Laurie Latour of Future Christian Homemakers is quite an enthusiast when it comes to hand embroidery on gingham. If you have not seen her Gingham Museum on her website, it is worth taking a look at, especially if you are interested in elaborate "chicken scratch" embroidery that is unique and really beautiful. She has quite a collection of embroidered aprons, and they're all detailed with close-up photos and commentary.

Laurie's been experimenting with gingham lately, coming up with several Christmas designs that are really attractive. I especially like this series of Christmas trees she's been working on, so I was very happy when she said I could share them with you.

Traditionally, embroidery on gingham is worked in white or in the color of the darkest square on the fabric. Laurie played a little with this, but found that contrasting colors worked best on this series of trees.

The trees are embroidered on 1/8" homespun fabric (available online through Jubilee Fabric), and their finished size is approximately 3.25" tall by 2.75" wide - the perfect size for an ornament or a Christmas card.



This first tree is worked with a combination of dark green and sparkly white thread - although I like it, I have to admit I like the trees worked in colors that contrast with the fabric better. Laurie used two strands of DMC 890 (green) for the tree, and two strands of Treasure Braid Petit High Gloss (P410) for the circles and x's.




I like this tree a better, with the green stitched on the red homespun. She used the same color green as on the tree above, but instead of the white braid, she used Treasure Braid Petite (PB68), a multi-colored sparkly thread. It's hard to capture the sparkle in the picture, but you can imagine how nice it looks if you're familiar at all with Rainbow Gallery's Treasure Braids (pictured down below).



This tree, I really like. I like the kelly green floss on the red, with the gold braid! It's very pretty, and oh-so-Christmassy.



This tree, however, is my absolute fave. I love the contrast of the bold red stitches, and I like the dark geen with the gold braid.

Which is your favorite, of the four trees above?



Although this isn't a full tutorial, if you are interested in working up some similar trees, in the photo above, you can see the "skeleton" pattern for the design. For further directions on gingham embroidery, you can check out some tips for embroidering on gingham at the Future Christian Homemakers website.



This, by the way, is Treasure Braid. You can find it at most local needlework shops that carry cross stitch or needlepointing supplies.



While wandering through Laurie's website, I came across this little book that Laurie publishes, Classic Prayers for Children. It is a sweet book of prayers and poems for children, beautifully illustrated. It struck me as a perfect stocking stuffer or First Communion treasure for little kids.

I love the work of preservation that Laurie is doing with gingham embroidery. She is building quite a collection of vintage gingham embroidery and documenting them so that we can see the unique designs and stitch combinations used in the technique. If yuou get a chance, make sure you check out her website!

Have a terrific weekend!

Labels: Christmas, embroidery for children, Embroidery for the Home, embroidery tips and tricks, gingham embroidery, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Friday, October 30, 2009
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A couple weeks ago, I posted a hand embroidery pattern for a Quaker sampler design, converted for surface embroidery. I haven't had time to stitch it myself, but Jan Miller has. Using the bird in a tree design, Jan made a beautiful Christmas ornament - and she sent pictures. Thanks, Jan!

My first thought when I finished converting this design into a surface embroidery pattern was that it would make a pretty Christmas tree ornament. So I was delighted to see Jan's rendition.



Using simple stitches that suit the pattern very well, Jan stitched the ornament on white velvet, I think. She finished it with a matching hand-made tassel.



I love the dark green and the deep red - they suit the design. One reader suggested that simple color tones were best, rather than a variety of shades, since plain color choices would work best in keeping with the simplicity of the Quaker design.

I still want to stitch this pattern up, and hope to one of these days! Has anyone else tried this design? I'd love to see what other people do with it!

Thanks again, Janice, for sending along the pictures!

What are you working on? If you want to share photos of your recent needlework adventures, drop me a line!

Labels: Christmas, needlework pictures, pictures, Quaker designs, readers embroidery

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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Have you ever looked at a piece of needlework in stunned silence, turned it around in your hands, looked closer, turned it over, touched it, studied it, then looked up and said to anyone willing to listen - "Oh gosh. You're just not going to believe this thing!" And then shown it off, to find that your reaction isn't an isolated one?

Well, that's exactly how things went when I opened this amazing embroidered sampler sent as a Christmas gift from a friend. You might be tempted, at first glance, to say "Oh, it's another sampler," but I think once you see it in context, you can't help but say, "WOW...!"

So here it is, for your first delightful glance:



And here's the back of the sampler, which is neat and tidy:



Here's a side shot:



And, finally, here's the sampler in perspective, next to a postage stamp, a quarter, and an inch ruler:



That's right - this tiny little detailed sampler is 1 3/8" x 1 3/4" - not a whole lot bigger than a postage stamp!

Christiana embroiders miniature things. She uses kitchen towels (flour sack towels) for her ground fabric, stitching over one thread in the towel. The stitches are half cross stitches (or tent stitch), and I think she uses one strand of embroidery floss - but it's so incredibly tiny, that she might be using regular thread. She'll have to enlighten me on that!



Now can you understand my reaction? I was awe struck! I never considered doing miniature embroidery like this, but I can see how it would be perfect for a number of little applications - doll houses, for example, come to mind. But there are other uses, too: a little special pendant or to adorn the lid of a little tiny box... I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet. I'd like to find the perfect small frame for it, so I can display it.

I willingly and profusely admit that I love this little sampler! It was such a surprise gift! It came in a great little package:



Along with the sampler were some other treats: a spool of Tire Silk, some Japanese snippers, and a nice little package of Glorianna threads and ribbons!

Thank you, Christiana, for the sweetest of little Christmas presents!

Labels: Christmas, needlework pictures, pictures, readers embroidery, sampler

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, January 01, 2009
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On this great feast day, I thought I'd share with you some photos of another hand made item here at home - one that my Mom made!

This is the Nativity Scene I set up here at home this year. My Mom made it (hand poured porcelain) about 45 years ago.



It's out of the box for the first time in about 13 years, when it was resigned to the attic because some of us kids got the hair-brained idea of investing in a new Nativity Scene for Mom for Christmas. A store-bought-multi-charactered-various-buildings-and-accessories sort of scene.



But this year, I wanted to take out the "old" scene and set it up in the entrance of my home.



It's simple: White, smooth, hard porcelain set on red velvet, with a small string of holly and lights and a couple poinsettias - nothing fancy at all.

My Mom made it. I like it best. I love everything it represents.



It's a good reminder of what Christmas is about.

Thanks for all your encouragement and support over the year! I look forward to spending another year in your company - to me, it's like hanging out with a great group of friends!

To one and all, I wish you a very happy Christmas full of many blessings!

Labels: Christmas, personal

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, December 25, 2008
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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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That's what I was told. "Put up your needlework!" Bemoaning the fact that, as of yesterday, I still didn't have a tree up and that everything just seemed too cluttered to concentrate on decorating for Christmas, my sister suggested, "Put up your needlework!" Ah. The death knoll of needlework!

The fact is, I'm still far behind on my needlework gifts. In fact, it is not likely that I'll be finished with the berry and pine cone towel, though I am on the second pine cone now and I have finished the first bunch of berries. (There are three pine cones and two bunches of berries, not to mention all the pine needles - but those go super fast...).

It was an interesting proposition: if I put up my needlework, would I be more inclined to take care of the Christmas decorating? So I tried it.

I decided that I was not going to put my needlework "UP" (as in, permanently AWAY). Rather, I wanted it accessible but organized, and tuck-away-able.

The first thing I did was take stock of what I was putting away. Now, there's nothing worse than making a bigger mess when you're cleaning up than you had before you started cleaning up! But that's usually the way of it with me when I start "organizing." I didn't really take photos of everything, because I wasn't (by a long shot) intending to write about my present state of general disorganization!



There was this pile of threads and projects that were actually tucked in a bag on the far side of the sofa, where no one really sees it, unless they come all the way into the living room.



Then, on the sofa, in a complete state of disarray, were the projects I'm currently working on.

And then there were three packages of various supplies that I have ordered recently, all still in their envelopes, also tucked on the far side of the couch.

Yes, I agreed with my sister. "Put Your Needlework AWAY!!!" The living room, where the tree goes each year, is just too small for inordinate amounts of clutter. I don't like clutter - I don't like knick-nacks and things like that. When things get cluttered, I just want to sell the house and move somewhere empty. But in my frenzy to get gifts finished, stuff was piling up.

It was time.

To put my needlework away, I required two things: a box of gallon-sized zip-lock bags and a larger something to put the bags in. Fortunately, in my recent goldwork order from Hedgehog, the Hedgehog people were very kind to include a handy-dandy free tote bag. Perfect!

I took each project and all the threads and other supplies (sometimes even hoops) related to it, and put it in a zip-lock bag.

And then....



...I tucked all the zip-lock bags tidily into the tote, which I stowed away in the studio, ready to pull out in the evening when there's time to stitch. I can take one project out at a time, and, when stitching time is up, put it back in the zip-lock, back in the tote bag, and back out in the studio. No clutter, and all is ready to decorate.

So here it is, Monday morning, three days until Christmas! And what do I have to show for it? My tree is up and decorated, the nativity scene is up (well, I did that a week ago), there's one pathetic string of greenery around the top of the porch, with white lights in it and too many red bows (and no extension cord, so it doesn't work, anyway!), and... now it's time to get to work!

Gifts to wrap, some finish work to do on the sewing machine, laundry to do, some baking and ... baking, and .... baking.

I still plan to get some stitching in this evening, if all goes well. I hope to show you a finished berry / pine cone towel by tomorrow evening!

Oh - and I have a last minute Christmas tutorial for you. Well, I bought these very nice red cloth napkins for the table. It was a great bargain. And they actually had 18! So I bought them. But they clamored for embellishment. I'll show you what I did.... tomorrow? Hopefully!

In the meantime, I hope your preparations for the holidays are going well! Enjoy your Monday!

(Did I mention I'm on vacation? It's G-R-R-R-E-A-T!!!)

Labels: Christmas, organization, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Monday, December 22, 2008
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Cissie has been putting embroidery stitches to good use by embellishing doll clothes for her granddaughter for Christmas. I love this little doll dress! From the dress pattern with the wide pleats, to the sweet, crisp fabric, to the little embroidered collar - it's a little girl's dream!

When I saw this dress that Cissie made for her granddaughter's doll, I couldn't help doing a wee bit of reminiscing. Two of my most memorable childhood Christmasses include dolls with handmade accessories.

In my family, we had seven girls. That's shocking to most people today, I know! But it was great! (And, uh, still is, you guys. Really. Honestly!) The four oldest were the "Those Four Big Guys," divided from the three youngest ("Us Three Little Guys") by a break of a few years in Motherly Production. Us Three Little Guys often got variations on the same theme for Christmas. One year, my mom made the three of us Holly Hobby dolls, replete with wardrobe and accessories. Oh, those Holly Hobby bonnets! And braided hair! They were great!

The second doll-memorable Christmas had to have followed shortly thereafter, or we would have been out of the Doll Appreciation Years. And perhaps the oldest of Us Three Little Guys didn't actually get a the same doll that year! Poooooor Sarah! Because that was the best Doll-bearing Christmas ever! Madame Alexander baby dolls - you know, the kind with the heavy bodies and the eyes that closed when you put them to bed! And if you tilted them stomach-side down, they cried! Mom (and an older sister) made at least two of Us Little Guys a whole set of bedtime accessories - mattress, eyelet-lined blankets, pillows - all neatly fitted into a wide slatted, handled basket. They were the Best Dolls Ever. I was eight years old at the time, I think. Do eight-year-olds receive dolls for Christmas anymore?! I loved my dolls to death!

I think Cissie's granddaughter is going to be equally enchanted with her doll's dress! Here it is:



I think (but I could be wrong!) that this is either Molly or Samantha, of the American Girl Doll line. My nieces have these dolls, and they love dressing them up! But I have yet to see as sweet a dress as this on their dolls!



The little collar is embellished with a red flower, dots, and leaves matching the dress, and then edged with Palestrina stitch, a perfect stitch for outlining a collar.

The doll is also receiving a new wool challis coat, which I'm sure will be precious. Lucky, lucky little four-year-old!

I wonder if people would notice if I ... you know.... took up playing with dolls again? Possibly, that's a bad idea. But making their clothes and embellishing them would be heaps of fun! Nice job, Cissie!

Thanks for sending along the picture and for drumming up good memories of ages past.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.....

Labels: Christmas, embroidered clothes, pictures, readers embroidery

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Tuesday, December 16, 2008
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Somewhere in the not-so-distant past, at some point, I made some statement about a hand made Christmas, didn't I? Embroidery projects for gifts? Something like that? Are you sure I actually said that? What I'm wondering is whether or not I actually meant it. Perhaps I was joking when I said it... or perhaps I was just a little naive. (Maybe just plain stupid?!) It sure seemed like a possibility at the time, but as the days tick onwards and I keep making cards and embroidering on that riffemrackemfrickemfrackem Christmas greenery towel, I must admit that I'm beginning to wonder....!

Still, the challenge is fun, and I have actually managed to complete a few more embroidered Christmas cards. Tonight, I assembled them and put the finishing touches on them.

You might wonder what you'd have to assemble on a hand embroidered paper card. Isn't, after all, the embroidery enough by itself? I suppose it would be, but I have a tendancy to go overboard on some things. More is not always better. I need to learn that.

There are a few elements of the embroidered card that require assembly, though, depending on how you make the card.

First of all, if you embroider on a separate little decorative piece of card stock, you have to situate that piece onto the folded card. Then, if you want, you can continue to decorate the card... and decorate it.... and decorate it some more. Take, for example, the snowflake card and the wreath card.

First, the snowflake card. I like this embroidery pattern, and it's really very easy to stitch - it goes pretty quickly. The pattern can be found in Erica Fortgens "Merry Christmas" book, I think, though I've been using several different books for patterns lately. I used regular textured card stock, and Sulky rayon machine embroidery thread in white.



It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to prick the card and stitch it.



Then I started decorating it further, just on a whim. And then I decorated a little more. And a little more.



I added little rhinestone accents and punched out snowflakes. And I went, as I am often want to do, a bit overboard. Still, it was fun.

Then there's the wreath card.



The embroidery on this one took a bit more time - all told, about an hour and forty five minutes. I should have left well enough alone, and mounted the little white square with the pretty wreath onto the red card and just left it. But there were these strange cutout little flowers floating around in my stuff. Scraps, really. And I found I could cut them in half. And in cutting them in half, I realized I could line them across the top of the card. But then I realized they looked lonely, so added a paper strip.



And of course, the wreath needed some "bling," too, so I added a few red rhinestones. And.... sheesh. I did it again.

So that's one kind of assembly when you're embroidering paper cards.

Sometimes, instead of stitching on a cut-out piece of card stock, you might want to stitch directly onto the card itself. I had a plethora of red cards that I bought for practically nothing ages ago (before Christmas preparations were even thought of), so I decided to use those up. I pricked designs on a bunch of them and set about embroidering them.

These cards are simpler. This holly card, for example, is stitched straight onto the card, with no extras to adorn it:



The snowman is also stitched directly onto the card, though the "Merry Christmas" sign at the top is separate.



His little scarf is made out of perle cotton #5 twisted together.



(I hate to admit this, but the whole time I was working on him, he reminded me - and still does - of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters!)

This is a very simple white-on-red snowflake card that took around 40 minutes total to make:



This little swirly Christmas tree is also stitched directly onto the card, too:



After stitching directly onto the card, you still have to do a little bit of assemblage, because the inside of the card, covered with bits of tape securing the threads, is most distressingly messy, and that needs to be covered up!



To cover the inside, I choose a matching decorative paper, cut it to fit (sometimes with a straight edge, sometimes with a decorative, depending on my mood - or whether or not I want to mess with changing blades on my cutter), and glue it into the inside of the card.

For the holly card above, I chose a gold holly card stock.



It doesn't always have to be card stock, though. For the inside of the swirly tree card, I used a decorative paper, in a green holly pattern.



If you don't have decorative scrapbooking paper, I've found that wrapping paper works great, too!

If you're going to add any extra touches (like the gold beads on the swirly Christmas tree), do that AFTER you've covered up the inside of the card with decorative paper, because it's much easier to glue the inside paper down smoothly when you don't have bumps on the front of the card.

I use strip adhesive, by the way. It's so easy, it's worth the cost of the adhesive. When you can get the stuff on sale, it's worth picking up refils!

I still have a few more cards in the works, like this sparkly bauble card that still needs a few more baubles and a message.



At the rate I'm going, though, I don't think I'll be sending hand made cards to my whole list! Still....



It's not a bad collection. Maybe I could do the whole list. A few late nights... early mornings... enough spiked egg nog...

Labels: beginner embroidery, Christmas, embroider on paper, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Friday, December 12, 2008
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I don't know about you, but I still have plans to finish a heap of Christmas needlework projects! Heh heh. Well, there's nothing wrong with planning, anyway! If you want to stitch up a few quick Christmas items, you might find the following resources useful...

First, there's a sale at Colonial Patterns, where you can find a Holiday Assortment of Aunt Martha pattern transfers for 20% off. Read the Christmas Pattern Assortment list for the details of which packets are combined here. They range from Sunbonnet Christmas to Snowmen and Angels and Holly and Santa and all that Christmassy stuff.



Iron on transfer patterns can help you make quick gifts for Christmas. Just iron on your favorite motif onto a towel or an apron or something similar, choose your favorite line stitches from the Video Library here on Needle 'n Thread (if you need a refresher), and stitch away!

I was thinking the assorted pack would also make a great little Christmas present for friends who stitch and who like these types of patterns, or for kids who are just getting into embroidery. I was thinking about adding something like this to the little basket I'm making up for my 7 year old niece...

If you'd rather create your own iron on transfer, Colonial Patterns also has their embroidery pattern transfer pad and pencils on sale this week for 10% off. I've never used these products, but if they work well, the concept is grand! Anyone else use them? I'd love the hear the results!

How about some embroidered greeting cards? You still have time to put together some simple cards, gift tags, and whatnot using your needle 'n thread! Stitching Cards has a few freebies on their Prick & Stitch blog, if you're looking for patterns.



For example, there's this snowflake border - it's a very simple little border, but it's great, because you'd never quite believe how hard it is to evenly space those 6 arms of a little straight-stitch snowflake and get them to look really even. I'd probably pick a different color pattern than the one in the sample.... I think the pattern would look great stitched in white on blue, or in white on red.



You'll also find a free pattern for this Christmas bauble, which would stitch up into a cute gift tag or card.

I'm still plugging away on the berry and greenery towel I showed you a week or so ago! And I'm working on Christmas cards... and I'm setting up five little towels I want to finish before Christmas, too. I'd like to do two monogram towels and three casual towels as gifts. Well. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with planning! I think the casual ones will probably come off ok, but the monograms are another story.

I'm also in the middle of preparing another larger project involving goldwork, and I'll show you a little bit about that soon, I hope. I did manage to clean up my goldwork supplies, which was a big deal!

And somewhere in there, I think I have a tree to put up and stuff like that. Baking. Gingerbread houses with the kids. (Hmmmm..... Rather Scrooge-like, but I may scratch the gingerbread houses with the kids!)

A snow day would come in really handy in the next week and a half!

Hope you're enjoying your holiday preparations as much as I am!

Labels: Christmas, embroidery resources

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, December 11, 2008
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Yesterday, I showed you how I finished my goldwork and silk embroidered Christmas ornament for the swap that I joined a month or so ago. I've never actually joined an oline swap. Being a newbie, one of my readers was very nice to mention that there's a list somewhere online that gives a bit of information on how to go about preparing items for a swap, but I can't find the link! (If anyone knows where that article is, I'd love to see it again!)

There are apparently two exciting elements to a swap: 1. doing the embroidery and planning the "package" to send (I love planning packages!), and 2. anticipating, like a kid at Christmas, what the post will bring. I enjoyed the creating process best - I'm looking forward to wrapping up the ornament in pretty paper, preparing a few little embroidery trinkets to send along with it, picking out one of my embroidered cards and adding in a few blank ones for use - you know, just making up a Fun Package to Open! I love doing that! I'm going to use a plethora of curling ribbon!

I actually never found myself thinking about the other end of the swap or anticipating anything in the mail. But on Saturday, the mail arrived, and in it, there was a letter addressed to me from someone I didn't know. I thought it a bit strange - the envelope was hand-written, from Australia, and had something kind of flat and bumpy in it. Weird. I wasn't expecting anything from Australia...

So I opened it, not even remotely considering the ornament swap, because I had forgotten the "other end." (I felt rather stupid, actually...) I fingered the little ziplock bag, trying to think what I had ordered that was feathery... who did I know?... what could this be??.... (I wasn't alone at lunch, either, so I had an audience of witnesses to my air-headed reaction!)

I unzipped the ziplock carefully, trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid catching a bit of fluffy feather in it. Finally, I got it open, and ...



And this is what I received: a little cross stitch and beaded angel, worked on perforated paper, with white feathers for the wings. The skirt is made out of clear bugle and seed beads, and gold beads, which are carefully hung to create a pattern. I hung her on the light there, to take the photo, to give it a kind of angelic effect. Actually, I thought the beads might sparkle a bit more!

The ornament is stitched on two pieces of perforated paper, so that the back of the angel is also the finished back of the head, halo, and top of the angel. Then the wrong sides of the finished pieces are stitched together, with the feathers for the wings secured between the two pieces of perforated paper.



Isn't she cute? I have the perfect tree to hang her on, and I know the little kids will love looking at her.

Once my swap stuff is in the mail (I think I have to send it global priority at this point!), I'll be finished with this year's ornament swap. Though overall this was a positive experience for me, I'm still not quite sure of the whole swap thing. I suppose it's a good way to reach out to others across the globe. Have you ever joined an online swap of any kind? If so, what kind? What did you like about it? Were there any drawbacks? If you've never done one, what makes you hesitate to join one? I'd love to hear about your swap experiences! Anyone??

And, finally, another reminder about this month's embroidery stash give-away - two full spools of Gilt Sylke Twist, plus some other fun needlework stuff, are just waiting for you to win them! If you haven't joined yet for this month and are interested, do take a look at the original post for details on joining!

Labels: Christmas, counted thread embroidery techniques, needlework pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Monday, December 08, 2008
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Here's my run-down on the finishwork on my goldwork and silk Christmas ornament that I made for a swap...

First, I gathered all the supplies I'd need to finish the Christmas ornament: threads, batting (which I didn't use after all), fabric, scissors, etc.



I wasn't quite sure about which fabric to use for the back. I had some cranberry colored silk shantung, some burgandy velvet, and a dusty pink striped fabric. The ornament actually has quite a bit of pink in it!



Next, I took the ornament off the frame and cut off the excess linen.



Next, I measured and cut out two pieces of acid-free mat board. I planned to cover one with the fabric for the back of the ornament, and the other I would mount the front on. Stay tuned, though - I changed my approach on this much later!



Then I cut out the corners on the linen, so that I could fold the linen more easily onto the mat board. I wasn't exactly sure about this whole part, which kind of bugged me.



I didn't want bulk corners, so I trimmed out little triangles, thinking that would help reduce the bulk. Well, of course it didn't work - there was an overhang - so I cut squares out of the corners instead.

I folded the edges under, using a strip adhesive sold for scrapbooking (archival and permanent) to hold the fabric securely to the mat board. To do this part, I put the ornament face-down, and placed the mat board over the back of it. I put the adhesive on all four sides of the back of the mat board, then pulled one side of the ornament up and smoothed it onto the sticky strip on the back of the mat board. Then I did the opposite side, making sure to pull the ornament enough to give good tension, but not too much. Then I did the remaining two sides opposite each other.



It "worked" ... but I wasn't quite happy with it. The point was just to adhere the fabric so that it would remain in place while I stitched the front and back together. But I didn't like the thickness of the top piece, and I really didn't like the fact that the white linen was slightly visible on some sides. I tried to console myself with the fact that the edge would be covered with cording. But it was a lame attempt at consolation. I had to backtrack later. So stick with me, here...



At that point, the front was mounted, though not quite to my satisfaction, and it was time to move on to the back. I debated over fabrics and finally decided on a burgandy-ish scrap of something sort of resembling velvet but feeling more like a stretchy velveteen. Whatever. It worked - the color was right, and though it doesn't have the shine of silk, I think it was more important that the color was right!

Now it was time to go through the same process of mounting the backing fabric.



I cut out the square to the right size, placed the other piece of mat board on it, and glued the edges as I had done for the top of the ornament. I liked the thick back with the mat board much better.



When I put the two pieces together, I was still concerned about the thickness of the top. I just didn't like it. But I forged on! I should've taken a break at that point and thought about it!

My next step was to consider what to use for cording and trim. This, of course, is where the thickness of the piece started to bother me even more. I would have liked to just put a cord around it and cover up the place where the front and back were joined, but golly, that would have to be a huge cord!



I went through my stash to pick out possible threads for cords. I was sure I would have all manner of types of thread and colors suitable for this project. Not so, not so. This is what comes of working from stash. You have to take what you can get! I had a silk chenille (on the right) that looked about right; a soie gobelin that looked about right, and two colors of soie d'alger that are in the ornament.



I tried making individual cords from all of them. I even tried making one big fat cord from several combined, with a gold colored Trebizond thrown in for the fun of it.



But none of it really worked, and I settled, instead, for a plain soie d'alger that I used to couch some of the gold passing on the ornament front.



Then I turned my thoughts to tassel making. For a small tassel, the soie gobelin was really the only suitable thread. The chenille was too thick, and the soie d'alger would end up really fuzzy. The resulting tassel, by the way, stunk, so I improvised something else, which you will see later.

Next, I sewed the front and back of the ornament together, using a regular slip stitch, since I'd be covering that up with a cord, anyway. I didn't like the thickness, especially of the front. I didn't like the fact that so much of the white linen was showing, especially because I knew the cord probably wouldn't cover that up all the way around. Aaaargh! SO...



At this point, I took the ornament apart, took the front off, took the mat board out, and mounted the ornament on a smaller cut piece of white (archival) card stock. The resulting edge of white was still there, but much thinner. That was much better. I sewed it up, then started with the cording.



You can see my silly tassel hanging off here just to the right. I didn't take a full picture of it - I should have, then you would understand better. For one thing, it was just too "pinky-orange" - just a shade off from the colors in the ornament. For another thing, it was having a terribly bad hair day. Soie gobelin is probably not the best thread choice for making a small tassel - it might work better on a larger tassel, where length would give some weight to the threads. On a small tassel, the thread ends flipped all over the place and looked messy and awful. Couple that with the slightly off color, and... well. It just didn't work. I got rid of it.



Here's the cording, after the first round of slip stitching just to get it attached. I used a little piece of gold Trebizond at the top for the hanger, which I ran through between the front and ornament backing, and secured in place as I stitched the cording on.

Next, I addressed myself to the problem of the tassel. I didn't want to leave the soie d'alger twist hanging there - though I probably could have knotted it and left it. It didn't look bad. But I wanted more than that! I actually wanted a Big, Fat, Pretty Tassel!!! (Note to self: plan ahead!!)



Instead, I opted for a tiny tail of little gold beads.

Once I had the beads on, I finished off the threads from the cord by running them individually into the cording (up the sides) and then, I gave the cording one more round of slip stitching to secure it and pull it a little bit more over the white.



My tree's not up yet, so no tree shot!



I suppose that, despite the strange tail of gold beads, she'll do ok! I would have liked a heavier tassel for the finish. This picture above was taken from a weird angle, but the ornament actually does hang ok. I though the tassel would be essential for balance, but I could've left off a tail altogether. The beads look a little... well... I don't know. They look kind of dorky. They have a nice gleamy sparkle to them that goes with the goldwork, but perhaps I should've left them off?

Overall, though, I was pleased with the final result, though I do think I'm going to have to make a concerted effort this coming year to polish up my finishing skills!

I hope the recipient likes it!

If you haven't signed up for this month's stash give-away, you might want to take a look at it. I've giving away two spools of Gilt Sylke Twist, along with a few other little goodies (not pictured!). The deadline for that is next Wednesday morning, December 10th. If you want to enter, please read the original post!

Labels: Christmas, finish work, goldwork, needlework pictures, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Sunday, December 07, 2008
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Thanks for the feedback on my embroidered towel frustrations. I like embroidering on towels, don't get me wrong! It's fun. It goes quickly (usually) and even though I know the towels will not be as gently used as heirloom linen, I still think they make great little gifts. Most of yesterday's post was written tongue-in-cheek: yes, a little frustrated over the amount of time and effort, but really, I'm just laughing at myself for getting into the situation in the first place! Today, a much simpler embroidery project....

Perhaps you don't really get into the whole "embroidery on paper" scene, or the card-making scene. You may even think that hand embroidery on paper isn't really the same thing as Hand Embroidery. You know what? I agree with you! Embroidering your Christmas cards isn't really what I would classify as the "art" of embroidery, so much as the "craft" of card making. This type of embroidery on paper involves crafting techniques... it doesn't really involve the skill and artistry we associate with a proficient embroiderer!

But, hey. It's still a needle. And it's still thread! And it's a simple way to do something creative involving both. And it's a great way to kick up your Christmas card to the level of "small gift."

With all these excuses in mind, I present yet another card:



This card features an "ornament." The ornament is really just a circle cut out of a goldish-tan-and-white decorative paper. I tried to cut the circle so that the design on the paper was centered.



The ornament "hangs" from a little gold half-bead stuck onto the paper.



The embroidery design is worked in red, mostly, over the decorative paper. I'm using Sulky machine embroidery thread here. The outline around the ornament is worked in gold, as is the ornament string.



I added little red gemstones and gold beads to the tips of the star. Unfortunately, they don't quite sparkle in the photo as they do in person. I like sparkly things on Christmas stuff... so I bought these little tiny stick-on gems and beads found in the scrapbooking supplies at a craft store. They come in handy! I find myself sticking them on just about every card I can. If you use these types of embellishments (that stick up off the surface of the card), remember to "pad" your envelope before you seal it, by inserting another piece of cardstock over the face of the card.

Well, time is ticking! With Thanksgiving over, I have a feeling Christmas is going to hasten my way before I can say boo. Before the week is out, two things will happen in my needlework life:

1. I will do the finish work on my ornament.
2. I will post the December stash give-away, so that it's feasible that you'll get it before Christmas! (And maybe even be able to use it!)

Surely other stuff will happen, too... but you'll just have to wait to see what does!

Enjoy the day!

Labels: Christmas, embroider on paper, hand embroidered cards, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, December 03, 2008
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Yes, well. This Christmas Towel. Satin stitching. Long and short stitch. Sometimes, I could just kick myself!

Originally, I was supposed to be embroidering regular cotton towels with regular cotton thread in regular outline stitches for regular easy embroidered gifts. But darnit, if I didn't start filling in on this one, and now, it's taking me ten forevers to get it done!

Remember the embroidered towel I finished last week? That piece took me less than three hours of stitching. I figured at that rate, I could do (easily) two towels a week and still have time for finish work on other little projects.

But no. I had to start filling in on this one! Did you ever realize what a difference it makes, time-wise, when you start to fill in areas of stitching?

I have duly frustrated myself, but I don't want to give the project up!

So let me show you how far along I am, and then I'll tell you what really frustrates me about the whole endeavor.



The satin stitching on the berries is done - at least, on this clump of berries (there's one more further down the design) - and all the little green satin stitch things are finished, and I've managed only one pine cone so far.



Now, the pine cone was an interesting dilemma. It's worked in long and short stitch. Originally, I was just planning on outlining it, but once I started filling in the berries with satin stitch, it was silly to have an only-outlined pine cone! So I started experimenting with filling. I was going to work a stem stitch filling. Then I thought about a split stitch or even chain stitch filling - something that could be worked fast and somewhat loose, so it wasn't a "full" filling.

Ugh. None of those looked right.

So I resorted to long and short stitch. Then the colors became a problem. If you're just outlining something, shading isn't that important, really. But once you move into long and short stitch, colors become important, and the shading achieved by the stitching and color choices together is what makes long and short stitch look ok.

When I started, I thought I better take a look at some pine cones. What I noticed on larger, older, opened pine cones was that the tips were almost a white-ish grey, curved up, and the rest of the cone was a darker brown, and some almost blackish-brown. But on the small, closed pine cones, they're really brown - a nice brown. Not a lot of color difference in them. Just a nice woody-looking brown.

So I stuck with three shades of brown, to give the cone a bit of depth. I don't like the connection area - I guess it's the stem - up top, but that's the way the pattern was, so I ended up stitching it with two small areas of satin stitch for highlights, surrounded by a split-stitch filling in dark brown.

And that's the pine cone. Two more pine cones, one more bunch of berries!!! Remind me never to FILL IN on a TOWEL. Yes, as I mentioned yesterday when I was talking about the obvious merits of machine embroidery thread for paper embroidery, sometimes, I'm a bit slow lately!

But this is what really frustrates me - and perhaps it's just a problem with the way I'm looking at the stituation. You can tell me what YOU think:

I'm putting all this embroidery time and effort into a cotton flour sack towel.

It's not a linen table runner.

It's not a linen table cloth.

It's not even a pretty little crisp, white cotton Christmas apron.

It's a FLOUR SACK TOWEL!!!

:-) Ah, well. I'm in. So I may as well finish it! But, sheesh. Really. What was I thinking?

Labels: Christmas, Embroidery for the Home, gift ideas, Hand embroidery stitches, needlepainting

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Tuesday, December 02, 2008
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Beats me how the weekend can possibly go by so fast! But I did manage some embroidery this weekend, and I learned a little bit in the process. So ... here goes....

Here's the extent of my hand embroidery endeavors this weekend. I know it's not that impressive! But still....



I managed the embroidered elements of two cards, plus the beginnings of a third, and I put in the rest of the berries and one pine cone on that blasted towel!

Cards first....



This card pattern comes from Erica Fortgens' book, Merry Christmas Embroidery on Paper - that's an Amazon link, if you want to read more about it. The design stitched up pretty quickly. In fact, it stitched up really quickly - the whole thing took less than an hour, including piercing the paper. I have some other ideas for this design. I think it would make a great snowflake, on blue, worked in white or pale silver, with tiny crystals attached. So I may try that later on. I'm going to cut this in a more interesting way, add a few little red crystals to it, put it on a printed background and affix it to a card, with a little ribbon at the top. Whatever... eventually, I'll show you what I mean!



This little heart-wreath-thingy took less than an hour as well, including piercing the paper. I used the wrong sized piercing tool for the thread. I should have used an extra-fine tip, but I used the medium one. Still, it'll pass muster, I suppose, once incorporated on a card with other distracting stuff attached! I'll add some little red crystals in the middle of the open red spaces.



This one's in progress. It's a wreath, so there'll be some greenery between the red balls. And of course, some little crystals in there, too. I like sparkly things on Christmas stuff! I can't help it!!! This card is a little more complicated. I estimate it'll take a little longer to stitch - so, all told, maybe an hour and a half.

Something I learned about embroidering on paper, or at least, about this type of embroidery on paper. It helps TREEEE MENDOUSLY to have the correct materials. All the Erica Fortgens books recommend Anchor Alpaca (edit: it's Anchor Alcazar - sorry!) for the most part, which is a machine embroidery thread. Since I didn't have any, in the past I've just used regular rayon embroidery floss. It works ok, in very short strands, and it gives a very pretty coverage. But it does get frustrating to work with! First of all, you have to work with short pieces; otherwise, the embroidery floss frays, and that's a pain in the neck. Another thing is the nature of rayon embroidery floss - it's cranky!

Well, finally I figured that it doesn't actually have to be Anchor machine embroidery thread! Machine embroidery thread in general works great on these paper projects because it is supple, it stands up to abuse, it's fine, and, depending on the type you get, it's very pretty and shiny stuff, perfect for Christmas cards. You can also get it in metallics, which are much easier to use on paper than regular metallic embroidery floss. MUCH EASIER. I couldn't believe the difference.

Anyway, I found I could stitch a lot faster with the right materials, once I took out a few spools of machine embroidery thread.

Sheeesh. I was a bit slow on that discovery, wasn't I??

I'll talk about the towel later - I'll show you that pine cone up close. I really don't want to talk about the towel right now. Aaargh!!

Finally, it's December, so I will have my monthly stash give-away coming up this week. It's a rather special give-away. Not quite the same type of loot as before, but ... loot, nonetheless! Some people will be excited about it, but I realize there will be some who say... "?!?" It won't interest every stitcher, I'm afraid.... !!! Yes, yes, enough enigmatic talk. Wait for it!

Hope your Monday is terrific!

Labels: Christmas, embroider on paper, hand embroidered cards, hand embroidery information, supplies, threads

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Monday, December 01, 2008
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I was going to say "finished." But then I remembered it's not finished. I did manage to finish the top of the goldwork and silk Christmas ornament yesterday - and with a sense of silly, premature exaltation, I convinced myself it was finished.

The fact of the matter is, no one would hang a Christmas ornament on a tree while it's still framed up for embroidery. In fact, I think we could safely say it isn't even a Christmas ornament yet.

I still have to assemble this piece into an ornament. That will involve stuffing and backing it (not really stuffing it, but there will be a layer or two of something in there that'll give it some fill), finishing around the edge with a cord (which I still have to make) and adding a tassel (which I still have to make) and something with which to hang it. All of this, I hope, can be accomplished in a couple hours.



Here's the whole front. Finishing off the gold passing was rather a pain. On future similar projects, I will certainly remember to couch the passing thread first before putting the pearl purl outline down. The gold passing couched with the gold (the innermost part of the border) ended up being fairly even all the way around, with the exception of one side, where I found I had to work one extra little bit of passing in to fill the space.

After I put the ornament together, I'll go over it really well with the mellore (a small silver tool used for prodding gold threads) to make sure all the threads are well situated.



I used gold spangles and a red bead in the blank spaces on the inside of the design, to add a bit of sparkle and to fill up the interior space a little bit. I love the way the gold spangles gleam. They really catch the light, but it's hard to catch that on the camera.



The spanges on the ornament are actually two different sizes, though I don't think it's obvious from far away. To fit one up in the corner above the green shapes, I had to use the smallest ones I had (I think a size 18). The corner spangles, then, are pretty small. All the other spangles are a size 14.

I'm going to try to finish this up today, if all goes well. I was supposed to film video stitches today, but two things prevent me: a dark, dismal day (I need sunlight to get good results) and company for dinner tonight. But I should have an hour or so this afternoon that I can devote to the finish work on this project. It always makes me nervous when I cut the piece from the frame, so keep your fingers crossed that all goes well!

Enjoy your Saturday!

Labels: Christmas, goldwork, needlework pictures, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, November 29, 2008
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I finished the hand embroidery on the corner of this bread basket liner --- well, it's a towel, actually, but it'll be used as a bread basket liner.

I made a mistake on part of the embroidered design - can you find it?



Unfortunately, I tend to be the type of stitcher who gets caught up in the mistakes on my work. I really see them! And perhaps that's the case with most stitchers and crafters. But sometimes, I think it's quite alright to let a mistake go, and that's absolutely what I'm doing in this case!! But I'd be interested to know what you would do... would you take it out and re-do it?



Have you found it yet? Here's a hint:



And here's the other hint:



Would you re-do the little circles? I'm not. If nothing else, they make it characteristically hand stitched. A machine would not have made the mistake of stitching a mirror image using a completely different stitch!

I'm making a series of these towels, with similar, simple corner designs, for my sister for Christmas. She's a cook and an entertainer - she has large crowds at her home often for big meals. In fact, I think her daily meals for her family (and friends - there always seem to be guests at her table) would be considered "fancy" meals for most people. She's the Queen of Hospitality, and a great cook. She always sets a nice table, not just on formal occasions, but for casual daily dinners as well. One of her signature items is bread. A day doesn't go by that she doesn't have bread going - rising, baking, rising, baking - the smell permeates the house. She makes artisan loaves of naturally leavened bread; she makes French and Italian breads; she makes great crusty dinner rolls and melt-in-your-mouth soft rolls and fruit and nut breads; she grinds her own wheat and makes a wonderful, nutty wheat bread as a regular staple for the family. With crowds at the table, she uses large baskets lined with flour sack towels for bread. I thought a set of nicely embroidered flour sack towels to use solely for lining bread baskets would be a good gift.

So, let's see - how far away is Christmas? I've finished one towel. I have a Christmas-themed one in the works. I intended to make six towels altogether. I figured I could make two a week, and still stitch on other necessary items, if I stuck with Really Simple Designs, like the one featured here. But the Christmas one is slowing me down! I wasn't supposed to fill in the designs, but satin stitch seemed perfect for the berries, and the pine cones look better in long and short stitch than they do merely outlined. Aaargh. Six might be a bit ambitious at this rate!

Anyway, I'm still trying to dig up some simple corner patterns. The one I used on this towel above was a lot of fun - I may do it again, in a different color scheme. I may draw up a wheat pattern to use, too, if time allows! I'd like to share this pattern with you, but it isn't mine. I need to check the source (it's from a huge envelope of older patterns that a friend dropped off one day) to see if it's copyrighted.

And, finally, speaking of time - I'm out of time for the day! I hope all you Americans have a great Thanksgiving weekend. Teaching has its advantages - I've got a four day weekend, during which I plan to get some serious embroidery done and I hope to devote a lot of time to the website, too. I've scheduled a filming session for Saturday mid-morning, so keep your fingers crossed for me! If I have sunshine and a relatively quiet day, I should be able to actually finish some of those hanging video tutorials of more embroidery stitches!

For now - I must go bake pies!

Labels: beginner embroidery, Christmas, Embroidery for the Home, Hand embroidery stitches, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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This weekend, I didn't manage a whole lot of embroidery-related tasks, much to my disappointment. Still, I did manage a couple things: 1. to assemble a couple projects into easy-access packages so that, when I can snatch some time for stitching, they'll be ready for snatching; 2. to stitch up most of a towel, thanks to some late night hours...

I'm stitching up a few sets of flour sack towels for Christmas presents. The designs are varied. Some I drew, some I copied, some I adapted. In every case, I tried to keep the designs relatively bold, with clean lines, for quick stitching in a variety of line stitches.



After ironing a couple towels and tracing the designs on to them using a light box and pencil, I selected no more than six colors (but in truth, I think four colors are sufficient), and put the threads and the folded towel into a handy-dandy zip-loc bag. Now, when I have time to devote to this kind of embroidery, I've got everything on hand to start one of these projects. I'm glad about that, because I only have a gazillion more projects to complete before the holidays!!



I had a bit of time later Saturday evening for some focused stitching, so I set out on one of the towels.



I'm just using four colors (two shades of green, a darker burnt red, and a reddish-orange) and two stitches - stem stitch and chain stitch.



I was going to throw two shades of blue in with these colors, but I'm glad that I didn't!



I'm about two-thirds of the way finished on this one. I'm only doing one corner - enough for a splash of color.

Here's hoping that this week presents a few more opportunities to make some headway on Christmas gifts! I'm under a little crunch at work, so we'll see what develops on the home front in the evenings. I still have the front of the goldwork and silk ornament to complete - just a tiny bit more to go! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can finish it this week!

If you haven't signed up for this month's stash give-away, don't miss your opportunity to win some really good threads and stuff!

That about covers my weekend as far as embroidery goes - I hope you had the opportunity to spend more time with your needle 'n thread and were able to accomplish everything you wanted to!

Enjoy your Monday!

Labels: beginner embroidery, Christmas, Embroidery for the Home, Hand embroidery stitches, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Monday, November 17, 2008
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Here's a very quick update on my embroidered Christmas ornament in goldwork and silk!

I had to change my mind on one idea because I was short on the metal thread I wanted to use - I'm running short on check purl... you'll see what I mean...



The area between the green and gold twist and the pearl purl (the inside area of the border) was the problem. I wanted to cover the yellow felt there with check purl, like the middle diamond shape. Unfortunately, I didn't think I'd have enough to get around the whole edge, so I reverted back to the idea of the passing thread couched in gold.



I think the gold passing thread couched with the gold silk gives the ornament a nice beveled look, but I really wanted a few more sparkly areas on the ornament. The other disadvantage is that I had already couched the pearl purl - the one wrapped in green silk and the one that lines the inside of the square. It's not the normal order to use when couching passing thread, methinks. The green and gold pearl would've been ok, but having the other edge of pearl purl makes it quite difficult to couch the passing thread. I'm going to have to sink some threads.



You know, I think I might be back to that dilemma - do I want it on point, or square? Oh - don't worry - we won't start that again! It's funny how different it looks in photos. I don't see it from far away when I'm working on it, and can't really get an eye for it, but when I see it in photos, I think I can be a bit more objective.

Maybe. Can we ever really be objective about our own work?

Labels: Christmas, goldwork, needlework pictures, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Friday, November 14, 2008
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Yesterday, I was sitting at lunch with my mom, perusing the ridiculous influx of magazines that pour, unsolicited, into her mailbox this time of year. I came across a line of wool felt table settings that caught my eye in one of them - and I looked at the price tag and said the same thing I say every time I look at similar items: "You could make this a lot cheaper!"

The "Do It Yourself" mentality is nothing really new, but in the past decade, I think the drive to get creative and make things has gained greater impetus. For those on limited budgets, the urge to Do It Yourself may be initiated by the desire to have certain types of items found in the retail world that exceed the limits of the purse strings. For others, the DIY mentality is a way of life - a principled stand against some facet of manufacturing or commercial enterprises. For some, they do it themselves because they know they can do it better.

When the DIY urging inevitably overtakes me this time of year, I have to remind myself of a few things .... so I tell myself the following:

1. You can't always DIY less expensively, but you can usually do it yourself better, simply because you can pay attention to quality of materials and workmanship that are often overlooked by commercial enterprises. So if you are going to put the time in to make it, then don't do a rush job, don't waste materials, use good materials, and make something that will last.

2. You can DSY (do something yourself) less expensively, if you pay close attention to your needs and your wants. If you don't Neeeeed it, you don't need it. So don't make it. Make something else! If you must "create," then create something you can afford to create. Re-use, dig into stash, etc. Forget the catalog ...

3. When you set about to improve upon something you've seen or to imitate it, add your own twist - at least take the source of inspiration up another notch to make it more "your own." If I'm going to imitate something and make it myself, I'd rather people not equate it automatically with something bought from a retailer.

Ok, all that being said... this DIY idea has GOT to be cheaper.... It's a good source of inspiration that I think could be adapted a bit and even improved upon.

The catalog was Williams-Sonoma, and the items are a table runner, placemats, and a tree skirt made from a red felt blend (read that correctly: probably 20% wool, 80% acrylic ... it was on sale at the local fabric shop off the bolt last week for $6.99 / yard) backed by white fabric. There's a cut out design in the red felt so that the white shows through.



These cutwork felt items from Williams-Sonomoa are rather striking, I think. I'm not exactly sure I would decorate my Christmas table with felt, especially at $60 for the equivalent of less than a yard of fabric for the runner (you'd probably have to buy more than that, to get the length in one piece, if you wanted it in one piece - unless you'd settle for a 72-inch runner as opposed to a 90-inch).



Zooming in on the pieces, they're just cut out ... there's no re-inforcement or anything on the cut edge. It's a clean cut - felt is great for that. A little template, a craft knife or small sharp scissors (I prefer the latter when working with felt), and you're all set.



There's also a 56-inch circular tree skirt for $89. Let's see... 72" wide on that felt blend from the local fabric store... so, two yards to make a 56" circle.

I suspect the white fabric is nothing too fancy-schmancy. Just cotton or a cotton-poly blend.

Anyway, this is, surprisingly, the only thing I've seen in any of the hyper-abundant, unsolicited magazines filling the mailbox lately that strikes me as something worth imitating. I'd probably change the cut-out pattern. And I probably wouldn't make a table runner and placemats. But little Christmas stockings for the tree or for gift-giving? Little gift bags? Ornaments? Yep. But you do realize there's something missing? Oooooh yes.... I'd definitely add some embellishment - just a touch of embroidery, in the right spots. It might take away from the clean-cut look. But, done right, it just might add the perfect touch.

So my mind is chewing on ideas for that. I may have already mentioned that this year is entirely a hand-made Christmas on my part, for three reasons: 1. I think it means more, though I may have a hard time convincing my younger nieces and nephews of that! 2. the budget; 3. I thought it would be, somehow, an interesting challenge for myself. Yes, well. I may regret #3 eventually!

My questions for you.... What are your thoughts on the DIY approach?

Do you consider yourself a Do-It-Yourselfer? (I know some very creative people who are not remotely DIYers!) Where do you take your Do It Yourself inspiration? Do you find it's less expensive to DIY (not taking into account the time spent)? If you are a DIY-er, why do you Do It Yourself? Any thoughts?

Labels: Christmas, gift ideas, wool felt

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, November 06, 2008
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It's been a while since I've mentioned progress on my silk and goldwork hand-embroidered Christmas ornament! Don't worry - this isn't an example of one of those projects that went to pot shortly after take-off! Sometimes, that happens, and often, when I make a mistake, I'll have a hard time really getting back into a project. But the minor mistakes I've made on this little project have all been pretty positive, so I've been chugging along on it still. Here are some photos for you...

Last time we touched upon the embroidered Christmas ornament, I was not liking (and then I was liking) the orientation of the center design, especially the red satin-stitched areas with the lattice work on them. Many good people gave my heaps of great suggestions on how to improve it. I think, before all is over, I will take up the suggestion of changing the orientation of the lattice work.

At this point, I'm just pluggin along on the couching around the outside edge. I'm using #5 gold passing (2%), and working around in a bricking pattern, using shades of a cranberry red silk.



The most tedious part of the ornament so far has been this outside edge. Oh, woe is me. Never, ever start a project without enough of the needed supplies on hand. My original intention was to work this entirely from stash, and so far, I have been able to keep that resolution! But it's been hard! I'm taking every tiny measure I can think of to conserve thread as I go, including not carrying to the next area of the same shade. I'm using tiny stitches to anchor each piece of thread... and it's getting... really.... t-e-d-i-o-u-s.



This is a very wobbly looking corner. Dang.



The other way I managed to stretch my thread stash in these colors was actually to use more shades than I intended. Originally, I was going to use two shades of this silk, but as I ran out of the darkest shade, I moved to one shade lighter. Then, as the second darkest shade started dwindling, I moved to one shade even lighter, and used less of the dark shade. So I'm ending up, in all, using four shades of cranberry, which may actually end up being five shades by the time I'm finished!



The bricking goes from dark and close together in the corners to lighter and farther apart towards the middle stretch on each side. Some of my bricking isn't perfect. Oh, wait. Most of my bricking isn't perfect!! But don't try to talk me into taking it out.... Please....



I think I have about three more double lines of couching to do to fill this area. Here's hoping the thread lasts. If it doesn't, I'll come up with "something," though I haven't the foggiest idea what.

My plan is to continue with the gold passing, even on the yellow felt (we'll see - I'm having second thoughts), but to couch that in gold thread so that the gold looks brighter. I would divide the two areas of passing with a wrapped pearl purl (a new technique I learned when working on the goldwork pomegranate), which I would like to sit up above the passing area a bit, so I'll work that on top of the lines, I think.

Then, there's chipwork to add still, and sequins and beads and then I'll think about the back. But right now... I gotta get that edge finished!!!

You'd think, knowing that I have to get that edge finished, I'd just go finish that edge, right? Right!

Wrong. Right now, I'm heading to the studio to lay out some designs for towels-turned-tea-cloths-and-basket-liners that I'm making as Christmas gifts. One design I'm going to use is this corner embroidery pattern of leaves and flowers that I'm going to blow up to make about a 3" or 4" deep edge. That'll be fun. The other design I want to work on today I'm adapting from a book - it needs to be enlarged and repeated and elaborated upon. I hope to be able to share it with you, once I figure it out! It's kind of "folky" in an Italian-pottery sort of way.

That's what I'm up to - the rest of the world seems rather quiet. What are YOU up to these days as far as needlework goes? Are you preparing holiday projects? Doing any finish work? Just having fun with your needle and thread? If you've got pictures online - on a blog or flickr or whathaveyou - feel free to post a link to your current project and tell us something about it!

Labels: Christmas, goldwork, needlework pictures, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, November 05, 2008
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After considering the hanging direction of my Christmas ornament, I finally realized I wouldn't know for sure whether it would look better square or on point until I finished the green shading. So I finished the green shading, and started the goldwork, then made one of those Moaner Mistakes...

My original concept for this ornament, as mentioned before, was to hand embroider a diamond-shaped Christmas ornament that would hang from the tip of the diamond, and be finished at the base with a tassel. You can see the original drawing of the pattern in the post where I was musing over different projects in planning stages.

Though I didn't plan much beyond the initial design, I had in mind an ornament that would combine silk shading and goldwork.

Thinking Through the Embroidery Design

Originally, the four diamond shapes around the center of the ornament were to be silk shading in deep reds, raised on felt. But when I started, I discovered I liked satin stitch better for those. Then, once I got the satin stitch in, I found I liked the ornament turned as a square better. So I polled readers about it, asking which direction they liked better, and I think the majority said they liked the ornament hung on point - but many also agreed that the inside diamonds looked better turned. Well, it was too late to re-design the layout, so I decided to forge ahead through the green silk shading to see if it would make a difference in the look of the ornament.



Once the green was in, I was back to liking it on point, as a diamond shape overall, despite the direction of the little red diamonds within. I think it all panned out ok.

I suppose this isn't the most "professional" way to go about working up a project - this trial-and-error, not knowing where you're going for sure before you start, type approach. But I like undertaking projects this way, because there's more discovery along the way. I really had no idea how the red and greens would look together in the design. But I find I like them!

Haste Makes Waste

Once the greens were finished, I was itching to start couching on the pearl purl around the green shapes! I couldn't wait (I thought) to see what the whole effect of the gold around the green would look like!

BUT - perhaps it was the late hour... perhaps it was my overeagerness... perhaps it was mere carelessness...

I made a mistake. One of those "ooooooooh nooooooooo" mistakes. Just as it happens, you realize exactly what you've done, but it's all so quick, in such an instant, that the fact and the realization of the error all come into being at the same split second...



There it is. In trimming the gold purl pearl, my scissors grazed the edge of my satin stitching, and (I thought) cut through several threads.

In fact, it grazed the threads, and cut halfway through two of them, but not all the way through either. Still, it wouldn't do - that needed to be repaired before I could rush into the rest of the gold.



I examined from all angles, and realized the mistake wasn't really noticeable. But the problem was actually the threads - they wouldn't survive the test of time if they began Life on an Ornament already damaged. So ... on to the repairs.

Repairing the Satin Stitching

The first thing I did was carefully snip off the lattice.



Then, using the eye of the needle, I separated the threads that were damaged, to see if there was any way I could pull just one or two threads to the back, and fill in with a couple new stitches.



As I pulled the threads carefully out, though, I realized it would be a matter of complete removal.

On the top of the work, I ran my scissors carefully under all the satin stitches on this one diamond, perpendicular to the direction of the stitches, and cutting the diamond right in half.



On the back, I did the same thing, but I had to be much more careful, because I had ended and begun threads from other parts of the motif in the threads on the back of the diamond. After snipping just the red diamond threads, I carefully plucked out the satin stitching with tweezers.

Tweezers, by the way, are a necessary tool in any embroidery work basket!



I managed to get all the threads out with minimal damage to the felt. The front looked ok, but...



... the back was a Whole Nuther Question!

These were the threads that were anchored in the back of the satin stitching, and it was important that they return to their anchored state, so I was pretty careful with them!



It didn't take too long to satin stitch the diamond again.



Once I got the lattice back onto the diamond, I charged into couching the rest of the pearl purl. Once the gold outline was on, I was sold again on the notion of the diamond shaped ornament!



I love the look of the gold with these colors of silk!

A Lesson for Hand Embroiderers All

What have I learned so far on this project?

1. Don't try to make decisions on a design until you get it to the point where you can really "see" it.

2. Haste makes waste. I was dying to get to the next step of the project, and, because I wasn't as careful as I should have been, I had to pick part of the stitching out and start over again, using up valuable thread and valuable time. Take things slowly and pay attention to detail - in the long run, it'll save you time!

3. But - everyone makes mistakes. As Shakespeare put it, "Roses have thorns, silver fountains mud. Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, and loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. All men make faults..." At some point, we all have to take out stitches! So instead of dreading taking out the stitches - or allowing a mistake to hault us in our tracks so that we don't go back to the project (that's hard to overcome - I find I'm always put off a project when I make a major mistake!), consider the picking out just part of the project. Picking out is, in a sense, an integral part of embroidery - at some point, even the best needleworkers pick out their stitches and re-do. It's all part of the process... and mistakes are part of being human.

Heh heh. That's the philosophical me - but don't think that, at the time, it didn't irk the heck out of me!



NOW - what do you think about the diamond / square question at this point? Do you think the diamond works better overall now? What's your take?

Labels: Christmas, goldwork, needlework pictures, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Sunday, October 19, 2008
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Oh golly. I'm just speeding along on this Christmas ornament (! not quite !), but I do at least have the surface embroidery well underway - maybe tonight I can finish that part! That's the plan, anyway. I've managed some satin stitch and some shading, and have developed a dilemma, if you want to take a look...

When I first designed this Christmas ornament, my plan was that it would hang on point, so it would be diamond-shaped. Then I started stitching, and a lot of things happend.



First, the embroidered red things - originally, they were going to be shaded long and short stitch, raised on felt. But I started that, and I thought... you know, I'm going to see what satin stitch looks like first. I have a real thing for satin stitch - I just like it a lot. So I tried the satin stitch, and I found I liked it, so I stuck with that. The red diamonds will be outlined with an edge of gold, to finish them off.

Then, I thought a lattice might look nice over the top of the satin stitch, in a lighter shade of the same colors. These colors will be repeated on the border, in an Or Nue bit. So, I did the lattice couching. I like sparkly Christmas ornaments. There's going to be stuff on here, aside from the embroidery - and in the middle of the red things, I want to put a little gold pailette. So that lattice forms the framework for a tiny pailette. If it looks ok, I'll leave it. Who knows, I might change my mind!

Now, in the longer, petal-looking areas (where the green shading has been started), I was originally going to trim down some beetle wings to fit right in there, and surround them by pearl purl.

But - I didn't like the color of the beetle wings with the color of the reds. So I scratched that altogether, and decided to do the green shading. I think I'm going to like it better!

This is the dilemma, though. On point - diamond-shaped, that is - see the direction of the red diamonds and the lattice? It's looking rather square, isn't it?

But if I turn the ornament to be hung squarely, look what happens to the red diamonds and lattice:



I think I like the red diamonds better this direction!

So here's my question: Which direction should the ornament hang? Perhaps it's a little early to decide - maybe it will be easier to decide once all the green shading is finished. But I want to make a "final" decision on this dilemma before I begin the layers of goldwork around the outside, since I think the direction the ornament is to be hung will change the approach I take to the various colors....

What do YOU think? Any preference? Any insight to the look of the design, or to the way it will hang if hung as a square instead of a diamond?? Let me know your thoughts!!

I hope you have a terrific weekend!

Labels: Christmas, goldwork, Hand embroidery stitches, needlepainting, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Friday, October 17, 2008
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False starts are a part of life. They're also a part of needlework. What do I mean by a "false start," you may very well ask... Well, let me explain.

A "false start" is the experience of beginning that isn't really a beginning, and that really requires you to begin again!

For example, I have a ritualistic false start about two times (out of five) a week, when I leave my classroom after my last class of the day. Amidst the "See you tomorrows" and "Have a good afternoons" and "Don't forget to reads," I close the windows and curtains, I straighten stray things on my desk, and I head out of my classroom with that peculiar eagerness of ending that part of the day. (Yes, it's true, teachers often look forward to the last bell just as much as the students do - especially when that last bell comes right before lunch, as mine does!)

I close my door and lock it, and head down the hallway. If I'm lucky, about halfway down the hallway is when my false start ends. I realize, inevitably, that I forgot something. I must go back to the classroom, dig out my keys, unlock the door, and find and retrieve the forgotten item.

Sometimes, though, my false start doesn't end until I've gone down two long hallways and two flights of stairs, traversed an outdoor walkway, and arrived at my car in the distant corner of the parking lot. The realization strikes that I forgot something, and I stop, turn around, and head back to the classroom.

In embroidery, I make similar false starts. But the more I embroider, the more I realize when the false start must end - and, if I know when to stop, then I save myself a lot of time, trouble, and grief, not to mention conserving precious supplies.

You might be inclined to think that a false start is a mistake. No, no, dear reader! It's not a mistake! It's a learning experience! False starts can actually be a very good thing.

I've had quite a few false starts lately. There's the whole baby bootie experience that you've already heard about. Then there's last night's table cloth experience:



This is a pre-printed tablecloth kit from Anchor - I think it's called "Spring Garden" and it's a Fleur de Lis kit. Overall, these kits are pretty nice, and I like working on them for a "casual" project that can be done in the living room. But sometimes, I don't like their stitch suggestions. On this particular table cloth, they call for these satin stitched blue-bell type flowers, worked in three strands of floss. After the first two (out of six) flowers on the stalk, I knew I didn't like it, so I picked out the stitches. Was it a mistake that I worked them in the first place? No. It was simply a false start! How would I have known how much I didn't like the satin stitched flower, if I didn't try it?

That was a small false start - like getting halfway down the hallway.

But yesterday, I had the pleasure of a Big false start. This wasn't just reaching the car in the far corner of the parking lot. It was like walking all the way home! Let me show you.



When speaking about designing a project yesterday, I showed you my plan for a hand embroidered Christmas ornament that incorporates silk shading and goldwork. During the afternoon I concentrated on this project! I started by sifting through supplies and tools and seeing what I had to work with.



Then I started the actual work. I traced the design elements that would be padded with felt onto fusible interfacing. This is a great tip that I actually learned from Margaret Cobleigh, when I was working her pomegranate. Normally, under goldwork (such as couched gold passing or chipwork), there's a layer of yellow felt over which the gold is worked. The felt accomplishes two things: it lifts the embroidery and it provides a background color that blends with the gold, in case the background peeks out behind the gold.

To cut out the appropriate shape of felt, you can trace the pattern pieces on fusible interfacing, then iron the piece to your felt, then cut out the shape, and place the interfacing-side down on the ground fabric. You don't fuse it on; you just stitch it on as you normally would. The fusible web left on the base of the felt is handy, because it supplies a bit more friction, so the felt stays put until it's tacked down.



You can see here that I've fused the interfacing to red felt, which will be underneath the silk shading. I wanted the stitching to be a bit padded and raised, so, again adopting the idea from Margaret's pomegranate, I cut out red felt to work the shanding on.



My red and yellow felt ready, it was time to tack the felt onto the design. My plan was to make the ornament out of white satin silk, so I transferred the design onto the white silk (which, because it's satin, is really rather thick) by using a light table and tracing. I used a tailor's white chalk pencil to do the transferring. After the design was transferred onto the silk, I mounted the silk, lined with muslin, on an embroidery frame.



I was ready to start tacking the felt pieces on. As I added the first little center piece, I noticed that the design looked somewhat lopsided. I thought I could fix this by touching up the lines with the chalk pencil. It worked a wee bit, but still, the design just didn't look right to me.

I went back to the drawing board to determine why the design would look crooked. Having drawn the design on graph paper, measuring out all distances and curves, I could see the problem wasn't the actual design. I considered that it could have been the frame - maybe I pulled the fabric to taut in one direction, causing distortion in the fabric and design. Or maybe I was just careless when tracing with the chalk pencil. I finally concluded it was the latter, as the silk had probably shifted in the transfer process.



Still, I pressed on. I began tacking down the other pieces of yellow felt. But I didn't feel too good about the whole situation. I kept envisioning a finished product that looked just slightly skewed. I tacked on one yellow felt edge, then the other. And one of the yellow felt edges came out looking warped! I lined up the red felt with the yellow felt...



And that is when my false start ended!

I learned a couple things:

1. I don't like this satin silk for this kind of stitching (and obviously not for this kind of transferring). I've used this fabric before, and I like it fine for regular delicate surface embroidery. But I don't like it for a Christmas ornament. Besides, the whole time I was working with it, I was thinking ahead to the pain it would be to finish the ornament.

2. Keep your transfer pencils (tailor's chalk pencil in this case) sharp! It really helps with precision tracing!

3. Double check straight edges on the felt before cutting. If necessary, use a ruler and rotary cutter to straighten and cut an edge. I don't know why I didn't think of the rotary cutter and ruler in the first place!

4. With a geometrically shaped object like this - when it isn't clear which is the top of the design - mark the top on your fabric, outside the design area, so that you know which end is up. You'd think it doesn't matter, but I think it somehow does. The whole movement of the piece - stitch direction, etc., will be determined by which end is up.

So that was yesterday's false start. I'm glad of it, actually, because I learned a lot from the experience. I also realized what the kinks or difficulties would be in this pattern, so I've been able to address those (at least in my head). This means that, when I go for the "real" start (today), I will be better equipped to make a go of it.

I'm going to stitch the piece on linen, instead of the silk. That was my original, original plan, but somehow, early, the silk idea crept in. Linen takes a transfer better, anyway. On the silk, the micron pen (.005 tip) bleeds into a thick line. I've ever had that happen on the linen, and on this type of project, the micron pen is my preferred choice for transferring a design.

False starts are just a step in the journey - and they're quite alright with me. Besides, they give us the opportunity to make fresh starts, and would we ever know the pleasure of making a fresh start if we didn't know what it's like to make false starts?

Labels: Christmas, embroidery tips and tricks, needlework pictures, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Sunday, October 12, 2008
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I have two needlework projects in various stages of planning right now. One is a Christmas ornament and the other is the Long and Short Stitch sampler. Let me show you what I'm doing, discuss a bit about designing, and then tell you where I'm going next.

If you're like me, designing your own needlework project is a bittersweet sort of adventure. The sweet side is the satisfaction - it's nice to design and execute your own work, from scratch to finish.

The bitter side is that it can be somewhat intimidating. First, there's the question of "What"? I often suffer from writer's block at the designing table. That's why I think it's a good idea to doodle, and even to keep track of your doodling in a sketchbook or journal. Before doodling, you might want to get the juices flowing. You can flip open books and take some inspiration from what you see, or you can go outside and see what's weird and wonderful in Nature. Somehow, you want the juices to flow, but at some point, you have to get it down on paper.

If you were taking a writing course, you'd be told to "brainstorm" or "list" - just plain start writing down anything that comes to mind, in order to get ideas out. For designing a project, the equivalent is doodling. Start doodling.

Once you have an idea, there are other intimidating factors to designing your own piece of needlework. There's the question of "acceptability." Sure, I like it - but will anyone else? Then there are the "professional" questions to take into consideration, too: form, order, line, color, texture - all that kind of stuff. For some people, that comes second nature. For people who are artistic, those questions may not pose a problem. For me, they do pose a problem, so I generally end up ignoring them, at least at first. My work probably suffers for that...!

If you're interested in designing your own embroidery piece, you might want to check out a helpful article titled "Taking the Fear out of Designing" by Sue Stause. I think it's a helpful, interesting, and informative article, though I probably don't do everything she suggests. (My work probably suffers for that, too...!)

I'm not a professional designer - as I've mentioned before, I'm a hobbyist, not really an "artist." I'm not formally trained for designing, drawing, color selection, and so forth. So, being the average Jane Doe when it comes to this type of thing, I just sort of work out things that I think will work out. And then I tweak and polish, just like a writer does with a rough draft.

After various doodles, this is what I've come up with for a long and short stitch sampler.



I suppose it looks a little more complicated than it is supposed to be. That's another fault of mine, when it comes to designing. I tend to go overboard instead of adhering to the KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid - rule.
The concept was to arrange, in seven stages, different levels and approaches to long and short stitch shading, progressing from geometric shapes to natural elements, following in order of level of difficulty. The whole thing is 8" x 8", and each element is generally within the 1 - 1.5 inch range, so small enough to stitch in (hopefully) one sitting.

The next project I'm working on is a Christmas ornament. I oscillated between using someone else's design and making up my own, but the latter finally won out. This was a project that drew a blank for me for a long while. I knew the look I wanted, but couldn't figure out how I wanted it to come across. Many doodles later, I think I've settled on an idea, but I think there will be a lot more tweaking to come.



The ornament will be a combination of goldwork and silk shading. There's still a bit of tweaking to do there.

The next step on the Long and Short stitch sampler is to work on color ideas. This particular project is not really a "wing it" sort of project since I want to use it for instruction. It'll take a lot more time at the design table.

For the Christmas ornament, though, with the basic shape in place, I'm actually ready to set it up for stitching. I know that sounds rather silly, considering I haven't exactly figured out what I'm going to do where, but... that's ok. I have enough of an idea that I can wing on this small project.

Do you like to design your own embroidery projects? Or would you prefer for someone else to do the designing for you? If you do like coming up with your own designs, how do you go about doing it? What's your favorite designing medium?

Any suggestions and tips are always welcome - not just for me, but for others out there who may have that deep down desire to design, but who are too intimidated to go for it! Maybe you know something that will help the rest of us!!

Labels: Christmas, embroidery design, goldwork, needlepainting, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, October 11, 2008
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Yesterday afternoon, I headed out to the the little studio at the back of the house with the best intentions in the world. I was going to devote some quality time to "real" work - I had some paperwork to take care of - and then, once I felt I had accomplished a reasonable amount of work, I was going to do some more work setting up Christmas cards. It was a perfectly feasible - even admirable - plan for my late afternoon hours...

There I sat, inspecting the pile of paperwork before me, when suddenly, my eye was arrested by Christine Bishop's Schwalm Whitework Embroidery.

I contemplated the book. I contemplated the pile of papers.

The book.

The papers.

The boooooooooooooooooooooook.

Literally, it was calling to me. I'm sure I heard it. What can one do?

The next thing I knew, I was engrossed in a Chicken. (She's got a cute chicken in there.)

Now, I didn't stray so much from my Plan of the Day as to completely forget the cards I was supposed to be preparing. I thought to myself, "A Card. I could maybe make a Schwalmish Christmas Chicken card. I mean, everyone's heard of the Christmas Chicken, haven't they?"

And so I tinkered, and this is what I came up with:



I drew the design out on graph paper first. I wasn't as precise as I should have been. Some intersections were off, and I didn't space the dots as carefully as they needed to be on the longer stretches of stitch. You'll see what I mean....

I placed a piece of tracing paper over the picture I had drawn on the graph paper, and used different colored ink (pink and purple - though you can't tell in the photo) to trace the picture in dots, where I would pierce the pattern.

Then I put the tracing paper over the cardstock - I'm using a textured red, with a red core (not white core card stock) - and pierced the design.



The large dots around the edge in the blurry photo above are eyelets, actually. The card will be backed with a white card, and the chicken's eye, the eyelets around the edge, and the eyelets on the wing and tail (which you can't see yet, because they aren't punched) will show the white background. That's the plan, anyway.

Once I got to that point in my Christmas chicken adventure, I decided I better do what I planned to do, or I'd be in trouble later.

So I readdressed that stack of papers.

But then it occurred to me that I wasn't sure what thread I would stitch that Christmas Chicken with. So I decided I better rummage through thread while it was still sunny outside. (Well, you know the old superstition, that thread rummaging should never be done after sunset?)

And I came upon a #80 DMC cordonette - small stuff, for cordonette.

I finished my thread rummaging right before sunset. But of course, you know I wouldn't start stitching until I had taken care of my paperwork! No, no. I just had to line up my resources, so when I could be irresponsible, everything would be ready.

Ok. So that's what I did yesterday before the sun went down.

And shortly after the sun went down, I did this:



There are a few blurby spots I need to take care of. I think, if I ever do this again, I'll change my approach on some of the pricking dots. It was a learning experience. Gosh, I just feel So Accomplished and So Responsible for making certain I had a learning experience yesterday.......

Tonight, I'm bonding with papers. And please don't try to talk me out of it!

Labels: Christmas, embroider on paper, hand embroidered cards, needlework pictures, pictures, Schwalm, whitework

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, October 02, 2008
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