STITCH EXPLORE 09: MAY - NEEDLEWEAVING

If you refer to my previous post further down the page, you'll see that I completed the design I began with work in casalguidi. Here I've put the spin on it so you can see it in different rotations. Funny, while working on it, I thought the correct orientation had the two butterflies on the left, but I think I like it best with the butterflies at 12:00. The words are important only in that they indicate the months of the stitch exploration, although I did wrap "MAY".

I used two shades of Watercolours, regular cotton floss, and perle cottons in #5, #10 and #12.

The wheel began as a circle stitched with knotted buttonhole with spokes added evenly spaced from the center. I worked detached buttonhole around the inside of the circle and making a crescent shape on one side. From the center of the circle I wove with the same perle as the spokes, followed by two rows with watercolours. Next I wove three spokes together, then two sets of two wrapped spokes, 2 individually wrapped spokes, and finally two more spokes wrapped together that look like a continuation of the first three spokes. Five spokes remain bare but with the illusion of looking different lengths.

The first arc from the wheel has a foundation of parallel lines of backstitch (Watercolours). I used perle to wrap the two lines with a loop effect. The next arc begins with a line of barred chain, over which I worked surface coral stitch, knotting each of the underlying bars. Later I extended the line with regular coral stitch. The short arc is simply two rows of running stitch with the "bars" alternating. Then a second thread is woven .

I thought I was finished until I saw Sharon B's recent tutorial on weaving a picot and I had to try it right then. The closest stitchable thing was my April-May sampler segment. Cool. I thought I'd be stitching a cluster of leaves, but the angle of my second picot made me think of wings. I made two more and judged these butterfly/moth thingies deserved to stay on my doodle design by merit of their spontaneity and because they verify my use of words (remember, MAY is comprised of wrapped straight stitches). A few more fillers : tied crosses, French knots, eyelets.

Stitch Explore 09 - April: Casalguidi

Here is my effort at Casalguidi. It is just a sampling of some of the raised and pulled stitches. I enjoyed these and will probably add more. I went to a linen fabric for the pulled work, and it was a refreshing change from the red, white and blue on gray I had been using. Here, too, is proof that I do use a hoop on occasion.

I'm not certain, but the fabric may be Dublin. I began the long, meandering line by couching down a cotton yarn. I satin stitched over it with #8 perle, then did the over stitching with Caron Watercolours. Then I made more lines with buttonhole bars and detached buttonhole. I used plain buttonhole to stay stitch consistent and for flat contrast. I worked a few bullion knots because they were mentioned and because they are such fun to do. ;-)

For the pulled stitches I used #12 perle and worked part of the pattern provided in Carol's pulled stitch tutorial. From her whitework lessons I tried, I'm not sure how successfully, to make faggots with a #5 perle. These showed up better than the stitches done with #12. I think #8 or #10 would have been better choices; I didn't have any on hand but a few that would color clash.

You realize the above is just doodling. I'm sure there are many ways to vary these stitches . The whole time I was thinking how I might distort or make the stitches irregular, so I have some ideas I'll save for another playtime session.

Stitch Exploration 09: March - Assisi

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The rose to the left is from an internet pattern. I just used part of it to get a feel for the stitch. I've done cross stitch , and although I know Assisi work in principle, I've never stitched it.

I have trouble recognizing negative space, so I was relieved to learn I could outline before working the background if I wanted. Next I had to figure out what to use as a design. I couldn't get past the association of St. Francis whenever I tried to think Assisi .

I wanted some color for the background but didn't have the ambition or time to attempt an outdoor scene. I went for a stained glass look , contemporary, with a hint of a cross and just the suggestion of a church window. Most of the background filler is cross stitch done with single strands of cotton floss. As you can see I ran out of fabric length.

SPIRAL TRELLIS - February Stitch Exploration 09

The stitch for February's Exploration 09 is the Spiral Trellis. If you clicked on the second link you would see how beautiful and perfect are Sharon B's examples. I have not yet reached that level of expertise, but I like the stitch and plan to attempt more experiments.

The link I just mentioned directed me to 3 excellent tutorials. Still I had trouble in the beginning. As with most knotted stitches it takes me awhile to get thread wrap right. My first attempt was actually the plain trellis stitch that is worked back and forth in rows, whereas this trellis is worked continuously so a spiralling line of knots results. I looks very much like beading. After frogging my rectangular trellis fill, I went straight for a heart shape in spiral. I should have known better!

A & B are built up too high before decreasing, and the stitching lines aren't flowing. In B in used a chain stitch foundation, an I idea I read about on Elizabeth M's blog Quieter Moments. Elizabeth thoroughly researches stitches and is gracious to share her experiments. Trust me, Elizabeth can find the ultimate innovations possible in a stitch, and not only that, her needlework is supurb. Back to the doodle rag, my use of the chain ( I later learned from Elizabeth she used a reverse chain) was so I could add embellishing stitches to fancy up the dimensional heart. I was thinking of a lacy valentine. I forget what I had in mind adding a second row of backstitching around C. When I remember, I'll get back to it. I did make a heart, but it's sloppy . For D, I switched to a #3 pearl hoping it would help me see the knots and bars better. You can see it didn't work for me. I had a sloppy lacy top (I wasn't going for "lacy"), I lost the heart outline, and I still couldn't wrangle those knots into flowing lines. Didn't get better with E when I returned to #5 pearl.

Here is a continuation of the sampler I began last month. My designs are a little large to cover up the linty cloth underneath. I stitched a number of figures and ripped them all out , even though one of them was quite interesting. I wanted to see if I made an s-line into a snaky shape, could I build it up to create a third dimension. Answer, absolutely! Unfortunately it was weird looking. After building up the sides and finally drawing them together in a single line of knots, I had a leech! I would have saved it as a curiosity on my sampler had I not realized I needled in all the way around instead of needling out.

While the cloth still held together I went where I should have in the first place -- to a circle. I'm glad I went with the overlapping circle design because it gave me the opportunity to try for variation. I began with the navy circle and finally got the lines to spiral nicely. If I'd stuffed it, it would be a dome, but I let mine peak slightly so it actually resembles a Chinese hat. The light blue area is actually a partial circle, but I was still able to achieve the swirl by ending at one side and bringing the thread up again at the beginning. The partially eclipsed circle with the stripes was constructed exactly like the light blue one.

You can see I finally got a heart filled in. I'm not completely happy with the way the swirling knots come together in the center, but it's a start. On the other hand, I am very pleased with my 4-color spiral.

CHICKEN SCRATCH

This is the beginning of a sampler for Stitch Explorations 2009, a challenge in stitching techniques from Sharon Boggan. January's study is Chicken Scratch. It is basically weaving through straight stitch anchors and is a needlework commonly stitched over a checkered fabric. A typical example might be a gingham apron embellished, which could be fancy for a hostess or simple as a young girl's 4-H project. To me the traditional look is nostalgic, homey, the textile equivalent of comfort food.

I decided to begin a sampler for the 09 stitch explorations. I've admired Sharon B's rollable sampler and also liked the way she incorporated some current event. I just happened to begin my sampler the day of a presidential inauguration, and I chose patriotic colors to record my stitching. The cloth is a light gray hardanger fabric, and with the exception of the sparkly white, my threads were all basic cotton floss and #5 perles. This sampler is for me as I play and experiment with the stitches, so I don't worry about counting threads and proper centering; I just eyeball it.

What I tried to explore here was using different stitches to accomodate the weaving and also the use of multiple colors. The first solid across block of stitches is a failed experiment. I was going to weave small circles around large cross stitches. When it didn't work out, I added more stitches just to make it decorative. The first two circles in the following row are woven through stacked arrowheads. The next circle I think might be interesting in larger scale. I wanted to see what it would look like if three colors were used to weave concentrically through three straight stitch anchors. I couldn't get it to look right, so I switched to just one color for the weaving. You'll probably have to look at the enlarged picture to see the staggered effect. The fourth circle also utilizes 3 straight stitches in varying lengths as anchors. Fifth circle is another dud. The final segment has circles woven through 3 rows of cross stitch.

The next band is where I went from neat circles through even cretan stitches to freeform cretan stitching. I really love the irregular circles and the odd shapes formed in the negative space. In the final band I began with close set cretan stitches with the second row alternating points. The uneveness caused the top and lower circles to slant, while the center circles stayed normal. I think the effect might be more interesting had I reversed the threads. The rest of the band was more freeform play. It may appear like a couched thread, but what I actually did was scatter arrowhead stitches in varying size and orientation, then wove the thread as randomly as I could through the V's. Thread tension didn't show up when I sketched the idea, so the outcome was not as interesting as I'd hoped. Maybe more v-stitches in a different color and another color for threading. In fact I think I need to do just that to fill in that area and make the January segment look more balanced.