The Garden, Thus Far

Oh, my goodness, but there is so much color in the back yard!  Too early, though, the azaleas have come and gone, and the Dogwood was confused and put only a handful of blossoms out for our admiration.  We have dug, moved, planted, re-planted, and every time I think it's almost done, I see another beautiful plant that must, somehow, be squeezed in.  It never ends— which is a good thing.  Gardens should never be "done," just as a home is never "finished," because all things that are alive or that provide a home for active people, should change with the seasons of our lives.

So, grab your mug of tea and let's take a quick trip through the garden!  Many things have been put in new, and they must wait for their time to bloom.  Others have bloomed quite out of their normal time.  It was the crazy winter-less past few months that set everything out of kilter.

The Irises are blooming now, and these are in need of staking.  For the first time, I planted annuals in the upper terraces.  Here you can see Marigolds and Cosmos.  Enjoy the little corner of Lamb's Ear (right lower) while you can.  I think it will be going to a new home in the far, far back of the yard where we put plants that have not played well with others.

Here is one of several re-blooming Irises.  It is always a bit of a shock to see Irises blooming at the end of summer, but they brighten up the fading garden:

The delightfully light and branching Euphorbia, whose blooms surprised us by showing up in early March!  Can you see the strawberry plant creeping through the thyme below it?

And as well as the Euphorbia, the red Dianthus has been bright much too early!  I love gardening here, as the bed is behind a terrace wall and is raised enough to make weeding a pleasure.

This was the big shocker of the spring garden, though.  Both of these peonies came from the same bush, and not only that, the tag said it would produce deeply pink blossoms!  Someone forgot to tell the plant, I suppose.

Below is an example of things gone amuck.  My impression of Verbena was that of a polite, very Southern plant who did not put a toe over the line.  Perennial Verbena, however, is hot to trot, and trotted itself right into the Lavender.  In response, the Lavender moved a foot to the right this year.  I was unaware that anything could invade Lavender!

On the subject of things getting out of hand, I have other examples to share with you.  On the upper terrace, I discovered a small mound of Dianthus between the Ice Plant and this lovely Thug:

The Wave Petunias, however, we want to get out of hand.  Oddly enough, the last one on right survived the winter in a concrete container, blooming the entire time!  Kudos to Alpha Petunia!  I will post her progress this summer.  The other four plants need to put the gleep on it and start spilling over the wall!

 The Lithidora is duking it out with a magenta-blooming Ice Plant for dominance.  Manners are set aside in this contest, but I noticed how the Ice Plant simply climbs down the wall when things get too crowded.

These last flowers, identified by nursery staff as different things, depending on where I take a sample, made the sad mistake of moving forward a little too quickly, and Charles and I dug dozens of these and planted them in the back of the mass.  When they bloom, a small quite brilliant magenta blossom appears at the top of the stalks, and they are beautiful, en masse.    I often have the feeling that I am watering and fertilizing a weed, but it is a beautiful weed.  In fact, I would like to plant Queen Anne's Lace to complement it, but I don't have the wide, sunny area it demands.  So many plants, so little garden!

Tea is cold, and we have navigated only part of the garden.  Maybe we should make a tour on another day?  Thank you for dropping in on me.  I love sharing our garden!

Work In Progress

It is time to get the garden in shape for the summer.  The routine is to be up early-ish and plant everything that came home from the nursery the day before.  On non-planting mornings, we dig and move things to (hopefully) happier spots.  And we dig/pull/curse weeds, especially little sprouting acorns.  I thought I would spare you the details of all this grind as well as the grousing over aches and pains by simple silence.

Fortunately, a lot of last year's perennials came back and are happy where they are growing.  Some things are a little too happy, however, and have overrun their neighbors.  Thus the relocation efforts.

I plan to be back with pictures some time next week.

Spring Life-Cleaning

It is the Spring coming so early, I believe, that has put me on to nesting— moving furniture in all the rooms of the house, planting new peonies in the garden, moving hydrangeas, cleaning out closets, going through every nook and cranny of the studio to see how space might be better used, getting rid of materials I no longer care to use and wondering why I don't want to work in these mediums anymore . . . turning over every aspect of my life and trying to set myself in order.  Spring Life-Cleaning.

I excuse this enthusiasm for nesting by remembering that I could not do any cleaning last year at this time.  But somehow, even that does not explain this burst of interest in setting things in place.

I looked at a weather map last night and was horrified at what I saw.  The Jet Stream made a roller-coaster up-and-down of the continent.  As much as I hated seeing the Spring come two months early, I hate even more the idea that this roller-coaster line dividing snow in the west from heat in the east could suddenly reverse its shape, and the high pressure might move frigid Arctic air and snow over the fragile and very bloomy Spring!

Source of Map

Frost wrote that "Nothing gold can stay," though I'm beginning to think that "gold" could mean the loveliness of Spring as well as the burnished tones of Autumn.  I wonder if the nesting instinct is an unconscious attempt to make a sheltering place for the Spring, should this High/Low Pressure system flip-flop and we lose the richness of too much spring at one time?

An interesting sidebar to this too-warm weather in North Georgia: the pollen count for Atlanta was at an all-time record of 8,164 yesterday!  My sinuses were telling me that something like this might be happening.  There are two dozen steps between kitchen and studio doors, and in that short trip, I must collect pollen enough to fertilize an entire orchard!

Time to dig out the surgical masks.  I wish someone would manufacture these in skin tones, with nostrils and lips drawn on them so I didn't look like such a dweeb wearing one.

A thought . . .

. . . about the internet and e-mail.  I can't imagine living without it today, but how did I get this way?

Doesn't matter.  E-mail has been down, and I have spent a week of my life in back-and-forth communication with my provider over why I cannot use my password anymore.  A patched-up solution has been found, but there were days when I asked myself if I really needed all this stress— and the answer was, "Of course, of course!  How else will you contact your friends?"

Now, a cup of tea and some soothing music.  Debussy, I think.

Composite Stitches: Mountmellick

A composite embroidery stitch is one in which there are several steps to finishing it, often involving some part of more than one stitch.  These stitches can sometime be more complicated than the "backbone" stitches, i.e., the chains, buttonholes, and flat stitches that are heart an soul of embroidery basics, but the composite stitches are certainly worth the little bit of extra trouble.  In addition, the more steps involved in making a stitch,  the more opportunities there are for stitch variation, which is my first love.

Mountmellick Stitch is one of these composite stitches.  You may read about the history as well as the traditional thread and fabric choices here  and a video tutorial is available.  The steps are also well-illustrated in Erica Wilson's classic work, Erica Wilson's Embroidery Book, first published in 1973.  Although the video tutorial is very helpful, my personal choice is always the diagram, because I can poke along at my own pace with a drawing until I "get it right."

This is the diagram of Mountmellick Stitch that Erica Wilson provides:

Although it is traditionally a highly textured whitework stitch, it is more interesting when worked in color.  Mountmellick thread is not readily available locally for me— I have a small amount left from a purchase years ago, and it resembles a flat matte cotton by DMC (Cotton broderie 4, or a soft, tapestry-weight cotton).  But there is a web site (Canadian) that offers it in all four weights  Check it out here . A lighter-weight version of this matte cotton is sold by Rainbow Gallery (Matte 18), in colors as well as white.  A heavy-weight filet lace thread would also work.  Perle cotton (sizes 3 and 5 are nice) or a heavy mercerized cotton (such as Rainbow Gallery's Overture, which is variegated) are other choices.  The heavier the thread, the larger and more textured the stitch will be.  Multiple strands of cotton floss or flower thread do not work as well as a single, heavier thread.  Lighter weights of thread do not show off the details of the stitch very well.  And, of course, the traditional stitch would have been worked in white, not color.

Below are some columns of Mountmellick Stitch that show, from left to right, the traditional stitch (with the leg elongated), and successive additions of legs, 2, 3, 4, and 5.  This stitch lends itself to the interesting variation of adding more than one little "leg" to the stitch. These are stitched in tapestry cotton:

It can also be flipped and worked in mirror image (here I had to grit my teeth and think in reverse, no small feat for me):

Because it curves well, it is an useful stitch to use in floral designs or in borders.  It is a very dense, heavy stitch, and plays well with other textured stitches.

Here I've played with it, stitching a closed form with it:

and substituting a Bullion Stitch for the last step of the stitch:

My stitches are much larger and more clumsy-looking than the proficient Irish stitcher ever intended hers to be, but it suits my style better than tiny, neat stitches would.  Hence the heavier thread.

Although the fabric most associated with it is a tightly-woven cotton satin, I prefer a looser weave of linen.  The linen fabric holds this stitch very well, and seems to make room for the bulk the stitch, where a tighter weave of fabric often has a strained look when it is finished.  Tighter weaves also stress the heavier threads as they are pulled repeatedly through it.

I am glad to see Mountmellick embroidery enjoying a revival of interest.  It is a lovely addition to our list of textured stitches.

What I have learned about Bullion Knots

Once again, before I forget all of this . . .  Bullions and I go back a long way.  We started out with high expectations of one another.  The stitch assumed that I would be a neat and patient embroiderer; I thought I could quickly whip this stitch right onto the linen and move immediately to the next stitch on my list.  We were both sadly disappointed.

The first thing I learned was to choose the perfect needle.  The ideal needle has very little taper, so the crewel needle I was using was unsuitable.  The straighter, less-tapering milliner or darning needles were ideal.  The needle should be long enough to hold a large number of wraps.

The next thing I learned was how important the wrapping process is.  Every wrap must fall carefully in place beside the one before it.  No crossing over or under or changing the order of the wrapped threads, and the tension must remain consistent.  The wraps had to look like a perfect metal spring to be successful.  And this is a hungry stitch, so it takes a surprising amount of thread to complete only a few Bullions.

Invariably, the stitch  tangled unless I kept a finger on it with my free hand as I pulled the thread slowly through the tunnel of wraps, then to the back of the fabric.

This Bullion-petal daisy is stitched using a variegated cotton floss, two strands.  I found that using more than these two strands was often difficult to control.  I think it has something to do with that business of the speed of car wheels as you turn a corner, how the outside wheels require more revolutions than the inside wheels because they cover more distance.  So I never use floss longer than 20" or 22" in length, though if I am using a single strand of a perle or a mercerized cotton, the stitching is very smooth and I can use a longer thread.

Bullions may lie nicely flat and make an interesting filling stitch:

 

Here is an example of very exactly aligned Bullions in cotton floss, two strands, that form a seed pod.  I think the over-dyed thread contributes greatly to the charm of this little example:

And when you tire of laying them in flat lines, they can be "scrunched up" into an extreme texture:

It is difficult to see in the photograph, but the Bullions are piled together the way children might pile their blocks, without any attempt to stack or line them neatly in place.  Think of the stitch this way:  normally you would have as many wraps as you have distance to be covered (maybe 10 wraps for 1/2"), but in the scrunched version, you have far too many wraps for the tiny distance between coming up and going back down into the ground fabric (maybe 20 wraps for only 1/8").  The resulting 20-wrap stitch bunches up and resembles a roly-poly bug.

Extremely long Bullions are interesting.  To make them, I use doll-makers needles, which are a dangerous length (I have one that is 6" long, another is 10" long) and without taper, but these sabers allow for 30 to 50 wraps (or more) before I begin to return the needle to the fabric.  Holding the wraps between thumb and index finger is the magic that keeps everything in place as the long thread is pulled s-l-o-w-l-y through the tunnel of wraps.  This flower has petals made with one of these long needles.  The center is a cotton-stuffed silk roundel covered with French Knots:

Besides neat petals, these long-ish Bullions are great for areas of over-the-top textured, because the loops can twist out of control when the needle is wrapped dozens of times, and the result is a run-amok look that is difficult to achieve within traditional, orderly embroidery.  Variegated thread adds delightfully to the chaos.

On the other hand, flat, mannerly Bullions can be used to create grids,

and they might also present a nice "checkerboard" effect (in perle cotton #3, below). 

They may be used to make large, textured Cross Stitches,

and a tail may be added as part of the final tacking stitch (just move the needle away from the point you would normally terminate the stitch).  This example is in rough metallic thread,

and these are stitched in a variety of cottons and rayons (here I always expect to see Moses being pulled from his basket floating amongst the bull rushes):

I also discovered that by going back to the crewel needle, I could make Bullions take on the shape of seed pods, an effect I have exploited in this abstraction of a flower head:

In addition, a Bullion may be substituted for a part of a composite stitch such as Mountmellick:

It can also make one half of a detached chain stitch, which is useful in creating textured foliage (shown below).  The stitch has a tendency to curl to one side or another, and this curl can be controlled by wrapping the threads either in a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion.

Here the Bullion Stitch is added to a Fly Stitch:

The motions of making the basic Bullion stitch are very similar to those of a Detached Buttonhole stitch (used a great deal in needle weaving), with the addition of a little ridge on one side of the stitch that gives it a woven look.  This is obtained by giving the loop a twist as it goes over the needle:

The only way to learn to make Bullions is to sit and make them for hours on end. When I decided, in my struggle with the stitch, that I would be the winner in this pitched battle, I even took it to church with me.  I was the organist at the church, and as the organ was placed in a well in the choir loft behind a screen, I felt perfectly safe in stitching during the sermon and the morning announcements.  I was much younger and could move faster than I do today, or I would not have tried this, as there is a good bit of coordinated movement in throwing down an embroidery hoop, pulling on the organ stops, and playing the appropriate music at the appropriate time.  Somehow, it worked.  That was the Summer Of The  Bullion.

Having taken a great deal of time in learning the stitch, I began to look for ways to use it everywhere-- and the more looking I did, the more opportunities I found.

Good Stitching!

Sketchbook: Bugs!

Confession time:  I am a fan of the Natural World only up to a point.  When we pass by birds, flowers and trees, mosses and ferns, or we have a few days at the beach, stand under starry skies or enjoy spring rains, I cannot soak up enough of these beautiful moments.  Eventually, however, the insect world has to be acknowledged.  And there I slam on the brakes.  Born, raised, and always living in the Deep South, the Natural World has so kindly offered me a broad pallet of insects to invade my worst nightmares.  I remember, as a small child, playing barefoot in the yard beside our house.  I must have been concentrating quite deeply on my game, because I suddenly noticed caterpillars crawling around me.  Marching toward me in what seemed to my child's mind an unending deployment, an army of these black and yellow creepy-crawlies invaded my play space under the trees.  I clambered to the top of a chair and began screaming for my mother to come and rescue me.  It hasn't gotten much better since then, though I don't climb on chairs anymore.  I still scream.

One day, however, I decided to take this unreasonable revulsion and turn it into a smile via my sketchbook.  If you can laugh about something, it isn't so terrifying, I reasoned.  I gave the enemy personality, even human clothing, and had a good time with them.

I think about my friend Carol and how unafraid she is around bugs, how truly interested she is in them, and I try a little harder to loosen up.  But, in truth, I still don't like them.

I've been adding sketches of bugs for several years, now.  Trying to be open-minded.  Sorry, bugs.  Really.

Purposeless Play

Purposeless play -- this play is an affirmation of life -- not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvement in creation.  but simply a way of waking up to the very life we are living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of the way and lets it act of its own accord.
                                        — John Cage

Purposeless Play, for John Cage, was a way of life.  Do you know of him?  He made his mark on American avante garde music of the 1960s, which is where I first knew of him, but he did not limit himself to a single medium.  All of the creative world was his playground, and his lists of accomplishments is long and delightfully varied.  He is someone you love or hate, no middle ground possible with him!

I like his idea of Purposeless Play.  Today I will take you along with me on a trip to my studio, and we shall indulge in a little soul-improving, Purposeless Play.  Bring your teacup or mug and Let us go then, you and I . . .  (sorry, I have just finished reading The Weird Sisters, and while I do not eschew Shakespeare, I choose T.S. Eliot as my muse).  Further, do not ask, "What is it?"  Let us go and make our visit.


Ahem.

Watercolor play today.  I used a tutorial by Carla Sonheim on her blog "Snowball Journals" to play at painting flowers.  See this interesting process here.  February 22, 2012 is the posting date.

Step one was to put blobs of paint on paper, Letting it dry completely.  I used a long piece of landscape watercolor paper and a watercolor postcard (for my sister).  Step two was to paint around the blobs with gesso, cutting back into the gesso with the pointed end of the paintbrush handle, making textured circles around the blobs of color.  I am fascinated by the texture the gesso makes above the blobs of color.

Then, to the gym for Yoga Stretch exercise class while everything dried.

After lunch and a shower, back to the Studio.  Steps three forward involved drawing out the flowers and creating a background, both of which I did with pencil.  Carla has a marvelous loose, flowing style, and I tend to over work and add little bits of color that mix at a distance.  I could not resist pulling out colored pencils, dye pencils, and graphitint pencils as well as a bit of fine pen for this.  These are my results:

All the time I was working, I had fabric and thread on my mind.  I can't help it; I am hard wired to stitch!  I have some ideas about using this "purposeless play" for stitching some loose, not-a-bit-like-reality flowers (I always think of those sorts of flowers as "Fantasy Flowers From A Far Planet").  Will check back in with results.

Continuing On The Soapbox

Isn't it funny, the way a subject comes up and suddenly you're aware of that subject in everything you read or hear for weeks afterward?  It is as if mysterious forces join in the controversy in subtle ways.

I picked up a copy of (apron-ology) yesterday and noted how many aprons used vintage linens to create some charming new aprons.  This quote (p. 102, vol. 4) seemed to sum up the feelings of others as well as myself on the subject:

The handwork that went into

embroidered linens is 

exceptional and well worth

saving.

No matter the stain or tear,

there is always a way to

salvage

pieces of the past.

     —Renee Dahl

The entire magazine is eye candy, with original designs, new or old fabrics, and some fresh ways of looking at not just the aprons themselves, but the idea of making aprons fit into 21st century life.  I cannot say enough good things about this magazine.  It has given me ideas of ways to play with some of my vintage treasures, perhaps to make an apron for Bethy— the fancy, lacy kind, of course.  Last week she went to school as her favorite character in a book, and she chose Fancy Nancy, complete with feather boa!  A perfect fit!

Well. . . .

. . . . maybe I was a bit hasty about my tirade against chopping up and glueing vintage embroideries (shudder suppressed here).  One man's trash is another's treasure, etc.  I'm trying to get a grip.  It's time I turned my energies to digging in the garden.

Uses for Vintage Embroidery

I read an article today about using Vintage Embroidery in fiber art/mixed media art by cutting up the pieces and doing various things with it— but I stopped in my tracks when I got to the part about gluing down these old embroideries to a mixed media project.  There was something about gel and gesso in the next paragraph, but I had paled and begun to hyperventilate by that time and didn't catch the gist what further crimes were being detailed.

After all the hours of work that went in to creating the dresser scarves, hankies, tablecloths, bedspreads and clothing embellishment, I just couldn't do such a thing.  In my little world,

Glue + Fabric = no No NO!

There are enough vintage pieces that are soiled or damaged (when I see where oily hands have been wiped on some heavily embroidered doily my teeth clench together), and these can be cut up and the pieces SEWN into a new creation.  Glueing shows a marked lack of respect for the efforts of women who spent so many hours bent over their work in the name of beautifying their home and making a warm, nurturing environment for their family.  There should be a better way to gently use these damaged pieces.

Ah, I hear you asking, "Such as?"

Wrist Cuffs.  Christmas Stockings.  Pockets for totes or a little girl's dress.  Crazy Quilting.  Book covers (I am thinking about the kind that have replaceable notebooks inside the covers).  I have a friend who used some of these pieces in a beautiful pair of appliqued and embellished curtains for her dining room.  Rebecca Ringquist uses vintage linens as bases for her samplers (intricate and a huge dose of fun) and compelling story embroideries.  I even used the side panels of an embroidered bedspread that had been ripped beyond repair to make a pair of valances for the guest bedroom that Bethy uses when she spends the night with us (she loves the blue birds swooping down to the lilac flowers above the windows).  Mandy Pattullo has made recycling textiles a pure art form.

As for the undamaged pieces: while  there is nothing wrong with recycling/upcycling vintage linens, the beautiful old pieces in good repair have another life, in the right hands.  The most interesting home decor isn't always from the pages of the latest design magazines.

Recycle Responsibly!  

New Materials

When I'm hot on the trail of an idea and working at warp speed, I never have time to think about new materials.  But with long stretches of quiet away from the studio lately, I have been incorrigibly chasing down new fibers on the internet (such as the wool beads from Alchemy Fibre Art in the necklace that Ethan and I made).  I found some interesting mercerized cotton embroidery thread dyed by Stef Francis, and some thin Silk Paper Textured Silk yarn (yet to be colored).  The mercerized cotton is thin, akin to a size 8 perle cotton, but without the shiney-ness.  And, like all the Stef Francis fibers, in colorways to set the juices flowing.

Now I need some thinking time to find ways to use them, maybe go back through the sketchbooks and see what might be done with them.  I believe the mercerized cotton would even work well in quilting!  What a find!  More to come . . .

Rainy February Morning

This morning is an amazing one, rain first, and now bird song.  With great strength of purpose, Charles has kept his back yard feeder filled through the fall and winter, but migrating birds did not flock to feast here as he had hoped.  In Knoxville we had ten or more families of cardinals who lived year-round with us, but I think we are in an area where more people provide feeders, and the birds have feeding habits that don't include us, as yet.  Or maybe we should provide more gourmet seed . . .?  Hmmm . . .

In thinking about the spring to come (some say it is here already, but I can't give February away to Spring just yet), I am eager to see the flowers returning, to see which plants needs replacing, and what must be moved to a more compatible location.  Poor Charles is my gardener-in-training, so I'm glad he has kept himself limber by his labors in the gym all fall and winter!

One of the greatest gifts of the garden last year was sitting and crocheting or embroidering on the patio.  There is no way to sit in a garden in bloom and not be inspired by the color and texture there— creeping jenny dripping over the lip of a cobalt-glazed pot, zinnia, marigold, and miniature buttercups crowding together, while the foliage plants in all their gentle curves and sharp angles form a lively backdrop for the dianthus, coreopsis, echinacea, and salvias.  The grey stone I used to build the terrace walls is beginning to darken and streak, now, and Charles' thyme is flourishing between cracks in the flagged terrace.  In a few more years, the garden will look as if has been here forever.

The bulbs, of course, are pushing aside the soil and elbowing their way into the light.  Every day we see some new little scrap of color emerging from the pine straw mulch.  I saved dozens of bulbs for the planters last fall, thinking that once the bulbs were up in the spring, I could survey the yard and move them from pots to places that need more early color.  A garden is always changing as it is a living thing—and a very needy one!

So, I am thinking in soft spring colors as I sort thread in the studio and think about pale linen for stitching.  The road maps that I am so interested in have given way to thinking of maps as a way of moving through gardens, and of the different levels and perimeter plantings as outdoor rooms.

It is when Charles uncovers the fountain, however, that the spring will have truly come to the yard.  Birds who are too impatient to wait their turn at the bird bath will settle here to bathe or drink, and the squirrels will climb up for a sip of water toward the end of the day.  I have even seen the rabbits come to the herb garden beside the fountain and watch the moving water with large, darting eyes as they eat my lovely greens (I am a Beatrix Potter devotee, believing rabbits can be forgiven anything simply for the pleasure of their company).

Such are the garden dreams of a rainy February morning in Zone 7b.  Hope your February is a good one!

Bayeux Tapestry Stitch

The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most easily recognizable pieces of textile art in the world.  It is disfigured at its farther end, has been mended over the centuries, and is mistakenly called a tapestry when it is technically a very, very long embroidery.  It tells the story of the Norman Conquest (1066) in an almost leisurely manner, not omitting the background to the struggle and small incidents whose characters are now lost to history.  Bordering the top and bottom of the work are a cast of fantastic animals, real and imaginary, as well as the Latin text to guide the observer through the action.  Click on this LINK to see photos of the tapestry.

The scenes are pictured most charmingly in wool embroidery, utilizing a surface satin stitch, couching stitch, and miles and miles of outline stitch.  There is scarcely another stitch to be found anywhere on the more than 200 feet of the canvas.

It is this surface satin stitch, surrounded by outline stitch and tied down by narrow bands of couching, that have come to be called "Bayeux Tapestry Stitch," and this stitch was the object of the Freestyle Stitch Study at our February meeting.

This is my sampler, where I tried several different types of yarn/thread, and worked the steps of the stitch in the center of the sampler for future reference (I always need a jog of the brain to jumpstart a stitch I don't use every day).

Seen up close and personal, the texture is really interesting:

And by experimenting with metallic thread, I discovered that even that hard-as-nails medium can be used in a Bayeux Stitch-- though I will admit to a bit of heavy breathing before I had all the ground stitches in place (it is wedged in between the hot pink on right and the unfinished green on left):

There are many contemporary uses for the less-know embroidery stitches.  I am making it my mission this year to go back and resurrect some of these interesting stitches and try them in various weights of cotton, wool, silk, and linen and see what variations might be possible and how they might be incorporated into my work.  And I'll bet you thought I made a New Year's Resolution to lose weight or exercise more!

Bunting

I don't know why bunting appeals to me, but things dangling in a line always command my attention.  I even find lines of clean wash pegged out to dry interesting and am sorry that the home dryer has replaced the old-fashioned habit of hanging out the wash to dry.  I have vivid memories of my mother pegging out bed linen and clothing on a clever pulley-style clothes line that my dad built for her.  It allowed her to stand on our second-floor back porch and hang load after load of wash to dry, and the clothes waved above us as we played in the back yard!

Digression aside, I have wanted to improve the windows of the studio with bunting above the scrim curtains.  Of course, I don't care to make them perfectly pointed triangles; much too tightly wrapped for me.  An interesting bunting would have some ravelling of the linen ground, be made with batting and backing and include a dash of vintage buttons and trims, single-fold seam binding, scraps of glove leather and tiny pieces of fabric, a bowl of interestingly-texturd threads—   How could this NOT be fun?

To make some sense of the idea and tie the parts of the bunting together, the three pieces that make up this small bunting have one thing in common:  kid leather salvaged from vintage gloves that are splitting or very dry and cracking.  I love the shapes of the fingers, and use them as often as I'm able.  In these three, I've used the fingers or parts of the fingers, and cut small squares from other parts of the glove.  Figuring out how to hem the several layers of the pieces was an interesting challenge, so I settled on whip-stitching some thread or combination of threads to seal up the raw edges.  After some searching, I decided upon sari thread, scrim, or heavy-weight linen.

One window done, seven more to go!  And I think it would be interesting to try something entirely different for the next one.  Does that surprise you?  Me neither!

Felted Beads Mixed With Glass Beads

Isn't this lovely?  Ethan and I completed this necklace.  I found the felted beads in an etsy shop, Alchemy Fibre Arts, and ordered several different types.  I had thought, originally, that Bethy and I would use them together, but Bethy is busy drawing with her colored pencils and crayons, and Ethan (who is always interested in seeing how things work) wanted to pull the needle through the beads.  We used glass beads to contrast with the rougher felt and strung everything on a piece of silk ribbon.

As Ethan is so proud to tell you, he is four years old, now, and able to do quite grown-up things.  Yes, Ethan.  Quite able!

I used some of the flatter "pebbles" to make flowers for the edge of a page in a new book I'm working on (this is almost unbelievably slow work, which is why I couldn't think of selling one of the books— labor at ten cents an hour would be all I might realize from my efforts).

An apology . . .

I am sorry to have been so absent these past weeks, but I have been providing the medical profession with small challenges to keep them on their toes.  It is very wearing to be ill for more than three months with no "cure" in sight.  Allergies are one culprit— yes, you can have allergy problems in the dead of winter, if your immune system enjoys hyper-drive activity.

The posts that follow are of some things I've been working on sporatically.  I hope you enjoy them.

I have not curled up and disappeared . . .

. . .  I am alive, and almost well.  I will post photos later this week of what I've been doing in my "down time."

Thanks for dropping by!