Easter Windows: Reticella, Mistakes, and a Question

 

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On Monday, I showed you the little reticello sampler I’m dabbling with. It’s an exploratory thing, just for my own information at this point. Many of you have asked if this will be in the Stitch Snippets series this year. No – no no. Oh no. Nope! That’s not to say it won’t develop into something else, but the Snippets for this year are pretty much planned out already.

This piece is really just for my own information, learning, trials and errors, and so forth.

I have a question I want to ask you about it, though, so I’ll do that at the end of today’s article.

Reticella sampler progress
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Reticello Sampler & Explorations: Watch this Space

 

I’m making up a little reticello sampler.

Reticello is a style of Italian cutwork + needle lace, or cutwork lace. I’ve been exploring it, by following the directions in some new Italian needlework books that I plan to show you soon.

I figure if I really want to test the book’s instructions thoroughly, I need to pick up my needle and do as the book says. So far, so good.

I’m having a wonderful time exploring, and I’m learning a lot. This is a style of needle lace that I have loved for a long time, and although I’ve dabbled in it, I’ve never really explored it thoroughly.

Reticello Sampler & Explorations
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Stitch Challenge: Trilby Stitch

 

Let’s do something a wee bit different today, shall we?

Normally, when we explore stitches together, I launch right in and show you the stitch and how I do it. You can see examples of this approach all the way through the Stitch Fun series that you’ll find here – lots of stitches to explore there!

Today, though, let’s take this in a different direction. I’m going to challenge you to work the stitch from a set of old instructions, and then I’ll show you my explorations with it in the next article, with some reflections and ideas and whatnot.

Stitch Challenge: Trilby Stitch
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Bead Storage & Organization, Revisited

 

Several years ago, we chatted about organizing and storing beads. If you dabble with beads in your embroidery, chances are, you’re going to acquire some containers of beads along the way, and it’s nice to be able to put them in some kind of tidily organized storage solution.

My bead collection has expanded quite a bit since then, and I’m still using the same storage system. But… I’m using it with some reservations now (I’ll explain below).

So, I thought I’d update you on my bead storage and show you one thing I’ve changed (at a reader’s suggestion) that has worked out well.

Beads for Embroidery: Storage and Organization
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Ecclesiastical Embroidery: Annunciation Cope and More

 

When spring starts to tickle the landscape, my thoughts turn to travel. There’s nothing I like better, when the weather gets warmer and the landscape comes back to life, than to indulge in exploratory day trips (or two-day trips) that have some kind of needlework potential to them.

Whether it’s visiting a distant needlework shop (we don’t really have any close-by fine needlework shops) or a distant museum with some great textiles, either makes a great excuse for day tripping.

If you live in the Midwest, if you’re hankering for a road trip, and if you’re into ecclesiastical embroidery – or fabulous examples of beautiful embroidery – today, I thought I’d highlight two pieces of ecclesiastical embroidery appropriate for the day, that are within road-trip reach of Midwesterners this spring (and beyond).

(For those who don’t know, I live in Kansas. I tend to think “Midwest” frequently, but this isn’t to say that people outside the Midwest can’t visit these destinations as well!)

One exhibition is time sensitive. Even though I’ve mentioned it before, I think it’s worth mentioning again because it’s a grand opportunity to see two magnificent pieces of embroidery here in the States that you’d have to travel overseas to see, otherwise.

The other is a permanent exhibit that you can visit if you’re ever wandering through the wilds of northern Missouri.

Annunciation Cope, Clyde Missouri
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Bee-Jeweled Pincushion, Finishing 2.5: The Top & the Stuffing

 

OK! It’s time to rectify yesterday’s blunder, wherein I published the final article on the pincushion (the Palestrina stitch edge) when I should have been publishing this article on the second-to-the-last step.

On the Bee-Jeweled Project Index page, the articles will be listed in the correct order of work for proceeding normally through the project, so if you have to come back to this later in the year (maybe you aren’t stitching your pincushion just yet), you’ll find all the articles listed in the project index, in the correct order.

So let’s look at how to add the top to the pincushion and stuff it and close it. Please remember to read through all the steps thoroughly. Don’t rely solely on the pictures, since some steps are not pictured but are explained in the text.

Finishing the top and stuffing the pincushion
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