Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, January 14, 2009
PermaLink  |  5 comments  | Click to Comment

Share this

You'd think that, in my endeavor to reduce my embroidery stash by giving little snippets away each month in my "stash contests," I'd refrain from adding anything else to it, right? Last week I went shopping.

And I bought THREADS!! Whoooohooooooo!

But I don't consider them stash. I'll tell you why...

I define stash - needlework stash, fabric stash, crafting stash - any kind of "stash" - as those supplies that build up from years of collecting because Someday I will use them.

Stash is essential to serious hobbyists who indulge frequently in their hobbies. Stash can be a source of inspiration; it can also be a source of innumerable headaches.

"Where do I store all this?!"

"I'm running out of space!!"

"I've got to Get Organized!!!"

I bet you know what I'm talking about!

Stash is build up. It is stuff we buy that we don't need "right now," (but we might some day). It's that new silk on the market we just want to try. It's the book that catches our fancy that we might work a project from [later]. It's that gorgeous piece of fabric that would be perfect for _______ (when I get around to it). It's that little accessory that isn't entirely necessary, but gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have? It's also that leftover thread from that little project... you know, the one where you bought enough thread to wrap around Texas, just in case they ran out of that dye lot?

Stash, I think, makes the hobbyist feel secure. Isn't there a certain sense of ownership when you think of your stash? And don't you like the idea of knowing that, at a moment's notice, you can pull out something that will give you the delight of creativity in the midst of the travails of everyday life?



Oooh. Loooooook. Threeeeaaaad.

I went shopping on Saturday and I bought some threads. The bulk of these threads are not stash - they are for immediate use on a current project, and it is likely that there won't be any leftovers to add to the growing mountains in my cupboards. So you can't have any of these threads! ... yet.

When I thread shop, I'm at a huge disadvantage, and I think a lot of readers have this same problem. For specialty embroidery supplies, most of my shopping is done online. I can't see the threads or feel the fabric. Colors are rarely accurate when seen through a monitor. Thread weight, size, twist, sheen - these are things you can't determine while sitting at your desk staring at a screen. So when I do venture the two hours one way to the closest needlework shop, I take my time and sort out threads, matching them to my fabrics and project design. But I also end up buying threads that I "hope" are what I want for the project at hand, because at least with these threads, I've felt them.



The time I spend in the shop may get annoying for shop owners (I would hope not, because I also spend a lot of money in their shops!), but it is really important to me in those circumstances to spend the time well, to make sure I get what I need, and not to feel pressured into buying the wrong stuff.



Sometimes, I buy one color of two different types of threads (like I did with the blue you see above). I take both home and try the different choices, actually stitching them on my project or on a scrap. I pick the one I like best and then I place the order online....

And that brings me back to stash. Guess where the thread that didn't work ends up?

Eventually, I will show you this project. I think there's only one person out there in Needlework Land who could guess exactly what project these threads are for - and I don't know if she's reading this!

Oh, yes. Before I forget. I did buy some other stuff. You know, they had this silk I just had to try.... and one of those pretty magnets that I just knew I'd use... someday. Oh, and that Ever-tite frame. Not the one for any particular project - you know, the one for just in case?

Labels: canvas stitches, needlepoint, pictures, silk, threads, wool

Click here to read the whole post & comments.

Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, August 28, 2008
PermaLink  |  11 comments  | Click to Comment

Share this

This little canvas work sampler has been fun, but it's absolutely time to end it! The problem with "design-as-you-go" samplers is that sometimes, you just keep going... and going... and going. And that can be detrimental to a couple things: the overall design, and the ability to get anything else accomplished!

But I've come pretty much to the stopping point - I'm going to fill in one more tiny section, touch up the flaws, embroidery a tiny border around it, and call it finished.



It's a little... much! And all packed in to about 4" x 5.5" But the advantage to working on something like this is that you don't have time to get bored before you switch to another color and stitch.



I think this little section is my favorite part. I like the diamond pattern on the right side of the paisley, and the gold filling on the left side.



In fact, here's the gold filling up close. I probably used too many strands of floss - the stitches look pretty packed and pudgy. I used 3 strands of Soie d'Alger, in two colors of gold. The stitch is actually upright cross stitch, although with the dark gold, the top stitch of the cross is horizontal, and with the light gold, it's vertical. (I did that on purpose, just to see what effect it would have on the whole filling.)



I also like this little guy sticking up - an afterthought. Too many afterthoughts can spoil the look, but this one, I like!



And I like the little shaded curl. The backgrounds are half cross stitch, in alternating colors of light gold / dark gold, and light purple / dark purple. They also go in different directions. The golds are silk Soie d'Alger; the purples are stranded cotton (DMC); the greens on the curl are Eterna flat silk.

So that's that project, almost finished. I should be able to fill in that empty space tonight and put an edge on it.

And the hobby room is coming along well - should be finished by the middle of next week (I hope!). It was a single car garage on the back of the house. But I live in a small house, which has little interior storage space, so the garage is being converted into storage space for household stuff as well as for hobby stuff, and an area for working projects. There will be a large table out in the middle of the room and, eventually, a sewing machine and so forth.

So this is what it looks like:



Over on the right wall, those are floor-to-ceiling cabinets - there will be adjustable shelving in there.



That's the same wall of cabinets, looking in the other direction.



And that's the wall opposite the cabinets - which will also be lined with the same floor-to-ceiling cabinets. So the only wall space will actually be below the big window, really - a sewing table would fit there. The freezer is also out there, so it's not a LOT of space, but it is space, nonetheless!

I'm still troubling over a good organizational method - bins, or cubby-hole type small shelves - for fabrics, threads, and whatnot. Any suggestions are most welcome!

Labels: canvas stitches, hobby room, needlework pictures, organization, pictures

Click here to read the whole post & comments.

Posted By: Mary Corbet on Tuesday, February 19, 2008
PermaLink  |  5 comments  | Click to Comment

Share this

 

A while ago, I posted the beginnings of my excursion into canvas work (or needlepoint). My plan was to make a little sampler, just to play with some stitches and threads. I haven't made a lot of progress on it, but the little I've done has been a lot of fun and a good learning experience.

I'm work on 24 count soft congress cloth, and using a variety of threads - really, anything I pull out of my stash that looks remotely like it might belong to a general color scheme! I've been playing with all kinds of stitches, but nothing too magnificent. There are quite a few more stitches and combinations that I'm looking forward to trying!



As you can see, there are lots of blank spaces to fill in, and a bit more growing room on the top. I'm not quite fond of that curl on the top right. I was trying to play with shading, but I'm not too keen on the results!

The paisley-looking thing in the middle is not very well or precisely done! I drew it straight onto the fabric with a pen, then stitched the outline first in stem stitch in several strands of floss, then filled in with tent stitch. I think that might be cheating!



That zig-zag area is not quite true to color. I should have played with the photo a bit to get it more realistic. The greens are more yellow and less blue. Anyway, the fun thing about that area: I worked it in Eterna stranded silk, which is an almost-flat Chinese silk with a nice sheen. It can be a grouchy thread to work with in regular surface embroidery. I thought it would be a bear in canvas work, but I was pleasantly surprised! I like it!



The background bluish-purple in the squares is worked with Soie d'Alger, and I think it is, so far, my favorite thread to work with on this canvas. I may very well be using too many strands (4, I think - but it may have only been 3!) on 24 count, but it was still really buttery-soft and easy to work with. The gold crossing over the purple is also Soie d'Alger. The camera doesn't catch the soft sheen of the floss, but it does shine (not as much as the flat silk, but with a soft kind of glow).

The gold underneath the brighter green zig-zag is rayon ribbon floss. Interesting stuff to work with.



I like to look at things from an angle.



This photo shows the Rhodes stitch and tent stitch strip. The Rhodes stitch squares were rather randomly placed - I didn't count them out or mark them first. You can also see, in the front leaf of the paisley-thing, how messy the bottom rows look. I think two things were happening: my thread was wearing out, and I changed direction in my stitching.

So, that's the sampler so far. I am looking forward to hopefully a weeeeee bit of stitching time for it this weekend.... if the planets line up in my favor, anyway!

Labels: canvas stitches, needlework pictures, needlework tools

Click here to read the whole post & comments.

Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, February 09, 2008
PermaLink  |  8 comments  | Click to Comment

Share this

 

I've been dabbling with canvas stitches lately, and not achieving the best results in the world! For the TIF Challenge posed by Sharon, I thought I'd challenge myself to dabble in areas of needlework and embroidery into which I don't normally venture. Hence, the idea of a needlepoint sampler this month.

Needlepoint (or canvas stitching) is not necessarily my "thing." As Margaret, a faithful reader, put it, "I like to stitch on a curve!" And I do, too. Still, I wanted to explore outside my normal embroidery range, and so I thought I'd try playing around with canvas stitches.

Without much of a plan beyond just a "sampler" of stitches blocked out in one-inch squares, I set about stitching. I gathered together whatever threads looked remotely similar to the palette presented by Sharon for January. They range from wools, to wool and silk blends, to silk, to cotton. Watercolors by Caron, Waterlilies by Caron, Soie Gobelin, Soie Perlee, Trebizond, DMC stranded cotton, DMC perle, rayon ribbon floss - I just pooled a bunch of threads out of my stash and started.

The fabric is soft congress cloth, 24 ct. I framed it up in a 6 x 9 frame, and drew a row of four one-inch blocks to start with.

And this is all I've accomplished so far:



Now, all you Expert Eyes and Expert Needlepoint Needlers out there will undoubtedly see what I see here: bad tension, wrong thread choice, and a lack of attention to detail... (not to mention the deplorable lack of a scheme or plan!!)



The green square on the right was the first square I worked. I used Silk & Ivory (50% silk, 50% Merino wool) - a whole 3-ply strand. Needless to say, it's a tight fit in 24 ct congress cloth! The stitch is a basketweave tent stitch, and I varied the length of the stitch in certain places, going over two threads as opposed to just one. I completely messed up the lower corner of the thicker ridge in the middle. The wonderful warping of this square is not normally what one desires in a needlework project, either! It looks, to say the least, dreadful.

But I did learn a lot stitching it. The first obvious lesson was to pick a thread that fits the canvas. The second was to go easy on pulling the thread through. I liked the hard look as the stitches developed, until I realized I was pulling the whole thing into a warped mess. The next thing I learned is to pay attention!! I had it in my narrow mind that this stuff is "brainless" stitching. I was just stitching along, paying attention to every other thing around me - and then - voila! I found out that you DO have to plan ahead, especially when it comes to compensating stitches. The lower right hand corner of the square taught me that lesson!



This is my favorite square so far. It's an upright cross stitch. The top is worked in DMC perle #12, which fits really well on this canvas for this stitch. The middle is 2 strands of DMC cotton, and the bottom alternates the two. I like the firmness of the finished stitches. The thread was better to work with: there was no fraying for two reasons - the type of thread, and the fact that it fit in the holes!



I hate this square. There's nothing about it I like. I don't even want to talk about it! The top half is herringbone as a filling, alternating medium and light greens (Silk & Ivory again), and golly. That was just dumb. I must not have learned the first lesson very well, actually. The thread was too thick for this - for the canvas, for the stitch - it was just all wrong. I finally gave up and went to Hungarian filling, which is kind of an alternating cross pattern. It looks lousy, too! Oh, and let's not mention the compensating stitches that are missing On Every Side! I'm laughing....



Now, this little square is not very impressive right now, but I like the thread! This is Caron Watercolors - a 3-ply overdyed cotton, which I stripped and used just one ply. It's nice to stitch with, and I like it. The results here don't look so marvelous. It's no particular "stitch," to my knowledge. I just wanted to work rows, leaving one little place open, which I'm going to go back and fill with something else. The stitches are just straight up-and-down stitches, alternating between over two and over one.

And that is my latest dabbling. Oh, for heaven's sake. It's bad. But I'm not finished!! NO - I'm determined to keep playing (and probably making it worse!)

The reason I decided to take up the TIF challenge was simple: I wanted to have a kind of structure for forcing myself to play with different techniques or supplies that I don't normally play with. To fiddle around alone is not so fun, but to join in with other people (who are actually producing NICE stuff) and to have the loose constraints of the Take it Further challenge makes it a little more fun to dabble about.

Next month, despite my sorry attempt here, I'm going to venture into ... a Crazy Quilt square. Wow. New for me, anyway.

My plan with each little challenge episode was to produce something that I could finish somehow, rather than just scraps to store in a notebook. This piece, though... it yearns for the inconspicuous sleeve in an inconspicuous notebook. But who knows - I may save it yet.

Unless you have any ideas of what I could do with this "thing"?!

Labels: canvas stitches, sampler, stitch challenge, TIF

Click here to read the whole post & comments.

Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, January 30, 2008
PermaLink  |  5 comments  | Click to Comment

Share this

Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, January 26, 2008
PermaLink  |  8 comments  | Click to Comment

Share this