First is a Q'ing Dynasty embroidery collar for a child. It was done in colored silk, in satin stitch with a few beads, on various colors of felt. Here is a picture of a segment of that collar showing the embroidery on concentric rings of green and black felt and with beads connecting the rings. MOST of the color you see here is satin stitch in single strands of silk:
I was having a mental block on color choices for this one --- the examples shown in the instructions didn't resonate with me, somehow, perhaps because of all the Chinese "stuff" we accumulated in Beijing, a lot of which was on white backgrounds and even more of which was almost monochromatic But I started checking out the embroidery pieces we acquired while there and decided to use two of them as my guide for color choice. First is a Q'ing Dynasty embroidery collar for a child. It was done in colored silk, in satin stitch with a few beads, on various colors of felt. Here is a picture of a segment of that collar showing the embroidery on concentric rings of green and black felt and with beads connecting the rings. MOST of the color you see here is satin stitch in single strands of silk: Then I pulled a "modern" piece, an embroidered zodiac horse (I'm a water horse in the Chinese zodiac which is why I bought it), done on an even weave in silk, again, in satin stitch (Apologies for the glare off the glass): In both pieces, notice the dulled down blue, red and green, the bright orange, the pinkish white and the bright yellow. Notice a distinct lack of white (the modern piece has pure white around the eye of the horse but what appears to be white in the collar is really more of a pinkish white, almost a variegated thread). So that's what I aimed for in my thread choices, minimizing yellow because, in Chinese tradition, yellow was reserved for the emperor, and using a gold braid for the cloisonné-like outlining. My color choices were DMC cotton in 725, 798, 970, 3347, 3770 and 3831 and Kreinik #4 braid in 002HL: So another Color Through the Ages completed...
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What did I do this past "moon"?
Well, there were • the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches: Beaded Hebedo Edge, Knotted Loop Stitch. Italian Knotted Loop Border, and the Buttonhole Wheel Cup. • The October Stash Buster from Janet Perry (the very last one) • The October Mittens & Mini-Socks from Janet Perry --- both a mitten and a sock • the October parts for "Kimono - Revisited": • The October Color Palette Challenge/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project block • and quite a bit on "Birds of a Feather", shown here ... I do have a "Color Through the Ages" to kit up but otherwise, it's been all "Birds of a Feather"! A lot of time spent this week, avoiding the banging on the roof (the roofers are done; today it's the gutter people)and trying to get posts through to a forum that had suddenly gotten fractious and wasn't behaving nicely. So, except for TAST, all I managed was a lot of backstitching on "Birds of a Feather" (all the border blocks are stitched now --- only beading left for them) and started on speciality stitches in the border, proper (a green Rhodes Square completed and just a start on a pale blue fan stitch (see upper right):
This week's stitch is the buttonhole wheel cup. I tried it twice with two strands of GAST and the second step kept distorting the buttonhole wheel and the buttonhole stitch didn't "stand up" but rather formed a web inside the rim (see the picture on the left) so I switched to perle which managed to hold it's shape better: The perle cotton "cup" is done with three rows of weaving and it looks sort of like an empty barnacle shell at an angle:
I put in roughly 9 hours of stitching over the three days of ISHW and finished all the corner squares in the border of "Birds of a Feather" and started on the backstitching (the top right and right center blocks are all backstitched now) ... - not that you can really see a difference between here: and what I had reported on Saturday... or in this ridiculously small picture.
There were 12 detatched lazy daisies in each border block, as well as a couched grid-work held down by upright cross stitches in the center of each. In addition, I found several sections of gold braid cross-stitch I had missed out first time around in the rectangular blocks on the sides... Overall, a good finish for the Cross Stitch Crazy Weeklong Stitchalong (3799 stitches in all, through the week) and ISHW. It WAS a week of challenges; not all in the stitching camp however! This is the week our roof is being torn off and replaced so of course, it's raining,. Not heavily but enough to keep the roofers away. Of the five work days this week 9adn it was supposed to be DONE yesterday) they only got in two work days and I'd guess the house is one-third done,if that much. The hassle, besides the noise (and scaring teh cats but more on that later) is that the dumpster for the torn off rubbish is in our driveway and since they were supposed to be done yesterday and I didn't need the car all week, my car is trapped in there. Looks like next week will be interesting as I have my weekly Girls' Night Out meet-up *and* a hair cut scheduled... As for scared cats --- the housecleaner did the attic guest suite last Wednesday and left the door to it open (we never do as the cats love to sleep in there and there's nothing worse than trying to get black cat fur off of a duvet cover!). But what with the noise from the roofers, apparently the cats found the room irresistable. Thursday night, my husband, in his infinite wisdom, closed the door to that room. Friday, the littlest cat (Kathy) who is mouthy at the best of times, was particularly in our faces. No amount of food or petting pacified her. As dinner approached, I realized I hadn't seen the other two (Faith and Dominic) all day and Dominic, at least, is always at the dinner table, looking for love... A mad search of all the house. No cats. Was little miss Mouthy telling us they were missing? She sure was, but not very effectively --- we found them eventually, locked in the attic bedroom suite. Looks like it's the dry cleaners for us, to have that duvet laundered... The third challenge was motivation to stitch this week. TAST Week 42 was done promptly for a change but I didn't get back to stitching until Thursday and Friday when I finally put in two more speciality stitches on "Birds of a Feather". Can you tell? A blue fan stitch and a gold diamond eyelet stitch in all the border "boxes"... This weekend is International Hermit and Stitch weekend for October, so I should get in a few more border stitches before the "stitch-in" is over!
This week, the stitch was the Knotted Loop Stitch and while it wasn't that difficult to do, I couldn't get to it until last night (lots of late nights - Girls Night Out on Tuesday, Quilt Guild on Friday - and early mornings - volunteering on the NPR phone bank Thursday and Friday - means I didn't get all that much sleep and so wasn't competent to decipher the instructions!) Here is my attempt, the first failed (the fish on hte left really turned into mirrored blanket stitch) and the actual stitch on the right: It's a shame the fish didn't work out as I really saw fish bones in this stitch if the arms were varied in length. Oh well... maybe I'll take it out someday and redo it!
I haven't touched "Birds of a Feather" in over two weeks, and TAST - week 41 is barely in progress. It's been a busy week off the needle and all I have accomplished, really, is completion of a Mitten & Mini-Sock. But I can share the latest update on "Kimono-Revisited" which I caught up on October 8:
Two finishes for the Janet Perry Mittens & Mini-Socks bargello class... Autumn Trees, completed October 10, 2012, using all variegated threads (except for the tree trunk): Threads used - DMC 3031 for trunks; DMC 4126 for cuff; for tree leaves, DMC 51, 61, and 4075 4130; WDW Kudzu (2200), Cornbread (2222), Marigold (2225), Carrot (2226), and Fiesta (4131); San Man Threads Autumn Leaves (049) and Hot Stuff (058); and GAST Bittersweet, Forest Glade, Fudge Ripple, and Pumpkin Patch (4402). Variegated threads are hard to predict when in teh skein which colors will end up where so there are a few trees that sort of merge together... And the mitten for the same assignment, completed October 11, 2012: Threads used - DMC 3031 for trunks; DMC 4126 for cuff; and for tree leaves: DMC 51, 61, and 4075 4130; WDW Kudzu (2200), Marigold (2225), and Autumn Leaves (2234); San Man Threads Autumn Leaves (049); and GAST Bittersweet, Forest Glade, and Fudge Ripple. Because of the shape and overall size of the mitten, it used fewer colors. This pattern reminds me strongly of the one I did last back in November, 2011, in the 2011 Bargello Club: White for the "stems make it looks like a lot of pastel lollipops! And the lollipops are oval instead of round... and in rayon threads instead of cottons!
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AuthorBorn in New Jersey, I grew up in Southeastern Ohio. Attended university at Bowling Green State University (B.Sci in biological science, 1964), University of Southern California (M. Sci in biological science, 1967) and University of Florida (Ph. D in zoology, 1971). Archives
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