I have been working on a small tapestry project from the American Needlepoint Guild magazine that will be made up into an evening bag when it is finished. It is a bargello project using a range of black threads, with the only colour being a Frosty Rays blue. It is done on a black 18pt canvas and it is sitting on my new embroidery stand - which I love. I have made a lot more progress since I've had the new stand. Having both of my hands free while stitching makes the work go faster and improves the quality of stitching.
This project uses 9 different black threads - most have some kind of shiny, metallic reflective quality to them. The most reflective thread is actually the black patent leather. And as mentioned only one thread with a touch of colour (blue). The designer Toni Gerdes said that she wanted to 'design a purse that was done entirely in stitching but still had the elegance of a beaded evening bag'. Her pattern can be found in this edition of Needle Pointers.
The article in Needle pointers was quite interesting about the history of this type of stitching. Although referred to as Bargello - it is more precisely called the Florentine stitch, which is a series of straight stitches, all of the same length. Hungarian point is a type of Florentine stitch that uses varying lengths for the straight stitches - if you search images of "flame stitch" you'll find some pretty amazing examples of this pattern; stitching, upholstery, clothing, glass ware. Some hideous, some beautiful and a few quite collectible. I had a bit of a wanty want moment with some of the search term objects.
And while I quite enjoy a bit of historical detail, I'm sure that it is completely irrelevant that this type of geometric stitching that we refer to as Bargello, is actually the name of a building in Florence. The building, is now a museum but given it's been around since the Middle Ages, it has had a number of uses, one of which was a jail. So..the word bargello means a "head of police". You can't find that in a dictionary now though. A google search will tell you that it is a type of geometric stitching. And that this pattern is a pomegranate.
When I started this project I set myself some self-imposed deadlines. I wanted to finish it in three years. So, I marked off what I thought were three reasonable looking sections of the tapestry.
I started stitching in April 2011 so those of you good at maths have probably jumped ahead and worked out a year has nearly passed.
The marker line is on the right hand side of the tapestry. It is a bit of red Kreinik metallic thread sewn into the tapestry. I work by stitching back and forth from top to bottom. I don't do what many creative tapestry stitchers do, which is put in all of one type of stitch (say all the background) and then move on to another type of stitch.
Instead I started with the cuff and then had to put that aside while I waited for some replacement thread to arrive. I moved on and have now stitched the garland, the bricks, the red bows, the window glass, the window supports, the tree, the clown, the bear and santa's hat.
I'm just learning how to use a free online photo editing package and so apologies for the blurry words but here's my attempt at showing you that I am really...quite....close...to...achieving my goal.
In the few centimetres of this stocking that is in view, I have used a huge range of threads completely new to me: Nordic gold, Daisies, Neon Rays, Flair, Ribbon Floss, Burmilana, Splendor, Petite Peluche, Grandeur, Tulips and Felicity's Garden. I can understand now why Mary Corbet asked us "are you an accessories advocate, fabric fanatic of thread junkie?" She self-identifies as a thread junkie and now, having worked slightly less than one third of this canvas and come across so many new and interesting threads, I can fully understand how someone in the needlepoint world could become fascinated by all the variety of threads on offer.
As I work through this project, I've also been so impressed with the skill in putting stitches and threads together to create a pleasing and beautiful composition. This is only my second creative tapestry so I am very new to this pursuit. I could see how after having done a few of these kits and stitch guides, one could begin to branch out and plan or design your own guide for a set canvas. All for another day though. For now, I am happy working through this lovely canvas and all the new-to-me stitches and threads.
As with my earlier story on the Floral Glove Needlecase, I have for show and tell: the kit, the frame, the linen for the embroidery piece, some examples of historical research, and a glance at the pattern of the Nightcap.
I am unsure when I'll start work on these pieces, but as I mentioned in my previous post, sometimes things move you and you have to jump in. I do understand that people like myself have to keep an eye on just starting things, or signing up to projects and then putting them in the cupboard. I am hoping that life can be full of wild abandon and focused discipline.
I know that it might be a long stretch to say that my comfortable suburban life, in a small regional centre, in an affluent democratic country, has many instances of wild abandon. It is also equally true to question whether I have many examples of focused discipline in my life. Just last night, I sat up way past midnight brooding about my internal struggles with a workplace gone awry, drinking red wine and very, very slowly stitching a gift for a person of generous nature. That is, I'm making a gift for someone who was very kind to me last year when I was grieving. Not sure what part of that behaviour was disciplined.
I think though, that one of the appealing features of these two projects (Floral Glove and Glittering Gentleman's Nightcap) was that there was something a bit obsessive about them. The documentation that comes with this course is intense in its detail and thoroughness. I'm not sure I want nor need to read every word, but I am curious enough to tangle with it somewhat. I am sure I can learn a great deal about historical embroidery and elite material culture from this research.
Long before I became a social researcher, I studied history at Sydney University and for many years after starting full-time work, I thought about researching or writing a history as a part-time or additional activity. That thought persisted for quite awhile but eventually love and marriage and children became my primary attention grabbers. When I now read these research pieces on historical embroidery, I am curious about the history of the embroidery but feel something is missing. I want to go back to the lives of these people and find out who wore the cap, and when did he wear such a garment? Would the gentleman have worn it before bed or in bed or both? Was it comfortable to wear? It is heavily embroidered and therefore might be a bit lumpy on your head. Was it the kind of thing you could wear in polite company? Just with your family present in the home or could you wear it in the presence of guests and visitors? I do think those English houses were cold. You would need a nightcap.
My house is lovely and warm. Toasty, comfy heating roars into action on a thermostatic setting, at set times of the day and week. I am no spartan. I know some Canberrans don't let their heaters come on until later in the year - but not me. I also know that my life is very different to the life of the person who wore a glittering nightcap.
I have been reading embroidery blogs for a few years now. At some stage I came across a story that started seeping into my consciousness. A story about a jacket. At first I was just aware of the story. Then slowly I began hearing more and more about it from a few different angles. Eventually, the drips of information built up and I had a whole pond full of images and details that I was swimming around in. It began to look very enticing and resulted in me diving in.
Years ago, in 1986, I spent a year living and working in Boston. Having been born on an island in the Caribbean and then growing up on the beautifully warm coast of Sydney, Australia, I learnt to swim from a young age and really can swim quite well. Not everyone in Boston can swim really well. They have long winters, short summers and not many readily accessible beaches. So, I was with some American friends and we went to Walden Pond for the day. Someone mentioned how difficult and dangerous it was to swim across the pond and being a bit feisty I took one look at it and thought 'that's nothing, I've been swimming in the ocean all my life, how hard can this be?'. I was probably even foolish enough to say something like that. Anyway, I dove in and swam across the Walden Pond (think Thoreau - living simply in the woods at Walden Pond) and to cap it off, I swam right back. Naturally enough, I was right. It wasn't actually hard. But somehow my friends' reactions kind of ensured that I would forever retain this in my memory - their surprise : my brash confidence. No harm was done. I was well and fit and it was an easy swim for me. They were gracious and congratulatory but on some level I felt foolish. I was showing off a skill from another environment. Perhaps it was just the 'showing off' that I think about still, all these years later. Anyway, I don't think I'll be showing off anything anytime soon but I do feel perhaps I've been a little foolish.
I want to show you why though, so you can understand.
This, which you see before you, is the Floral Glove Needlecase kit.
And this is the jacket. If you like embroidery, please do take a moment to have a look at this.
But really this is the exciting video below. The one where the designers and some of the stitchers first saw the partially completed jacket on Faith, their model. The jacket doesn't yet have the finishing touches, but it is sewn together and you can see it sparkle and glitter.
This embroidered jacket was an exciting and creative and collaborative project that involved hundreds of people. It was very attractive to me on many levels. The history, the research, the desire to understand the past by thorough attention to detail, by immersion in the style and materials and techniques of the past. The desire to understand the women who have gone before us. Not that I ever would or could identify with an elite, but it is no trouble to try and understand and explore beauty.
I wanted to explore my connection to Boston again. I also wanted to take some small part of that excitement and commitment to the past and bring it into my own home.
It is no small endeavour - that what I have undertaken. Three study courses, a whole new style of embroidery, the re-creation of historical pieces of embroidery. It has required me to invest in a new embroidery floor stand and new embroidery frames. My tapestry floor stands (all three of them) were not able to adapt to this style of embroidery frame. After much reading, I was aware that I would probably need a 'slate' frame for this style of embroidery. Some online reviewers introduced me to a type of frame that performs like a 'slate' frame but has the advantage of being easier and quicker to set up. Anyway, Santa was very kind to me and the floor stand and two embroidery frames appeared, if not exactly under the tree, within proximity of the tree. The bearded gentleman then put the frames and floor stand together for me. Seen here is the floor stand.
And here below is an old thread painting embroidery of Tanja Berlin's that I completed a few years ago but haven't yet taken off the frame. It is about the same size as the linen for the Floral Glove Needlecase.
As you can see here, I have draped the Floral Glove Needlecase linen over the frame. I think it will work perfectly. I just need to find a way to finish off the pansy and then I can have the frame for this new project.
Tricia Nguyen, who runs the Thistle Threads business and teaches the online courses, is an engineer who attended MIT (as did my father, many, many years ago). Being an academic, and very passionate about historical embroidery, when you do one of her courses, she presents you with pages and pages of instructions and historical research. I have started two folders per course. One for the instructions and one for the history. Course notes and historical information are sent every month, for the duration of the course. Some courses are reasonably short - say 6 months, some longer - 18 months.
I haven't yet made a start on any one of the new courses I've signed up for but I have diligently gathered all my materials, filed all my instructions and once I've sorted out the pansy and found a finished home for it, I'll be ready to start the Floral Glove.
After a long break over summer, my tapestry group started back in February. I began this smaller project, Tim's Christmas stocking, so that I'd have something to take along to my class. I didn't really want to lug around that monster Baxtergraphix Ferry every month. In December 2011, I had come to a halt on this tapestry because I'd run out of one of the metallic threads. After some research, I'd decided to order from an Australian embroidery store, but on-line. I was a bit surprised that my order of thread hadn't arrived by early February, so I've had to stop working on the cuff and move onto the pretty picture. If I'd known it would take so long for the embroidery thread to arrive from Melbourne, I might have ordered from overseas. I'm sure I would have it by now if I'd ordered from overseas, I just wanted to try and support local business.
Because of the type of technique I use, the dangling threads from the unfinished section at the top has been quite distracting to try and stitch around. I'll be glad when my order finally arrives and I can finish off the top section.
It has been interesting though from a stiching point of view, to move onto the new threads and the new stitches. I've been using brick stitch (for the bricks!), continental for the mortar on the bricks, as well as the snow on the bricks and the garland, and for the shiny red bows. Then I've used interlocking gobelin for the green pine fronds of the garland. And finally, mosaic stitch on the frame of the window. It keeps it interesting as I stitch back and forth, to be constantly changing styles and threads.
But best of all has been the wonderful new threads I'm playing with. My favourite has been the variegated dyed threads used for the bricks and for the pine garland. The thread on the pine garland is Caron Impressions, no 83 Pine Forest. It is 50% silk, 50% wool and it stitches beautifully. The colours blend from greeny-blue, to a muted darker green. I like the look of the Kreinik metallics but dont really like stitching with them. They are stiff to work with but this Caron Impressions is lovely and soft.
Alice Starmore's Oregon Vest kept me company through the final week of the Australian Open (tennis, Australian summer, family habit, two weeks in January, usually hot, hot, hot, but this year not, not, not). You know I am in blog posting catch-up mode. I'm hoping that it wont seem so strange referring to an event long since gone. How was that open though? That men's final. I was in favour of Nadal but really this year's tennis was designed for obsessive people who enjoy sitting still and doing things with their hands - me. I got lots of knitting done while those mad men tried to beat each other, their own demons, win the crowd, grab our attention, impress us with feats of endurance and courage, keep us from our beds - all achieved.
I did discover while I was knitting that (one) I'd been joining in my yarn at the steeks incorrectly and (two) I needed to improve my tension. On the first point, in my defence, I had started off correctly. You are meant to get half way across the steek and then start the new colour. For the first few rows I did this. Then I lost the plot and started joining in the new yarn at the beginning of the steek. I'm not sure how I detected this error, but I've read the instructions again and now I'm back on track. Yarn joined in middle of steek - don't forget.
On the second point, these photos aren't really giving up any secrets but I can point out to you, my reader, that I was carrying the wool at the back a bit tightly. I've made a conscious effort to loosen up. I'm a reasonably tight knitter, which doesn't usually cause me any trouble but with fair isle it seems the key is to be even and loose. I'm working on it. Even and loose. Not odd and tight. Who would like that - odd and tight? Sounds awful.
Strange to knit in summer but I found it easier to knit than to embroider. I can knit without watching my hands and there's a rhythmic nature to knitting that lends itself to long stints and for keeping your eye on the tennis ball (and the crazy young men battling it out until way past midnight).
In early January I did a bit more work on the Celtic Bird Cross Stitch Scissors Keep. Then we went away for a family holiday. On return from that holiday, I went back to a very busy work schedule and the children started a Music Holiday program, then did a week's worth of acting, then had time at home with Dad, then school went back, and finally, after a long summer holiday, I find myself back in the school routine.
I'm conscious that I haven't posted to either of my blogs during this period. So, there will be catch-up posts here and on the gardening blog...sorry. I know from reading other blogs that I enjoy following along as people's ideas, creative projects and lives unfold. There is a sense that I'm sharing with these creative adventures as they are presented into the blog world. Well, given all the catch-up posts, you may get a sense that projects are on fast-forward around here...like David Attenborough's Life of Plants. Plants grow too slowly for standard television viewing and so their lives and growth patterns were filmed in real time and then ....fast forward and we could see that Blackberry vine tapping out a place to put down its next frond. Fascinating. Watching a plant move and make choices. Anyway...back to cross stitch. As I do so many projects (gulp and I've signed up to a couple more), and many of them are slow, labour-intensive projects, it probably wouldn't do any harm to present them on fast forward.
I've finished the stitching and now just need to sew it up and put the tassel on.
Here's the little piece of Aida ironed. I felt a bit annoyed with myself on this tiny project. I didn't absorb the instructions very well and so missed the fact that the back stitching should have been done one square at a time. Instead, I did a more free-form back stitch. Some of them are long, some are short. I wouldn't do that again. I'd go for the neater, one square at a time stitch. But, time waits for no stitcher and so I'll live with this, sew it up and call it done.
All over the world, people are packing up Christmas and putting it away in boxes. Next year, we'll do it all again; the unpacking, the decorating, the plans, lists, parties, shopping, wrapping, carols, moments of heart stopping beauty and tiredness, all wrapped up in string. I too am packing up. I generally try and get through to the Epiphany before I pack up, but this year we've got a few things on and it kind of suits me to pull down early.
I worked on my Fat Red Santas on-and-off through 2011, all year. Sometimes I sewed them at night but mostly I sewed them at Piano lessons. God, I love Piano lessons. The teacher is wonderful. I love listening to the children grow in their musicality. It's lovely having music in the house that comes from real instruments. But in all honesty, it is an hour at the end of a long week of working, where I get to sit in the Piano teacher's studio, listen to music and sew. One hour a week and I can embroider and sew 2 felt Christmas ornaments.
Before I pack these chubby felty guys away, I thought I'd show you the family resemblance. Folky guys were done first, finished in October 2010 and hung on the 'good tree'. This year we had the 'bad tree' and lessons have been learnt. No more Scout trees from Bunnings. Next year we're going to a 'good tree' source. There have been family conversations. Other people's trees were scrutinised. Enquiries have been made. Googling has happened. It has been resolved. Now if only we can remember all of this in 12-months time. Sheesh.
As you know, I have three tapestries on frames in various states of progress: The ferry, Tim's christmas stocking, and my cat tapestry. As these projects are going to take me years to finish, I just wanted to grab this moment to show you some tapestries that I have completed. I don't have many visual clues around my house that I have completed any tapestry projects. I gave the flannel flowers to my mother-in-law and these two tapestry Christmas stockings spend most of their life in a box stored away, waiting for a few short weeks to be displayed. So, I kind of feel it's OK to show you something completed years and years ago.
I gave quite an involved description of the history of these stockings in this old post so I wont bother repeating it here.
Merry Christmas to you all and to all a happy 'twelve days of Christmas'. It seems that long-ago tradition determined that the days after Christmas should be ones of festivities and socialising. The weeks leading up to Christmas were meant to be times of quiet reflection and preparation (advent was meant to be like lent). Somehow as a society, we inverted that and made the weeks leading up to Christmas the weeks of celebrations and spreading good cheer. As a family we had 14 Christmas events and I personally, as chief-family introvert, had seven Christmas events to attend in the weeks leading up to Christmas - parties we gave, parties we attended through friends, work colleagues, groups we belong to. It's a fair amount of cheer for anyone, let alone talkative introverts like myself.
This year after Christmas we have been allowed, through extended family circumstances, to have a quiet time at home. Usually, we pack up on Boxing day and head off to socialise for 4-5 days with my wider family. While I miss not seeing my big and funny and boisterous family this year, I have savoured this quiet time here at home. Much organisation and projects and resting has taken place. As you know, this year rocked with achievements so it has been nice to calm the boat for a few days. I was given a set of Frozen Planet DVDs for Christmas and we've really enjoyed orcas, penguins, wind, ice and funnily enough listening to the children say 'that's amazing! It looks just like CGI'.
I have lots and lots of creative posts to share - and gardening posts for those interested in apples and potatoes. Santa was generous to us crafty ones. And nature has been abundant with water to the garden, though parsimonious with the warmth - so a bit of mixed blessing for amateur farmer/gardeners. But lots to tell, once I get around to writing and posting.
For now, take a look at the progress on the cross stitch scissors keep. I'm trying to finish it off so there's room at the inn for some glorious embroidery projects. I'll tell you all about them and the creative cornucopia found around and under Christmas trees. Later. First, more rest to be had.
