Category: General Embroidery
Dressing the Second Labourer
Using The Mini-Iron
Since I decided after dressing the first labourer that using rectangles of fabric was the way to go, when I started on the second I began by cutting out every bit that I expected to need.
That meant:
two pieces for the legs, a piece for the body of the top, a piece for the section of the top below the waist, a piece for the turban, a piece for the sleeve, and a piece for the cloth thrown over the shoulder.
I bought myself a mini-iron to make the job of folding in the edges easier, lighter, and less perilous. Fortunately there are two more labourers to dress, so I will have plenty of time to improve my skill!
Two Labourers Clad
The trick to a successful applique is the order in which the elements are layered.
So in this case, the first pieces are the trousers. They are stitched down each side, and tweaked in the middle to create some impression of a body underneath. The bottom edges aren’t held down, so in storage this piece may be a bit delicate.
The turban is done in just the same way as the first one, but this time I used a cream linen thread for the central disc.
The sleeve was next, and then the “skirt” of the top, which is gathered to give it a sense of bulk. It is tethered by the underlayer, but not attached at the bottom edge. The right-hand edge isn’t tethered, either, because in due course the Third Labourer’s clothing needs to fit underneath..
Finally, there was the body of the top, and the fabric thrown over the shoulder. I don’t understand why he didn’t use it to pad his shoulder against the packing case, but the photo says he didn’t!
Crazy Canvaswork Cushion – Part 10
Section Sixteen
The last section, Section Sixteen, gave me a lot of trouble. I suppose that is partly because the end was in sight, and I wasn’t quite as focused as I could have been!
I was originally looking for a crossing stitch, but every single one I tried either looked wrong, or simply failed to cover the canvas. I sent several tweets enumerating my trials, with one or two strands being too fine, and three strands too heavy, and in the end I abandoned the crossing stitches entirely.
Framed Triangle Stitch
In fact I devised my own variation on Triangle Stitch, which I’ve called Framed Triangle Stitch. I rather like the way it has turned out. It is a bit of a trial to stitch economically, but since I am attempting to reduce my stash, that is scarcely a problem!
Although I like the pattern it creates, I’ve been somewhat concerned about the scale of the pattern, which is perhaps a little too similar to the blue pattern of Section Thirteen.
However, I now have the challenge of unrolling the whole piece, blocking it, and working out how to finish the cushion.
As they say – watch this space!
More Experiments!
Back Of Sample
You could be forgiven for thinking that I had finally lost all common sense. We’re all interested in fibre, fabric, and stitch, but even so, expecting you to take an interest in a photograph of a plain piece of felt seems a little extreme.
Especially a very ordinary, single-colour, and entirely unadorned piece of felt.
So what am I up to?
Mischief, of course!
Does it help if I tell you that it’s really quite a thick piece of felt?
Front Of Sample
Or does it help if I tell you that this is the front?
I bought an “inspiration pack” of threads, and this thick square of felt at “Sewing For Pleasure” a while back, with absolutely no idea of what I expected or intended to do with it.
While I was wondering about it, I remembered reading about a medieval satchel that had been made by sewing the pieces together within the thickness of the leather. I didn’t feel quite willing to attempt something structural, but it gave me the idea of trying to work a sampler of stitches without the back showing.
Detail Of Sample
I even managed to work some of my favourite stitches.
I originally began with a wavy line of Shell Chain stitch, and then built up the design from there. Some of the threads were too heavy to use in this context, and there was a wonderful heavy slub that I couldn’t find a use for (never fear, I will!) but I had great fun alternating texture and shine, space-filling and line, and just playing.
I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with it, but I’m rather pleased with how it turned out!
Crazy Canvaswork Cushion – Part 9
Section Fourteen
As I mentioned in Part Eight, I gave myself a framework for the patches, alternating crossed, diagonal, and straight stitches.
Looking at the photograph now, there is a slight look of Victorian floor-tiles about the combination of the blue and yellow of the previous sections, and the brown and beige of this one. The proportion of brown isn’t correct for Victorian floor-tiles, but still…
It occurs to me that we might have a lot of fun looking at this cushion when it’s done, looking for other things that it reminds us of!
Caged Rice Stitch
I chose a Rice Stitch caged with straight stitches. I suppose this could be regarded as a combination of crossed stitches and straight stitches, which may throw my scheme slightly off-balance. I like it, though – the straight stitches look nicely padded, even though they aren’t, and the rice stitches add texture. I can imagine it looking “floral” in some colour combinations, but in this version, I think it emphasizes the “Victorian Floor Tile” feel I mentioned before.
Section Fifteen
I am getting really close to the end now – Section Fifteen is the last but one, as you can see by the square corner. Since I didn’t work on this project over the summer, I’m a bit surprised by that. I wish the project had been as good at stash busting as it has been at growing!
You might have noticed that teal is one of my favourite colours and wondered why you haven’t seen more of it, but my stash is partly inherited and I don’t have very much of some colours.
Double Twill Stitch
After the complexity of Caged Rice Stitch (which, while fun, is on the complex side!) I went very simple indeed for Section Fifteen – Double Twill Stitch.
So now I need to work out what colour – and what stitch – to use on the last section. And then how to finish the cushion…
Easy, right?
Crazy Canvaswork Cushion – Part 8
Section Twelve
Moving on…!
I’ve made something of a principle of alternating the types of stitch as I progress along the Crazy Canvaswork Cushion, so as far as possible a crossing stitch is followed by a diagonal stitch, and a diagonal stitch by a straight stitch. This is part of my strategy for making an abstract, random piece slightly less random, and more under control.
Chequer Stitch
In this case I also needed a sturdy stitch that would help to confirm the “weld” of the canvas, since although it had been tight when I first worked it, the pieces of canvas moved against each other as I worked the earlier sections.
I picked Chequer Stitch because it alternates squares of tent stitch – which will control the two layers of canvas very firmly – with squares of diagonal straight stitches.
Section Thirteen
Section Thirteen is actually a fairly simple Bargello lozenge pattern. I realise – rather late – that this may be the only place in the cushion in which I have used a straight stitch pattern, with the straight stitches oriented parallel with the long sides of the cushion. I am going to have to hope that this doesn’t make the section stick out like the proverbial sore thumb when I finally unroll the whole thing!
Bargello Lozenge
I found the Lozenge pattern in the “Dictionary of Canvaswork Stitches”, by Mary Rhodes, which I must have picked up in a second-hand shop somewhere, and a quick look inside shows it was a library book before that. It’s marked “Copyright 1980”, but I think there is a rather 1970s feel to this pattern. Thank goodness I didn’t choose to work it in brown!
Crazy Canvaswork Cushion – Part 7
Section Ten
It has been ages since you saw the Crazy Canvaswork Cushion – I got stuck and fed up with it and threw it aside in a huff, but since I’ve now sorted out the frustration I can cry “Onward and forward!” and show you Section Ten, which against my original idea, mentioned in Part Six, of choosing a horizontally striped pattern, I chose a basketweave bargello pattern. This is a pattern I have been longing to use and never had a use for.
Basketweave Bargello Pattern
What hadn’t quite registered with me was the scale of the pattern. It’s easy to work, although getting the colour progression right is a little tricky when you’re stash-busting!
I did maintain the orientation of the dark to light in both of the colour sections, but I wonder whether the light squares are too light. One of the advantages of this project is that it will give me references in the future to help me to remember what I need to think about when I choose to use some of these stitches and patterns.
Section Eleven
Section Eleven was the problem that caused me to make disgusted noises and set the whole thing aside. I started the section using and interlocking and crossing stitch, but it didn’t cover the canvas thoroughly enough, I didn’t enjoy working it, and it was using a lot of thread. Now, I want to use up as much of my thread as possible, but I also want the shapes and sizes to balance nicely.
All of this made me downright grumpy with the whole thing.
Plaited Stitch
Finally, over Christmas (having packed everything else away so I would have to solve the problem!) I unpicked the stitch I didn’t like, and started again, leafing though my books of stitches and patterns. Finally, I chose Plaited Stitch. It creates the horizontal stripes I had first thought of for Section Ten, but it is a diagonal stitch, so it contrasts with the Section Ten I finally did, and it is a crossed stitch, which contrasts with the diagonal stitches and straight bargello stitches of sections Nine and Ten.
Gabrielle, the Christmas Angel – Part Two
And now, the Finale…
Gabrielle’s Wings – first stage
“Angels need wings. I have never made big wings before, only gauzy ones, so these grew a bit like Topsy! I had, fortuitously, a ball of crochet cotton which exactly matched Gabrielle’s dress, but I had already used crochet to make the lace on the overdress. Needlelace seemed an option if I could find a suitable former to hand. Wire proved to be too thin, and the thread slipped about, so in the end I made a frame from one strand of the plastic coated wire of electric cable. Yes, I know you can buy purpose made formers but I wanted to do it now.
Sequins, crystals, and wire support
After drawing the shape on heavy card, and arriving at a good shape was an interesting exercise in its own right, I couched on the wire at widely spaced intervals, then covered the wire and its plastic coat in blanket stitch using my turquoise crochet cotton. Not only did this cover the wire but it provided a anchor for the needlelace itself. I used pea stitch at first then increased the number of loops in each group first to five and then to seven to add “weight” towards the lower edge. I hadn’t provided a former across that edge as I didn’t want it to be rigid, but needlelace requires just such an edge! A single thread helped a bit but a piece of applied crotchet finally did the trick.
She looked balanced, if a bit subfusc for Christmas, so I added sequins, left over from one of Rachel’s childhood projects, mainly cup-shaped but the lower ones are long ovals to suggest pinions. Again, the colours, turquoise and silver, were a perfect match. Some people have all the luck. Rachel added crystals to increase the “bling”. The halo is a cardboard former covered with cloth of gold. I used the gathered side to suggest an aura of radiating holiness and backstitched a banner “Gloria in excelsis Deo” in red on cloth of gold, too.”
Gloria In Excelsis Deo
We timed our photography just right, too – the last sunny day of Autumn, before the weather turned thoroughly nasty on us…
Outside, hanging from a fir branch in the garden, Gabrielle made a remarkably effective member of the heavenly choir.
Gabrielle, the Christmas Angel – Part One
Gabrielle, the Christmas Tree Angel
Lest you imagine my talent for complex projects sprang out of nowhere, I have asked my mother to write a couple of guest posts about one of hers – Gabrielle, the Christmas Tree Angel. Gabrielle figured on our Christmas cards this year, and she took nearly a year because she was being improvised as she went along.
—
“Looking at my collection of crochet hooks, I decided that I needed to do something quickly if I wanted to use the smallest one before my eyesight made it too difficult. I am becoming increasingly long sighted as the years progress, and my myopic Impressionist wonderland is receding. Coincidentally, it was Christmas tide, and we had just rejuvenated Bethlehem. (Ask Rachel!) A Christmas Angel for the top of the tree seemed the next proper project.
Gabrielle herself is one of Rachel’s dolls, rediscovered when we were tidying the loft. She is just the right size for our Christmas tree. A rummage through my stash of cloth provided enough satin, a beautiful turquoise, and a square of fine silk which had been the Virgin’s veil when we made a crib one year using Rachel’s dolls as the cast.
To make the dress I cut out a cross shape wide at the top and bottom narrowing towards the crossing place out of the turquoise satin. The cross piece itself, which formed the sleeves, was short and narrow. I hemmed the cuffs and a small opening for her head before folding bottom to top and sewing the side seams.
Lace Edging in sewing machine thread
Next I tackled the silk over-dress. A line of open blanket stitch along the selvedge gave me a base for the crochet work I so wanted to do. Again, I used ordinary sewing thread and kept the design simple. It was surprisingly easy to work. In no time I had a sizeable length of delicate lace.
The original intention had been to make a cottar such as altar boys used to wear, but the very small size and filmy silk made my stitching look crude. Instead I used two pieces of folded silk over the shoulders fastened lightly to the satin and covered the raw ends with the very gathered edge of my lace bordered silk. It looks more like a pinny, but billowing satin displays the lace beautifully.”
More Laid and Couched work – The Unicorn
The Unicorn
I enjoyed working Rusty and Spots in the Opus Anglicanum Stitchalong so much I decided I wanted to do some more laid and couched work.
I rummaged around in my heraldry books and online for medieval unicorns (for a quadruped) and swans (for something winged), and produced something of a synthesis. Some of the medieval unicorns had leopard feet, and one of them had a curly, piggy tail. Mine has vaguely leopardly feet, and a lion’s tail. I’ve sized him so that he fills the same space as did Spots.
It occurred to me that I may want to work medieval creatures in the corners of the Vision of Placidus, when I get that far. I was going to use Rusty, Spots, and their friends, but then I realised that in that context, it would be more appropriate to the story of conversion to use the symbols of the Evangelists – the winged ox, ram, man, and eagle.
Unicorn – the first layer
So I’m still not sure what I will do with these present creatures when they are done..
Since I am using existing stores here, and I wasn’t sure I would have enough of the colours I used for Rusty and Spots, I moved on to a different colour range – purples and blues. These aren’t the slightly fluffy Appleons wools I used for the other two, but are rather smoother, softer version.
Again, I’m stretching out the colours by threading two colours in the needle for the underlayer. And my goodness, doesn’t it grow quickly!
Spots The Eeyoropard
Got My Eye On You…!
Under Rusty’s very bright and beady eye, I got started on the companion that Tanya provided for him in the Stitchalong on her blog, Opus Anglicanum.
Detail Of Underlayer
Which turned out to be a Leopard!
This closeup of his head and neck gives you a chance to see the two different shades used side by side in the underlayer of the laid and couched work.
False Start
Once I’d finished the couching – in a modern twist, Tanya suggested working all the couching in a single colour, so that the Dragon and the Leopard will offer two versions of the same stitch – I had a slight false start with the outlining. When I tried the dark chestnut red, I wasn’t entirely happy with it. I’m not sure quite why, but perhaps it simply wasn’t distinctive enough against the orangey-red.
Spots The Eeyoropard
I went back to the dark green I used on Rusty, and used the same creamy yellow for the highlights. I don’t think I put in quite the same highlight twiddles as Tanya put on hers, but I like him just the way he is.
Apparently the Leopard of the medieval bestiary is a gentle creature – in spite of the fearsome claws, and according to Tanya, they all look “terminally grumpy”. I was talking about this with my friend @Matheknitician a week or so back when she accosted me at the MathsJam weekend, saying she was desperate to know what I was going to do with Rusty, and a day later she sent me a message suggesting that we should call Spots an Eeyoropard.
So, ladies and gentlemen, – Spots the Eeyoropard! Please be nice to him – he’s rather shy..