A Couple Quick Progress Pics

In the interest of actually stitching a bit, tonight’s post will be short and sweet. I leave you with a couple of quick peeks at Magi #3 and his companions…

Enjoy!

Fun with Composite Stitches

So what is a composite stitch, you ask? It’s a stitch that is made up of combinations of other stitches, often layered on top of each other.

The sleeve on Magi #3 is stitched with a fairly simple composite stitch. It starts out with a simple lattice of a medium weight metallic in gold.

This metallic is tied down with upright cross at each intersection, using a lighter-weight silver metallic.

And in all of the open areas, an upright cross is stitched too, this time in a few plies of silk floss.

The result is a rich-looking “fabric” that looks complex but is actually very straight forward. You can barely see the silver metallic, but it helps the entire presentation by holding down the diagonal lines of gold and adding just a touch more shimmer.

This is by no means the only composite stitch in The Magi. Perhaps the most challenging of these is found in the robes of Magi #2. The stitch seen here has no fewer than 6 steps to complete.

What fascinates me about these stitches is thinking about how the designer created them. This isn’t a matter of simply picking up a favorite stitch book and filling in an area. Creating composite stitches requires either a) a lot of time so that you can try out various combinations or b) a VERY good intuition on what stitch diagrams look like. Or both.

So the next time you’re trying to figure out what stitch to put in an area, consider if that area could us a bit more texture that just a standard stitch out of a standard book of stitches. Then try playing with adding various stitches on top of a light stitch. And see what you can come up with.

The Pros and Cons of Basting a Design

If you do a lot of counted canvaswork, sometimes it seems as if every other pattern you pick up calls for some sort of basting lines to be put in before you start stitching the actual design.

My confession: For the vast majority of these, I completely ignore the instructions to baste.

Why? Well, for one, I’m often too impatient to get started to bother with that step. But the other major reason I don’t baste is because the counting of many patterns really isn’t that complicated. If I’m building a geometric design from the inside out, for example, I don’t need to baste the areas of every border. I can just count out 10 or 20 threads or so (depending on the pattern, obviously) to start the next border. For me, there’s little benefit of spending the time to baste in this case.

Everybody’s different of course. I have some friends who swear by basting and would rather not have to deal with counting each step. If that works for you, go for it.

On the other hand, sometimes a design is made a great deal easier by simply adding a few quick basting lines. Here is the beginning of the borders for Ruskin Garden Square by Gay Ann Rogers.

As you can see, for this design I chose to add the basting lines, which consisted only of marking the horizonal and vertical centerlines, and diagonal lines going out from the center. The reason is that each side of each border starts as a couched thread going from one corner of the border to another. If I didn’t have those diagonals in there, it would have meant double, triple, quadruple counting to find where each couched line starts and stops. When the distance between the outer couched line and the middle couched line is 40 threads, that’s a lot of counting. And a lot of room for mistakes.

With the basted diagonals, though, I just had to count the forty intersections out one corner to start the first side. Then I simply laid the thread straight across to the next diagonal corner. That easily, I know I have a straight line and where it’s supposed to end. No counting all over again at the second corner.

So I guess it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. If the cost of basting (the time and complexity of the it) is greater than the benefit to be gained (the saving of time when it comes to stitching the actual design), then I don’t baste. If I’m going to save a lot of time in stitching by putting in a few simple basting lines, then I’ll do it.

What about you? Do you put in all basting lines according to instructions, or are you more of a “let’s wing it” stitcher?

Magi #1 gets some BLING!

Many needlework projects call for individual beads or charms. But how often do you really get to jazz up a project with a glitzy chain of Swarovski crystals?

Check out the bling on Magi #1!This length of chain is very similar to the one found here, except the crystals used here are only about 2mm across. They are attached by simply couching between the crystals.

There are actually two strand of crystals on Magi #1 in Dorothy Lesher’s The Magi.  Here he is in all of his glory. Can you find the other crystals?

This is the reason I love taking classes. You never know what new technique you'll learn that you can use for any number of future projects.

Applique on Canvas, Made Simple

Who knew that appliquéing a fabric to congress cloth (a common 24-ct canvas) would be so simple?

Step 1: Start out with a slightly stretchy, non fraying fabric.

I am completely sold on the Sensuede that came in my kit for The Magi. As its name implies, it’s a faux suede. It’s soft, yet not very stretchy, comes in great colors, and does not fray at all. (And I just learned that it’s made completely from recycled polyester fibers.

Step 2: Cut out the shapes to be appliquéd from the fabric.

It doesn’t sound like it, but this is really the most complicated part. For this project, we started with a cutting out a paper pattern that was “roughly right”.  That pattern is then flipped over and traced on the back of the fabric/Senseude. This “roughly right” shape can then be cut from the fabric.

Then, spend an hour shaving tiny pieces off of it to make it exactly fit the desired shape. No, I’m not kidding. It really took me an hour. Who knew? I ended up with two precisely trimmed pieces of fabric (see left), but there was a LOT of trimming. See? Here’s the scrap pile!

Step 3. Stitch it to your canvas using teeny tiny stitches, spaced as closely as they need to be.

In my case, this didn’t have to be very close. My stitches are about 3/8” apart, since I have some embellishment to add later that will help hold the Sensuede in place.

Surprisingly, the stitching took a total of 15 to 20 minutes for both pieces. The advantage of using a non-fraying fabric is that you don’t have to turn under the edges.

That’s it. It’s really easy!

Magi #1 is getting there. Just a bit more embellishment, and he’ll be done!

A Sneaky Way to End Threads

Have you ever had difficulty figuring out just how to secure the ends of a thin, slippery thread?

That dilemma turned up I was stitching away on Magi #1. One area was covered only in long stitches in a thin metallic thread, couched every so often by more thin metallic thread. There really wasn’t much bulk on the back of the canvas to allow me to bury the thread ends and be assured that they wouldn’t work themselves loose.

I tried hiding a few backstitches underneath the couched thread to start and end threads, but those backstitches peeked out a bit and looked bulky.

For a light stitch like this, sometimes you have to forget about trying to bury the thread ends within the same area. Instead, look at what stitches will eventually be in the surrounding areas. Aha! The area right next to this one is going to be covered with a faux suede applique. Perfect!

For the Magi, I simply brought the threads over to the to-be-appliqued area, then used a simple L-stitch to start or end the thread. (Ok, truthfully, this thread was so slippery that I actually went over the L-stitch a couple of times, but that was the idea anyway.)

Here you can see where I have a few L’s (or +’s) in the empty area.

 

And from the back…

Of course, the area you’re ending the threads in doesn’t have to be eventually covered in an applique. It could be any heavy-coverage stitch that covers up your tiny thread ends. I could have just as easily ended the threads in the blue area on the other side, which is just long satin stitches.

One word of caution, though. Please be aware that if you’re trying to do this with a thick thread, your L-stitches are going to be bulky, and may distort whatever is placed on top of them. With a skimpy thread like this, though, the only thing that might be a concern is if the tiny stitches will peek out from under whatever will be placed over them. With a suede-like applique, I have no worries about this for my Magi!

If you try this technique, please let me know how it goes!

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Just in case you were wondering about how I was progressing with The Magi (designed by the very talented Dorothy Lesher), thus far I have only been stitching on Magi #1. Here he is so far:

I am having a lot of fun with this piece, so despite my previous comments about changing out projects more frequently, I haven’t picked up anything else in a while! But that’s how it goes sometimes…

Whitecaps on the Waves

Thanks for the compliments on the start of the center medallion on Ocean Waves. I definitely felt more comfortable by the last section of gold than I did when starting out!

And I’m really glad that designer Judy Souliotis recommended starting with the lower portion of the waves, because the whitecaps were doubly challenging.

For these, the first several rows of couching only went around the upper portion of the whitecaps. The tips of the waves needed to be filled in completely when another row of couched threads wouldn’t be able to fit. (Click on the picture to enlarge, and it should make sense!)

After the first several rows, the couched thread started spiraling in to the center.

A similar process was used on the left side of the waves. (This picture was unfortunately taken with the flash on, so there’s a bit more glare.)

One more post, and the finished Ocean Waves will be revealed. Stay tuned!

Japanese Couching: Starting the Center Waves

The center motif on Ocean Waves is stitched using a couching technique traditionally found in Japanese Embroidery. This is the first time I’ve ever tried it, though. The technique involves couching two strands of metallic (typically Japanese gold or silver) with a silk thread called couching silk (of course).

Here’s the first section stitched in this manner. (You can click on the photo for a closer look.) The couching was started at the far left end of the area. I couched along the bottom edge of the area, made a sharp turn at the far right, and couched along the top edge of the area. The area is filled in by spiraling in to the center. The couching stitches on each row are staggered from the couching stitches on the previous row.

The trickiest part of this technique, I found, was turning the sharp corners. I have a couple of books which explain this well, and Jane Zimmerman has posted a very complete description online, also. Unfortunately, I didn’t capture step-by-step photos of the process.

In Jane Zimmerman’s article, she mentions that the couching stitches have to be exactly the correct length, so the couched thread can’t slide around and isn’t pinched. This is a disadvantage of trying this technique on congress cloth. I was generally able to pierce the cloth threads at least once with each stitch, but it’s next to impossible to get those stitches a precise length with this ground fabric. Maybe someday I’ll try it on the silk fabric typically used for “real” Japanese embroidery and the results will be a bit more precise.

Anyway, moving on. This first section of the waves was in a red-gold Japanese metallic. This was followed by an area of Japanese gold metallic, then a section in Kreinik #4 braid, and then two more sections in the Japanese red-gold and gold.

Up next – the silver froth of the waves. But that’s another post!

Background patterns on Ocean Waves

If you guessed that I actually finished Judy Souliotis’s Ocean Waves a few weeks ago, you’d be right. Several of the stitchers local to me have seen it already.

Since I’ve already moved on to other projects in “real time,” I’m unfortunately not going to describe this project enough to do it justice, but I’ll stretch it out for a couple posts. It was a big challenge, and I have to try to give all of you at least a flavor of what was involved!

Before I dig into the next area of the project though, let me take a step back and respond to some of the comments from the last post about the couched border.

• Thanks to all for the lovely compliments!
• Sandi informed us that the technique I used to turn the corner is called underside couching. Thanks, Sandi! I’m going to update that post with the correct terminology.
• Thanks also to Sandi and Sara Leigh for pointing out that 2010’s ANG Stitch of the Month project used this technique. If you want to try it out, visit ANG’s website!
• Elmsley Rose asked about a good source for couched borders. I’m sorry to say I don’t know of one. If any of you do have a book or website to recommend, please leave a comment.
• Sandi also asked what threads were used on the border. The laid threads are two strands of size 5 Japanese metallic in silver, gold, and red gold. Kreinik distributes the silver and gold Japanese metallic in multiple sizes. The black couching thread is a #4 Kreinik braid. And yes, Sandi, the entire project is in metallics, aside from the silk couching thread used to couch the center waves.

Anyway, on to the next section of the project. Inside the border are a variety of non-reversible blackwork patterns. It turns out I took a photo of the completion of the first pattern…

…but then I didn’t take another until all of the rest of the patterns were in place and the couched dividing bands between the patterns were put in!

All of the blackwork patterns are in various sizes and colors of Kreinik braid, and the dividing bands are each several rows of Japanese metallic, couched with the black Kreinik braid again.

On to the center – but that’s another post!

Turning Corners on Couched Borders

My progress on Ocean Waves is continuing. The border continues with a few more rows of couching.

When stitching a couched border such as this, you may face a dilemma because the couched thread ends in a hole at the corner and then has to come up in the same hole for the next side of the border. I'm not sure how other stitchers handle this problem but I use a very simple technique to turn these corners. I don't precisely recall where I learned this trick. I think it was through a correspondence course or other class.

The best way to describe how I tackle these corners is to say I actually couch the corners in place. Instead of keeping the couching stitches on top of the fabric, I pull the couching stitches and the couched thread to the back of the canvas. As always, some of these things are easier shown using pictures.

Bring the couching thread up in the canvas hole where you want your couched thread to turn for the next side of the border.  Stitch over your couched thread, and sink your couching thread into the same hole.

 

Before pulling this stitch tight, leave a little slack on the couched thread on the front of the canvas, as seen here. On the back of the canvas, give a sharp tug on the couching thread. If you pull hard enough, a bit of your couched thread will actually pop through the canvas in that spot.

You may have to play with it a bit on the front of the canvas to make sure your couched thread lies smoothly, but this method can create a sharp corner without wasting a lot of the couched thread on the back of the canvas.

I'd be interested to hear if any of you have tried this technique and what you thought of it!

Oh – and here’s the finished border.

Ocean Waves: Beginning with the Border

Before I go too far in describing the stitching on Ocean Waves, I’d like to thank Judy Souliotis, for graciously granting me permission to share my progress of her lovely design here.

In starting to stitch Ocean Waves, I was looking forward to learning the advanced techniques in the center wave motif. I was surprised when, with the very first stitches, I was learning something already. I discovered how elegant a simple couched border could be.

Isn’t it gorgeous in its simplicity? This is just two strands of Japanese red-gold metallic thread couched with black Kreinik #4 braid, using a plain ol’ cross stitch. The next time I have a piece that just needs a little something, I’ll have to remember this.

Of course, this isn’t the entire border. There are several additional rows of Japanese metallic, also couched in various stitches using black Kreinik. After a few more rows are added outside the first, the simple beginning becomes a bit more complex, but no less elegant.

Have you ever used couched threads as a border on a project? What threads did you use? How did it turn out?

New Year, New Project

On January 1st, to kick off the start of the new year, I decided to start a new project. I really wanted to start the Garden Gate Sampler by Gay Ann Rogers, since I recently collected all of the threads, but I neglected to realize that I didn’t have the congress cloth needed!

So I decided to go stash diving, and pulled out a different kit I’ve been wanting to start for a while. I purchased Ocean Waves from Judy Souliotis when it was available on her website a few years ago (though unfortunately it’s no longer available). Isn’t this design gorgeous?

Yes, it’s all done in Kreinik metallics, Japanese metallic threads, and some silk for couching. The biggest challenge will be the center motif, which is all couched as many motifs are in Japanese embroidery. I’ve read about this technique, but haven’t really done much. We’ll see how it turns out.

But that’s saved for last. The stitching on this piece actually begins with the borders. That’s another post…

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P.S. Thanks for all of the welcome back messages. And thanks to Susan and Edy for remembering that a certain little person in this household turned TWO on Saturday. We can’t believe how much she’s grown. After a second hip surgery this past year, followed by another cast, she finally started walking just before Christmas, and she is soooo proud of herself. :-) So are we.

Mystique, Lesson 5 complete!

This project is just moving along. I don’t know why I’m always amazed at how quickly a piece can develop when I’m working on only one. You’d think I’d learn. :-)

Before digging into what was involved in lesson 5, I want to address one of the comments on the previous post. Sara Leigh asked for a close-up picture of one of the large waffles. If you can wait a few more days, Sara Leigh, I’m actually putting together a tutorial for stitching waffles.

Anyway, on to Lesson 5.

Comparing this picture to the last, you can see that I’ve filled in the blank spaces in the north and south blocks. Actually, most of the north block was completed in class, and I just had to fill in the background. Notice that while the colors are the same, the stitches are entirely different between the two blocks.

The rest of this lesson involved adding bands of a rice stitch variation and scotch stitches around the large waffles in each corner.

That’s really all this lesson included. It’s great to be filling in all of that white space!

Mystique, Lesson 4

Yes, I’m way behind in posting about Mystique! Here’s what the project looked like after the fourth part of this fun project from Carolyn Mitchell (with a tiny part of lesson 5 started).

Throughout this lesson, I kept thinking of Shrek’s buddy, Donkey, saying, “I’m makin’ waffles!” This lesson provided lots of practice in making waffle stitches.

Three different sizes of waffle stitches were included:

• Little waffles, four each in the corners of the north, south, east, and west blocks.
• Medium waffles, four in the center block.
• Big waffles, one each in the four corner blocks.

In addition, the lesson included more smyrna crosses around the largest waffles, alternating tent stitch in the background of the center square, and some double straight cross stitches in metallic, also in the center square.

Stay tuned. I’ll have an update about lesson 5 in the next few days!

Mystique class with Carolyn Mitchell

Yesterday and today I had the privilege of taking another class with Carolyn Mitchell. As in my previous class with her, I found her teaching style quite enjoyable.

She was thorough in explaining the placement of easier stitches, and in specifying which threads were needed for each stitch being reviewed in class. This wasn’t completely an easy feat, since there were two completely different color schemes available to participants. For more challenging stitches, she demonstrated each stitch several times in small groups.

After discussing or watching a demonstration of a given stitch, we had plenty of time to try it out and ask questions, which she patiently answered (some multiple times!). In fact, I think I finished more in the past two days than I’ve ever managed to do in a class.

Carolyn’s method of designing, she explained, is to stitch first, and then write instructions and chart the project. When she first started designing, she’d try drawing up the chart first, and then stitching, but she ended up making changes while stitching, which resulted in recharting the design.

Due to the lag between actually stitching an area and writing the instructions, we did have a few differences between the original and the eventual written master thread list and descriptions of which threads were to be used in a given area. Because of this and changes in dye lots, it was necessary to make a few changes to the instructions. Fortunately, these were fairly few and far between, and were all corrected at the beginning of class.

All in all, another wonderful class, and I look forward to making more progress on this project!

Looking ahead

Having finished My Way last week, I now have no fewer than THREE large canvas projects on my near-term radar.

The first, of course, is Mystique, the project from my Carolyn Mitchell class over the next two days. We did have to stitch the borders for the project as pre-work for the class, but fortunately the most time consuming part of this was the counting. The stitch is a simple slanted gobelin stitch over two canvas intersections.

Unlike My Way, Carolyn strongly suggested that all students use one of her two color combinations, so there’s no chance for my progress to stall simply due to decision paralysis. I’m looking forward to this!

Also on the horizon is Jim Wurth’s Prelude to Peace, an online class through Shining Needle Society. This class is scheduled to start October 1st. I’ve chosen my colors – just slightly brighter versions of the original blues and browns, but haven’t actually purchased any of my threads yet. I guess I’d better get going on this! (Note, the picture in the link above is another stitcher’s, not Jim’s original. I couldn’t find a picture online of the original colors, except in the SNS Home Room. If you’re really curious, you can always join – it’s free!)

Finally, my local EGA chapter is doing the correspondence course Cleopatra’s Cat by Mary Long. Since I’m not a cat person, I’m taking some liberties with this project. I’m making a greyhound outline from a picture of my Sophie, and will be stitching it in shades of brown and black to match her brindle coloring.

I’ll try to post a bit more frequently to share how I’m approaching this. Yes, it means a lot of decisions, but since it’s mostly thread decisions rather than color decisions, it shouldn’t be too difficult, yet will still present an interesting challenge.

In the meantime, I’ve actually picked up one of my slow WIPs. Over the past week, I’ve made a bit of progress on the border of Rae Iverson’s Blackwork Band Sampler.

If I don’t actually finish a few things, I’m never going to meet my goal of ending the year with fewer WIPs than last year. But then again, I’m sure that’s not the only yearly goal that won’t be met! :-)

Friday Finish: My Way

Yes, it’s finally done!

Design: My Way

Designer: Carolyn Mitchell

Technique: counted canvas

Ground fabric: 18ct mono canvas

Threads: LOTS!

Stitches used: LOTS!

Stitching timeframe: Started borders October 16, 2008; class November 8-9, 2008; finished September 14, 2010

For more detail around the threads and stitches used in this project, see my previous posts about it. And no, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. It won't really "go" with anything in my house, but I had fun stitching it and though the decisions frustrated me from time to time, I think I learned a lot from this challenging piece!

I finished just in time. My next class with Carolyn Mitchell (her gorgeous Mystique) starts next Thursday!

Almost a Friday Finish: My Way

I’d like to apologize. I know my posts have been much too infrequent, and, worse, rather… um… boring and mechanical, if that’s the right way to say it. I hope you know what I mean.

There’s a simple reason behind this. My stitching has slowed down to a point where I’ve felt like I have to show some significant progress on a project before I can post about it. As a result, I’ve gone overboard. I get to the point where something is done, or nearly done, before I post about it.

The result, if I post too often, is that there’s nothing to show, and if I post too infrequently, you miss the process of my stitching. I’ve got to try to find a happy medium.

Anyway, I was going to post one block of My Way every few days just to put something up here, and I realized I was sorta dreading writing those posts. They’re as boring for me to write as they are for you to read!

The truth? All of the blocks are done. I’ve just got to make a few decisions on the border. What do you think?

You can see the slight beginning of some of the border decisions. The thin outside border is meant to be in a thread like pearl cotton #5. Unfortunately, all of the values of my border (gray-green) color family don’t come in DMC pearl 5. Specifically, the medium dark value of this family is only available in floss.

For a while now I’ve been meaning to try Linda Reinmiller’s method of making pearl cotton out of floss, so I gave it a shot. I guess I have to play with this a bit more, though, because I really didn’t like the look of the thread that resulted. It’s likely just operator error and lack of practice.

I did try stitching with my homemade pearl, but it didn’t stay in the project long enough for me to take a picture. I’ve decided to just lay three strands of floss for the thin outside border. Despite the need to pick up the laying tool, this will undoubtedly take less time than trying to perfect my pearl-making skills. And my stitching time is limited enough right now.

I’ve also put crescents around one of the corner blocks with two strands of the same color floss. So far, I really like this combination. Now I’ve just got to figure out what goes in the middle of each of those corner blocks!

I’d be interested to hear if you’ve tried making pearl cotton from floss and how your experience went. Some people swear by it, but I’ll reserve judgment until I try it again.

My Way progress: Block B completed

Yes, My Way is coming along. Here’s my completed block B. Unlike block A, I didn’t make very many changes to this one.

This block was a lot of fun. It used, among other stitches, the sprat’s head stitch, and two stitches designed by Jean Hilton: crescents and double fans. (And since I can’t find any instructions for a double fan online, that will undoubtedly be a future blog post!)

I used a variety of threads in the block. If you look closely, you may be able to spot:

• Kreinik 1/16” ribbon
• Caron Impressions and Watercolours
• DMC floss, #8 and #5 pearl cotton
• Rainbow Gallery’s Nordic Gold and Neon Rays
• Gumnuts Blossoms
• Trebizond from Access Commodities

Despite the variety of textures and stitches, this block isn’t too busy. I like how it turned out.

An Unexpected New Start

Sometimes, life just gets in the way of stitching plans. In my case, I had thought I’d be continuing My Way and have it nearly done by now.

But it was not to be. Somehow I had neglected that this piece is just a bit too big to be carting to hospital waiting rooms.

Yes, E and I spent another night in the hospital two weeks ago after she underwent another surgery (as always, hopefully this is the last!) to fix her hips. (And yes, she’s back in a cast, but only for 6-8 weeks this time. Unfortunately, she’s much more aware of it at 18 months than she was at 5 months.)

So, being as I was still in the canvas mood, and since I didn’t have anything in progress small enough for stitching in the waiting room, I started something new. What else was I supposed to do? :-)

I was reading back over some old posts and reminded myself that one of my goals for the year was to start something by Jean Hilton. It just so happened that I had Jean’s Omega kitted up, so to the hospital it went.

By the end of the first day (after 4 hours of surgery + after she fell asleep at night), here’s how it ended up. My apologies for the blurriness!

Of course I changed the colors from Jean’s original. Why shouldn’t I? I also made the choice to stitch the center star in two colors rather than just one as in the original.

E came home the day after surgery, and no more progress was made that day. The rest of the week, however, was a different matter. Since she was sleeping a lot due to the pain meds, I managed quite a bit of stitching time.

A few days later, the rest of the borders were in:

 

Rainbow Gallery released this design in 1990, and a few of the threads have changed over the last 20 years. I decided to use two colors of RG’s FyreWerks for the center star and two of the borders and 1 strand of Trio (from brown paper packages) for the inner and outer borders.

Within the week, I did finish the piece, but you’ll just have to wait until Friday for the big reveal! :-)

Oh, and E is doing as well as might be expected, for a kid who was just starting to walk on her own and is now immobile. She’s figuring out how to drag herself around a bit, but isn’t too happy about it!