My Mom was cleaning out some stuff the other day and came across a few little needlework-related items that she handed over to me, which led me to thinking about different needlework projects Mom has done over the years.

Many folks are lucky enough to learn their needlework skills from their moms, grandmothers, aunts, etc. In my case, I'd say I learned the proclivity towards any kind of crafty-artsy stuff from Mom, but not necessarily specific needlework skills. My Mom, who turns 75 this weekend, was rather the artistic type when she was younger. She took up painting at some point in her eary married years, and even enjoyed showing her work at an art gallery at one point and selling it. She also taught art in a private school in the San Francisco Bay Area for a bit. She was dabbler in lots of things - sewing, painting, needlework, crochet, etc., and most of her kids have ended up being dabblers in one (or many) creative way or another. We dabble. We flit about. What can I say?



These are the pieces that instigated this post. They're needlepoint versions of Pinkie and Blue Boy, famous paintings by Thomas Lawrence and Thomas Gainsborough, respectively. They're not finished. In fact, I think Mom picked out the background stitching and never finished them.



I like them - they may be salvagable, though I don't know what I would salvage them into, except framed pieces.



They're worked in two sizes of stitches on Penelope canvas - the detailed faces are smaller stitches, and most of the rest of the figures are worked in larger stitches.



I always thought Blue Boy looked a bit jaunty.



I like his little shifty eyes. He's definitely checking out Pinkie...



My Mom has always had a penchant for Things Pinkie-and-Blue-Boy. These statues were with us in every house we lived in - and we lived in Many Houses, all over the country!

Studying the Pinkie and Blue Boy canvases led me to another work of my Mom's from her early married days:



I never knew a time when this wasn't on a wall of our homes growing up. It was made from a stamped cross stitch kit Mom bought two years after she was married (so that would have been in 1959, making the piece exactly 50 years old).



Let's see if I can get it right: the stamped fabric cost her 59 cents, and the thread for it cost 30 cents. An 89-cent project - 50 years old - not bad!



She paid $20 to have it framed four years later.

The year Mom got married, she made this baby quilt:



This was another kit - stamped embroidery, featuring Peter Rabbit and Company.



The piece features several stitches - mostly cross stitch, but also a good smattering of satin stitch, stem stitch and daisy stitch.



It's funny to look at this now, when these types of vintage embroidery patterns have become pretty popular once again.



There are a couple stains on the Peter Rabbit section. One of these days, I'll try to remove them!



Nice little watering can... The quilt top was pre-printed with the pattern when Mom bought the kit. She did the embroidery, then put the blanket together.... almost 52 years ago! She was expecting my oldest sister at that point.



I like the little bird...



...but the pink eyes are a bit freaky!



The cottontails are little cotton pom-poms that have held up really well for this many years and several babies' usage!

Later on in life, Mom took up counted cross stitch, and vestiges of her efforts can still be seen around her house.



Mom has always liked birds.



This was one of my grandmother's favorite prayers (my Mom's mom), and subsequently one of Mom's. Mom said she almost kicked herself when she finished the piece and realized she had not cut her fabric large enough for the type of framing she wanted. Still, this has been a nice piece in her house for the past 25 years or so.

Like Pinkie and Blue Boy, the St. Francis Prayer is a recurring theme in her house:



My grandmother gave my Mom and Dad this plaque (which is only about 4" x 6") as a gift many, many years ago - another thing I remember always being on a wall in our homes across the country.

Mom's present needlework pursuits involve crochet only, and she makes some pretty nice doilies, tablecloths, and filet crocheted lace for church use.



Mom didn't make this, but it was in among her needlework things - a souvenir from a one of her trips to Hong Kong many years ago:



She says it's a baby carrier. Her escapades on this trip to Hong Kong were pretty funny. It was her first time abroad, and she had no idea how money exchanging actually worked. When she exchanged money for the first time, she couldn't believe how much they gave her back! So she had fun shopping with it!



The embroidery is machine embroidery; I think it's kind of neat! This has seen several appearances on kids in school plays, costumes, and so forth. I don't think she ever actually used it as a baby carrier!

Mom's needlework adventures also included afghan-making, quilting, sewing children's clothes, making things for the house, and so forth. She's always been a project woman! And it's always heaps of fun, going through her old pattern books and needlework items!

Happy 75th, Mom!

Labels: counted thread embroidery techniques, crochet, embroidery for children, needlepoint, needlework pictures, personal, pictures, vintage embroidery

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Friday, May 15, 2009
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Now that I finished the embroidery on "Breath of Spring," and with the busy school year underway, I want to line-up my next needlework projects so that I don't have to focus so much on set-up, and so that I always have a "carrot." You do use needlework as a carrot, don't you?

For me, needlework is absolutely a carrot - it is my inducement to get myself to perform (whether household tasks, job-related activities, whatever) so that I can embroider with a clear conscience. Basically, I do what I have to do so that I can do what I want to do. That's not to say that everything besides needlework is drudgery; on the contrary, I like my job and I like doing other necessary things that relate to normal living. I always find, though, that if I have a goal (get this done now so I can do that later), I work with more energy and focus.

Do you want to know what my carrots are right now? Well - here they are:

First, I'm working on a goldwork project - a small project that's a lot of fun so far. I'm giving it to my niece for her wedding in November. I would like to have it finished by the end of next week, which isn't impossible. I've done all the silk shading, and now it's just a matter of the goldwork.



This is a picture of part of the project. I can't blog the whole thing right now, as the project isn't really "mine." Once it's published, I'll show you my finished work and tell you about it at length. But don't you love the colors so far?



Here's a little shot showing you how a vine is narrowed using gold passing thread. The vine is originally two pairs of passing thread (gold passing thread is generally couched in pairs). Then, about halfway around, I plunged one thread (half of a pair), and then a bit later, another thread, to narrow the vine to only one pair of passing threads. I think the designer was ingenious with this little touch.

After this is finished, I'll move on to beginning my Pelican.



This is the piece that I bought the threads for on my recent shopping venture. It's painted on 18 ct. canvas and the whole thing will be worked in tent stitch. The canvas was designed and painted by Judy of Possibilities, etc. I've had it for a while, and had every intention of starting it last spring, but, amazingly enough, I never had a chance to go shopping for threads until just a few weeks ago.



I don't plan to stitch the whole piece in one sitting. (Oh, no kidding??) Actually, it's going to be an on-and-off piece, for something to stitch on now and then, between projects and whenever I'm on a needlepoint roll. I don't think I would enjoy glutting myself entirely on tent stitch for months until this is finished. I'm looking forward to working it.

My next little project is going to be BABY BOOTIES. I'm excited about this one!!!! I'm going to make a couple sets of little baby booties out of wool felt (I think I'll try some different lining ideas, though - like lining them with flannel, or, for cold weather, perhaps fleece?). They'll be embroidered, of course, and I hope they turn out cute. I've got a pattern set from McCall's (pattern #2867).



I've also found some cute patterns online. I especially like this Bitty Booties pattern from Heather Bailey Designs (PDF). You'll find it on her blog Hello My Name is Heather.

I've also been in the process of designing a really ambitious project.



It's ecclesiastical embroidery and will feature mostly silk shading and goldwork. The design is still in the works, and it's really l-a-r-g-e. I still have some sketching to do on it, like finishing the angels in the arm of the cross:



My plan is to break the design down into workable elements that will be appliqued together onto the main ground fabric. This is a whole new adventure for me - at least on this scale. I'll definitely be keeping you posted on this project's development. If I flop or just give up, you'll be the first to know!

For light work this winter, I've got a couple of Tanja Berlin's kits still - the squirrel and a bird, I think. So it's likely I'll set those up for stitching.

And between these projects, for more immediate purposes, I'd kind of like to make a stack of Christmas cards before the end of November rolls around. I'm thinking about getting some kids together - or at least a couple of my nieces - and doing a kind of group card-making session or four on Saturday afternoons.

All this is fun stuff and really exciting to me. But the reality is that, as much as I'd like to have all these projects underway with a certitude that I could finish them this winter, I know it will not be likely that I'll get them all done. Oh, the ecclesiastical piece will take years, I know. But it's nice to have stitching goals for the fall and winter months, even though I know that my real job is going to be taking the bulk of time. Still, I do plan to stitch, and stitching always makes a Really Good Carrot for me. If I do my work like a good girl, then I can settle into some serious needlework!

Is embroidery your carrot? Do you make up stitching goals for yourself? If you do, how many projects do you have on the burner? (Or at least stewing in your head?) In short, how do you go about planning and executing your stitching adventures? Maybe if we share ideas on this, we can all become more efficient with our time and our approach to our projects!

Labels: ecclesiastical embroidery, goldwork, needlepainting, needlepoint, needlework pictures, organization, personal, pictures, silk

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, September 13, 2008
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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

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, August 28, 2008
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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, January 26, 2008
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I've been told that needlepoint is a very "relaxing" form of needlework. Truthfully, I don't really know. I recall as a kid doing some little needlepoint design on plastic canvas, that came with a kit of sorts - and that's the only time I've ever played with the technique. Well, my tastes have matured a bit, and, with a little bit of luck, I've come into possession of what promises to be an exciting project.

The Traquair House needlepoint canvases are hand-painted by Phillipa Turnbull. They are, "by special permission from The Laird of Traquair House in Scotland, an exact replica from a panel of slips from the 16th Century." There are 9 slips altogether. You can see photos of them at The Crewel Work Company.

Traquair House dates to 1107 (900 hundred years old!) when, according to the historical information on the website, the house was a hunting lodge for the Scottish royalty. Now, it's one of those "I'd love to go there" historical spots that hosts tours, events, and weddings, has a brewery on site, and even has Bed and Breakfast accommodations. It looks like a lovely place with a glorious history. You can read all about it at the Traquair House website.

Back to needlepoint! The panel I have is the Griffin, Pomegranates and Swooping Bird panel:


And it came with the whole palette of Trebizond silk!



This is the whole canvas. I'm glad it's the Griffin! As you probably guessed, I didn't actually order this specifically - it came as part of the needlepoint treasure box from Twining Thread, which, sadly, is no more.



There's the griffin up close. I like him!



Here's the Trebizond palette.

The piece is supposed to be worked entirely in tent stitch (or petit point), which I guess will make the stitching itself rather easy, except, perhaps, for the changing of colors rather often. I'm assuming that it should be worked in the "basketweave" style of tent stitching. The unfortunate part of receiving this canvas for a mere (small!) fraction of it's regular retail price (along with all the silks, to boot!) is that it didn't come with specific instructions. I'm hoping I know enough about needlework to manage working the piece, and what I don't know, I may be able to guess!

I've worked a lot of canvas stitches and their variations on evenweave, to play with them, but I've never actually worked a whole piece of needlework of this quality. So wish me luck! I can't wait until I have time to get it going!

If anyone out there has any advice about working on this type of canvas, I am, as usual, all ears!

Labels: historical needlework, needlepoint, pictures

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Tuesday, October 02, 2007
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