elizabeth_mn

I have a beginning embroidery class coming up, and I am stitching displays to hang in the store for promoting the class.

Still damp from blocking but you get the idea.



Stitches from top to bottom: running, wrapped running, stem, chain, back, herringbone, cross, feather, split, couching, laid filling, satin, long and short, french knots, speckling. It seems like a lot to cover, but theirs will be much smaller, and those linear stitches go pretty quickly.

I am planning a second display. One thing I have learned is that people really respond to color more than anything else, so I am making the next one in modern brights.

I also plan to display it in the hoop because that is still so hip these days.

I finished the tree piece in this set. I might go back and add a little more detail, but I’m not sure, and anyway all the main parts are done.

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do the leaves and left them until last. I tried a backstitch, stem stitch, and satin stitch, but none of them had the effect I was going for. I finally decided to just use a plain simple lazy daisy stitch, and it’s perfect.

Here’s a little peek.



Now I’m going to go back to the urn piece to add more detail to the flowers. I don’t want to photograph them in their completed state until they are framed and totally done. Which means I need to get around to painting the frames, too.

The urn so far. 



The design I started with had this odd little stylized filler piece at the base of the stems, but I couldn't figure out how I wanted to embroider it, and when I tried to stick a piece of applique on for it, it looked stupid, so I decided I would leave it off and just extend the stems down.

Well, that made the mass of stems look pretty scraggly, so I added an extra row of stitching on each flower stem to make them thicker.  The leaf stems are still just one row.

Cotton floss has a tendency to float on the surface of the fabric, which is sometimes nice but sometimes annoying.  With stem stitching, it means you see a row of floaty loops when looked at from any angle other than straight-on.  Pulling the floss tight only puckers the fabric.

I solved this by threading the tail through the running stitches (the backs of the stem sts) on the WS for the length of the stems.  This drew up the stitching on the back just enough to snug the cotton down on the RS and make it lie smooth.  Actually, the back looked so nice, too, that I think I will use a laced running stitch on the RS at some point in the future.

I started my next sweater, Retrograde, last week and I am now about 1.25 balls of yarn (of 11) into it.  It's a top-down round-yoke pullover and it has some interesting cabling which I am enjoying.

The sweater is designed to be reversible, so I am trying to hide my ends neatly.  The yarn is a superwash, so spit-splicing wouldn't work (and I have never had much luck doing that anyway).  When I joined the second ball of yarn, I made a Russain join, but it was hard to make it hold and the very ends made little tufts anyway.  But it was the best I could do, and a few rows later, I went back and sewed down the tiny tufts with a single ply of the yarn (it has 4 plies) that I pulled from a scrap end. It looks almost invisible, certainly better than leaving it alone, and now I plan to sew down the ends on all the upcoming joins with a single ply.

I've also been working on my applique pieces.  I've almost finalized the layout of the tree piece and I have put a couple hours of stitching into the urn piece.  I fused the shapes with paper-backed adhesive web and I am stitching them down with little stitches and all-purpose sewing thread.  Then I'm outlining the shapes with matching pearl cotton in a backstitch.  So far it is looking really nice.

I went to 3 Kittens the other day to get some Paternayan, my favorite cheap crewel wool.  Unfortunately, I found that they have stopped carrying it, but fortunately, a.) they have several new crewel wools; fancier and more expensive, but nice looking, and b.) there are 3 boxes of Paternayan skeins left, and they are on sale for 25 cents each.

So, I picked up a skien or two.  Or a few dozen.  Okay, 38 skeins.  But now I will not need to buy crewel wool for a while!  (Especially at the pace I seem to be using it.)  Anyway, Twin Cities area folk, I'd say get down there and get it before only the yucky colors are left (pastel yellow and goose blue).  I'm looking at you, undycat .

I managed, finally, to make some sewing time yesterday.  I finished sewing my new long-sleeved printed T-shirt and most of a second one.  I think I am going to rip the ribbing off the neckline and re-do it lower, though.  It's just a smidge too high, and I absolutely cannot stand a chokey neckline.

I finally sat down and embroidered the faces on these.



I think they're teetering just on the edge of creepy (mostly because my mouth stitches are a little crooked, I guess) but I like them. The patterns (apple and pear) had really wide-set eyes and teeny mouths, but that's not quite my style.

Others have already mentioned the errors in the patterns, so I won't get into it, but I did make a few alterations. I also improvised my own leaf.

( my improvised leaf )

Notes to self * about embroidering on knitting:

- Always make your stitches a little wider/longer than you think you want the finished size to be, because the stitches will sink into the knitting and look smaller.

- When embroidering circles (i.e. eyes) you don't need to make the edge stitches very short in order to make the shape look round.

- DO NOT pull your stitches tight. Do not even pull them snug. Do not pull them flat. Just let them be loose. In the end, they won't look messy. Really. Knitting stretches.

- Yes, you do still need to knot the ends, because yes, they will come out if you don't. Knot under the stitches you've just made, if possible, and weave the crap out the end.

- Draw your design on paper first.

I think I am done with toys for a little while now.  I want to finish my mitten and then start my new sweater.

* and other interested parties

Well, I meant to post photos of the completed embroidery now, but my computer is not playing nice and the photos do not want to upload.

Anyway, I finished all 3 pieces of embroidery and went to sew the potholders together.  Of course they didn't work out (since I either have a curse or I am reaping some instant karma from ignoring my real projects to dally about with embroidered household crafts) so I ripped them apart again.  I feel stupid now for not realizing that sewing wool/rayon felt to a piece of all-wool felted sweater will just turn out wonky, since the wool/rayon felt has NO give, while the felted sweater is still a little stretchy.

Now my dilemma is this: I need to either a.) make the backs of the potholders out of the white 100% wool felt I've already got, or b.) buy something new to finish the backs.  White will get dirty and gross in about 3.5 minutes in my kitchen, but I don't want to waste my precious little sewing money on something with which to make a potholder.  Besides, I'm trying to not buy any new sewing crap right now at all.

At least the embroidery looks nice!  I really like it.  Now I just need to figure out a way to turn my 3 beautifully embroidered useless pieces of crap into something functional.

Okay, so my thoughts are a little scattered this morning.

I recently ran into doe-c-doe (probably through craft zine's blog, but I don't remember) and became enamored with the vintage embroidery transfers posted there. Some of them are cute, and some are a little creepy and some are both. I like the simple, line-drawing, running-stitch style.  Since my last embroidery project was an experiment in soft shading, which is more natural-looking, I think I want to play around with something more cartoony next.

Also, I was watching the public television last night and saw a documentary about loggerhead turtles.  The turtles were so beautiful, it made me think I should embroider some on something!

Then, of course, I started fantasizing about my next embroidery design.  It will feature all of my favorite animals, done in running stitch/line drawing style, all hanging out doing something together.

So far on the list:

Cow (of course)
Turtle or tortoise
Some kind of long-legged bird
Some crustacean
Ladybug

I think I also need a smiling tree and one other completely unrelated animal.  Or a robot.  Maybe they should be playing ninepins.  Or croquet.  I want it to look odd and old-fashioned and adorable, but not so adorable that it is insipidly sweet.

I just need to keep this separate from the other embroidery ideas I have rattling around, namely, the Baba-Yaga's hut and the happy vegetables.  Wouldn't want it to look overdone, now would I? ;)

The real question is, can I draw and/or collage a scene like this together?

Well, I was waiting for something to inspire me, and it has.

I picked up Jane Rainbow's Beginners Guide to Crewel Embroidery at the used book store about a year ago. It explains a lot of things in a way I haven't been able to understand from other books. It really made me want to experiment with the soft shading, or 'long and short' stitch. The stitch is explained so well that it went from seeing terrifyingly hard to relatively achievable.

I dug up a reddish 5 x 7 picture frame I got a the thrift store a while ago, measured the visible area, and sketched a simple floral design based on one in the crewel book. I picked up a bunch of Paternayan wool few months ago when I started thinking about shading stitches, so I already had groups of close shades in various colors. I really wanted to use pink, but the orange and red looked better with the red frame.  I'm stitching on a white linen scrap.

I thought the stitch would be similar to working satin stitch: picky and difficult to get smooth. It's not. It's so easy! It's simple and you can cheat anywhere. The only part where it is like satin stitch is keeping the edges even.  Rainbow's best advice is "don't try to find the ends of the short stitches, but rather come up where you would like to see a stitch."

Anyway, I am having so much fun with it that I can't keep my hands off it and I am totally ignoring everything else.  It's not perfect (I think my shades are a little too close) but I am loving the way it looks and I want to get a photo of it soon.