whence the word crewel derives! So while the design done in floss is pretty, I don’t call it crewel – it’s what I’d call “freestyle embroidery.” It’s a nit, I know. But I live in a world where nothing has the same name between two people — both embroidery and bellydance use different terms for the same stitch or move. It drives my ordered brain nuts!

Anyway. The color scheme I ended up with was dependent on the colors I had in my box in Appleton. In this case, golds and pinks rather than golds and oranges. Luckily the pinks have a very yellow cast to them, and actually blend pretty well with the gold, which surprised me. Learn something new with every sample! The turquoise is a little bright for the rest of the colors, but it’s not TOO horrible.

The sampler was focused on the basque stitch – which makes an interesting twisted chain-like spike. The outside of the flower to the right is done in this stitch, as is the center of two of the leaves. Quite pretty. I’d never actually done this stitch before, and I found it a bit tricky, especially to make the loops all the same size and avoid tightening the stitches too much. Combined with the fuzzy Appleton wool, well, I had a few issues!

Even close up the gold and pink don’t look too bad – maybe even pretty good together!

I think it came out pretty well!

Next motif – floss silks and “Society Silk” motif – yes, I know it’s my crewel sampler. But it’s mine, and I’ll play as I like!

Have a wonderful Christmas, if you celebrate it!

Anyway. Sophie Gelfi is an amazing textile artist, mosaic creator and scrapbooker. I don’t know exactly where she is from, but it’s one of the French-speaking countries! (I couldn’t find an “about” page on her site, but she writes in French.)

I started at the seascape page, but found myself clicking images almost obsessively because everything was so pretty! Go. Look. Enjoy.

A freestyle embroidery pattern! Use it for your technique of choice – crewel, long and short stitch, goldwork – your call. I’d love to see what you make from it!
The actual line pattern is about 5  inches wide by 5 inches tall in its entirety. Feel free to use a photocopier to enlarge or shrink it to a preferred size!

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
(919-249-8698, 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.

Use as is or transfer only the tree or only the greeting! Use it as a Christmas Tree, a Solstice Tree, or a generic holiday tree…

The actual line pattern is about 5 inches wide by 6 inches tall. Feel free to use a photocopier to enlarge or shrink it to a preferred size!

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
(919-249-8698, 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.

Click for a closer view!

This sampler really IS a sampler in the true sense of the word. It’s a place where I play – I don’t worry too much if my stitching is perfect, though I work to improve it. I don’t worry if the colors end up “going,” even failures have something to tell me, and the fact that they are stitched there for posterity reminds me of why not to do things that way again! This isn’t going to end up on a wall, it’s not going to end up in a gallery (at least not in my lifetime), but hopefully I’ll learn something good in the meantime, and later people can learn something from my fun and games. It *does* go to classes I teach with me.

The first motif on this piece of fabric is an Art Nouveau border from one of the Dover books. I worked it in Vineyard Silks Merino thread. I really like the threads from this company. The merino is soft and nice to work with, and the Vineyard Silk Classics are amazing (more on them later). The merino was designed for needlepoint – I think on 14 count canvas, so it is pretty thick to be working on motifs this small. I might use it again for a larger design that needed to be filled quickly. It’s got a nice hand, and a nice sheen when completed.

And I like my color choices here- the alternating pink/turquoise gives a little variety while still keeping a unified theme. This is a border pattern that I could see stitching around the hem of a skirt for spring or summer… but in a different thread, or in a bigger size.  We’ll see if I actually DO something like that with it!

As I recall, the motifs are about 2 1/2 inches tall (I’ve re-framed the work, so I can’t go measure it. I’ll try to remember to do it and edit this when I unlace it to move to a new motif!).

Done in woolwork, in Roumanian couching (a VERY American stitch, as it uses less wool), the design comes across as a bit rough and primitive, but is still absolutely charming to me.

It is part of a group that was stitched by “young ladies” at a school in Boston. I have no idea what age group “young” means in this context. The details are lacking enough that it could be anywhere from 8 to 15. I’d suspect, from the way the stitches are taken, that the stitcher was probably somewhere around 10. But it’s a guess. And an amateur guess, at that!

The actual line pattern is about 5 inches square. Feel free to use a photocopier to enlarge or shrink it to a preferred size!

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
(919-249-8698, 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.