I realized, looking at these stitches that my issue is not so much “how do I learn this?” or  “what weird things can I do with these stitches in a straight line?” but rather, “How the heck could i use these in a finished piece of embroidery?” My samplers are full of variations. The transition to stitching in a finished piece is sorely lacking. Hence the bouquet in buttonhole stitch, and my use of these three stitches to finish my little complimentary Elmow of my parrot-squid-cthulu! I think he turned out cute.

And because I’ve become fascinated by the look of photos of embroidery from odd angles, here’s my beauty shot of this one! Click any of these to see them in more detail!

These are all stitched on fabric samples I received from an interior designer that was going out of business. They’re the perfect size for trying out designs and stitches, and have a built-in margin at the top to bind into a book when I’m done with the year.

This one is an intermediate-level freestyle embroidery design. It’s intermediate mostly because Peking knots in gold thread are a pain to do; not because of any real difficult stitches. But it’s almost tested, the fabric is ordered to stitch a model, and hopefully that means I can offer a kit to all of you sometime very very soon!

The knots around the bee have been removed, along with the gold running stitch (the latter by accident while removing  the knots) because they were just too big in the Kreinik braid. So now the dotted line is in the braid, and the knots are in one strand of DMC metallic – thought THAT is going to change, as I detest working with the stuff, and wouldn’t impose it on anyone if I can avoid it! But I don’t have any pictures of the new version.  Click on either of the photos to see more detail.

Today is also my TENTH wedding anniversary. Wow. Who’d have thunk it?!  The EO is a wonderful guy, my inspiration, and a good part of my strength. I’d probably do just fine without him, but he makes life so much better by being here. I hope I do half as much for him. We won’t be celebrating today. For 10 years, every time we’ve tried, something has interfered – often physically (like me breaking my elbow on the way to the sushi restaurant…). We no longer give it the opportunity-maybe in a couple weeks. Maybe. But we won’t tell the universe what we’re doing!

The flowers and leaves are all buttonhole stitch. Stem stitch flows easily from buttonhole, and can be seen as a very shallow buttonhole stitch, if you really stretch it!

Stems are stem and chain stitch. I especially like the little yellow-green leaves with the open buttonhole, and the buttonhole flower tips are a traditional crewel technique. Stitched in silk and cotton.

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!

I’m afraid I might do that again this year, but I’m going to try it anyway. She’s going to start posting on January 3, and I’ll try to post my experiments on the Tuesday after, giving me an entire week (and a weekend) to play with them. As I move into designing and teaching free embroidery as much as  cross stitch, this kind of experimentation becomes even more important, or so I’m telling myself to justify this!

It’s not too late to join us, or stop by and see what people do — there are over 400 people taking the challenge, and it’s always fun to drop by their sites and see what they’ve been doing. Gives you great ideas for your own work!

On January 3, I’ll tell you how I’m planning on going about this experiment, and then I’ll start stitching!

I’ve been thinking about thoughts. William and May Morris believed that Berlin Woolwork was a scourge on embroidery. Berlin woolwork, for those of you who don’t know the details was worked in very fine wool (often equivalent to 2-3 strands of our cotton floss in thickness), and was counted from a chart onto lightweight canvas in cross stitch. It often reproduced a piece of famous artwork, or just pretty pictures. Uh oh. This sounds familiar.  Could it be that this was just Counted Cross Stitch in wool? (Yup, it could. It is. It was.)

William and May Morris wanted to bring back what they considered the higher craft of “real” needlework. Crewel stitches. Design decisions on the part of the embroiderer. Silk threads. Embroidery that looked like stitch work and didn’t “just” reproduce a picture in pixel mosaic.

Now I’m not going to speak or type against counted cross stitch – I design the stuff, after all!  However, I was thinking about the book I gave away a couple years ago… “Art of William Morris In Counted Cross Stitch”. And then I got thinking about the cross stitch woolwork “reproductions” of Morris designs that are found as kits in the needlepoint shop (Beth Russell?)… and my thought?

I think William Morris is rolling around in his grave in despair.

And I’m laughing. Because embroidery techniques rise and fall in popularity. And while counted cross stitch has been very popular over the years since the 80s (partially because it really IS easy as these things go…) the freestyle embroidery stitches are coming back. Look on Craftster at some of the finished projects. Look at the popularity of Sublime Stitching. Look at the wonderful embroidery on the Ning groups: Hand Embroidery Network and Stitchin Fingers. These are good things. And we’re richer for the variety.

Try new things. Be a stitching dilettante!

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.

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.