Tag: Nefertiti
Finally, completely finished!
More progress on SlowTVStitchery – Episode Eight is now up. It contains intimations of dilemmas to come… Enjoy!
After washing the pashmina for the lining several times (it dyed the water bright turquoise the first three times at least, with no discernible fading in the fabric), ironing both of them, and pinning them together with safety pins, I settled down with my turquoise silk thread and ran simple running stitch quilting along all the gold lines of the design. This was easiest to do, I found, by cutting the thread to a little over the width of the pashmina and starting in the middle of both the thread and the shawl. Once the main lines were in place, I went back to the polychrome band and added the extra lines of stitching to delineate the frame.
It’s not easy to see, although I’ve done my best with this photo, but I’ve worked several rows of variegated golden lines across the pashmina on the otherwise undecorated end. I felt, when I finished the polychrome band that the whole thing looked a little unbalanced, and needed something to prevent the impression of something just fading out. I used Wavy Chain, Shell Chain, and Cable Chain, which are used on the other end, too.
And here is the polychrome band. You can see that the proportions aren’t quite perfect, but it is very much in the spirit of the StitchOff that the pashmina was originally bought for, in that it is intended to be worn and enjoyed, not stuck up on a wall. It wasn’t quick to do, but that is the fault of my own talent for over complication!
At long last, the Nefertiti Shawl is finished and lined, the lining has been controlled with lines of stitching, and the whole thing has been pressed. It should be seriously cosy – the lining is another cashmere pashmina, and it clings slightly as I wrap it around myself. It’s not an easy piece to photograph, hence the languorous drape over the sofa!
Last details on the Nefertiti Shawl
Well, at last!
As you can see, I didn’t perfectly centre my sketch of the design when I put it on the pashmina, but once it’s swept around my shoulders, I doubt very much whether anyone will notice!
I’ve also put a narrower set of gold lines on the other end. I didn’t want to work the whole thing again, but I felt that a little extra colour would nevertheless help to make the whole this look a bit more thought-out. Or at least, more completely evolved!
However, I did decide that in the interests of not spending all my time on maintenance, I was going to line it, and I found another turquoise blue pashmina with which to do so. It is slightly narrower (so I turned in the selvedges of the embroidered one to meet it), slightly longer, and doesn’t have a fringe. So I could line just the fabric length, and cut off the excess.
How to control the fabrics while I was doing so gave me a little trouble, until I remembered seeing quilters use safety pins to “tack” fabrics together. That worked beautifully!
I spent a couple of evenings working running lines beside each of the gold lines. Just straight running stitch – in the case of Wavy Chain, I simply offset the line a little, rather than trying to follow the zigzags.
SlowTV Stitchery continues – Episode Four and Episode Five are both now up to view. Enjoy!
Nefertiti Shawl – Green Panels finished
So here is the first of the green panels.
I’ve used stranded and floss silks, in variegated and plain colours.
The stitches are Woven Stitch, Bokhara Couching, Trellis Couching, Burden Stitch, and Darning Stitch, and wherever it’s possible to use two different threads in a stitch, I have done so, usually contrasting a plain with a variegated colour, or (sometimes and) a stranded with a floss silk.
Oh, I forgot – there was stitch orientation, too – vertical, horizontal, right-facing diagonal, left-facing diagonal!
Okaaaay. That made the “duality” idea a tad daunting, but not half so confusing as starting without any plan at all!
Anyway, the result is that the areas of high stitch density and high reflectance have been moved around a bit, and the details of the patterning have changed a bit, too.
I’m going to drape the panel somewhere I can see it for a couple of weeks, to be sure I’m happy with how it’s turned out, and then I’m going to line it with another pashmina. I’m planning to stitch in self-colour along all the gold lines, which will provide a slightly quilted look, and control the fabric a bit better, too.
Not to mention, making for a seriously cosy shawl!
Nefertiti Shawl – partial panels
There are partial red panels at the edges of the Shawl, and as I want the colours to run the whole way across, clearly I have to stitch them. While I was mulling over the blue panels and the green ones, I carried on with those partial panels.
The central circles in all cases are in chain stitch and stem stitch, but I wanted a variety of effects in the main circles. That wasn’t as easy to achieve as you might think, for all my extensive repertoire of stitches! I found “German Knotted Blanket Stitch” in Barbara Snook’s “Embroidery Stitches”, and Palestrina and Loop Stitch are old friends, but by this point I’d managed to rack my brain into remembering most of those..
I was beginning to be at my wits end for stitches, and spent some time rummaging in Edith John’s “Creative Stitches” and “New Stitches for Embroidery”. Many of them would be easier in a slightly stiffer thread at a slightly larger scale, so I find myself wondering what Miss John devised her stitches for.
The full circles here are in stitches which are old friends, but the partial circles are some of hers. Floral Feather is a feather stitch with an upside down blanket stitch beside it, and I quite fell in love with it. I’ll be looking for another opportunity to use that one!.
Centre Chain stitch alternates single chain with fly stitch, starting each chain stitch within the previous one. That might be a way to vary textures with Wheatear Stitch, while still keeping the overall pattern. And Double Chain Stitch places a chain stitch and an open chain stitch side by side, alternating the ordering to create a checked effect.
Nefertiti Shawl – the second pair of blue panels
You may recall that I wasn’t entirely happy with the the first two blue panels. I’m still not entirely sure why, but I decided that I would work the second pair rather differently.
The outline of the pillar like shape, this time, was in Vandyke stitch using a Stef Francis variegated silk. Tricky, on such a mobile fabric, but I liked it enough to keep going, and moved on to a background using Sorbello Stitch. I rather like Sorbello Stitch – I used it for the villages on the Map of Amarna – and because I was working it at a tiny scale, the mobility of the fabric wasn’t a huge problem.
On to the internals of the pillar like shape, and I started with a Ceylon stitch wheel. This is a needlelace stitch, and even with the fabric in a hoop, tension was an interesting challenge…
I’ve also made the background a chequerboard of Sorbello Stitches in two shades of blue. I must have really enjoyed myself!
Finally, I filled the rest of the body of the pillar with Ceylon Stitch. Tension was even more of a problem here, and I may have to come back to this and tweak it, restitch it, or even change my mind again. We’ll see!
In the meantime, however, I have to do another one on the other side of the panel.
Lost Momentum…
Where I had Got To..
I’ve run into a bit of a problem here. I still love the idea, and I still want to finish the Nefertiti Shawl, but I’ve lost all momentum, and all sense of structure.
Red and Blue Sections
I’m happy with all the red circles. I like the colour variation and the unevenness – in real life, in a half-decent light, which winter in Britain rarely provides, there’s a vibrant, lively feel, and the use of the line stitches reflects the original pattern I used for the filling. Good.
Blue Section
The blue section is where the trouble started. I’ve done two of them already in spite of my doubts because I’ve come across all too many instances where a piece only worked when I’d kept on through the doubts.
I’m not sure whether it is the yarns, the colours, or the stitches that are the problem, or even whether there is a problem at all.
The pashmina is in a lovely twill weave which flows beautifully, but it’s quite fine, and a lot of the threads are thicker.
Green Section
But the problems of the blue section fade into nothing when I get to the green. I love the overlapping scale pattern, and I was really looking forward to stitching it. But I can’t find a pattern of stitching that works, and again, I’m not sure whether this is the colour, the thread, or the stitch.
I have no idea how to sort this one out. Unless inspiration strikes, it will be some time before you see it again.
Finishing the Head of Nefertiti
Unless I decide otherwise, the head of Nefertiti is now finished.
Signature Cartouche
I’ve worked my Morse Code cartouche slightly differently this time, using cross stitch for the dots, long armed cross stitch for the dashes, and counted running stitch for the frame. This works rather well, so it’s a possibility for any eventual canvaswork projects in the future.
However, in this instance it is almost completely invisible, so I may yet unpick it and rework it twice the size, with four threads in each direction instead of two.
Finished Head Of Nefertiti
In the end, if you recall, I decided to work Nefertiti’s cartouche, both the hieroglyphs and the frame, in reverse chain stitch using untwisted silk.
The rays of the Aten are worked in reverse chain stitch, but using hand twisted silk.
I am a little concerned about balance and the strength of the design, but when I was playing with my photos of of the finished panel, I noticed that when I cropped the picture closely, rather than including all of the length I have stitched of the rays of the Aten, it was much improved.
That happened with the Camberwell Panel, and with Loading the Felucca, as well, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
And I really should remember to play with that sort of detail when I am mounting and finishing my embroideries!
The Cartouche for the Head of Nefertiti
Trials For Cartouche
There were many false starts when I came to work on the cartouche. The fabric is under such tension, in order to work the metal and silk stitches, that it’s hard not to create something that looks very fragile and wispy.
Here you see stem stitches, back stitches, straight stitches, chain stitches of different lengths, some worked using the same twisted thread I used for the rays of the Aten, and some in untwisted thread of the same thickness.
And I didn’t like any of them.
In fact, I ended up doubling the thickness of the thread, but not actually twisting it. This creates a more definite line, and using reverse chain stitch throughout maintains the sense of continuity with the rays of the Aten.
Trial Hungarian Braided
Once I had finished the hieroglyphs, I had to work the frame of the cartouche, and guess what – false starts here as well.
I was rather saddened that among the stitches tried was one of my favourites, Hungarian Braided Chain Stitch, and that, like several others, ended up being sliced out with a penknife. A rather nice penknife with a mother of pearl handle, from a vintage sewing set, but it’s frustrating to dismiss a favourite stitch, even when it’s because you don’t think it works in the context.
There was a lot of this!
After much to-ing and fro-ing, and a good few “ouches” from my recalcitrant sub-scapularis muscle, I finally got the cartouche finished.
I’m not entirely sure I like the finished result, so it is sitting in the living room, being stared at.
The Head of Nefertiti – further details
Additions For Nefertiti
I suddenly realised that I haven’t got any representations of the Aten in the panels. Considering that Akhenaten’s new, monotheistic devotion to the Aten actually created Amarna (Aketaten in his day), that is more than a little remiss of me. So the extra details I am planning for Nefertiti – shown here, drafted on tracing paper laid over the the print I didn’t use for stitching – begin to right that wrong.
I’ve drawn the rays of the Aten ending in little hands outstretched in blessing, as seen in many wall-carvings and paintings at Amarna. For some reason (research to be done…!) the hands nearest the noses of Nefertiti and Akhenaten often hold an ankh, so that is also included.
I’ve added in Nefertiti’s cartouche, although I think I may have drawn it too large for the design as a whole, and my own, which will include my initials in Morse Code, as this is a standalone companion piece.
Barely There
I want the lines to be there, and yet not there, so I found some filament silk that I bought at Texere Yarns before they closed their store, and had a go with it, using reverse herringbone stitch, as I did for the contours of The Map of Amarna.
And it completely disappeared.
Oh dear!
Much Better
So this is the next version, reverse chain stitch using a 2-into-1 twist. I’m much happier with that, although twisting the thread before I stitch with it does rather slow down the stitching part of it!
But still, here I am, stitching with hand-twisted thread, twisted by me. Never would fifteen-year-old me have believed I would be doing that!
If my Grandmama could see me now….
The Head of Nefertiti – continuing progress
Necklace and Polychrome Bands
So this is where we left the Head of Nefertiti. the polychrome bands and the gold edges of the headdress are done, and I have worked a section of necklace.
I keep flip-flopping between feeling that that section of necklace is just right, and feeling that it really isn’t enough at all. I like the sense of a delicate flash of colour barely surviving the years, but at the same time, there’s an inner glitter-girl that wants to see a bit more than that..
Gold Browband
So, while I think a little more about the necklace question, I thought I’d make another attempt at the browband. This time it is simply straight stitches, in a slightly finer thread than the rest of the gold stitching. It’s not perfectly regular, but, again, the slight unevenness evokes the damage of the years.
And besides, by now, you must know that regularity of stitching is not my forte!
Is it done yet?
So, again, I find myself at a pause.
I’m happy with the browband, I think, definitely happy with the polychrome bands, and the gold trim.
However, I’m still not sure whether I’m happy with the necklace.
Since my thought is to quilt a pattern into the background, I had best be certain that I’m happy before I start attaching padding and picking patterns!