Confessions of a Remedial Stitcher

New Year, New Resolve

2012-01-23T11:15:00.000-05:00

Hey, I'm back! Did you miss me? Don't answer that.

I've actually been doing some stitching of late, making a little progress. I also pulled out all my UFOs to see just what needed doing to finish some of them. I found two that needed very little work to finish up.

First up is Miss Zombie USA. You may recall that my daughter gave me a kit with a book of small zombie-themed projects, a couple of pieces of Aida cloth, and some cotton floss. I started in on Miss Zombie with all good intentions of just whipping it out in no time. Sadly, I set it down and forgot about it. Earlier this month, in response to a challenge, I pulled it out and decided to spend at least two and a half hours working on it every week. Here's where I am:

Contrary to my normal mode of stitching, I started this one in the center and worked down. Weird. As you can see, I just have to add this beauty's head and arms to complete her portrait. I think I can manage it in a few more sessions. Then the really hard decision must be made. How do I finish this? Any ideas? She screams out for a fancy tabletop frame, but I'm just not sure.

The other piece that requires very little work to finish is a pretty little ornament designed by Michael Boren. I took this class a couple of years ago. It's embarrassing how little is left to do, but most of it involves adding beads. Remedial Stitcher does not like adding beads! But this is really not that bad, so I think I can manage it. I also need to finish adding the sparkly thread to the right vertical border.

It's a pretty piece and deserves to be finished! I might even go so far as to finish it as an ornament, a very simple ornament.

I've also worked more on Stars for a New Millennium recently. I finished up block number 4, Marlon Brando and am now working on block number 5, Eva Marie Saint. Right now, I'm not enjoying stitching this segment. Every stitch is apparently a couched stitch, and each thread must be couched before you lay the next. Not my favorite type of stitch! Here's where she sits.

I'm still loving the colors of this piece, and the multilayered effects are beautiful. But I do find myself cursing Tony Minieri at times when in the middle of a particularly intricate part. (No offense intended to Mr. Mineiri, of course.)

Last, I received a pretty stitched piece in the mail the other day. What a surprise! It came from a former customer who now lives in Utah and who used to stitch models for me. Nicole stitches beautifully, and the backs of her pieces are as much admired as the fronts. Hahahaha. The fronts of course are stunning. Here's what I got. I have to find out from Nicole what the piece is. It may have been a model I asked her to stitch before closing the store (sadly I can't remember exactly what it was), or it may be something else entirely.

Kthxbai.

Painfully Slow but Painstakingly Done

2011-11-22T10:13:00.001-05:00

Let's not dwell on how long it's been since I last posted. Suffice to say, it's been far too long, but my life has been nothing if not tumultuous of late. I have made some progress on a couple of fronts.

What have I been focusing on most of late? From Molehill to Mountain has taken over the position of primacy. Since my ANG chapter is working on this as a bimonthly yearlong project, I've been attempting to keep abreast of what we're doing in class. Right now, I'm a month behind in getting something stitched for each segment. Here's where I am:

The sequence of group stitching is right to left, Blocks 1–3 in the book. Block 1, as you may recall, caused me no end of difficulty and negative-stitching experience. I think I've got my problem taken care of and should be able to proceed without additional frogging. I stitched the small green-and-yellow checkerboard in the upper right quadrant on Sunday after one or two false starts (to take a break from so much tone-on-tone stitching). I've been spending the most time on Block 2 in the center. If I can get through the last medium purple tone-on-tone triangles, the final three diamond shapes will be simple. I'm really loving the way this part looks, with the bit of metallic on top of the overdye. The tone-on-tone part is taking a while because my eyes have to be fresh to see it, even with my wonderful new Ikea clip-on light.

I'm trying to get enough stitched in these top three blocks so that I can make a decision on the border and sashing. There are three options provided in the book, all very different, with different color emphases. The choice depends on how I'm using my colors. So as you can see, I really need to stitch more on Block 3, which I will as soon as I finish Block 2. I think I've got enough of Block 1 completed to make the border/sashing choice.

If you're interested in doing this project and would like the benefit of a class, Scarlet Thread's extended the registration period for their FMTM cyberclass through tomorrow.

Before setting everything else aside to focus on FMTM, I had made a bit more progress on Flyways. I really need to get back to this because I'm very close to finishing it.

All that's required is finishing the top two diamond-shaped motifs (crescents only), then the triangular-shaped pieces to square the design off, finishing with the border. How hard can it be? Don't answer that question!

The last project I'm going to show you is more to shame myself into getting back to it. Can you guess what it is? I don't think I need to identify it.

All I have to do to finish the third square are seven triangular-shaped segments. Really, not that hard. We'll be having another group stitching session in January, so I should really try to finish this square up before then.

Kthxbai.

Something Old, Something New, Some Things Never Change

2011-09-29T10:53:00.000-04:00

I originally started writing this post nearly two weeks ago, had to stop, and never got back to it till now. A lot has changed. I've been doing a bit of stitching during the past few weeks. Yay! I think I've finally gotten my stitching mojo back. Going to both of my stitching groups on a more regular basis helps.

At both the Tuesday-night and Thursday-morning groups a couple of weeks ago, I worked diligently on Flyways, and it's just WIPing right along. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)

I'm really happy with this colorway. When I selected it, I had no idea what it would really look like, as I couldn't find the picture of it. But it's been put on the back burner since that Thursday, two weeks ago.

That night, I started working on the class piece at the Potomac ANG meeting, Madrigal by Antonia R. Evans, designed in 1992. As is my wont, I changed the colors significantly. I substituted Caron Collection Waterlilies in Sherwood Forest for a light blue Marlitt (rayon floss, ack!); Rainbow Gallery Petite Very Velvet for their discontinued Ultrasuede, FyreWerks for Pizzaz, and Silk Lamé for DMC floss. The Petite Very Velvet and FyreWerks were suggested by our fearless leader. I picked the Silk Lamé instead of the Kreinik braid she used because I'm not a fan of Kreinik braids. Then to make it really special, I used a piece of Nature's Palette hand-painted canvas from their Solids line, Copper. I couldn't wait to get started.

The picture above is how far I got that night. I did a little more when I got home from class, having only really gotten the center waffle nearly done (or maybe all done; I can't remember). This is where I was when I started writing this blog. The following Tuesday-night stitching session had me realizing that I could actually finish this up in one or two more blocks of time. I took a picture, fully intending to get back to this post and show my progress.

I was really liking the way the overdye fell. I have to admit that I pulled the whole skein apart to find the lengths with the best segments of the brightest orange. So there was a bit of waste that I'm not used to. I can probably use it somewhere when I need a nice variegated green in another piece as an accent.

Obviously I didn't get around to finishing up this post. So here's the finished piece, wrapped up at Tuesday's night stitchfest, wherein we celebrated someone's birthday as well as my finish (those of us who stayed latest, at least).

     I am very happy with the way this turned out. There are supposed to be 4-mm freshwater pearls and malachite beads in the centers of the large oblong triple crosses, but as readers of this blog know, the Remedial Stitcher does not do beads. Instead, I used Smyrna Crosses in the Silk Lamé. I wanted as much of the canvas to show as possible. I'm not sure the pictures reveal the metallic glint of this canvas. It's subtle and beautiful. Instead of finishing it as an ornament (why would I want to fold that beautiful waffle so that you can't see the way the color radiates around it?), I'm going to have it put into a boxtop, leaving a border of exposed canvas around it. Now to find the box.

     What else I was planning to write about? Something that never changed. Perhaps Stars for a New Millennium? I've been urged to set up another day-long stitchfest for the stitchalong group, so that may be coming up in October or November. My October schedule is filling up, and one of our stitchers is going to be in Australia for two weeks mid-October, so it may have to be November.

     Kthxbai.

Flying Along on Some, Inching on Others

2011-09-12T10:48:00.004-04:00

I've finally gotten some stitching done. I was beginning to think I'd never get back into it in a meaningful fashion.

Wonderful discovery: Stitching on 14-ct canvas goes really, really fast! Who knew? Well, I guess a lot of people have known for years. One of my WIPs, Flyways by Michael Boren (a workshop project that sadly had to be canceled due to his ongoing back problem, thus leaving us to work on our own), is on this canvas. At first, I wasn't sure I would like it. I tend to gravitate to higher counts, coming from the counted-thread world of 28-, 32-, 36-, and what-was-I-thinking 40-ct linen. Big difference. I'm pleased to say, I've been enjoying this immensely. Not only is the design fun to stitch (well, except for the tedious, to me, tent/reverse tent part), it's quick!

     I'm now ready to embark on filling in the diamond areas with all the fun, special stitches and motifs. I did the center one before completing all the tent/reverse tent background of the Milanese-stitched Flying Geese Flight Paths to motivate me to keep going with it. I'm so pleased with it overall, although I'm not that great when it comes to tent stitch. I'm never totally satisfied with the result, but I think I did an adequate job here and won't stress about it.

     Now the question is, do I barrel ahead with the four diamond areas around the center, or do I switch to one of my larger ongoing projects, in particular From Molehill to Mountain? I think it has to be FMTM.

     My ANG chapter is doing FMTM as one of our two year-long projects, with the goal of exhibiting the finished pieces at the 2012 Seminar in Philadelphia. Since we all started on this in April (I think), we should be able to complete the stitching and have our pieces finished in time for the Seminar at the end of August. Hahahaha. That's the plan; we'll see if I'm among those who actually reach their goal. Here is the progress of everyone who was working on this at the August meeting (light attendance, it being summer, and not everyone attending is doing this project), starting with mine:

Note the section of the far-right block that shows the signs of having been stitched, then ripped out. This block has been the bane of my stitching so far. I think I ripped out almost everything stitched at least once if not more, except for the center top and left squares of the block, the ones made up of two triangles. Thus I haven't done anything on the block to the left of it and proceeded directly to the block on the far left, the focus of our third meeting session. I have high hopes for this one proceeding much better, as it's variations on the Milanese stitch, which as we all now know, I just finished stitching quite a bit.

Now on to my friends' progress. Please note that some of us only recently started working on FMTM, thus we're all over the map on how far along we've gotten. I also like the variety of colorways, in spite of several of us apparently being drawn to the purples and greens. The variety of threads is interesting too.

     I hope to get pictures of everyone's progress when we work on this again in October.

     More to come in the next day or so.

     Kthxbai.

I'm Back!

2011-08-11T09:42:00.001-04:00

You're a great audience. Wish I had a better act.

The big downsize, declutter, and move are done and over with. The house has been sold. I feel lighter. The relief of not having to worry about what's going to go wrong next is immense.

Things I don't miss:

The bugs that make their way into your house no matter what you do. Creepy-crawly things. Especially the camel crickets. ::shudder::

Worrying that there will be water in the basement after an incredibly long, hard downpour.

Lawn and garden maintenance.

Going up and down stairs.

Driving everywhere.

Things I miss:

My kitchen appliances. They were better than what I have now, not that what I have are bad, just not as good. I really miss my gas range, but I'm managing and learning the tricks of cooking on a glass cooktop.

My pond.

The flowers in my yard.

And that's about it. I love my new apartment. I love being up above most of the surrounding buildings, looking out over the neighborhood treetops. The balcony and the triple paned sliding glass door let so much light in! It's quiet, for the most part. Noise comes in from the hallway, but there aren't that many apartments on my hall, so not much traffic.

I love being right next to the subway. I can actually get to it without having to walk in the elements. There's a covered area before the escalators that I can reach from my building. I can get to a good restaurant and shopping area in two stops, along with Whole Foods. And I can walk there in good weather in about 20 minutes if I do my powerwalk. I did that yesterday, going to a chocolate shop, an ice-cream store (should have omitted that stop), and a weekly farmer's market, then walking back home. It was great! I didn't take the car out once yesterday.

You're probably wondering if I've been doing any stitching yet. I have. Not very much and not very productively. I've been working on "From Molehill to Mountain" with fairly static results. It seems I stitch a section, go on to the next one, then find that I did the previous one wrong so have to rip it out. These aren't even large sections, although the piece is on congress cloth so size is relative. I'm hoping to make better progress today. Last night I copied the master chart for the block I'm working on and numbered the areas that I keep getting wrong (putting them in the wrong place) in the hope that that will prevent misplacement from now on. We'll see at stitchie this morning.

I also almost completed the May installment of the Stitch of the Month. Which is rather sad, when I consider it, because these installments are not that hard. I could have had it done if I worked on it about 15 minutes longer. Maybe I'll take that with me to stitchie instead of FMTM. It might be that I have to work on FMTM in solitude to avoid more inaccurate placement of stitches.

So no pictures of my inadequate progress.

One thing I did accomplish, though, was charting "Halloween Abstract," a charted needlepoint design by Jeff Kulick. What a learning experience! Scarlet Thread will be producing more of his charts, and I'm confident that they'll be much easier to do now that I've got this one under my belt. Another case of "How hard can it be?" You'd think I'd have learned by now.

If you haven't already seen it, check out Scarlet Thread's interview with Jeff.

Stillness

2011-06-15T09:53:00.000-04:00

As promised in my last post, here are pictures of my pond. It sits under a huge magnolia that bears the large, dinner-plate sized flowers. When I was skimming the leaves the other morning, I was engulfed by their scent. Magnolias defy convention by dropping their leaves in late spring/early summer rather than fall, as they blossom. That's the one drawback to having the pond sheltered by this magnificent tree. Means fishing a lot of yellow magnolia leaves out for several weeks.

     The white tubing is there to keep the net I put on in the fall from sinking into the water. When I actually put it in place, the spring cleanup was much, much simpler and easier to do.

     Even though I've neglected my pond for the past three years, I'll miss it. Getting it in shape for the new owners has reminded me of how much I enjoyed skimming the leaves in the morning and watching the fish dart about after the food I tossed in. Twenty minutes of sitting in the stillness. Then I repeated it in the evening. What a great way to start and end the day.

     I had some bad news last week. My buyer lost her job, so I'll more than likely be putting the house back on the market after I move out if she hasn't gotten a new one by then. It's not looking good. And here I was thinking that for once, the answer to my question (this time about selling a house), "How hard can it be?", was going to be, "Not hard at all."

     Kthxbai.

Beachy Things

2011-06-06T22:23:00.000-04:00

I went to the Outer Banks at the end of May, just before the start of the high season, before it got incredibly crowded. It's been quite a few years since I've been there. Not much has changed really. I enjoyed revisiting favorite spots and showing my MF around, since he'd never been there. High points: walking on the beach at the end of the day, taking a dip in the pool at the rental house (we were two of ten people staying there), just relaxing, driving down the ocean road from Duck to Coquina Beach so we could walk along the beach in the Hatteras National Seashore, and eating at Pigman's Barbecue.

Isn't that gorgeous? And it wasn't crowded the day we went either. I didn't take this picture; forgot to take my camera. What a maroon.

I did take Hens & Chicks with me but didn't do a lot of stitching. Here's how far I got plus an evening of stitching the other night.

Slowly, but surely I'm getting there.

During one of our late-afternoon walks on the beach, I found a couple of shells that captured my fancy, so I had to bring them home.

     The top one seems perfect as the handle for a mug. If only I knew how to make one. Maybe I can find someone who throws pots who would do that for me. The bottom one just seems the perfect complement to it and is an unusual size to find on one of the crowded, busy Duck beaches.

     I'm getting psyched up to move to my apartment in a couple of weeks. Today I went shopping with my daughter, looking for a dress for her to wear to a wedding later this summer and a new bed for me. Amazingly, we both managed to find just what we were looking for in only about three hours at the mall. (Neither one of us truly enjoys shopping at Tysons, or any mall for that matter.) So I'll have a new bed to replace the one with the broken leg that creaks every time I move. Now I just have to get the box spring and mattress.

     I'll try to get some pictures of one thing I'm really going to miss when I move and post it in the next day or two. My backyard pond. I've neglected it for the past three years, initially because of ill health and then just lack of motivation. I've been trying to get it back into decent condition for the new owners and realize now how much I've missed tending to it every morning and evening. Oh well.

     Kthxbai.

Quick Update

2011-05-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited! I'm almost finished with the central motif of Hens & Chicks! I have two leaves left, the ones that are diagonal bargello. Thursday morning stitchie and a couple of episodes of "Supernatural" got me here. Yippee!

My house sale is rapidly coming to a close. The appraisal apparently went well on Friday; we'll receive the official report on Monday. That's the last step before the buyer's financing gets approved and we're cleared to settle at the end of June. Not quite doing my happy dance yet, but my toes are tapping.

Kthxbai.

Irresistible Things

2011-05-11T13:11:00.000-04:00

I do believe I have little or no willpower when it comes to resisting certain temptations. Chocolate is one. Need I say more on that? Gelato from Dolcezza is another. I usually visit the one in Bethesda, but evidently I could also stop in their Georgetown location when I get my hair cut and colored (yes, I admit it; I'm not ashamed) at Ury & Associates every now and then. A new needlework project is yet another. So I caved last week and started something new. (Just trying to fill out my weekday rotation dance card, doncha know.) So what was it that so captured my fancy?

Liz Morrow recently released a new bargello design, Hens & Chicks, which sparked fond memories of growing up in Elkton, Maryland, in an old, three-story Victorian on the edge of town with a picturesque side yard against a backdrop of a meadow and pond where we used to ice skate (awkwardly on my part). In our side yard, the gardener had filled a half-barrel planter with hens and chicks. I loved the way that plant grew. Liz's design captured it perfectly. We ordered it for scarletthread.com and kitted it per her specifications with DMC floss. Evil temptress that she is, Liz noted in our correspondence that she thought it might be nice stitched with Silk & Ivory. Gah! I couldn't get this out of my head, so the other day I decided to see if there were appropriate greens and blues with enough shades to do it, thinking I'd come up short somewhere. Ha! Here's what I found.

The colors are just perfect for the way that I remember that potted plant. I'm in love with this project, so I worked on it at my Thursday morning and Tuesday night stitching groups. Bargello goes so fast! I'm not a power stitcher, as we all know, so I'm very pleased with my progress, considering that I had to rip out a couple of times because I can't seem to count.

     My photos are not optimized, as I'm still in the midst of selling my house and don't always have the space to set up my studio in a box. Thus you have a discrepancy in the color. But it's fairly accurate.

     Things are going just swimmingly with the sale of my house, if perhaps at a quicker pace than I had anticipated. I'm down to the closets, having sorted through everything else (except for a couple more boxes of books discovered in the eaves storage area). Since my home is a typical small Cape Cod style of the 1930s, the closets are mercifully small and few. There is a limit to how much one can cram into them. So I'm in the home stretch. Within the next week I should know whether the sale is going to make it to closing or we have to start over again. Wish me luck on the appraisal on Friday.

     Kthxbai.

Emerging From the Sea of Boxes

2011-04-26T09:08:00.000-04:00

I've been packing up or discarding those physical reminders of the last 28 years of my life over the past two weeks. So far, I've got the 15-yard dumpster in the driveway almost half full. I fear that I'll fill it up. Yikes! It's hard to make some of the decisions, and many of those are just being put off till next week, after the initial whirlwind I'm finishing up in the next day, or two, or three. It all has to be completed by next Friday, when the floor cleaners will come to try to spruce up my tired hardwood floors. So I'm taking a little break this morning before the carpenter/electrical-guy/all-around handyman and painter get here.

I didn't stitch much last week, but since my last report, I have gotten a little bit done on a few of my projects. Pease pardon the photos this time, as I took them under less than optimal conditions, free space being at a premium around here just now.

I did get started on From Molehill to Mountain at my ANG chapter meeting Thursday a week ago. When I left the meeting, I think I had all of four stitches in place, having spent the class time making decisions, planning, thinking, taking time out for a real quick meeting, and then finally placing those few stitches as everyone was cleaning up and getting ready to leave. When I got home, I sat right down and proceeded to finish Areas 1 and 2 of the first block. Yay! What you see basted are the sashing lines to the left and bottom of the block I'm working on, with the ever-popular pink hairtape holding the threads that will get woven in once I have enough worked to allow that. I'm happy with the color so far, the variegated thread, Dinky-Dyes Mardi Gras, and the lightest cotton floss of my primary color.

On another night I tackled Stars once again. I'm oh-so-gradually getting Vivien Leigh finished. All I need to do are the triangles in the border. I stitched the bottom center one and realized it requires manipulating the variegated thread, Silk 'N Colors Peacock, in order to get the right color balance. There's a rather drab section in the length I'm using that just doesn't work for me. So I'll cut it out.

     Last but not least, I've been working on the 2011 ANG Stitch of the Month and managed to get caught up! I see a lot of pink hairtape in the stitching of this piece, along with a lot of Hilton lengths of thread to complete these stitches without having to start a new thread midway through. Ack! I'm hoping soon to be able to anchor some of these threads. They really bother me, coming from a cross-stitch background and being used to anchoring threads right away and not having any of these ridiculous away knots awaiting a place to go.

     So that's where I am. Perhaps I'll be stitching more after next week.

     Kthxbai.

Two Languishing WIPs and a New BAP

2011-04-14T10:20:00.000-04:00

I have a confession. Writing this blog is a good escape from the duties that surround me and a nicer way to start the day. (Yes, I know, it's a little late to be starting the day. Work with me here.)

You may be wondering whatever is going on with Stars for a New Millennium. The short answer? I'm still plugging away at it, but not nearly as much as several of the other stitchers in the group. One is finishing up the sashing and border as she closes in on finishing the piece. Two others are vying for who's going to be the second to complete, with that happening in the next couple of weeks for them (I think). Another won't be far behind them. That will leave a few of us to get together a few more times before it's down to one, me, struggling to finish this beautiful but very complex project. So here's where I've gotten since our January marathon stitching retreat:

Sigh.

On to the even more lame progress report, the woefully neglected Prelude to Peace. I'm not very far along. I managed to stitch a few of the crescent fleur-de-lis motifs successfully and some of the small jessicas, but that was a while ago. Here 'tis:

On to my newest BAP, a piece I'll be working on with my ANG chapter this year, and perhaps will be keeping up with better due to peer pressure (totally in my own mind). It's From Molehill to Mountain (FMTM) by Pamela Gardner. It's conceptually similar to Stars in that it's a quilt pattern. It's not the same by virtue of having fewer blocks and being more of a color study than an exercise in how many layers and threads can be used in one stitch without driving the stitcher out of her mind. The stitches are by no means simple in FMTM. I just don't think it will be as much of a struggle to interpret what's going on while stitching. The interplay of the colors that I've chosen is the primary focus. (Of course, I could be totally misunderstanding this project. Who knows? I am, after all, the Remedial Stitcher.)

We start stitching tonight. Our homework after the last meeting was to get the canvas or congress cloth (I'm going with congress cloth) along with enough thread to get started (colors selected based on the presentation and discussion at the meeting before last) and baste in the grid. I'm ready! Well, I do have to pick up some more skeins of the lightest shade of my main color, but I'll do that this morning or afternoon.

     So how am I going to do better with my stitching on all these long-term projects? I have to stitch a little bit every night, a different project each night. I've been trying to do that this week, and so far I've managed to stitch every night. If I keep it up, I'll have the bonus of having something to blog about too. It will also take my mind off the stress and emotional toll of selling the house I've lived in longer than any other place in my life.

     I guess you could say these are belated New Year's resolutions, the stitching and making the transition from homeowner to renter.

     Kthxbai.

Forgive Me, Reader,

2011-04-13T02:48:00.001-04:00

for I have strayed. It's been two months since my last post.

What, you may well ask, have I been up to in all that time? Well, some stitching, much working on scarletthread.com, a lot of planning for the next stage of my life. Taken together, it has felt like I've been doing a lot of running in place, flailing about, getting not a whole lot accomplished in any of my endeavors. The biggest thing that's had an impact on my ability to focus is my decision to sell my house, downsize, and move to an apartment in a neighborhood where I can walk instead of drive for most of my daily living needs. Big changes. It's been a relief, permission to let go of a lot of things I've been holding onto for way too long. Of course, we'll see how I feel in a couple of months.

I have been stitching, or at least doing stitching-related things. I joined another chapter of ANG, the Shenandoah Valley Chapter, which entails a two-hour drive (one way) to go to a meeting (haven't quite managed that yet). My friend and I recently drove to and from Harrisonburg two days in a row to participate in a workshop with Orna Willis, Tesselations Again. I've been fascinated by this design and jumped at the chance to have Orna teach it her very own self. What a great two days! Not only did I learn a lot in the class while having a great deal of fun, but I also met another wonderful group of stitchers. Orna's explanation of tesselations, her process of developing the design, and the difficulties of translating tesselations to the grid of canvaswork made me appreciate the design even more and has inspired me to ruminate on designing one myself (way in the back of my brain right now). I've done more stitching since returning from the class a few weeks ago and fully intend to keep at it regularly till I finish it. I chose to do just one quadrant rather than the full piece, knowing that I really don't need yet another BAP right now. Here's where I am so far.

Don't you love the colors? This is on Congress Cloth, so I can fool myself into thinking it's not that big a piece. I love the layered stitches Orna chose for the triangular shape that's the foundation of the piece.

This week I finally finished stitching the 2010 ANG Stitch of the Month Mystery. Woo-hoo! I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. Since I'm planning to finish it as a pillow, I decided not to include the beads. (This will come as no surprise to those who know how much I dislike stitching beads. Hahahaha.)

Of course, you know what this means, don't you? I can finally start the 2011 SOTM! After developing several custom colorways for scarletthread.com customers, I decided it was my turn. Initially, I was just going to use Ro Pace's original Flowers of Italy colorway, since it's so beautiful. But I became enamored of Thread Gatherer's Silk 'N Colors Desert Sage and ultimately decided to see what I could come up with. I'm using that along with Dinky-Dyes, Needlepoint Inc., and Rainbow Gallery Splendor silk flosses; Soy Luster; and New Metallics. I may have to change the metallic, as I'm not sure it will work on the Congress Cloth if I have to blend it with another thread.

     Now to find the time to get started. Funny thing is, I was really looking forward to working with the J.L. Walsh Silk Perle and ended up not using it. Another time, another project.

     I have more to talk about, but it's very late and I have a handyman coming bright and early in the morning to get started on a few projects to get my house ready to sell in about a month. I've made small progress on other WIPs and have another BAP I'll be starting on this week. I will be back soon (maybe even tomorrow if I can find the time).

     Kthxbai.

JL Walsh Silk Perle and the ANG 2011 SOTM Outlining

2011-02-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

I've watched the discussion about J.L. Walsh Silk Perle on the ANG yahoo discussion group range over its inaccessibility, the questionable existence of the business (it's very much in business, only one line of its threads having been discontinued, the Silk/Wool, which is available at a very few locations until the supply runs out, including scarletthread.com), and how to use it for Ro Pace's Flowers of Italy design. It's been exasperating at times, but I'm over that now.

The latest discussion concerned how to use it to stitch the outlines in the January installment of the design. I think what confuses people is the word "perle" in the name because one doesn't necessarily use it as it comes off the skein, as well as the use of the terms "strand" and "ply." One strand of this thread consists of eight plies that are easily separated. Each ply is equivalent to a single strand of #12 perle, according to the Thread Technique Team's The Thread Thesaurus, Revised Edition. That's a mighty thick strand of thread for Congress Cloth if used as it comes off the skein! The manufacturer recommends using one or two plies on 28-ct linen, so I decided to try both on a doodle cloth before venturing onto the full-size piece on which I'll be working this design (as usual, your Remedial Stitcher is a little behind).

     When looking at the picture above, keep in mind that it's not on stretcher bars and was stitched in hand, something I rarely do. I was just trying to see which produced the most desirable effect, one ply or two plies, for the very long stitches required in the outlining. Not knowing whether we'll be going back to these long stitches and couching them with some other thread at the end, I plan to use just one ply because I don't like the way the two separating strands look in such a long stitch.

     What do you think?

     Kthxbai.

Retreat!

2011-01-31T12:48:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not backing off. Really. I'm just back from a stitching retreat with my Stars for a New Millennium stitch-along group. We spent Friday late afternoon through Sunday early evening at Signal Knob Retreat Center outside Strasburg, Virginia. What a marvelous time! We headed out in the midst of snow flurries, well intermittent snow. By the time we arrived, the sky had cleared and we were looking forward to an uninterrupted weekend of stitching and more stitching. Armed with our needlework bags full of tools and projects, along with provisions for sustenance (the usual snacky items, including four batches of homemade cookies to keep our energy up and lots of chocolate), we immediately claimed our bedrooms and set up our stitching stations in the living room. I should have taken a picture of all the bags, luggage, food bags, etc., that filled the backs of the Toyota van and Durango that transported us to Signal Knob. What an incredible amount of stuff for seven women!

We're just missing Sharon and me in that pic. It was really a lovely room, with lots of natural light during the day. Nighttime, not so great for lighting, but we managed. The only other thing missing from this picture is a box elder bug. Or should I say dozens, nay hundreds? A swarm of those annoying things, which my father cleverly referred to as Halloween bugs, have invaded the retreat center to winter, and they made their presence known. If you're not familiar with these bugs, here's what they look like:

My father dubbed them Halloween bugs because of their coloring and their annual arrival time. In fact, it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned the real common name of those critters. I get them in my house some years and periodically vacuum them up from around the dormer windows upstairs. So we hauled out the fabulous Dyson vacuum at the center and periodically vacuumed them up over the course of the weekend. Ugh!

But on to more interesting and fun things. On Fiday night, I took pictures of where everyone was on Stars so that we could document our progress at the end of the weekend. Oddly, I didn't take a picture of my own piece, but the picture I posted here on November 16 shows where I was. Herewith, everyone else's starting point for the weekend.

Dawn's

Donna's

Ferol's (sideways)

JoAnn's

Julie's

Sharon's

The color is off in most of these because it was night, and the available light was not that great. (Julie's and Sharon's are the same colorway.) I know. Poor excuse. I should have done better, but I was just interested in grabbing a progress comparison, not showing the beauty of the colors and stitching. So sue me.

Saturday was a beautiful day, sunny and warmer. Dawn got up early enough to catch the sunrise. Gorgeous!

     After a 9:00 am breakfast, we got right down to work and stitched the entire day with breaks only for lunch and dinner. Both Friday and Saturday nights, there were a few intrepid stitchers who stayed up until the wee hours of the morning. I can't vouch for their stitching the entire time, but they certainly seemed to be having a really good time.

     Sunday morning, we got to work before breakfast, organizing our threads, stitching, getting ready for the final hours in the hope of achieving whatever goal each of us had set. For most, I think it was to complete two of the blocks. After breakfast, a few of us created canvas protectors, following the directions in the September issue of Needlepointers. Donna had made one last August, and offered to bring her tools and the magazine for our use. Sharon graciously did the shopping for the supplies. I'm quite pleased with mine and am sure, based on the amount of progress I made this weekend, I'll get a lot of use out of it before it has to sit idle while waiting for me to do another project that's 15" x 18". Hahahahaha.

     It was with much regret that we bid adieu to Signal Knob Sunday evening. We thoroughly enjoyed the stitching and the company. The experience has shown us that we need more than a couple of hours once a month to make headway on this BAP. So we're going to try to get together every four to six weeks to spend a whole day stitching, taking a break for lunch at a nearby restaurant, but otherwise doing nothing but stitching.

     Without further ado, here are pictures of a slightly higher quality of everyone's progress over the course of the stitchy weekend. Please click on each to see a larger version.

Dawn's:

Donna's:

Ferol's:

JoAnn's:

Julie's:

Mine:

Sharon's:

Kthxbai.

Still Alive, Still Sort of Stitching

2011-01-05T10:07:00.000-05:00

     I can't believe how long it's been since I posted anything. Sadly, part of the reason is my lack of significant progress on any of my ongoing projects. I did manage to get another half of a fleur-de-lis crescent done correctly on Prelude to Peace, but also confirmed that I have to stitch this piece when I'm all alone in my stitchy corner with no distractions other than the background noise of the Cooking Channel. Lest you misunderstand, I only have the one-half motif done after having picked out the first attempt. I have had success, though, using the extremely long "Hilton length" of Flair.

     I'm also slowly reaching the end of the 2010 Stitch of the Month. I'm proud to say that I'm working away on the November segment, which should go quickly if I apply myself. And therein lies the problem. I seem to have lost my stitching mojo and hope to find it soon!

     I've actually started a small, new project. For Christmas, my daughter gave me the Zombie Cross-Stitch kit! Hahahahaha. She found it in June last year and obviously knew on sight that it was perfect for her mom. It's a gift that embraces two of my obsessions: stitching (obviously) and the books of Christopher Moore, who doesn't just write books with zombies but usually has some supernatural creature (or two) in them and has written three vampire books that aren't your typical vampire books. Anyway, I insisted that she pick one of the 10 or 12 designs for me to stitch for her. She chose Miss Zombie USA, and I've been working on that in the last two stitching group meetings.

     I hope to have some progress pictures to post in a few days, as I devote my evenings to doing more stitchy things and fewer iPad-y things.

     Kthxbai.

Progress Reports: Peace and Stars

2010-11-16T11:29:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I haven't taken another stab at those fleur-de-lis crescents on Prelude to Peace. The third week of a cold left my brain function less than optimal last week, and I really didn't want to be ripping out that Flair yet again. My partner in crime (um, Scarlet Thread) Dawn, however, in spite of being on the first (maybe beginning the second?) week of her cold has completed the crescents in the first diamond, along with a sampling of other stitches. Since we're using the same colors for this part of the design, let's pretend that this is what my piece would look like, had I made some progress. (Thanks, Dawn, for kindly allowing me to post your progress, which looks great!)

Note the extremely long piece of Flair draped across the canvas. Dawn decided to try the suggestion of others and was successful in stitching a crescent with one length! Here's a close-up of the left diamond.

Isn't this gorgeous! I can't wait to get going again on my piece. My cold seems to truly be on the wane, so perhaps I can get some stitching done this week.

Sunday, the Stars for a New Millennium group met again, and I did manage to make a little bit more progress on that. I had intended to take pictures of the various stages of everyone's pieces, but by the end of the session, I had completely forgotten and was thinking only of what I was going to order at the Indian restaurant we were going to for dinner.

     The couched rust triangle gave me fits and starts, and I ended up ripping it out twice before getting it right. Having no motivation to proceed around the block on that stitch, I decided to work on the rest of the stitches for that quadrant. Mercifully, they went very well and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. I still may modify the upright lattice triangle a bit, not being satisfied with how the top layer looks. It may be a bit too light. I think I'll stitch the one lying above the rust part using more strands of the floss and see how that looks. Perhaps I'll do that tonight at my stitching group. Unless I decide to work on the SOTM.

     Decisions, decisions.

     Kthxbai.

My Colors for Jim Wurth's Prelude to Peace

2010-11-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

     So far, my progress has been negative. I finished the two diamonds in the white #5 perle coton, then ventured on to the fleur-de-lis crescents in Flair. Ha! I stitched two of them during my Tuesday night and Thursday morning stitching groups, then removed them at the same Thursday session. I haven't touched it since. Something has come up in the class discussion since then that I find very interesting. On the Flair card, we are told to use short lengths. I was astonished to hear that people were using 50- to 55-inch lengths when doing those stitches in order to complete the stitch with one length! Jim noted that the "Hilton length" (for any given thread, I assume) is generally accepted to be 36 inches. I may have to try that, since I think it was the starting and stopping of threads that got me into trouble last week.
     Stay tuned. I may have a progress photo by the end of the week.
     Now for something of interest to those who are taking the cyberclass along with me. Several people have asked me exactly what threads I'm using for my red and gray colorway. Here's the list, according to Jim's numbering system:

#3 DMC Perle Coton
1A. 317
1B. 318
1C. 415
1D. 762
1E. 3685
1F. 3687
1G. 3688
1H. 778

#5 DMC Perle Coton
2A. 317
2B. 318
2C. 415
2D. 762
2E. 3685
2F. 3687
2G. 3688
2H. 778
2I. Blanc

DMC Floche
3A. 762
3B. 415

4. Rainbow Gallery Fiesta F742 (substituted for DMC Rayon)

#8 DMC Perle Coton
5A. 415
5B. 318

#12 DMC Perle Coton
6A. 415
6B. 762 (I'm substituting DMC Floche 762 because I couldn't find the color in #12 Perle Coton. It's a 1:1 substitution.)

Kreinik #8 Braid
7A. 101
7B. 192
7C. 105C

Kreinik #4 Braid
8A. 101
8B. 192
8C. 105C

Kreinik 1/16" Ribbon
9A. 101
9B. 3231
9C. 192
9D. 105C

10. Rainbow Gallery Grandeur G930 (substituted for Kreinik Silk Serica)
11. DMC Satin Floss S5200 (substituted for Fiesta)
12. Flair F590
13. Frosty Rays Y203
14. Neon Rays N92
15. Rainbow Linen R438

     Kthxbai.

Prelude to Peace

2010-10-29T11:24:00.000-04:00

My friend and business partner, Dawn, and I decided we needed another BAP, so we signed up for Jim Wurth's Prelude to Peace cyberclass through Shining Needle Society. The class officially started about three or four weeks ago, and true to form, I'm behind already. So what, you may ask, have I gotten accomplished so far? I'm so glad you asked.

     This is the design in its original colors of blues, browns, and neutrals. As is my wont, I felt the need to change the colors to something that would better suit my personal color palette. Jim's colors are lovely, just not to my taste. Dawn concurred, so we went on a quest to an LNS to pull his threads then find our own versions. (Yes, I know, we have our own personal warehouse in my basement where we keep the merchandise we sell on scarletthread.com, but we don't have every thread known to mankind as yet. Keep stopping by; someday we hope to.)

     After about two hours, we had most of our threads selected, with just a few we hadn't settled on. So we decided to wait till our patterns arrived to see where and how the missing threads would be used. And waited. Other participants in the class were chiming in on the group site as they received their packages in the mail. Dawn and I both spent our days watching for the mail. And watching. And waiting. (This is a recurring theme for us. We never seem to receive mutually awaited items at the same time.) Once our charts arrived in our mailboxes, it was a simple matter to select those last threads, the neutrals for the center section.

     Here's what we each came up with:

I chose reds and grays, the actual red hue more a result of its being the only one for which I could get the requisite number of shades. I would have preferred a little less pink, but I do like this. What you don't see in this picture is the floche, which we had a little trouble finding at first but finally discovered online and then at another LNS. We opted for additional grays for the neutral colors. The thread types give the grays more variation due to texture, so I think it will work up nicely and retain the integrity of Jim's colorway. My canvas is Pewter.

     Dawn chose a brighter series of blues and went with mostly the same grays (which we decided on mutually). Her canvas is Opalescent White.

     My question for Jim will be, Peace or Pandemonium?

     I know you're wondering, just what have I done besides pick out the colors after all these weeks? I have actually put in some stitches and hope to add more today, as I suffer with an annoying cold (and oh, how I suffer! hahahahahaha). So far, I've accomplished most of the borders for the left and right center diamonds, the areas covered in our first lesson. The second lesson was posted last weekend, covering the top and bottom diamonds. With a little dedication, perhaps I can at least be farther into those two diamonds before the third lesson arrives.

     Gah!

     Stay tuned. If I make some progress in the next day or so, I'll be right back with proof. Btw, Dawn has made much more progress than I have but fears she may need more of the Flair before she's done.

     Kthxbai.

Catching up!

2010-10-21T10:57:00.002-04:00

Yikes! It's been a long time since I posted. Sorry about that. It's not that I've been lolling around, resting on my laurels (well, laurel). I've been busy with the online store, also trying to destash a bit (sadly not enough) on eBay, and sometimes having a life. I have been stitching a bit as well. Anyway, without further ado, here's what I've been up to.

The Ro Pace workshop had its good points and its, well, not-so-good points. Good: Ro's introductory lecture about how she came up with the initial design for the class piece, Memories, was fascinating, especially when it came to how she made the design look totally different by simply using different colors. What started out as Tide Pool morphed into Bed of Pansies and Rose Garden, following one modification with two colorways, then Solar Flare with another modification using just two color families. I worked on Solar Flare and attended just the first day of the workshop. My progress was small, but based on the rest of the class, about average or maybe slightly better than average. But what I did that one day was all I needed to learn in order to complete the piece, as the whole design is a tessellation based on just one segment, or cell, that's rotated to create a four-cell tile that's part of a four-tile quadrant, and so on. Here's where I got, and I've gotten no further.

     What you see is two cells, which are actually the lower right corner of the piece. I just rotated the image to be perverse and satisfy my need to work from the top left corner outward. (I really did work on it in the proper orientation, otherwise I would have been totally confused.) I quickly decided that the best way to work this would be to rotate the chart rather than the canvas, as I would have spent more time moving the canvas around on the stand than actually stitching on it. Orienting the chart and canvas are major with this piece. I'm relatively pleased with what I did, though there are a couple of things I have to rip out because I found I didn't get a stitch quite right. One, the Diamond Jessica, is a stitch that I've done many times, but I just didn't remember the ending correctly and the diagram wasn't clear on that. I've since referred to a diagram and explanation by Michael Boren and now know what to do. The other is the Waffle stitch, which I blithely did, then discovered in a subsequent comment by Ro that I had done incorrectly. However, she didn't point it out to me at the time, when she came around to check on everyone's progress. I would have appreciated a closer look by her that would have led to the correction at that time, rather than when I was long past that point. Sigh.

     You may have noticed the basted outline. That was the prework, and shows the outline of one quadrant. If you click on the picture, it should go to a larger view, where you can see the outlines of the four tiles and, within each, the outlines of the four cells. I think I'll be removing the basted outlines once I finish each tile. I find them obtrusive in the red.

     Moving along to the Stitch of the Month mystery piece, I'm working away on the October stitch, and it's still October! I'm not sure I'll finish it before the end of the month, but at least I'm in the month. I'm enjoying this, even if it is a bit repetitive. It seems to be going quickly.

The last catch-up bits are actually only tangentially related to stitching. Each of my stitching groups is anticipating the birth of a baby. In one, the Tuesday night group, one of our regular stitchers is having her first child, Isadora Rose, in December. I attended a joyful, exuberant shower a couple of weeks ago on a beautiful fall day.

The proud parents-to-be!
Yes, that's a walker. Samantha fractured her foot!

There were three gifts made by members of the stitching group (that I can recall): a monogram, a bib, and two delightful stuffed animals.

I didn't get pictures of the other two gifts, but aren't these adorable?

The Thursday group has a grandmother-to-be, so we had a shower for her grandson because she'll be outfitting a nursery in her home. We took a break during our regular stitching day for the festivities and had a blast. Joan received some lovely things, among them some hand-knitted items for Little Bit.

Me and my good buddy Joan.

     That would be the cute little stuffed Eeyore modeling the baby cap knitted by Ferol and the booties knitted by Candy. So cute!

     We do have a good time and good friends in our stitching groups.

     Kthxbai.

I'm certifiable

2010-09-17T10:49:00.000-04:00

It's true! Not remedial anymore! I have physical proof that I no longer qualify for that moniker. Well, at least not all the time. I received my evaluation (very complimentary and gratifying) and certificate of completion for "Florentine Fancywork" at the end of last week, and that made my day. Day, year!

So there you go. I encourage everyone to join a needlework guild of some sort. There's so much that they have to offer at little to no cost other than the membership dues, which are not excessive. Do you need more proof? How about the stitching projects available on the ANG Web site at no charge?

     Over the past week, but mostly on the weekend, I've managed to catch up on the ANG Stitch of the Month Mystery. I'm now working away on the September installment and should be able to complete it before October. Woo-hoo! How, you may ask, did I manage to get so much done in just one week or so, considering my dedication to the slow-stitching movement? Two sessions with my stitching groups and a sleepover at a stitchy friend's house that involved about 12 hours of stitching. We had a blast, especially when another friend joined us on Sunday for the 9- to 10-hour marathon of movie-watching and stitching.

     At last night's monthly Potomac Chapter ANG meeting, I continued working on the SOTM, after discovering a problem with the prework I was doing for a Ro Pace workshop I'll be attending tomorrow and Sunday. The workshop is only available to members of the chapter. I'm really looking forward to it, though with some trepidation now. I'm doing the Solar Flare colorway, but there are other colorways that give very different effects (as you scroll down the linked page, you'll see what I mean). Since this may be the only opportunity I would have to take a class with Ro Pace, I jumped at the chance. I'll let you know whether I return to my remedial state over the weekend.

     kthxbai.

Florentine Fancywork Finish!

2010-09-04T10:55:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week, but I've finally got time to sit down and post a picture of the finished "Florentine Fancywork."

     Ta-da! Overall, I'm happy with the final result. As those of you who have followed my achingly slow progress with this know, there are certain bits I'm not so happy with. But as a learning experience, I'd call it very successful. I am much more confident in my grasp of bargello, enough that I feel capable of tackling a design for the small footstool. I've learned about what threads I like for bargello, and what ones I'll avoid if at all possible. They're very nice threads, but I don't like working with them on this type of needlework. That would be most stranded floss, cotton, silk, bamboo, whatever. (I left out rayon because it's a given that I would never, ever use it for anything. I'll always find something else. My experience using it on "Turnberry Ridge" confirmed that.)

     So I'm back to stitching the ANG stitch of the month mystery, working on the June installment. I've seen two that are complete through August, and they're beautiful! I can't wait to see how my colors work up.

     Kthxbai.

Plugging away

2010-08-24T11:05:00.000-04:00

     I'm still working away on "Florentine Fancywork," hoping to get it in the mail by the end of the week to meet the August 31 deadline. I'll refrain from more pictures of the endless border stitching until it's completely finished. After I send it off, I'll have a while to figure out how I want to finish it.

     Speaking of finishing, I'll be heading over to the Brit's Gallery to get a couple of things framed. One is the Panamanian mola I received for Christmas last year. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, frame it, pillowfy it, or incorporate it into something wearable. What a dilemma! I finally decided to go with framing. I think. It would make a nice pillow for my bed. Gah! (Make up your mind!)

     The other isn't needlework at all. I was doing some decluttering over the weekend and discovered the portfolio of artwork from a couple of drawing classes I took in my 30s. Buried in them was a drawing I had done of the house I grew up in, which I later redid on a larger scale for my parents. I've decided this will make a nice birthday present for my elder sister if I get it framed simply. It's got a nice "aged" look to it now. (Don't know what that blue flare is in the lower left corner. I didn't use a flash or my FisherPrice pop-up photo box, just available light.)

To get back to stitchy things, here are some pics I and Donna took at last Thursday's stitching group. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this group before, but I don't think I've ever introduced any of the Thursday Morning Irregulars, AKA Midtown Stitchers. We have way too much fun. There must be something illegal about the whole thing. This is only a segment of the group. We're missing one member who's been in Australia for months and won't return till November, one who's been in Greece for a while and is returning in September, as well as some others who've been absent for much of the summer because, well, it's summer.

Joan and Donna

Karla, Taryn, and Ellice


Bonnie and me

So there you have us, previously the wild stitchers of Scarlet Thread. The shop may be closed but the ties remain. Both the Tuesday night group and this morning group found new places where they could meet regularly by the time the shop closed its doors for the last time in June of last year. I still miss it.

Kthxbai.

Getting antsy

2010-08-18T13:31:00.001-04:00

My legs are beginning to twitch in anticipation. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

Sorry. Somehow I always seem to get around to breaking into song. (Just ask the Thursday morning stitching group.) I know you can't hear me. Trust me. Joan Baez I'm not. The sentiment's not quite the same either. My trial is, as if you haven't guessed, "Florentine Fancywork." I'm back to the border once again, having finished up the main design area earlier this week. Hallelujah!

At the stitching group last night, I finished the purple on the right and started moving left along the bottom. Then I had to stop due to ennui. I'm sure that if I hadn't had to rip the border out and restitch it more than once, I wouldn't feel this way. I just don't recommend stitching it more than once and a half.

I zoomed in (somewhat) on the main elements so you can get a better idea of the thread textures and the (also somewhat) uneven quality of my stitching.

     I still have the backstitching to do after the border is completed, so I'm hopeful that some of the canvas that shows will get covered by that. Some, however, will remain, and I'm not happy about it. I don't think I'll use Splendor for bargello ever again. If I want silk, I'll try Vineyard Silk. I realize the texture is different, but I like working with Vineyard Silk on canvas better than with Splendor.

     When it comes to stranded floss and bargello, I think I would use at least one or two more strands if I had no other thread that would work with the design. Four strands just doesn't satisfy my filling standards. I don't really like the added difficulty of threading the needle and tugging it through the canvas, though, so I'll try to avoid it at all costs.

     Why am I going on so about what type of thread to use for bargello? Well, I'm planning to design a couple of things. Originally, it was a small footstool and Victorian side chair. Then I received my mother's art deco dressing table and chair and decided the chair seat would be lovely in an art deco bargello! I mean, how hard can it be? It's only HUGE. So I'll start with the little footstool to see just how hard. Both of these items, though, require threads that will withstand wear. I use the little footstool when I'm stitching, and I do use the dressing table chair. So a delicate thread won't do. I'm not fond of wool and am allergic to it to boot, so I'm not likely to try to stitch a sizable piece in it. What a dilemma. I'm leaning toward the Vineyard Silk, which means it will be a priceless treasure if I ever get it done.

     Stay tuned.

     Suggestions welcomed.

     Kthxbai.

Okay, July's gone.

2010-08-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

Another month has flown by, and I'm still working on "Florentine Fancywork." I'm well into the next to the last area to be stitched before it's back to the border and the final backstitching.

The area I've been working on is called "Little Hearts," and it's turning out quite pretty. This is a pattern I've been able to get into a rhythm on, so it's actually going quickly. I just haven't had much time for stitching.I like the alternating threads: Overture, Kreinik, Mandarin, and Neon Rays. Now that I look at a close-up, I see that I missed a small bit of green at the top and have some compensating still to do next to the startburst. Sigh.

I've gotten an extension to the end of August, and I will finish on time!

My work on "Stars for a New Millennium" is painfully slow. At the last meeting, at the end of July, I made very little progress, despite stitching for the entire time.

At this rate, I'll still be working on this through 2011 and into 2012.

kthxbai.

Florentine Fancywork Gets Fancier

2010-07-21T16:32:00.000-04:00

I didn't get as much done last week as I wanted to, but I did make good progress.

     I had hoped to get the Wheels section finished by the end of the week, but a small mishap while slicing potatoes with my mandoline slowed me down a bit. You know that big thing you're supposed to use to push the food that you're slicing so that you don't accidentally slice a piece of you? Well, I find it really awkward and prefer to just be really careful. Evidently I wasn't careful enough and managed to slice a teensy bit off my thumb. Not that bad, but of course it needed a bandaid, which made stitching a little more difficult for a couple of days. I have recovered fully (though you can see where I lost a sliver of skin) and managed to finish the section at the stitching group last night. No picture yet, so the one above will have to suffice for now.

     I discovered that I misspoke last time about the pale yellow thread. It's not Mandarin but Splendor. It seems the lighter colors may be fluffier or thicker because the coverage is much better than with the darker ones. At least when it comes to purple.

     I'm going to ask for an extension on the deadline, maybe to mid-August, so I can finish the piece and send it off for an evaluation. I ought to be able to finish the last two areas and the rest of the border by then, right? I mean, how hard can it be?

     Kthxbai.

Cruising Along

2010-07-13T12:18:00.000-04:00

I've been remiss. I fully intended to post this at the end of last week. Really I did. Anyway.

"Florentine Fancywork" has become a real pleasure to stitch now. I'm still not happy with the way the Splendor looks, but I've decided to just ignore it. Maybe it will improve once I put in all the backstitching at the end. Did I just say that? Backstitching? Gah! Backstitching is one of my least favorite things to do. Beading is worse, but backstitching runs a close second. Herewith, my progress as of last Friday.

     I wish you could see how the Krienik sparkles, but it just gets lost when I import the photo into the blog. Drat. It's in the ribbon section of Area 2 and lines the inner edges of the diamond shapes of the Area 5 motif. While I'm still not that fond of the sky color of Area 4's skyline, it's growing on me and I do like the way the buildings turned out using Flair.

     I must effuse about Mandarin floss again. The coverage is just wonderful. It's the golden sky color as well as the soft yellow in the starburst of Area 5. And I love it's subtle sheen. I really need to use Mandarin more often.

     So I'm on to Area 6, the wheels, at the stitching group tonight. This will take up about two-thirds of the space to the right of the skyline and the starburst. I'm aiming to get it finished this week if possible. Wish me luck!

     Kthxbai.

Good Progress, at Last

2010-07-02T17:59:00.001-04:00

This week's stitching experience has been much more satisfying. I restitched some of the border of "Florentine Fancywork," and then I decided to give myself a break and get back to work on the far more interesting stuff inside the border. I can finish the rest of the border a little at a time or at the end, since I don't have to worry about coming up in a dirty hole on the side and bottom portions. Plus, if I manage to get everything but that done by the deadline, I can always submit it unfinished for the critique. I'll have done some of the border. At least that's what someone said I could do.

     I finished Area 3, the horizontal band that revealed my error last week. It uses Rainbow Gallery Splendor, Overture, and Neon Rays. Normally I'm not a fan of Neon Rays, but it's shiny, smooth texture really adds a lot to this motif.

     I've moved on now to Area 4, called the New York City Skyline. The buildings are outlined in purple, and the straw colored section I'm filling in is … the sky. Not a color I would choose to represent the sky, but whatever. I don't really have the time to futz around with color variations now. The thread is Rainbow Gallery Mandarin Floss, six-strand bamboo floss, and I really enjoy working with it. It lays very nicely and has a sheen that's a bit shinier than that of cotton floss.

     So the race is on now. Will I make it? Can I possibly get this project done by mid-July? I mean, really, how hard can it be? Somebody just shoot me now.

     Kthxbai.

Woe is me

2010-06-16T17:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was not good. Stitching-wise. Monday night I spent quite a few hours working on my "Florentine Fancywork" bargello correspondence course from ANG, finishing up the border and getting the first inside area well toward completion. I was so pleased with myself. I should have known better.

Last night at the stitching group, I finished up the ribbon section and started on the next area, which would take me across the rest of the width of the piece. I merrily stitched along, chatting and having a grand time. Until I reached the other side and discovered that my stitching didn't match the chart. I had too many of the repeated motif, and the fractional one at the end was the wrong fraction. Gah! After much counting and comparing and counting and comparing, I finally looked at the top border and compared it to the chart. Gah! I had done it completely, but consistently, wrong all the way across. Instead of having one thread between each motif, I had two. Gah! Gah!

I spent the rest of the evening ripping out all but the left side and the first element of the top and bottom parts of the border. I'm not sure whether this will make the third or fourth time for stitching that frickin' border! I do like the ribbon section and think it turned out well. Here's a picture of what's left, including the shadow of the ripped-out border. Gah! And I was optimistic that I could finish it by the deadline, which is in July, not June. I don't think I have a prayer at this point.

kthxbai.

::shuffles off, grumbling and muttering::

Now We're Cooking!

2010-06-03T09:39:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. You're looking at the title and shaking your head. Cooking and stitching. Both lovely, sensual, and exciting things to do, but they so don't play well together. Except, that is, when one is watching/listening to a cooking show on TV while stitching. Best of both worlds! And cable is now offering us a second cooking channel: the, well, Cooking Channel! Yeah, I know, what a creative name. What do you expect from the folks who brought us the Food Network? And yes, I do believe they are related.

I've been enjoying watching some old cooking shows, like "Julia Child and Company" and "The Galloping Gourmet," as well as some newer ones (for me at least), like "Food Jammers" and "French Food at Home." I caught these last two a couple of nights ago (I think, the days run together when you work at home and there's a holiday thrown in). The "Food Jammers" guys decided to make their own fruit soda, which was hysterical. The first batch, which they decided to carbonate using a yeast process in bottles in the refrigerator, exploded in the refrigerator. Hahahahaha. It wasn't as bad as it sounds and no one was injured, but very funny. They did manage to get the procedure refined and ended up with some interesting sounding sodas, as well as an interesting method of dispensing them.

I'm really going to enjoy this channel for a while. At least until I've seen everything at least twice.

kthxbai.

More Men Doing Needlework in Public

2010-05-28T21:08:00.000-04:00

I saw this ad from the Prostate Cancer Foundation on TV the other night and cracked up.

Rosey Grier still does needlework, but this time it's knitting and as a public service. Now, if this really echoed women's stitching groups I'm familiar with, well, let's just say it would have been a bit livelier.

And they said it couldn't be done. I finally managed to get caught up on the ANG Stitch of the Month. Phew! The May stitch only took me about an hour to an hour and a half to complete last night, just as a couple of friends assured me it would. I was skeptical, though, primarily because the April stitch did not go very smoothly. What a bear that was! Instead of the hour and a half that these same friends told me it would take to finish, it took me at least five or six hours, including the time to rip out that session of stitching with the wrong color. Gah! I think I belong to the slow stitching movement. You know, like the slow food thing?

Now I should really get back to my bargello correspondence course, which I am definitely not completing on time. I believe the deadline is sometime in June. Yikes! I think I'll just be happy to finish it sometime this year.

kthxbai.

Sunday Stars

2010-05-19T11:09:00.001-04:00

Sunday was Stars day. The group gathered at my house to tackle Clark Gable. Hahahaha. Before our meeting, there was much talk via e-mail about his reported halitosis problem, which I believe was caused by dentures and more than likely also poor dental hygiene. He was still dashing nonetheless, thanks to the lack of smell-o-vision.

When we started on Stars, everyone's progress was all over the place, but this week we seem to have evened out a bit. One stitcher is excused for being a bit behind because she's been juggling a few balls in addition to trying to stitch on very rare occasions: college, family (husband and two children), and a Web business. In all honesty, she hasn't had much of a chance to stitch at all. All are agreed, however, that we love the bargello bits in Clark's square. Some of us do not like working with the crewel wool, especially me; others like it. It's not a thread I'd choose given other options. It gets fuzzy and seems much duller than the other threads we're using on this piece. Then again, I'm a silk lover.

Herewith our progress toward the end of the session on Sunday:

Taryn finally got started this week. Yay! She's doing hers in the Peacock colorway, as am I.

Donna's Cherry Blossom colorway is working up just beautifully.

Sharon is working from the top down, in Tony's original colorway, which looks so much nicer in person than in the cover picture.

Julie is also working in the original colorway.

JoAnn, ever the individual, is working from the bottom up in the Jelly Bean colorway. It's really quite striking.

This is mine. Last night at the stitching group I managed to finish my bargello section. I really do like the way it looks. Please excuse the upside-down photo. When I rotated it to right-side-up, it looked a bit bizarre.

And now, I have to get to work.

kthxbai.

Monochromaticity

2010-05-12T23:28:00.000-04:00

Is that a word? I think it must be, or it should be. It seems to be my mood lately when it comes to stitching.

I started a new project the other night, well really early morning. After tossing and turning for hours, I finally decided to just get up at 4:30 am, go downstairs, and see what I could do to make myself sleepy. Naturally, I turned to stitching. Huh? I decided it was the perfect time to pull out a painted canvas I'd gotten from a friend's destashing a little while ago. Donna, needleworker not in paradise, had plucked it and its twin from the stack, keeping one for her and saving the other for me. She immediately pulled colors and started on hers. I mulled it over. And over. And over. I finally decided to go for the subtle approach, a tone on tone in deep purples, using Petite Very Velvet for the words and Silk and Ivory for the background. Then I set it aside for a while.

So the other night/morning, I started stitching it to see whether the contrast would be sufficient and to test a background stitch, since the whole of the canvas consists of two words. Here's what I came up with.

Can you see the letters against the background? I can, but I really want to. When I showed it to the stitching group last night, the consensus seemed to be that it was a bit too subtle. The light would have to hit it just right. So I think I'll continue with it and outline the letters in a coppery metallic when it's all stitched. Or something like that. I'll decide when I get to that point. I'm not sure whether you can really tell what the background stitch is. It's a checkerboard pattern of 3 x 3 blocks of tent stitch and scotch stitch. I really like the texture it gives.

My other monochromatic WIP is the ANG Stitch O' the Month, or SOTM. I'm still working on April. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a light stitching month, as is May, which I have downloaded and believe will be easy to do. For some reason, though, I'm taking forever with April's stitch. Part of the problem stems from my using the wrong thread for one session of stitching, then spending the next session of stitching ripping it out. Gah! This is what happens when you use a monochromatic color scheme that has two of the major families very close in gray value. Sigh. So here's my progress on April's stitch.

Sunday, I'll get to stitch some more on Stars. Mercifully, it's not a monochromatic colorway.

kthxbai.

We Have Liftoff!

2010-05-01T20:00:00.003-04:00

Today marked a new milestone in my business life. My partner and I finally launched the Scarlet Thread Web store. Of course, it's a work in progress, as most any store is. We'll be adding products, photos of threads (gah! the photography!), photos of finished work in the Gallery, and I don't know what all for the next several months. It's been a lot of work, but I'm pretty happy with the results. And I've learned perhaps more about html coding than I ever really wanted to know. Hahahahaha. Soon I'll be able to approach it with my usual aplomb. I mean, how hard can it be? And this time, I know the answer to that.

kthxbai.

Where does the time go?

2010-04-28T10:18:00.003-04:00

Do you ever feel like you've been running around like crazy multi-tasking your butt off, stop to check your progress, discover that your efforts have produced minimal concrete results, and realize that the hourglass is almost empty?

Since last I posted, this is my progress on Stars.

I'm finally ready to move on to Clark Gable, now that Marilyn's finished. What a struggle! It was well worth it, though, because I think she's lovely and I like the way the colors work in this block. The external border, however, is another story. I'm going to rip out the middle and outer borders because there's something not right with that thin one stitched with the variegated thread. I think it happened when I had to rethread. It's right where the color changes from the turquoise to the rust. Gah! But that can wait for later, maybe after everything else is stitched or whenever I get particularly frustrated with something else.

The other, actually more important thing I've been working on is the Scarlet Thread Web store. My partner and I are working furiously to get it done in time for the official launch date of May 1. Yes, you read that right, Saturday. OMG! It seems like we've struggled every step of the way, trying to get things right and not wanting to settle for good enough for now, just get the thing finished and launched. Things are falling into place, though, and I do feel confident that everything we want done for Day 1 will be done. Then again, I do have that idiotic, ever-the-optimist bent. Once again, I'm finding out just how hard it can be to achieve my goals.

Sigh.

kthxbai.

Mysteries, Truckers, and Skeletons

2010-04-09T10:24:00.006-04:00

Did I get your attention? No, this is not a report on the latest episode of Bones.

First, the mystery: I'm referring, of course, to the ANG Stitch of the Month. I finished the March stitch on Easter Sunday, a little past March but not too bad. I finally can see all three color families and how they work together, and I'm pretty pleased if I do say so myself. I have to admit, though, that there are a couple of layered stitches in there that seem like a lot of work for a very small effect. I also discovered that when using Rainbow Gallery Treasure Braid Petite instead of Accentuate, I only needed half the number of strands specified. I guess I should say that it was my preference. Four strands just seemed too bulky, and in one instance totally covered up the layer beneath instead of revealing a little spot of color. Okay, I just looked it up in The Thread Thesaurus and found out, it's actually a 4:1 ratio. [smacks forehead with palm of hand] Well, I'm not ripping it out now. Those layered stitches would probably look just fine with one strand of TBP.

Truckers. Yes, that's right, truckers. No, I haven't suddenly become enamored of a truck-drivin' man. It's the ones who quilt and knit who intrigue me. Not one but two people brought this Wall Street Journal article to my attention. My favorite quote:

When he's not sewing, he's daydreaming about it, he said as he ran a square of yellow cotton with little violets through his machine. "Oh, there's many a time you're just going down the road at O-dark-thirty in the morning and you just start thinking about a particular pattern."

This reminded me of Rosey Grier and his needlepoint hobby. I surfed around a bit and discovered that, yes, he's still alive and travels the country as an inspirational speaker. He was an advocate for men doing needlepoint in the '70s and even published a book about it, Rosey Grier's Needlepoint for Men.

We need a new advocate for men doing needlework in the 21st century. Know anybody we can draft? I mean, how hard can it be?

I almost forgot about the skeletons. Even though I haven't been doing any cross-stitch for a while, I was compelled to buy a new pattern the other day. Prairie Moon has a new series with a skeleton theme, and I fell in love with Merry Xmas. I'm sure you'll agree, it's irresistable. Will I ever stitch it? I don't know.

kthxbai.

So much to stitch, so little time

2010-03-24T22:34:00.003-04:00

I've been stitching a lot, but the results seem meager. Monday morning I spent some time at the car dealer getting the oil changed in my car and a tire fixed, the perfect opportunity to stitch in public! Nobody cared. I did get a bit more done on my SOTM. Maybe I'll have this month's stitch done before April's is posted. No photo of this till I'm done with the March stitching.

I finally feel like I've made progress on Stars. The top outer square is almost completely restitched, and I'm much happier with the way it looks. You can actually see the bottom-layer thread this time. I finished stitching the center element of Marilyn Monroe and will attempt the parallelograms again, this time with three strands of Splendor. After talking with Donna, I'm considering going ahead with stitching the rest of the border after I finish up Marilyn. The sides have to be stitched from the bottom up, though, which I'm not looking forward to because of all the counting and recounting to get to the point of beginning to stitch. Then again, I could stitch the sashing, then the border, which is what the instructions wanted me to do first anyway. We'll see. I hate having to resort to following the instructions after the fact. That implies that I was wrong, and I just hate being wrong.

kthxbai.

Belated Progress on Stars

2010-03-10T18:27:00.008-05:00

It's been over a week since the first stitching meeting of the Stars stitch along group. I've been waiting for some of the stitchers to send me photos of their progress, and waiting for me to take some of mine. My progress is almost negative but not quite. I ripped out most of the top left outside corner stitching because I wasn't happy with the way it looked and still have more to rip. Sigh. On the 28th, I got started on the first block, Marilyn Monroe. The stitches are probably a little advanced for this remedial stitcher, so I haven't gotten that far. Part of what I stitched then and since then will be kept, but two areas have to come out.

You can see the remains of the outer corner. I found it harder to rip out than expected. Why is that? I'll try to remove the last remnants tonight just to eliminate the reminder that I had to do it. The stitching on the Marilyn quilt block is in its bottom right quadrant and is going painfully slow.

I'm not happy with the way the diamond area stitched in purple looks. I can see the white canvas in places, and I thought it wasn't supposed to show. Maybe I'll hold off ripping this out until I've stitched the areas surrounding it. The other area I'm not happy with is the purple parallelogram to the right of this section. I used the two strands Tony specified, but it's not covering nearly as well as it should. I have already ripped out the same stitch that ran perpendicular to this one and below the square area because I found a mistake. Something tells me this is going to be a long, arduous stitching experience for me.

On to the progress of some of my fellow stitchers. You can keep up with Donna, who's making up her own overdye and colorway, on her blog, needleworker not in paradise. Here are some of the other colorways being stitched.

This is JoAnn's Jelly Bean. She started at the bottom because we were still waiting for the JL Walsh silk and wool to come in and the botton left block was the first logical place to start that didn't call for that thread. She also found it easier to work that area. This is project isn't called a BAP for nothing. I think this is going to be stunning.

A note about the JL Walsh silk and wool. When I called the dyer to check on the status, I learned that she would no longer be dying this particular thread. Her supplier has raised her minimum to such an outrageous sum that she simply can't afford to do it anymore, which is sad because it is a lovely fiber. She'll still be dying her silks, just not the silk and wool. But I digress.

Dawn chose the Morning Garden colorway, substituting an overdye that was close to the now-discontinued Morning Garden and following the rest of the colors and threads as specified. (The name of her color escapes me right now; I'll get back to you on that.) As you can see, she's almost done with Marilyn. I hate her almost as much as I hate JoAnn. Hahahahahaha.

Ferol is doing the Granite colorway. I find it wonderfully surprising because if you look at the skein of Granite, you don't readily see all the beautiful colors that you can pull from it that make this colorway so stunning. Ferol also is stitching the border differently. I like that.

You may have noticed that with four stitchers, you have four different approaches to preparing the canvas and starting the stitching.

So that's what I have so far. There are five other people, two of whom are doing my colorway, Peacock, with the rest doing Tony's original Plum Honey colorway.

kthxbai,

Time Flies

2010-03-03T00:11:00.004-05:00

I've been working so diligently for the past week or so that I didn't notice February was on its way out until it was gone. Not that I will miss it and its more than two feet of snow. I was delighted to see that a few crocuses had burst forth as soon as a patch of ground was exposed to the sun once again. If you look real close, you'll see the little purple flowers. Click on the picture to get a larger view.

And now my yard is full of crocuses, which unfortunately are still waiting for the sun to come back out so they can open. It was a glorious display on Sunday, and I wish I had thought to take a picture. It seems like a bumper crop this year. One of the Stars stitching group members came in and announced that my yard made her feel great.

A very optimistic camellia bud is trying to open. It's tucked back in a corner of the house, so the only way I can see it is through the window. It's been like this for over a week.

What's kept me so busy? I thought you'd never ask. I've been loading up my eBay store with inventory from Scarlet Thread the brick-and-mortar store that I won't be carrying in Scarlet Thread the Web store. Patterns, kits, painted canvas, crewel, fabric, and soon threads. Lots of scanning. Lots more to be done, but I intend to keep at it until everything has been listed at least once. At the rate I'm going that may take months. Yikes!

I put a link at the top of the page here. Stop by if you're curious. [End of shameless self-promotion]

kthxbai.

Slight Progress

2010-02-18T21:08:00.005-05:00

It seems that I spend an inordinate amount of time stitching with very little to show for it. Herewith, my progress on the ANG SOTM and Stars.

I finished up the February installment of the SOTM. I like the way my colors are working up so far. At my Tuesday night stitching group, Sharon and Julie were both working on theirs. It's interesting how different each of ours will be, and how impatient we all are for the rest of the piece. Hahaha. The hardest part is not making changes, as we all so love to do. I keep telling myself, "Wait to see how the third color's worked in before deciding to modify anything." Patience is not one of my strengths. (There are those who would regard that as an understatement.)

I stitched a bit more of the top border and made my first stab at the top left corner of Stars. I'm not very happy with it. The single strand of Pebbly Perle all but disappears, so I plan to rip out the whole corner and start again. That thread and stitch are the bottom layer, of course. But I'm also not happy with the overall coverage, which may be the result of my inexpert stitching. I'll practice a bit on a spare bit of canvas before I put it in again. The group's meeting again on the 28th, so I have time to fiddle with this part for a bit.

I spent most of my time at the Tuesday night group ripping out the dark periwinkle in the Florentine piece. I'm not happy with the coverage, and I also decided to use the darker shade of that color. The other looked a little washed out. I'm going to have to practice laying my stitches and controlling the tension better. When I tried the Needlepoint Silk instead of Splendor, I still didn't get the coverage I wanted and had to use one more strand to get the same coverage as with the Splendor. Even though I'm having problems, I do enjoy stitching bargello. Maybe if I practice a bit more, I'll be happier with the result.

kthxbai.

Blizzardy

2010-02-09T23:39:00.004-05:00

I finished shoveling snow from the front stoop, steps, walk, more steps, and drive yesterday. It only took three days. Just in time for the snow that's falling once again and expected to add another 10-20 inches to the 20 or so inches dumped on the weekend. Sigh. I really hope this storm is the last for a while. I need a break.

Over the weekend and between rounds of shoveling, I've been working on the February installment of ANG's Stitch of the Month. I added the middle band of the cross outline, a couched stitch that has a bit of sparkle coming through from the Kreinik couched with Splendor. I really like the technique of underside couching that gives a clean right-angled corner.

The second part of this month's stitch starts filling in the arms and center of the cross with Splendor and Silk Lame. In this color family, I had to go with a couple of shades for lack of a better match in the metallic threads. I like the way it's looking and hope it will all work out as well as this part. I'll probably finish the center block tomorrow, while waiting for the snow to end so I can start shoveling again. Then back to my bargello piece and my search for better coverage.

kthxbai.

Baby Steps

2010-02-02T18:09:00.005-05:00

Since last week I've been stitching away, but the progress is slow. I haven't done more on the ANG Stitch of the Month, but in my defense, the second stitch wasn't posted until yesterday.

I started on my correspondence course and got the top border in along with a start on the left side border. I'm not happy with the coverage I'm getting with the Splendor, though. Maybe I'm pulling the thread too tight? I may have to try a few motifs using a different type of silk floss, perhaps Needlepoint Inc silk. That's what I usually prefer, but I wanted to do this with the specified threads when possible. I'm just not happy with the way it looks. Grr. On a positive note, I'm pleased with the instructions. They're clear, thorough, and concise.

I started on the border of Stars for a New Millenium at the Thursday morning stitching group. Electing neither to draw nor baste the framework of the design, I carefully measured the distance to the top left block per the instructions and started stitching the top inner, middle, and outer borders. I only wanted enough to facilitate counting for that first quilt square. I like to do borders at the end so that they don't suffer from too much wear and tear while I stitch the piece. When I design a piece, the border always gets designed at the end. I never know what kind of, if any, border will be needed and appropriate.

What is pictured here, however, is not that stitching. No, I ended up ripping it out after studying the canvas for a couple of days. One of the stitchers in the stitchalong group came by to pick up some threads. I showed her where I was and how I was approaching the stitching, which was not according to the instructions. She looked at it and said, "Are you going to have enough room on the right side? You better count it out to be sure." I agreed. It didn't look like there would be much empty canvas on the right side. So I counted it out, very carefully, all the way across, including the entire border and extended corner square. Then I counted it out again with the same result. Yikes! Less than 2" on the right side. That's just too close for comfort IMHO. I counted back on the left side to see how much empty canvas would be left after stitching that side border and corner square. About 2.25". Grr. It wasn't centered, but I could fix it so that I had about 2" on either side and fortunately caught it before I got too far. While I was at it, I decided to check the vertical spacing, which seems to be okay. So I frogged what I had stitched and restitched it starting a quarter-inch further left. Gah!

Obviously, if I had drawn the schematic, I would have discovered the problem before stitching. Equally obviously, I would have had to erase the whole thing and redraw it. Knowing how long it would have taken me to do the initial drawing to get to the point of realizing it was off, based on how long it took me to draw in the outlines for the Stitch of the Month, I stand by my choice not to draw it in the first place. I would have been cursing for hours as I erased and started over. Perhaps those who come to charted canvaswork from the traditional hand-painted needlepoint perspective find it easier to draw in the outline. For me, used to counting designs from various reference points in the fabric, drawing is just another chance to introduce an error, and a time-consuming one at that. I'll stick a pin in to mark the reference spot and count out any day rather than counting and drawing, then hoping that I haven't made a mistake somewhere that I won't find until I'm counting and stitching. I'll be interested in seeing how the other stitchers in the group deal with getting to the point that we can all start working together on that first quilt square on Sunday. I know of at least three approaches so far, none of which includes drawing the whole thing.

kthxbai.

On the verge

2010-01-27T14:11:00.005-05:00

Today I realized that remedial or not, my stitching is taking over my life. I have started one of three new projects that I just kitted up. I'm missing a thread here and there, but I'm ready to go on all of them.

The American Needlepoint Guild (ANG) has a new project for the Stitch of the Month, which started this month and ends in December, "A Promise of Mystery," designed by Sue Reed. It really should be called "Project of the Year," since more than one stitch will sometimes be given in a month. What captured my interest? It's a geometric design, and I'm all about geometrics these days.

The designer's color palette was chosen to provide optimal differentiation for teaching, using three families, so I of course chose my own. I went with a monochromatic color scheme, and decided which shade would be which family based on the different kinds of threads in each. Family B, for instance, was the color for which I could find matching (or closely matching) colors in all of the thread types. I'm holding off on the Accentuate for this because (1) nobody in my area seems to carry it and (2) I have no idea how it's to be used so don't want to pick a substitute fiber till I have that last bit of information. How it's used could make the difference between substituting or ordering Accentuate online.

I'm anxiously awaiting February's installment. Meanwhile, I need to get started on "Stars for a New Millenium," for which I now have most of the threads. Yippee!

I am using Brenda Schroff's colorway, "Peacock," which starts with, surprise, surprise, the Thread Gatherer Silk 'N Colors SNC 007 Peacock. It's a departure from my usual go-to palette of purples, although there is a nod to purple with the periwinkle tones. The only threads I'm missing are the J.L. Walsh Silk & Wool and a Trebizond color that's been discontinued. I'll have to see if there's a suitable alternative in Trebizond, and if not, find a suitable alternative thread and color. I did substitute a couple of Neon Rays for two colors in the colorway because I wanted to maintain the texture of the original, and this colorway had used Impressions or Pebbly Perle. Even though I find Neon Rays a struggle to work with! I'm fairly sure that "kill me now" will be my mantra for those sessions of stitching.

I have to get started on the pre-work for this if I want to be ready for the next group meeting on February 7. So that will be two monthly bits of stitching I'll be doing this year. You may agree that I must have lost my mind when I signed up for ANG's Correspondence Course "Florentine Fancywork," by Toni McKelley.

Again, I have modifed the colors, but only because I didn't have the right color of Rainbow Gallery's Overture. I had one that had a very similar, softer range. I just stepped down a shade on some of the other threads, varied the tone on others, have one that I can't decide on so am reserving judgment till I start stitching (the two purple Splendors), and one that remained the same because there just wasn't a lighter alternative.

This one is only a 6-month project. Guess I'll have to keep an eye out for a project to fill out the rest of the year.

kthxbai.

Ready, willing, and waiting

2010-01-18T19:18:00.005-05:00

I've got my canvas attached to my Evertites and mounted on the Lowery. I'm itching to get started on "Stars for a New Millenium." All I need is some thread. Sigh.

In the meantime, I finished stitching "Maya" but haven't decided how to finish it. I'm tempted to put it on a tote bag, but I haven't found one that I like yet.

In the past few weeks I've collected two framed pieces from Clive Shepherd of the Brit's Gallery. He did a magnificent job on both.

Many thanks to Donna LaBranche, needleworker not in paradise, for selecting the blackwork fills for and stitching the entire center image. I came up with the design and stitched the simply cross-stitch side pieces, but she did the hardest (to me) part. I wanted the design to include blackwork, but I have never actually done blackwork and found out just how hard that could be. This piece will be entered in the Woodlawn Needlework Exhibition next month as a collaboration between the two of us.

Turnberry Ridge will also be going over to Woodlawn.

kthxbai.

Eliminating Patina

2010-01-13T13:36:00.002-05:00

While at my stitching group last night, I gave myself permission to abandon the Patina in the border of Maya. I just couldn't face the struggle any longer. Instead I'm using Pebbly Perle, which is much easier to work with and is a close color match. I also decided not to use the white in the center band of the border, after consulting with the group. I'll use a lavender Pebbly Perle used elsewhere in the piece. This was a good decision. I made progress with the innermost band of the border and hope I can complete the whole thing by the end of the week!

Yesterday and today, I've been compiling the thread order for the Stars group. I never expected it to be so confusing and complex, requiring me to make a spreadsheet in order not to miss a thread. Gah! I really don't use Excel much, usually only if someone sends me data, which I promptly save as a Word text file, something I can work with more easily. While poring over the colorways to organize them by manufacturer and brand, I've discovered a few errors along with a couple of discontinued colors. The book was published in 2000, so it's not surprising that some would be discontinued. The errors, however, can be perplexing without a swatch or online color reference to help figure out what the color number should have been. At the rate I'm going, I may not be able to place all the orders today. I still have to check my inventory for some of the brands to see whether I really need to order everything. Gah! If I ever say, "How hard could it be?", about this particular task again, somebody smack me.

kthxbai.

Threads

2010-01-11T09:09:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Jane, a member of the Tuesday night stitching group and a participant in the Stars stitchalong, I was able to finish the stitching on Maya that uses Bravo. Yay! So I started the outer border of a two-thread gobelin in Pebbly Pearl between one-thread gobelins of, sigh, Patina. The misery begins again, but it isn't nearly as bad doing this stitch. Damning with faint praise? Yeah.

Meanwhile, in other breaking news, we had a somewhat free-flowing, boisterous premier of the Stars group. Everyone did manage to select the variegated thread she wanted, well in some cases, threads to mull over and decide between. The consensus was, for the most part, to go with one of the colorways provided in the book. Canvas was tacked to stretcher bars. And I think that's all that was accomplished. I'm looking into another location for our future meetings because my dining table just can't handle that many people working on such a large project. My neighborhood community house would be a good place, if the usage fee isn't too high for Sundays.

To top off the afternoon, some of us went across the highway to have dinner at a very tasty Thai restaurant, Crystal Thai.

kthxbai.

Trying to finish a WIP

2010-01-09T20:29:00.003-05:00

I've found the cross-stitch piece I was working on not a good choice right now. The way I decided to stitch it is requiring way too much thought about every stitch. Hahahaha. So I decided to work on the Orna Willis canvaswork project I had started as a model for the shop, "Maya." I realized that I don't really have that much left to do on it and have nearly finished it. (I need to use a tripod when I take pics with my new camera. I don't have a steady hand.)

I only need to finish the bottom band and the outer border. I may have to set it aside for a few days, though, because I don't have enough Rainbow Gallery Bravo to complete the bottom row of Rhodes stitches done in RG Patina (I hate Patina!) and Bravo. Just 10 stitches! And I was evidently the only LNS in my area carrying it. Gah! If I can't beg some from a friend's stash (and how likely is it that someone has the color I need?), I may be forced to get my Web store up and running immediately so I can order it from RG. That's a pretty good incentive, doncha know.

The other thing I've discovered while stitching this is, as I mentioned above, I HATE PATINA! Really. Surely there's another thread that's less heinous to work with that gives a similar effect. Does anybody else find it as miserable an experience as I do? Probably not.

The last problem I've encountered requires frogging, which I'm not sure I'm going to do. I have one wrong stitch in the top portion done in Trebizond. Can you find it? I, of course, can't miss it now that I've found it, but I'm not sure the casual observer would see it. Decisions, decisions. Well, I have plenty of time to decide while I wait for the Bravo to appear.

In the meantime, tomorrow afternoon is the first meeting of the "Stars for a New Millennium" stitch-along. That will give me something to take my mind off my stitching woes.

kthxbai.

Another Stitchy Gift

2009-12-29T14:10:00.004-05:00

At the stitching group yesterday, I received a wonderful surprise: a hand towel with an embroidered Charlie Harper cardinal. I've had this cross-stitch pattern at Scarlet Thread, and it's one of my favorites.

I also gave myself a present yesterday, a new camera. This picture is the first one I've taken with it.

kthxbai.

Things Given and Received

2009-12-28T09:55:00.008-05:00

Hey, I'm back! The holiday furor has subsided, frantic finishing has ended, and near-normalcy is returning, well what passes for normal in my world.

I can now post the gift I was stitching away on for a couple of weeks, which was record time from start to finish for me. When I started the M Designs "W," I wondered if stitching the negative space rather than the charted space would be simpler and take less time. Based on my experience stitching at least three others, the answer is a resounding, "Yes!" I only had one counting error that resulted in frogging, and a small one at that; and it did take significantly less time to complete. Part of the time factor is related to the reduced amount of frogging and restitching, but I don't think that accounts for all. So here's the piece, temporarily ensconced in its boxtop:

I received a gift of textile art that I love for the color and design: a mola from Panama.

Since I don't do applique, I may be compelled to adapt this style to canvaswork or counted thread. How hard could that be? Just a matter of finding the right stitches to produce the right effect yet make the piece distinctively cw or CT. I'm leaning toward counted thread, because I just received the samples of new colors from Picture This Plus, which include a gorgeous linen almost the same color as the background of this mola. Coincidence? I think not. In the meantime, though, I need to decide how I want to have this piece finished. A pillow? Framed? A tote bag (though it would have to be fairly large)? Decisions, decisions.

The other gift I've been eagerly poring over is a cookbook that Jane gave me. She reads ThePioneerWoman.com cooking blog, thought I would like it, and gave me the cookbook that grew out of it. I can't wait to try some of the breakfast dishes, which is about how far into it I've gotten.

And now I have to dash to the stitching group.

kthxbai.

Progress and delay

2009-12-12T13:29:00.004-05:00

I've made a good start on one of my mad-dash-for-Christmas projects, better than a third of the way stitched. The Sudberry box it will adorn has been purchased, and I think I can do the finishing on this myself. Yay! I may just be able to get this done.

The other project will be put on hold for later. How hard can it be? I'll tell you how hard. Try at least 7 or 8 false starts, with the 9th apparently a success. But there's no way it'll be done in the next month or even two months. I think this will become something for me. I may, in fact, go in a totally different direction now, which means the 9th start, though successful, will now be discarded. Gah!

The group project, "Stars for a New Millenium," is getting closer to an official start. I finally have all of the books for everyone who's going to be a part of the stitch-along and most of the suggested variegated threads so people can create their colorways. About half of the canvas is in and Evertites are on the way. Woo-hoo! I can hardly wait. Maybe by January we'll be ready to have our first meeting, which I envision as the color selection and planning stage.

I'm even getting closer to launching the new Scarlet Thread Web store. I see a lot of photography in the near future. Having dragged my feet on this so long, I'm finally anxious to get it done. How hard can it be?

kthxbai.

Deadlines

2009-12-05T16:16:00.004-05:00

I have a bad habit of deciding to start and finish a project under very tight deadline restraints. Why do I keep doing this to myself? This week I started two new projects that will be gifts for, yes, Christmas. Is this even possible? I'm not sure, but I really hope I don't realize one week before the holiday that I have to make a mad dash to buy something because there's no way I'll have them ready.

I mean, how hard can it be? All I have to do is nothing else but that until they're done, right?

kthxbai

2009-11-30T12:23:00.004-05:00

This dreary, drizzly day has just become delightful! UPS just delivered the box of Caron Collection threads I ordered a little over a week or so ago. I'm doing my happy dance (which isn't easy to do while sitting at the computer and typing). Plans for the day are now scrapped. I'm going to pore over the threads to pick out colorways for the kits I plan to offer on the Scarlet Thread Web site when I relaunch it as a comprehensive source of all things canvaswork. I'm so excited!

kthxbai.

WIPs and Mysteries

2009-11-18T20:49:00.014-05:00

Last week I made a concerted effort to locate all the WIPs I've got going. I found quite a few, and there are a couple that I know exist, but just where they are precisely, I haven't a clue. Here are the ones I found.

I started this as a gift for my cousin who majored in voice, has sung in a number of choral groups, and may still be singing in the church choir. I think I started it about 3 years ago. I got bored. So sad. I really should finish it. The pattern is Eleanor Marie's Choral Sampler.

The fabric was the impetus for this piece. I fell in love with it, Picture This Plus Relic (or possibly Fossil). Regardless, subsequent dye lots have been all over the map, so the name is immaterial. I'm fascinated by the Dessins monochromatic designs, mostly because I like to totally change them colorwise. For this one, I wanted to make the dragons stand out instead of blend in. I selected a couple of Needle Necessities threads that made me think of a dragon and of fire and brimstone. Then I added a Bijoux that complemented the dragon color, blending the two in a random fashion to provide a suggestion of glistening scales. I really should finish this one because I do really like it.

I took this closer shot to try to show the metallic, but I'm not sure it's that visible. Suffice to say, it shows up in person.

This is Summer House Stitche Workes Soil and Sand. I stitched this once with Thread Gatherer Oriental Linen on a 10-ct Tula, which made a gorgeously textured piece. I thought it would be an interesting study in contrasts to do it a second time with Thread Gatherer Silk 'N Colors on a 40-ct Picture This Plus linen. Sadly, I seem to have lost the thread. I know it's in the house somewhere.

When this pattern came in, I just fell in love with it. I had good intentions, but the fabric I selected turned out to be really unpleasant to stitch on, a metallic Lugana. Ugh! I'm not a fan of Lugana anyway, but the metallic thread made it just awful. I doubt I'll finish this, so I guess it's really a UFO.

Cross Eyed Kat has a series of small Impressions designs that are really quite lovely. I thought it might be interesting to stitch it on Congress Cloth over one. Apparently I barely got started before something else caught my eye.

Isn't this an interesting selection of colors? I must have thought so, and I'm sure I had a pattern in mind when I selected them. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it was. Arg.

An interesting type of embroidery design is the mourning sampler. It's usually a fairly traditional sampler style with a verse, the name of the deceased, the vital dates, and traditional mourning symbols. When I came across this Enchanted Needle design, I had to add it to Scarlet Thread's collection of patterns in that category. It was refreshing in its simplicity and contemporary look. I decided to stitch it when a friend was killed in a tragic automobile accident. This definitely needs to be finished. I of course changed all of the colors from the original pattern.

This Orna Willis piece was one of my first attempts at stitching a canvaswork design. I think I had done one before I decided to move on to one of her marvelous needleart works. I thought, how hard could it be? Yeah, right. No surprise, I changed the colorway completely. I do plan to finish this one. It's just a matter of where it goes in the queue.

This last is one I started shortly after beginning this blog. I wanted to test the various silk flosses to see how they compared. How did the inexpensive one compare with the more expensive ones? The design is Ink Circles Pot Luck.

kthxbai.

A stitching meditation

2009-11-04T20:52:00.010-05:00

For the past week or so, I've been stitching the same pattern over and over again in different colors. It's "Jacob's Coat," which is in the current issue of Needle Pointers. I think of it as a form of meditation that I'm doing while I get inspired for my next design. Here is what I have so far, all stitched with one Caron Collection Wildflowers color on Light Caramel Congress Cloth:

The first one I stitched is in Fiesta.

This one is in Bark.

This is Rainforest.

And the one I'm working on now is Harvest.

It occurs to me that the naming of variegated threads may be purely random. I'm hard pressed to identify bark with the colors in that thread, for instance. No matter. I love the colors.

As I'm stitching these, I find the rhythm that I fall into very soothing.

First, I stitch the border of eyelets and double crosses, one eyelet in each corner, connected by 18 double cross stitches. Then I start in the upper left corner with the alternating Scotch stitches, moving down the diagonal. I move to the next set of alternating Scotch stitches and meander back up. Back at the top, I pick up the alternating Scotch to the right of the corner I started in and meander back down. Then I fill in the pairs of stitches from the upper right corner down to the lower left. It's very soothing and relaxing. Last, I do the sprat's head variations. I love this stitch. It's quick and looks lovely when finished.

Since I'm still a novice, my stitching goes fairly slowly, though I find I'm getting quicker as I progress through the Wildflowers colors I want to use. I haven't timed it, but I think it takes about 3 or 4 hours to complete one. Maybe I'll try to remember to note my start and stop times for the next one.

As I do this, I think such an exercise is a good way to learn the changes and nuances of these variegated threads. Maybe I should do a smaller motif that will take me through at least two or three repeats of each Wildflowers color. Think how useful that would be when trying to create different colorways for one design! I mean, how hard can that be?

I started this extended stitching meditation after I completed "Turnberry Ridge." It seemed like a good way to come down, so to speak, from that wonderful stitching experience. Here's the finished piece. I meant to take it to Clive at the Brit's Gallery for framing today, but the day got away from me.

kthxbai.

Finish, WIP, On Deck

2009-10-16T23:16:00.007-04:00

It's picture time! I finally have pictures of everything I want to show. Time passes by me like a rushing river lately.

First up, the final, framed "Morning Glory," which I gave to my sister for her 60th birthday in September.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and it will be officially published in November.

I've made some good progress on "Turnberry Ridge." I just have two things left, I think. The fills for the triangles in the outer border and the fills, the eyebrows as Jean Hilton calls them, in the inner diamond border.

And finally, the piece by Tony Minieri, "Stars for a New Millennium," which a group of us are going to stitch together for, oh, probably the next couple of years. Hahahahahaha.

This colorway was stitched by Susie Matthews. Selecting the colors will be the first major step in the process and should prove a fun experience. There are only 38 different thread colors and 18 different thread types. I mean, how hard can it be?

kthxbai.

I'm still here

2009-10-01T15:44:00.003-04:00

The past month has been eventful, and most of the events not what I would call good. Suffice to say, four people I knew died, one of them my father. But I'm ready to move on now.

I've been dragging my feet on setting up the Web store for Scarlet Thread. Steps have finally been taken, though, and I hope to have it up and running by the end of the year. This may be overly optimistic, but when I really apply myself, I can get things done. Like, for instance, I am currently almost through a sleeve of Ritz crackers in record time!

I'm hoping to get some photos up tomorrow of the framed Morning Glory, the state of my Hilton piece, and a canvaswork piece by Tony Minieri that a group of women from my two stitching groups are going to work on for the next year or so a couple of times a week.

kthxbai

Now what do I do?

2009-08-25T15:55:00.006-04:00

As previously noted, I've finished the two projects that had been languishing for a year. I have a vague idea of what I want to design next, but nothing concrete. I'm trying to finish up my Jean Hilton piece, "Turnberry Ridge," which is coming along nicely. I would have included a picture, but I managed to leave my camera at my niece's house in Berryville last week, an hour and a half drive. I may just have to go out and buy a new camera. Why not? The current one is getting old (2, 3 years?), and I need one with a real zoom in order to get good enough pictures to put all the inventory online. Good rationalization!

What I'd really like to do is design a canvaswork piece, the first of a possible new series of bugs. I was thinking of reworking my Jewel Bugs for canvaswork, but I'd rather do something entirely new.

The only problem, of course, is I'm pretty new to this canvaswork thing. I don't have very large stitch vocabulary yet, which I think is a prerequisite for designing such a thing. To improve that, I'm taking a class at Waste Knot Needlepoint in Arlington, a fiber and stitch notebook. It will teach me how to use the various Rainbow Gallery fibers by teaching 70 stitches. Both aspects of this appeal to me. My knowledge of special fibers for needlepoint is fairly slim, although I did learn a lot while running my shop. It's a 4-session class that meets every 2 weeks, starting in September. I can hardly wait.

My inspiration for the bug has come to me recently during my daily (well, I try for daily) walks. I aim for 2 miles every morning; note that I said "aim." I find myself ruminating as I walk because I never seem to remember to bring my iPod. These ruminations take the form of working out a solution to my inability to get going on various things I must do, writing the perfect haiku, and just processing the sounds and smells I experience.

For the past week or so, I've noticed the rise of the song of the cicadas. It's not deafening, as during the hatching of the 17-year cicadas. It's an unmistakable undercurrent as opposed to a roar. Curious as to whether it was the advent of the 17-year brood, I Googled "cicada" when I first noticed the song. Looking at the pictures of the new adults emerging from their shells, I was taken by the beauty of their wings and carapace. Keep in mind that I pretty much abhor all bugs, particularly the large, flying type that thinks nothing of lighting on your back and going for a ride until someone notices and brushes it off. This may be the perfect bug for my canvaswork piece.

The intricacy of the wings makes it all the more imperative that I improve my stitch and fiber vocabularies. I know there's the perfect combination to achieve the effect I can already begin to visualize. I just need to learn what it is. I mean, how hard can it be?

kthxbai.

Gingko, or It Is What It Is

2009-08-14T14:03:00.006-04:00

It's finished! I finally designed the two bookend pieces of Gingko and stitched them. I'll take it to the framer tomorrow morning.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I'm not so happy with the photo, though. The fabric color is just not right. It should be a lovely yellow. Eh. I'm hoping that when it's stretched, framed, and devoid of all the wrinkles and shadows, I'll be able to get more accurate color.

Now all I have to do is finish the chart. Donna LaBranche (needleworker not in paradise) came up with the blackwork fills over a year ago, so yesterday we figured out which ones they were and for which leaf, not as easy as it might sound. Donna also stitched the center panel.

kthxbai.

Plan? What Plan?

2009-08-03T13:27:00.007-04:00

Today's plan was simple. Sit down at the computer and finish the inventory needs assessment for making the transition to the Scarlet Thread online store. How hard could it be?

Well, I got Excel started up but haven't opened the document yet.

I had such good intentions, but first I had to check my e-mail and various Internet sites. That done, I remembered, as the window AC unit cycled up, that I have to get that window replaced ASAP, as the recent rainy days have revealed that my stop-gap measure to prevent leakage did not work. The wall's so wet underneath that I pushed a nice quarter-sized hole completely through the plaster/wallboard/whatever-it-is-that-isn't-drywall-as-we-know-it-today. It's a very nice, round hole and would make a perfect peephole if you wanted to peer into that space between the wall and the exterior wall, which is very dark btw. When my friend Steve, the painter, came over yesterday to check it out while it was raining, the paint peeled right off and the water dripped right down the wall. Gah!

So I found the number of the window-replacement place recommended by someone in the neighborhood and called to see how long it would take to get a new custom window installed. Because the house, being built in the mid-1940s, has no standard-size anything. Unfortunately, I'm faced with the same response from this window company as the original one I contacted — the one that replaced all the other windows in the house a dozen or so years ago — I can't put the window AC back in a new-style window. So that sucks.

Let's see. We're now entering what is fondly called the "dog days" of August. Oh joy! One of the hottest times of the year, and I'm looking at the very real possibility of no AC. I can only hope that the uncharacteristically mild summer will continue and not revert to the norm. I don't do well in the heat and humidity we all know so well in the DC metro area.

So what are the alternatives to a window AC? I could go with a portable unit, but that is both unsightly (has an exhaust duct that must be vented to the outside) and more inefficient than the window unit. Scratch that idea. Central AC is out of the question both economically and physically. My house is very small. My heating system is the old-fashioned boiler with radiators. No ductwork and way more construction than I care to do to install the requisite ductwork.

Last choice: the split ductless AC system. I'm not sure whether it's really less expensive than a central system, but my impression is that it is. It's installed at ceiling level and the works are primarily on the outside of the house. I really only need it on the ground floor. I have a window unit in the upstairs bedroom.

So I call the HVAC company that services my boiler. I seem to recall that the service technician mentioned this system as a possibility a few years ago. Hallelujah! They can send someone out to give an estimate this afternoon, and if it's doable, it can be done by the end of next week. I'll just seal up the window, put a screen in front of it to hide it, and wait for a new window at the end of the summer.

I mean, how hard can it be?

kthxbai.

It's Finally Finished!

2009-07-29T11:19:00.010-04:00

After a concerted, dedicated push, I finally finished stitching Morning Glory. Hallelujah! I was beginning to think I was stuck in a loop and would never put in the last stitch. I'm pleased with the way it came out; I really wasn't sure until I got down to the bottom right corner that was all one color (and extremely tedious to stitch). Without further ado, here it is!

The central image, the actual flower, is stitched in full cross stitches with two threads of overdyed cotton (Carrie's Creation Threads and Crescent Colours) over two threads. The background is stitched in half cross stitches with one thread of cotton (DMC, Anchor, and one Weeks Dye Works floss) over two threads. I used WDW 3550 Williamsburg Blue instead of DMC 310 Black for the darkest shadow. The black was just too harsh.

The fabric is 32-ct Silkweaver Silver Mist Belfast Linen. Even though there is technically no fabric unstitched in the design, I think using a single strand of floss in half stitches allows the fabric to add some depth that would have been missing if I used a solid white or off-white.

I don't think I'll be adding a border to this, but that may change. I'm going to mull it over for a while. I still have to show it to the Thursday morning stitching group. The Tuesday night group saw it almost completed with just a small trapezoidal shape unstitched in the bottom right corner. At that point, the possibility of a border was still on the shelf, not even on the back burner. I'm toying with putting a border all around that will allow the fabric to show a bit and suggest a lattice effect, but that may be a bit much.

This may be one that I frame without a mat because the fabric is so nice and could make a nice self-mat. I'll have to wait until I'm actually at the frame shop to see what Clive, the Brit, has to offer. Since I'm planning to give this to my sister for her birthday, I have to take her taste into consideration too.

kthxbai.

The UPS Man Cometh

2009-07-14T09:46:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, the UPS man delivered a large box to my door. Yippee! Inside were two Lowery Workstands, one for me and one for a customer. If you're not familiar with this floorstand, you're missing out on an elegantly simple tool. I don't know why I waited so long to get one for myself.

Here it is as assembled out of the box. There are three basic elements of the stand: the base, the post, and the arm.

The attachments include the daisy dish, which is optional and can be used to hold needles, tacks, tape measure, M&Ms, whatever your small stitching essentials may be, and the clamp, in this case a side clamp. They also make a corner clamp that is useful with stretcher bars and QSnaps, perhaps even large hoops. I like the side clamp because it's good for any type of frame.

The base of the stand allows for much flexibility in placement. It can slide under a chair and is especially nice if you like to sit in a recliner. I set it up in position by a recliner (not actually where I sit and stitch but good to illustrate).

The Lowery is simple to transport and can be packed in a suitcase easily when traveling by bus, train, or plane. (I don't recommend putting it in a carry-on to go through security though.) Simply remove the attachments and separate the three basic elements, and you have a fairly flat, compact package.

I'm so excited about having my own stand at last. I really want to just sit and stitch for a while, but the office beckons me to get back in there and make it functional instead of a file warehouse.

kthxbai.

How Do You Stitch Revisited

2009-07-12T15:09:00.002-04:00

When I do canvaswork or hand-painted canvas, I always use stretcher bars. Someone brought to my shop a canvas to be stretched and finished as a small (dollhouse) rug. Can you say "parallelogram"? There were no squared corners. Stretching it was a real challenge, and the person doing the stretching (my partner at the time) was heard to mutter some choice words about it. Every time she took out the pins, while it might have less acute angles, it would gravitate back to the original shape. I don't know how many times she had to pin, spray, dry, repeat. It never did get totally squared up, but it was a vast improvement. I have been told if one does basketweave instead of continental or tent stitch, there is less distortion. I'm not experienced enough to know. I just know that if you put your canvas on a frame, you can pretty much eliminate that skewed effect.

As far as I know, there are two basic frameworks to use: stretcher bars and scroll (or roller, as I've heard some people say) frames.

Stretcher bars are the simplest, least expensive way to go. You have to buy them in pairs to match your canvas size, put them together, square them up, then tack the canvas on, keeping it as taut as possible. A woman who worked for me for a while passed along a tip for squaring your stretcher bars: place the corner in the corner of a door frame and knock it to fit snugly. This assumes that your door frame is square, which it should be. There are two styles of stretcher bars, regular and mini. The difference is the thickness of the bar. The regular size is 3/4", and the mini, 1/2". I generally use the minis for canvases up to 12" or 13" max. I just don't think they're sturdy enough for the larger size canvas.

Having said that they are the simplest, least expensive way to go, I have to tell you about a very (relatively speaking) expensive type of stretcher bar that pays for itself over years and years of use: Evertite Stitchery Frames. These are made of a higher quality wood than the others and have the added advantage of being adjustable. Normally, as you work your piece, it will gradually loosen the tension, requiring untacking and retacking from time to time. The Evertite is made so that by using the "T Tool," you can tighten the tension without removing the canvas and retacking it. These stretchers are excellent for a piece that will be on the frame over an extended time. But from what I've seen, once you try them, you want them in all sizes for all of your projects. I haven't used them myself, but they never stayed in the shop for long.

As for scroll or roller frames, they're pretty much the same as those I talked about for counted thread and cross-stitch. Generally, you want to use the ones that are more heavy duty, with a diameter of perhaps 3/4".

I'm sure there are other ways to stitch canvas. These are what I've come across in my relatively recent foray into needlepoint and canvaswork. Please let me know of anything I've missed.

kthxbai.

A New Beginning

2009-07-04T11:34:00.002-04:00

Phew! Glad that's over. It's been an intense week or two. I finally got everything out of the shop on Wednesday at noon. Confession: I still haven't emptied the last load from my car. I have three pieces of furniture on my side porch, awaiting purchase, or carting away if it comes to that. My home office has a couple of paths among the boxes, to the phone and to the bathroom. The basement, oddly, isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Bags and bags of threads, boxes of patterns, baskets of fabric. Ack! Where to begin? I think the office, since I can't avoid seeing it every day. The basement? Out of sight, out of mind. Haha!

It was a real treat to go to the Tuesday night stitching group as just another stitcher. I did a little stitching, a little chatting, a little just sitting there enjoying the hubbub surrounding me. I had hoped to join some of the Thursday morning group at Panera but opted to visit my niece, back from Spain with family, including 8-month-old David whom we are just now meeting. Another confession: I also overslept Thursday morning and just couldn't get myself in gear till around 11 or 11:30. I'll be there this Thursday, though.

As for stitching, I'm ready to apply myself to those DIPs. I think I have a color change to make on the Morning Glory. There's a really vivid green in the background that looks out of place right now. I'm going to stitch a little more of the colors around it to see if it gets balanced out. If not, I'll be rippin'.

The Gingko, or It Is What It Is, is screaming at me from the recesses of my brain. There's not that much left. I just have to apply myself and chart those two little side pieces. How hard can it be?

kthxbai.

Don't cry for me, needlework goddess

2009-06-20T10:22:00.003-04:00

I really could use the sunshine, but the heavens seem determined to pour forth the rain. I'm hoping the momentary break in the rain means they're giving me a reprieve. Perhaps they were just weeping at the loss of yet another LNS and are done with that.

Okay. Enough with that indulgence. I'm sitting here getting ready to open the door for one last time and hoping I won't totally lose it too many times today. The stitching groups know my propensity to cry when overcome by emotion. Okay, I'm tearing up now. I better get it together and fling wide the gates. Okay, it's just a door.

Closing up my store. How hard can it be?

So how do you stitch?

2009-06-08T20:42:00.003-04:00

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in my soon-to-be-closed shop. Do you stitch in hand? With a hoop? Scrollframe? Stretcher bars? My answer: Almost all of the above. The only thing I don't do is stitch in hand. Too loosey-goosey for me. I need more structure and tension. Since I don't have to worry about sounding like I'm giving the hard sell here now, I'd like to expound on the various frames/hoops I have used.

First, my preferred frame is the Lapstitch Mini or Lapstitch Doodler, both manufactured by Images Stitchery Design. The two are variations on a basic design. I like it for two things: design and functionality. These frames are beautiful wooden standalone stitching frames. They're visually attractive, light-weight, and wonderful to handle. They are also easy to use. The scroll rods have a large fabric strip onto which you attach your fabric. You can baste it on by hand or by machine, thanks to the width of the strip. You can also just pin it on, which I have been known to do more often than not. Stitching is a better way of getting the tension even, but with enough pins, you can get even tension.

I love stitching at a table with this frame. It sits there oh so nicely all on its own, allowing two-handed stitching. I have a nice Daylight magnifier on a base that I can bend over the top, making it even more delightful. (I always, or almost always, use a magnifier. Why suffer for vanity's sake?) When I'm at home, sitting in my preferred spot at the left end of the sofa, where I have a side table on which sits my Daylight tabletop light and magnifier (in case I haven't said it before, Daylight is my favorite brand of light and magnifier for stitching), this frame works beautifully in my lap. I prop one end on the arm of the sofa and the other on my lap and stitch merrily along with both hands. Because the frame is so light, flipping it over to anchor threads is simple and not cumbersome.

Another frame that I like a lot but use less frequently because it isn't quite as self-sufficient, so to speak, is the Handi-Clamp scroll frame. This is a hybrid of the traditional scroll frame and the Q-Snap. Instead of the fabric strip on the rod, there is a clamp like the one used on Q-Snaps. So it combines the best features (to me) of both types of frame: no basting of fabric and easy movement within the piece being stitched. The main drawback with this frame is a functional one. You really need to have a lapstand or floorstand for it to be optimal. While it's possible to stitch without a stand, I find it more cumbersome and more likely to cause hand fatigue in my left hand (I'm right-handed). But if you already have a stand with a universal clamp, this is an excellent choice.

Since I mentioned Q-Snaps, I'll say a little about them. Not a frame that I go to first, second, or even third; but lots of people love this style. It's a four-sided frame, so you control the tension on all sides of your fabric. I find it hard to get my fabric lined up evenly (yes, I'm a tad anal about getting things aligned properly), which drives me nuts when preparing to stitch. Then, there are just a few sizes available, so sometimes you have to move the piece of fabric to get to the next section to be stitched. And you have to go through the whole alignment thing again. Not my cup of tea, but that's me.

Hoops are the most basic type of stitching frame to me. You can get tension all around the area to be stitched pretty easily and can align the fabric within it fairly well. The main drawbacks are hand fatigue and creases from the hoop. Creasing can be reduced (but not eliminated in my experience) by wrapping the bottom part with bias tape or, my preference, that rubbery mesh shelf liner you can get in the grocery store. You have to remove the hoop when you're done stitching to avoid really intense creasing, something I don't always remember to do. If you like hoops, though, my favorite is the Hardwicke Manor hoop. These beautiful wooden hoops feel great in your hand, so smooth. They tighten with a screw, and I highly recommend adding a small screwdriver to your stitching tools so that you can tighten the hoop properly. They're not cheap, but they'll last you a lifetime.

These stitching frames work well with counted thread and surface embroidery primarily, although I know needlepointers who use scrollframes. I'll talk about what I like to use for canvaswork next time, along with lapstands and floorstands.

kthxbai.

Random Thoughts and Stitch N' Pitch 2009

2009-05-25T09:45:00.003-04:00

I love my Tuesday night and Thursday morning stitching groups. They're such a diverse bunch of women, ranging in age from 28 (29?) to 81, who do all kinds of needlework. They do crewel, counted thread, charted canvaswork, painted canvas, punch needle, silk ribbon embroidery, surface embroidery. Have I forgotten anything? I don't know. This is what has so inspired me over the past three and a half years, the evolution of the groups and the stitchers who comprise them.

The Tuesday night group was the first, beginning with a few stitchers and gradually growing to the current group that fills the table and spills out into the rest of the room. Most of these women come in after working outside of the home all day, but several work at home, either as full-time moms or as self-employed entrepreneurs. They unwind, get rid of the stuff that builds up over the course of the day. So many conversations crossing and blending. And all the time, stitching. The "Ooh-Aah" times are great. Someone will stand up and start unfurling or unveiling her latest finish. Gasps, oohs and aahs, and applause follow. So much fun and support for each other. Consultations about whether a particular thread is working or should be replaced, whether a stitch is being done correctly, what's wrong and how can it be fixed. I've learned a lot just by listening to everything swirling around me. That is, when I get a chance to sit and stitch for a few minutes. There's also a lot of shopping going on some nights.

The Thursday morning group started in response to a request from a number of people for a daytime group. I can't remember how long it was, but I think it was at least for a year that the "group" consisted of me and Taryn, who came in from Bristow to stitch from 10:30 to noon, then eat lunch and head back in time to meet her kids after school. We had our favorite lunch from Jerry's Subs across the street. We were so regular, they recognized my voice and knew the order almost before I finished reciting it. Then other people started coming to join our intimate stitchfest. We now have the table filled and sometimes spilling out into the rest of the room. These are the women who keep their households running smoothly day in and day out. At times, they have been temporarily out of work, looking for a new job, and taking advantage of the opportunity to sit and stitch with a bunch of other stitchers. Sometimes there's a dose of healthy competition thrown in (who can finish a project first, with the inevitable result being Karla). And the finishes! EB brings in each wedding sampler as she finishes it, having set herself the task of completing nine crewel samplers for all of her grandchildren who are all in their 20s and will someday be getting married, she's sure. Karla puts us all to shame, seeming to bring in at least one or two finishes every week or so. They all finish much more than I do. I'm the queen of UFOs. Some things will be finished, but most of the things I start are destined to remain half-done.

An unexpected result of bringing all these women together, leading disparate lives, is the friendships that have sprung up and the consequent tremendous outpouring of support for the trials all of us experience from time to time. These women are fantastic! I feel so honored and blessed to have met them and to get to see them every week.

In the weeks since I announced that Scarlet Thread would be closing at the end of June, these women have worked diligently to find a place or places to continue meeting. It's wonderful and bittersweet. I was instrumental in getting these women together, and now the groups have taken on lives of their own and they're moving on, with or without me. Silly, I know, but I feel like a mother who's watching her children leave home. The house rules will no doubt change. The Tuesday night group will now have no one saying, "Okay, politics for 10 minutes, then that's it!" Boy, was the never-ending election season a tough one to get through without much commentary and discussion. But I prevailed! I have to admit, I sometimes was the one who broke the rule. I don't need to ask, how hard can it be to let go of these groups? It's incredibly hard!

If you don't have a stitching group like these, find one or start one! It's a marvelous thing. The stitching is the common thread that gives the group a focus. There's always that moment of silence that descends. That's when you know, everyone's counting, concentrating on the task in hand.

***

Saturday night was the annual Stitch N' Pitch event cosponsored by TNNA (The National Needlearts Assocation) and Major League Baseball, held at Nationals Park with the Washington Nationals hosting the Baltimore Orioles. I confess, I'm not a sports fan, so I had no problem sitting in the demonstration room, doing canvaswork and attempting to teach the occasional interested party how to do the continental stitch. Almost like the blind leading the blind, but I had slightly better eyesight.

It was fun catching up with my fellow members of MANRA, the Mid-Atlantic Needlework Retailers Association, which also includes local designers. This is a unique group in the world of local business. We all are competitors, but we organized for our mutual benefit. Anyone who has visited the needlework shops in the area knows each one has a different focus. There's overlap, of course, in the materials we sell, but that actually works to our advantage. If a customer needs a particular thread, fabric, embellishment, whatever, that I don't have and they can't wait for a special order, I can call one of the other shops that carries that product and get it from them.

TNNA was surprised when they first approached the metro DC region about the Stitch N' Pitch event. They didn't have to go hunt for all the shops and solicit volunteers. They had a ready-made group that was more than willing to join in this outreach effort. As far as I know, they still haven't encountered another group like ours anywhere else. (I could be wrong, but I prefer to think I'm right.)

Anyway, at the end of the third inning, the demonstration room was closed and we were free to watch the rest of the game, which was tied at that point. Don't ask me who won. I have no idea. My goal on leaving was to get a cheeseburger from Five Guys and go home. I think they were in the fifth or sixth inning by the time I got out of there. The most popular restaurant I encountered was Five Guys. The line was twice as long as at any of the other places I passed, and I had to go halfway around the stadium to get there. Since the line was so long, I struck up a conversation with the people around me, and eventually I had to admit that I wasn't there for the baseball but for the stitching. Of course, that prompted the woman I was behind to bring out the piece she was crocheting and add a few stitches to it. I'm not sure how impressed the two young men were who were behind us and had been talking with us. I think they were bemused.

kthxbai

What I learned last week

2009-05-18T16:38:00.005-04:00

Last Monday, I went to the doctor to see about changing the medication I take for colitis. It's very expensive and I always reach the cap on my prescription coverage a couple of months before the year is up. So we discussed the only option, evidently they're all expensive except for the one that kind of dropped out of favor in the 1990s, and its possible side-effects and decided I would try it out. I have never had an adverse reaction to any drug, and I've taken a lot of drugs over the course of 57 years for the various allergies, skin conditions, and maladies I've had.

I got up Wednesday morning and discovered that my hands and forearms were red, like a sunburn, and a little puffy. Drat, this must be the flushing he was talking about, I thought. I also had a slight headache, the other side-effect he mentioned, but since I'm subject to migraines and headaches in general, I didn't think too much of it. I e-mailed the doctor that I was stopping the medication, after only 5 or 6 tablets, and awaited a reply. Nothing came in all day, and when I got home, I was exhausted and my hands and arms seemed a bit worse than in the morning.

Thursday morning I got up to discover that the rash had spread up my arms and onto my torso with a little on my neck and very little on my face. Worse, though, my hands were so swollen I couldn't make a fist. This did not bode well for working at the shop, combined with my feeling of total exhaustion despite a full night's sleep. So I called the doctor's office to report these developments. After much back and forth with advice nurses in various departments, it was decided that I should not take either the old or the new medication until I talked to the prescribing doctor, should take Benadryl, and should take Tylenol. Great. I was out of both and could not imagine trying to drive in my condition. Plus I was not feeling all that well. I hadn't taken my temperature but was having chills.

Before calling on my sister for help, though, I had to try to get in touch with some of the people in the stitching group that would be convening shortly at the shop. Of course I didn't have the up-to-date mailing list at home, so I was only able to reach one person and leave word with another. They'd just have to call me to find out what was up when they got tired of waiting. So I called my sister, who went out to get the Benadryl and Tylenol. I took my temperature and discovered that I was running a fever over 100. Oh joy!

I finally got a call from the doctor that afternoon. After much repetition, I was able to get it through his head that I was having a rather serious adverse reaction and that I should stop taking the new medication. I reminded him that I had e-mailed him, telling him that I had stopped taking it Wednesday morning. The outcome of our conversation, go back to the old medication, continue with the Benadryl and Tylenol, and just wait for the rash to go away.

Saturday I got up, checked the redness in the facial area (not too horrible), got dressed and went in to the shop for the first time since Wednesday. My hands were still a bit puffy, so cutting fabric was a bit dicey. I wore a long-sleeved top and long pants so that no one would have to see the incredible redness that had taken over my body. Wearing clothes for the first time in a couple of days was a rather unpleasant, uncomfortable experience. I was so glad when I finally got home that night and could get back in my jammies.

On Sunday, my hands were finally pretty much back to their normal size with just a slight redness. The flushing was making its way over the rest of my body and gradually receding in much the same way it had built up. I felt almost human again. Today, it's limited to my lower calves.

Lesson learned: DO NOT TAKE SULFA DRUGS. I had never had any sulfa drugs prescribed before this, so I had no idea I was allergic to them. Gah!

I'm planning to finally get some stitching in tonight.

A Couple of DIPs and a WIP

2009-05-10T16:14:00.008-04:00

Here's a quick update on the Morning Glory. I've stitched a bit of the background and am liking it much better this time around.

I decided I should post what are slightly better images of the Gingko, It Is What It Is. I think these show the different blackwork leaves better.

When I learned of Jean Hilton's death, I was shocked and saddened. Such a loss. I've been very slowly working on Turnberry Ridge, trying to learn on my own some of her wonderful stitches. This is a wonderful pattern to learn while doing, as she intended. The instructions are great, and she gives a lot of additional stitches that aren't used in the piece itself. Here is my beginning, and please keep in mind that although it's not the first piece of canvaswork I've done, I'm still are rank amateur.

And so it begins

2009-05-02T20:05:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, I announced the final sale at Scarlet Thread. So begins the end of a brief chapter of my life. It's been a wonderful ride. I've met some of the nicest people I'll ever know, and I hope to continue to see them. Endings are never easy, and this is a particularly difficult one. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I close and lock the door for the last time at the end of June. I've got a couple of months to figure that out.

I mean, how hard can it be to reinvent myself once again?

kthxbai

It's a bargello thing

2009-04-26T14:32:00.006-04:00

Last June, at the TNNA Needlearts Convention in Columbus, I took a beginning bargello class with June McKnight. What a wonderful teacher! The idea was to learn the basics of bargello so I could help people who came in the shop and wanted to do bargello. Well, I learned the basics but that's as far as it got, my time limitations being what they are.

Later in the summer, I received an order of hand-painted canvases from the show that included a fun small piece of three chili peppers. The distributor sent me two instead of just the one I ordered, so I took this as a sign that I was to work the second one up as a model. As I pondered how to go about it (I'm not a traditional needlepointer, having had unsatisfying encounters with hand-painted canvas), it occurred to me that bargello might just be the perfect way to approach the peppers themselves. I picked a Caron Collection Waterlilies color that said "chili pepper" to me, then turned to Ms. McKnight's wonderful new book, "The Best Bargello Book," to search for a pattern that wasn't too advanced but would achieve the dimensional effect I was looking for.

I found one that looked promising, then proceeded to tweak it on a doodle cloth. It had to be proportional to the size of the peppers, which I found wasn't easy to perfect. But I finally found what appeared to work. And voila! I became a bargello fan. It's so much fun to stitch. As a cross-stitcher, I find the quickness of bargello stitching very satisfying. It's almost like instant gratification, but it does take more than a few minutes. Anyway, I was very pleased with the result and have received many compliments on this MIP, because of course, I've never gotten around to doing the background after completing the peppers.

I think I "finished" this sometime in early fall, right about the time that my sisters and I were making pilgrimages to our parents' home to divvy up the contents in preparation for selling it. My father was living with one of them here in Virginia, and there was no chance of his ever going back there to live. Among the furnishings were a number of small Victorian and similar side chairs. You know the type, with a small upholstered back and seat meant more for decoration than actual seating. The one I chose, ended up with, has an old-fashioned needlepoint design along with a matching footstool.

It fits in nicely in my guest room, which has my grandmother's antique bed and dresser. It's not the same style, but it works. (The room is sort of a reconstruction of the guest room in my parents' house. I had planned to move into this downstairs room and make the upstairs bedroom the guest room, but now that it's all in place, I don't know. It's kind of creepy.) Anyway, the footstool, which did have a lot of use, needs to be reupholstered. So I've decided to design a bargello piece for it. If it works out, then I'll adapt the design for the chair. I've got a number of books in the shop that I can use as references and resources in coming up with and executing it.

I guess I'll find out how hard it can be, won't I?

kthxbai

DIPs, Part 2

2009-04-17T11:20:00.000-04:00

My other design in progress is a blackwork piece, but it didn't start out as blackwork. It started out as a piece of fabric that needed a design.

When Lakeside Linens came out with the Lemon Ice color, I shook my head. It just didn't fit in. It was too bright. Then I and a customer decided we had to find a design that would work with that fabric. Every time she brought me a pattern and said, "This just may be the one," we optimistically and excitedly pulled the colors and did the floss toss. And every single time we were disappointed. Nothing seemed to really work with that yellow. So somehow I came to the decision that I'd just have to create a new design precisely for that fabric.

As I mulled the problem over in the farthest reaches of my brain, I turned to nature. What in the natural world would complement or be associated with that color? Then I had my light-bulb moment. A gingk0 leaf in autumn is very similar to that yellow. I love the shape of the gingko. Perfect!

After much research and trial and error, I came up with the concept. But it seemed awfully simple, a bit too basic for my taste, totally lacking in opportunities for the confetti that characterizes my designs. So naturally I turned to blackwork, a style of stitching that I find beautiful, elegant, deceptively simple looking. And one that I have absolutely no experience in doing. How was this going to work? I usually stitch my own models so that I can work out the colors and solve problems as they arise. There was no way I could stitch this model. But I blithely dove in and started working on it. I mean, how hard could it be to learn a little blackwork?

Ha! I was right. There was no way I could stitch this model. My lack of skill with the technique made it painfully clear that I was not the one to do it.

The second ah-ha moment. I could ask one of my customers who knew how to do blackwork. It wasn't a large design. How hard could it be if you knew what you were doing? So I asked Donna (needleworker not in paradise), who agreed! Problem solved.

I think Donna will readily admit that it wasn't as simple a design as I had thought. Well, my original concept was pretty simple. But we both decided that it was just too boring. So much for "how hard could it be?" I am indebted to Donna for figuring out the various blackwork patterns to use along with doing all the stitching. It's going to be a lovely piece. When it finally gets finished.

The last element I design for any piece is the border. Should there be one? Does it really need one? What kind of stitch should it be? Usually, by the time I finish stitching the main part of the pattern, I know what I want to do. Not this time. So Donna and I sat down to discuss it. She went home with a few ideas and proceeded to try to find the right stitch or combination of stitches that would put the finishing touch on this deceptively simple-looking gingko design. It couldn't be too elaborate, but it couldn't be too basic either.

This piece might be in limbo still (okay, it's more of in a holding pattern, waiting for its turn), were it not for a fresh pair of eyes looking at it one afternoon when Donna was tending to the shop while I was out. The third eureka moment came courtesy of Jill, who said, "Make this the center element of a triptych, then frame each piece and display it as a grouping." Perfect!

Wait a minute. That meant I'd have to design two side pieces, to which we all three responded, "How hard can it be?" And it truly won't be that hard. I know what I'm going to do. I have the elements I need. I just need a block of time to chart them and then stitch them. It will happen. After DIP #1 gets finished. (I'm pleased to report that the background is going well, and a little faster than expected.)

So here's DIP #2, the working (and probably final) title of which is, "It is what it is."

A note about the color in this photo. It's not very good.

kthxbai

The Perils of Having More Than One Computer

2009-04-16T22:36:00.002-04:00

I just finished writing about my other DIP and tried to upload the picture of the piece that I took in the shop the other day. There's just one small problem. It's on the computer in the shop, and I'm working on my laptop at home. I didn't think to e-mail it to myself before I left. Curses. This is the second time I started doing this at home and realized I didn't have the picture. Doh!

So I'll try to do it tomorrow at the shop if I have the time. And if I don't, maybe I'll remember to send myself the picture. That's just silly. It will take just as long to e-mail it to myself as it will to plug it into the post. I'll definitely do it tomorrow. How hard can it be?

kthxbai

DIPs

2009-04-08T16:11:00.011-04:00

I've been working on a couple of designs for the past year. Seems like forever, but it's only been a year. One, I've literally been working on. The other, I conceptualized but passed along to a model stitcher more experienced than I in the type of stitching it requires.

The one I've been laboring over is Morning Glory. This design falls in line with my usual style, up close and personal with a flower from my (or someone else's) garden. I took lots of my own pictures, looked at lots of my sister's pictures, decided on one, and can't remember whose it was. Eh. After charting it in Anchor floss, I decided to do the flower itself in overdyed cottons. I thought it might be interesting and perhaps a little less intense a stitching experience than the usual confetti I use to get the look I want. It's been a long process.

Here's my first go at it. I had gotten pretty far along when I discovered a mistake that couldn't stay and started the process of negative stitchery to reach the point where it could be corrected. (Pardon the wrinkles; it's been rolled/folded up for months.)

Along the way, I decided I didn't like the way the background was turning out. Not to mention, I kept finding bad things in the flower, wasn't feeling the way I'd been working the overdye, and was generally unhappy with the whole thing. Best to just start fresh than start to hate it. So I changed the fabric, tackled the focal image, and put the background on the back burner of my mind.

I recently finished the flower and am much happier with the result.

I know how I want to stitch the background now to achieve the soft, faded look I wanted but wasn't getting even though I had chosen washed-out colors to stitch it in. You can see, barely, where I've begun. Maybe it won't take me another year to finish stitching this.

It's interesting to see how the color differs in these two photos. I took both on the same day, in the same place, with the same settings, but the purples look different. Perhaps it's an optical effect created by the different colors of the fabric. All I know is, the same threads were used for both. Speaking of the threads, I found the range of purples in Anchor deficient, making the switch to overdyes even more important in the final analysis. Here are the original Anchor colors along with the overdyes from Carrie's Creation Threads and Crescent Colours.

The other design was inspired by a piece of Lakeside Linens & Designs fabric, Lemon Ice to be precise. I'll talk about that one the next time.

kthxbai

I love silk

2009-04-01T17:20:00.009-04:00

I recently received a skein of a new silk floss to play with. How delightful!

A little background. I've been carrying Carrie's Creation Threads in cotton for a year or more, ever since Tracy Horner of Ink Circles started using them in her patterns. The colors are so rich, and the price is so right: $1 for an 8-yard skein of overdyed DMC floss. I got just the threads for both colorways of Tracy's "I Still Do" and then decided I needed them all. They are wonderful to work with, but as with all overdyes these days, they vary from dye lot to dye lot. Whatever. I've come to terms with this and always encourage people to get perhaps one more skein than they think they'll need to be sure they don't run out and can't match the dye lot. I don't mind exchanging an unused skein occasionally. Not that anyone has ever returned an unused skein of Carrie's floss.

In February, Carrie introduced her 6-strand silk floss. At $2 for an 8-yard skein. OMG! She had a prerelease batch of Epiphany available to work the Ink Circles "Cirque des Carreaux." So I got it, to see what it was like. The color was gorgeous, just as rich as the cotton version, and not much different colorwise. You never know with silk vs. cotton how close the match will be. I sold a few patterns kitted up with the Carrie's and Lakeside Linens Vintage Tarnished Silver and waited for the reviews. Well, of course no one has started the piece yet. It's in their queue, and we know what can happen with that.

Jump to March. I decided to go ahead and get the newest colors of the cottons along with their corresponding silks, so I could do my comparison. Carrie asked if I wanted a skein to try out, so I could actually talk intelligently about it with my stitchers. What a concept! So I set about finding a pattern that would only need one skein of floss to complete. I found just the pattern, Tracy's "Pot Luck." One small problem. It calls for two skeins. Eh. So I decided to do it over one. It would be a good test of how well a single strand of the silk would cover on a 32-count Belfast.

You be the judge.

I think it's pretty good, and those who have seen it in real life agree.

I was dubious at the outset. Would I really enjoy working with this thread? I have to admit that I was afraid it would be like another inexpensive silk available online, Vikki Clayton's, which are pretty but which I didn't particularly enjoy working with. Carrie's has been a joy so far. (I know, I haven't gotten all that much done, and I've been working on this for a couple or three weeks. Shut up! Just because I own a shop, it doesn't mean I have any time to stitch.) My biggest fear was a knotting and static problem. The static is a slight problem with the full skein, but when I'm stitching and working with the individual strands, it's not. Go figure. (When I touched the first batch, one skein instantly flew apart in a fabulous display. Perhaps it was just having a bad day.) Knotting has not been an issue either. I'm sold.

I'm really excited that the color difference between the cottons and the silks seems minimal, based on the eight or so colors I got in. There are one or two where the intensity varies, but I think it's safe to make the color selection from the cottons I have in the shop and order the corresponding silks. This will be my approach as I gradually increase the inventory. (Gradually increasing it gives me time to find someplace to display it in my small shop, a very big problem right now.)

What do you think?

A skein of the cotton is on top of the silk in this picture. These are the remaining silks, btw. I've already sold out a few of the colors that came in.

I still have yet to hear from anyone about how they like working with it.

In case you're wondering, this is what "Pot Luck" looks like:

kthxbai

Best-Laid Plans

2009-03-29T09:46:00.008-04:00

This morning, I'm supposed to be stitching at Woodlawn, womaning the demonstration room along with a couple of women who teach at Scarlet Thread, are loyal customers, and are members of the Thursday morning stitching group. Instead, I'm sticking close to home, a bit under the weather, and hoping to be able to get over there later this morning or early in the afternoon. Ah well.

If you're in the greater-DC metro area or within a one- to two-hour drive away and haven't been to this year's Needlework Exhibition, you have a few more days to see it, Tuesday being the last day. I've been there twice now and have yet to actually get to walk around and savor the vast array of needlework on display. The variety of styles and techniques is wonderful and inspiring. It makes one want to venture beyond one's comfort zone, something the remedial stitcher never thinks twice about. I always find the show inspirational and challenging, and it seems most stitchers who attend do as well. I hope to get over there tomorrow, my day off, to go as a visitor, not as a participant, the only way I can hope to take a leisurely walk around. I haven't even seen all the pieces Scarlet Thread submitted for its customers yet, some of them prize-winners!

Yesterday was a fun day in the shop. Two women arrived within moments of each other, both of whom had been to Woodlawn earlier this month and picked up the Scarlet Thread flyer. They immediately started chatting and oohing and aahing about the models hanging in the gallery. I thought they must have known each other for ages from the way they were talking. But no, they'd just met. They were both so inspired by the canvaswork on exhibit at Woodlawn, something I am also consumed by these days. They wandered around together for a while, then diverged, occasionally calling each other to come look at something. One browsed for an hour or so, bought a bunch of patterns, threads, and a scroll-frame and departed with a promise to return when she had more time. The other proceeded to comb through everything in the shop. Methodically. Spending at least two hours, but I think more like three.

While she was poring over a stack of patterns she was considering at the worktable, in walked one of the area's premiere, award-winnning canvasworkers, who had just been to Woodlawn. He had also been in the shop just the day before. I said something like, "What are you doing here?" "I thought I might buy some stuff. That okay with you?" he retorted. I wandered back to see what he was up to. It seems his visit to Woodlawn had compelled him to come up with a new piece, perhaps to submit to next year's show. Like so many stitchers this past year, he hadn't been able to stitch as much as he'd liked and hadn't had a piece that he wanted to show. Overnight, he'd come up with a design concept and some ideas for colors. Let me tell you, I can't wait to see his progress on this piece. The color pallette is to die for, not to mention the rich variety of texture he's going to achieve with the different fibers he selected. I can say no more.

I took the opportunity to introduce the two of them when the woman started asking about changing the colorway of a canvaswork pattern she was considering. Yes, I could have answered her questions, but I love to watch and listen as two people who share nothing but a common interest in needlework launch into an animated discussion of color, texture, and design. This kind of spontaneous sharing is what makes a day in the shop successful. Well, that and a few sales, of course. I learn so much just by starting a dialogue, then sitting back and seeing where two or more stitchers will take it.

kthxbai.

Just who is this remedial stitcher?

2009-03-25T23:19:00.003-04:00

Oh, hai. I guess you're wondering why anyone would refer to herself as a remedial stitcher. Or maybe not. Let me shed a little light on that, in any case.

I'm a late bloomer when it comes to needlework. I did a few random pieces in my youth, but I never really got hooked. It wasn't until my daughter attended the Nelly's Needlers summer youth camp at Woodlawn Plantation in Alexandria, VA, that I got back to doing cross-stitch. What a great way to relax! How soothing!

I worked several projects, beginning with a ballet bag that had a simple band to be stitched that Jane had started and abandoned. I tried surface embroidery, completing a lovely floral bouquet that I had made into a pillow for my mother (note the words "had made," not "made"). This was not really my cup of tea, however, so I went back to cross-stitch. I found a funky, blue cat's head that I did for a friend and then rather naively moved on to a Mirabilia fairy. What an eye-opener! When I finished that and had it made into a pillow for Jane, I announced that I'd "done my Mirabilia." There was no need for me to revisit that type of design.

Then I came to a screeching halt. I couldn't find anything that stimulated me, that I wanted to spend my valuable free time on. Bummer. What a world, what a world. I had been hoodwinked; I had the compulsion but could find nothing to stitch. Woe was me!

Well, I could have continued in that vein, bemoaning the lack of enticing patterns, and I did for a little while. Then I had the proverbial ah-ha moment. What an idiot I was! A graphic designer who couldn't find something to stitch. Surely I could design something myself. I mean, how hard could it be? Consulting and collaborating with a friend, I conceived what ultimately became Merrey Design, my cross-stitch design brand.

A few years along, as I was gaining more confidence in my stitching and designing, I was faced with a devastating prospect. My supply source was about to disappear. Yes, I know, the loss of a local needlework shop doesn't mean the end of cross-stitch supplies; there are other ways to feed the habit. But it was very important to me as a designer to be able to go into a store, pull the floss, find the linen, see how the colors looked together, and ask the shopowner what she thought. Michael's just didn't cut it. Okay. So now what was I going to do? Maybe I'd just buy the shop. I mean, I was pretty burned out on graphic design. How hard could it be to run a retail store?

Do you see a pattern here? This is where the "remedial" part comes in. I'm great at jumping in with both feet without making sure I have all the knowledge I might need to succeed at my latest venture. So I have to backtrack a bit and ferret out that necessary information, develop that skill, whatever is required. Owning a retail embroidery supplies shop opened up a whole new world of stitching and materials that I never really knew existed.

So while I still love counted cross-stitch, the paint-by-numbers form of needlework, I'm back in class again, learning about all these things I'm selling and wanting to work all the patterns and use all the materials myself. All the fibers I wasn't aware of, having only ever used DMC cotton floss. The gorgeous linens in such beautiful colors, with so much depth and such a wonderful hand. Not to mention canvaswork, a totally new concept for me, having only had experience with the preworked needlepoint of old, on which you simply stitched the background and then pronounced it your work. Yawn!

That's where this blog fits in. I've been exploring new techniques and materials, so much so that I think I'm the queen of MIPs, models in progress. Come by the shop when you're in Great Falls, VA, and you'll see what I mean. I'd like to share my discoveries with other like-minded people. I'm lucky to have easy access to almost anything I want to try out, and I'm happy to pass along what I learn, both good and bad, with the understanding that all of this is totally subjective.

I mean, how hard can it be to keep up with a weekly blog?

Kthxbai.