Why I'm Looking Forward to TAST 2012

If you haven't heard that Sharon B from Pin Tangle is re-running Take a Stitch on Tuesday next year, then where have you been??!=)  Umpteen stitching bloggers have posted about it already, but in case you've missed it, then here's the challenge home page and there's also a permanent link to it in my sidebar.

So, there'll be a different stitch posted and demonstrated each Tuesday, giving a whopping great 550 (and increasing) stitchers the chance to learn new skills and find new points of departure for old ones.  For some, almost every stitch will be a new challenge as they're new to surface work.  Others will revisit old friends and make new and yet others will just join in for consolidation and fun.  I fall into the middle group really as I have a passable repertoire, but still have plenty to learn and discover.

What I'm really looking forward to about it is not actually the learning of new stitches - as I have a number of stitch guides and I learn stuff here and there when working new styles/designs etc and that's fine.  I suppose I learn what I need to as and when I need it.  For me, the big thing is a bit beyond that -more into creative design and usage of the stitches covered.  In effect, I'm looking at it as a sort of City & Guilds samples project revisited.  Throughout this posting, you can see some of the small pieces I did whilst working on the City & Guilds level 3 certificate in embroidery, (which I, sadly, wasn't able to finish) and you may have seen already on my C&G page here.

Working through the design module and samples project, we had five design elements and five major themes, broken down into smaller areas each time and a type of work and/or number of stitches learned with which we were to interpret our designs.  To make that clearer, the syllabus requires that you cover line, colour, shape, form and texture.  Our teacher chose big themes for each area, so line was living creatures, colour was gardens and flowers, texture was buildings, shape was Art Nouveau and form was landforms.  Each week we then had a smaller area to produce some artwork and a design from which we would then interpret in textiles and suitable stitches.  Here you see my shell as part of the line module interpreted in linear stitches.  Above are samples from the colour section, one topic being flower borders, which was then worked in knot stitches on painted silk and other was hedgerows being worked with broderie anglaise stitches.

What I'm trying to say here is that I would like to do something like that again.  I think it will take a few weeks of the challenge to see how well it can be achieved as I don't know how much can be done in this way with just one major stitch (although there's no reason why one can't use others to support it, as long as the main TAST stitch of the week is the central thing, no?), and I'll have to chose my own themes and topics, which could lead to less creativity in that I may just settle for the easy option instead of challenging myself like the C&G classes did.  The sample you see here is a section of snakeskin done in loom bead-weaving!  I was rather disappointed when I went to the local C&G micro-centre last summer to see their exhibitions and could see none of the obvious design inspiration that I was used to from my old course.  Everything looked like shapeless masses of stitches instead of resembling something and that just wasn't what I wanted...=(

I also want to use more of the lovely fabric colouring things I bought for the C&G course, such as these silk paints, fabric paints and dyes.  I also have watercolour paints, which Kit Nicol (amongst others) uses in her pieces to colour her backgrounds, and some Derwent Inktense pencils, which can be used in a similar way to silk paints and dyes.

Here's something quite novel that I thought would make an interesting fabric colouring method.  Can you tell what it is?  To the left is the matte palette and on the right are the shimmer shades

Yes, you're right!  It is, indeed, eye-shadow!  And look at all those useful brown and green shades!  I got these two palettes on e-bay and, aside from the feeling that they could have made more of the 88 shades they had (given a better spectrum, and certainly fewer greens!!!), I love them and am keen to put them to other uses than what they were originally designed for - although I like them as make-up as well.=)  Despite being quite cheap, Chinese made products, they're actually quite good and, with a layer of primer, last surprisingly well and have plenty of pigment so give a good colour pay off.  Not that I've been brave enough to use that vibrant emerald green on my eyes...

Speaking of things Chinese, I'll leave you with this wonderful example of Oriental initiative and multi-tasking.  Here's one of our Chinese friends, Yufei, selecting from the menu, whilst balancing her 4 month old son's bottle with her chin.=)  Priceless, isn't it??

And it's snowing.....

Of course, by the time I'd finished the fine-tuning of this posting, the snow had stopped and the sun came out!!!=)  Never let it be said that British weather is monotonous!

© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Kreinik thread gauges etc

Isn't 'gauge' an oddly spelled word?  (Aren't many English words??)  I always want to write 'guage' instead.

Anyway...

Sorry for the quiet spell.  I've actually had a nasty bug all month (hoping this has been my 'flu month for the winter, so I've already got it out of the way), although I was better than usual with them and was able to stitch and blog and so on.  Over the last week I've been either busy catching up with domestic stuff, being away in Wales or just plain wrecked!  However, partly thanks to Megan down under, I've put my copyright thingy-whatsit in a template so I no longer have to keep scratting around to find a © each post!!

The roses project has been taken out of the hoop, pressed and the small back flower re-drawn in and then mounted as you can see here.  I've rolled up the other part and paper clipped it out of the way (using plastic coated clips just in case of staining) as you can also see, but it won't stay like that for long, as it should be done soon.

As the fabric has a very slight give in it (NOT really the ideal embroidery canvas!) I was glad that I took it out of the hoop before I put in the spider's web!  Had I not, then the long, straight stitches would have hung loose once it was let out.  So, I'll put that in holding the whole thing semi-taut in a plastic snap frame instead.  And that brings me on to the business of thread gauges.

I decided against using the prescribed Madeira #40 thread for the simple reason that I don't own any and the nearest stockist I know of is two counties away in Ripon.  That's too far to go to see if there's any real difference between that and Kreinik Cord!  I don't want to buy in new stuff anyway, I want to use the enormous collection of threads I've amassed over the 9 years I've been stitching.  One commenter suggested using the Madeira over the Kreinik, leading me to wonder if it was commonly known how fine Kreinik 1-ply Balger Cord actually is. Now this was a very hard photo to take, so forgive the gaps and the diagonals etc, but here's a comparison of some Kreinik thread gauges.

You can see at a glance how relatively thick threads like #8 Fine Braid and #4 Very Fine Braid and/or Cable (which is 3 plies of Cord, I think) are when put alongside Cord and Blending Filament.  Bear in mind though, that this photo is showing them all larger than life and I've noticed that the Cord looks about twice as thick as it realistically should!!  For this kind of thing (the web), I prefer to use Cord as it's more 'unified' than BF, which easily separates into it's two elements - the colour and the cellophaney bit.  Anyway, Cord is very fine gauge and this shade here should knock up a fairly decent web.  I've gone for 105C, a black and silver blend.

I like the corded types of Kreinik braids as well.  Here you can see a reel of regular silver 001 Very Fine Braid alongside it's 001C, corded version.  The finish is more even and the colour is often stronger.  Some of the 002 golds look OK in their own right, so to speak, but once you compare them with 002C in the same gauge of braid, they seem  very scrappy and patchy indeed!  The photo doesn't really do the difference justice in the silver, but I only had a dog end left on my current reel of 002.

I've been working a bit more on the poppy petals and have got half way through the third one.

Gail asked what I was doing with my old needlecase after moving my everyday supply to the new hardanger one.  Well, it's still in use housing the overflow.  I still need it really, and I can't think of how better to use it and have no idea of throwing it away.=)

Finally, here's the my tool section of my main workbox, which I cleared out and tidied up yesterday.  Let me know if you want me to take out all the things and explain what they are - as best I can anyway, as I've had some a while and not really used them yet....

© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Needle Painting Progress and Splog Warning!

Here's how far I got with the needle painting project by the end of the day of the last post (Monday, two days ago)

Then yesterday, whilst watching BBC's 'Land Girls' on the iPlayer, I managed to put in the main bloom

And this is how it looks right now:

I'm undecided on whether to put the spider's web in, or consider it finished here.  I'm veering towards putting it in, and I expect I'll have that sorted, one way or the other, very soon.  I think that element will balance it up nicely and my only real concern is whether or not the Kreinik cord I'm planning to use will be too thick when compared to the Madeira thread used in the book.  I'm thinking it will be OK...

So then I'll have the bloom profile to work on what will be the back of the pouch.

Changing the subject completely from the pleasant one of embroidery to the unpleasant one of copyright infringement and theft - I was splogged recently.  'What is a splog?' I hear you ask.  Apparently, that's the name given to a fake blog where the entire contents are stolen from somewhere else.  I'm not sure if they used one of those software nasties that will download your entire blog/site or hacked into my Blogger account (yes, I've changed my password!), but somewhere between the 11th and the 21st of last month, someone stole my entire blog content - 361 postings and re-published them on a fake blog template, re-arranging the order of some postings as if that, in some way, gave them a right to the copyright sign they had the nerve to put on the bottom!

How did I know this?  My blog is registered with Fairshare, which I recommend all of you do with your own blogs/sites.  They then send a notification via Google Reader for each page or excerpt that is re-published elsewhere.  Some may be perfectly legit and some even come in error (one of the RSS feeds on one of the my other blogs was flashed up once), and mercifully they only sent 39 notifications, not all 361.  Anyway, after a few reports to Google, they have removed the offending site.  At first I feared I would have to send in 361 separate reports, but I asked them if they seriously expected that and did they really want to wade through them all, and back came a confirmation that the splog had been dealt with faithfully.  And indeed it has - I checked!

Why do folk do this?  Well, search me, I wouldn't have ever considered it, but I understand some do it to pinch advertising revenue etc.  This wasn't the case with my blog as I've never allowed ads to be shown on my blog and the thief loaded it onto a template claiming to be about pressed flowers and some Fairshare reports were referring to an already deleted blog about where to stay in Paris, (which seemed familiar actually).  So, I have no idea why and when I feared having to file 361 reports, I just reported the URLs of the postings that got me the most traffic so that they at least couldn't steal my readership.

Apart from the slight flattery that my blog was considered worth nicking, (I mean, who'd want to think that their blog was passed up with, 'Who'd want to read that rubbish? Glad I didn't write it!' LOL), this is of course a case of theft and copyright violation.  I know some are, rightly, very concerned about that, considering the amount of time and work they put into their blogs, so I wanted to share my recent experience in the hope it might be useful.  I'll be adding in copyright notifications on all postings from here-on-in (if I remember each time.....)

© Elizabeth Braun 2011

A new needle painting project in progress

I actually started this one on Friday night and the first five photos were taken under the light in my study, but have surprised me by coming out quite well.  It's not a Trish Burr design, although it does look quite like her lovely pieces, it's from 'The A-Z of Thread Painting' and is called 'Spun Silk' by Australian June Godwin.  This is the photo of the piece as taken from the book.

I'm going to be making this one up into the manicure set that I originally intended a blackberries stumpwork design for and this single open rose will go on the back of it, no leaves or anything included beyond a few stitches of stalk.

This is my tracing of the design onto the cotton-based fabric.  I don't use any special methods, this was just traced directly from the pattern at the back of the book onto the fabric (which was light and fine enough to see right through without 'lightbox' style aid!) with a mechanical pencil.  I like those for tracing work as they have a lovely fine point and are not so soft that they smudge. This photo has been 'touched up' somewhat so that you can see the outline more clearly, thus the fabric appearing relatively yellow (compared to the photos below). It's antique (warm) white (DMC Blanc, Anchor #2 shade) really.

The first stitching session got as far as this

With a (larger than life) close up of the buds

Over the next couple of days I filled in the majority of the leaves

And this is where I left it when I stopped to take photos and post about it

And now, back down to it...  I'm really enjoying working this piece and I'm also, much to my surprise, enjoying working with just one strand.  I thought it would take forever - twice as many needlestrokes as with two strands etc, but I'm finding time is saved by not having to make sure the two strands lay perfectly flat next to each other and don't get crossed over each other, thus spoiling the appearance and even the sheen on the threads.  I could be a convert!

PS The stumpwork poppy is also in progress, but the needlelace petals are rather a bore to work all in one go!!  However, I have replaced that blurry side view of the beetle with a nice, clear shot and added in a view from the front too, so feel free to revisit the stumpwork beetle.=)

© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Stumpwork Beetle

I completed the stumpwork beetle yesterday afternoon and, whilst I think I need more practice, I'll share with you how it was done here.  Hope you enjoy and find it at least a little interesting, and maybe even useful too!

The kit came with just an oval outline on the fabric.  The first thing to do then, was to pad the outline with felt.  There was no pattern given for it, so I just guess-timated and then trimmed to size.  Then you stab stitch it in place.  No need for lots of stitches, just a few are OK.  You could even just put a few stitches in the centre of the felt and that would be fine too, but I prefer to have the edges secured so they don't get in my way when I'm working the next part.

The next step is to work satin stitches all across the body, completely covering the felt shape.  Here you can see me working with three strands instead of the prescribed two again.  No need to worry about covering outlines here, but it both saved needlestrokes and may even add to the height of the whole element.

The next photo shows the next two stages.  First, five stitches were made from 'toe to head', fanning out at the bottom, but going into the same hole at the head.  It's rather hard to photograph well, both lines of stitching being black, but I think you can just make it out here.  After that, re-thread the needle with two strands of metallic green floss and put a few satin stitches over the front to form a head.

Next we move on the green wings and, as you can see in this shot, the satin stitches are worked from top to bottom, along the diagonal line formed by the five black stitches.  You need to close them up slightly at the head end to both fit them all on and to stop them slipping off the side of the body.

Here you can see the completed satin stitches.

The next element is the legs and antennae.  These were worked in just one strand of black stranded cotton and done in straight stitches and detached chain (lazy daisy), thus making the 'double' look of the first section of each leg.  The antennae, of course, are just one straight stitch each coming out from the front of head (where else???!)

Finally, just stitch the eyes, two blue- or green-black seed beads, on to the front of the head and here he is, your stumpwork beetle!

I do apologise for the slightly blurry quality of one or two of the photos, but he's quite a simple little fellow and I'm sure you can find the materials for him easily, if not from the stash you already have.  The green thread is the dark green one from the DMC Light Effects range and I daresay Kreinik will also have something that answers.

© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Flatwork on the DMC Poppy and Beetle Kit

I decided to make a start today on the small stumpwork kit I posted in my last.  It's one of the six kits that DMC used to make, but has long been off the market.  I bought five of them, two of which came from a discount seller on e-bay who'd clearly got hold of a lot of end of line kits to sell on.  They do still crop up on e-bay from time to time, for anyone whose interested.

I like kits as a general rule and feel a good deal more relaxed when working one than I do when working my own design.  It's the security of having full instructions, and even some illustrations, that makes the difference, I think.  There are kits and kits though, and this is definitely of the mass produced, cheap and (usually) cheerful type.  The things I dislike most are the thin, cheap looking pieces of calico you're given to work your piece on and the fact that pattern lines are printed so thickly onto it.  I decided to work the stem stitch part in three strands as opposed to the recommended two just so as to have some hope of full coverage!  It didn't quite work, but it's near enough for what I'm thinking of as more or less a practice/learning piece.

The large leaf presented a slight challenge in that you're expected to stitch at an angle.  As you can see here, I drew in the centre vein and some angle stitch guidelines to help.  Outlining in stem stitch wasn't part of the instructions, but I feel that doing this both helps make sure you cover the printed lines and also raises the edge of the stitches somewhat.

The bud was a point of interest too.  I felt that the way it was done on the model in the photo looked rather bad, to say nothing of probably not very lifelike, so I changed it.  Here you can see the process of doing one part, the under sepal, in one layer of satin stitch, part of which provided padding for the top layer.  I'm not sure I'm wholly impressed with the final result of it. In fact, I'm wondering if it's any better than the original!  Still, this is a learning process....

Here's the status at the moment of the whole piece with all the flatwork completed.  It didn't take very long to do, especially as there's just one large leaf as opposed to the several small ones on the last DMC kit I worked. If all goes according to plan, tomorrow I hope to get to the green and black beetle and, if possible, make a start on the detached poppy petals.  See you then!

© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Some needling problems

And that's not all meant as a pun.  (Which bit is, you'd best decide for yourself!)

I've had this old needlecase for a few years.  I actually made it myself when I was in primary school class 3 at the tender age of around 7, so 1978/9.  I even remember being disappointed when I went wrong on the dark green/peach line, but it was rather a complex stitch for a tiny tot to do, no?  Well, my mum used it for years and then washed it out and gave it to me when I made her a new one back in about 2005/6.

You can see how untidy it'd got inside as well.  Bits of thread hanging around, flannel insert all rusted, needles all over the place in not much order, except that most of the top right section was blunts - tapestry needles.

Whilst we were in Taiwan I worked a nice new one in a hardanger design.  I'd done an identical one in pink (which, OK, means it wasn't really identical.....) and gave it to my mother-in-law, and that after promising myself I was going to work that needlecase and NOT give it away.  I felt sorry for her as she'd had a rough time of it just previously, so I thought I'd give her the choice of colour and have the other one myself.  5 years later and it's been made up and waiting for needles for about the past 18 months.  So, last night I finally got around to populating it.

On the top left hand side we have tapestry needles in sizes 20, 22, 24, 26 and tiny 28s.  Under that come crewel/embroidery needles in sizes 10, 9, 7 (which is my preferred size - not too fiddly to work with), 5 and a couple of 3s.

Moving on to the right hand side and, from the top, three beading needles, 4 straw/milliners ones in sizes 3, 5, 7 and 9, then two other large needles that I don't really know what to call, followed by chenilles in sizes 18, 20, 22 and 24, then a few general sharps for sewing.

So, now I just have to get used to the sight of my new needlecase.  At least it's still green!

I've been thinking about the berries design and the problems associated with it.  First of all, the silk (backed with interfacing) feels very stiff and rather like paper.  Not nice to work on.  And, as I had it out of the frame for a while, there are nasty buckles in it, which just won't do.  You can see a bit of how it's got spoiled here.

Also, to be honest, I'm not that pleased with the design.  It's all over the place with no real sense of balance and I just can't find any enthusiasm to work it.  I started on the monogram a few weeks ago but, as the letters are half the dimensions of the ones I took the design from (Susan O'Connor's book), they really are too small to do properly and, when I tried, they just looked so scrappy that I would have done better when I was seven!  If not, then at least there would have been that as an excuse.  So, with all that in mind and the fact that silk on silk was really not at all practical for an everyday manicure set, (I mean, we're talking about a normal, modern woman here, not Lady Mary Crawley!!), I decided to take the piece out of the frame and take the whole thing back to the drawing board.  Perhaps a larger monogram with the berries around it??  I'll see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, I went through my kit box and fished these two out.

I could wish that, when kit makers were putting these things together, they'd spare some thought on how well the colours in the design go with the fabric they provide.  It always seems to be a cream colour that gets used (and the piece in the Brazilian kits is rather rough and rigid as well), but it seems to me that these purple roses and the light, blue-ish greens that are with them would be much better suited to white.  I laid the threads against three fabrics for comparison.  The first from the left is white (cool), then an antique white (neutral) piece, then the cream (warm) from the kit.  I know it doesn't show up as well as it could here (the original fabric is a bit yellower in reality), but the cool shades match the white so much better.  Colour is very important to me and I can't feel comfy with 'it looks OK' when it can look better!  Perfectionist?  Well, perhaps.  In some things anyway.  A pass grade won't do for me when a distinction is available.;)

I haven't started either yet, and I also want to have a go at a berry or two, so I can't say for sure what's coming next, but something will.  Soon....

© Elizabeth Braun 2011