Some Whitework in the Works

Stitching bloggers all over seem to be owning up to the number of works in progress they have. I guess I’m looking at joining the bandwagon. I’m not quite ready to put up a full list, but I would like to share a couple of whitework projects I started over the past year but haven’t yet blogged about.

The first is an EGA group correspondence course by Jane-Ellen Balzuweit called Dresden Garden.

Yes, that’s a plain old American quarter there for scale.  The full size of the project is only about 4 inches wide by 3 inches tall. This piece is a study of Dresden lace which is a combination of surface embroidery, pulled thread, and shadow work (as seen in the white swirls). It’s stitched on Legacy shadow work linen, which is approximately 48 count.  I’m guessing that’s what led to this remaining unfinished. The rest of the stitching is counted and primarily pulled. That requires a bit too much concentration for me right now!

The second piece of whitework is also an EGA group correspondence course in another German embroidery technique, Schwalm embroidery in this case. It is Barbara Kershaw’s Liesel, and as you can see, I’ve barely begun. I’m a bit discouraged about the wobbliness of my initial lines of coral knots, but I really would like to get this moving a bit, since I’ve always wanted to learn the basics of Schwalm embroidery.

This project is a bit bigger than the other, maybe about 8 inches by 12 inches. It’s on a slightly uneven-weave linen (32ct by 36ct, maybe?) that I had in my stash, so it was pretty easy on the budget!

As you can see, I haven’t completely abandoned my interest in a wide variety of needlework techniques. It’s still always fun to learn something new. What new (to you) techniques have you been exploring lately?

A Stitch in Time: Reticello 1

Since I’m currently plodding away on lots of four-sided stitch on Ruskin Garden Square and don’t have much to share on that front, I hope you might be interested in one of my finished projects with a very similar type of needle lace.

Reticello 1 was designed by Diane Clements and was featured as the first of three reticello/reticella pieces in the (unfortunately now defunct) magazine The Needleworker in June/July 1999.

In this project, the edges of the center square were reinforced, then stitched all the way around with buttonhole stitch. The center square was then cut completely away. After basting the fabric to a laminated pattern, I added the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines, stitched over them, and then stitched the remaining shapes off of these lines. If I recall correctly, the project really wasn’t too difficult to stitch, but it took quite a while! The trickiest part was getting all of those triangles to have approximately the same tension so they came out the same size.

I did have great plans to stitch the remaining pieces in the series, as well as another project featured in the Winter 2001 Fine Lines from the same designer. It just hasn’t happened yet!

Have you tried any reticella work? How did it turn out? We’d love to see pictures!

Stitch Study: Four-Sided Stitch

Simplicity and elegance are two words that come to mind when I think of four-sided stitch. Simple, because the stitch really only has three steps. Elegant, because of the clean lines and lacy look of this beautiful stitch.

Since four-sided stitch is often worked as a pulled-thread stitch, I like to use a needle that’s a bit larger than usually used for the thread choice. This opens up the hole in the fabric or canvas a bit more, making it a bit easier to pull.

Four-sided stitch is most easily started with a waste knot in the path of the stitch. Come up at the upper left end of where the line of four-sided stitches is planned to be. As this line develops, the tail end of the thread will be covered.

Step 1: Bring the needle to the back just two threads down from where you came up. Give the stitch a little tug. This tug opens up the holes of the canvas or fabric just a bit.

     

Step 2: Come back to the front of the fabric up two and to the right two threads, as seen in the photos above, to get ready for the next leg of the stitch. Give the thread another tug. Sink the needle again two threads to the left (where step 1 began). Tug once more.

     

Step 3: Bring the needle up down two threads from the start of step 2. Tug. Sink two threads to the left. Tug.

     

Then it’s time to repeat the three steps. The next "step 1” stitch starts at the point where the first step 2 did. Keep repeating, giving a slight tug after each stitch, as you stitch from left to right across your fabric or canvas.

Occasionally, I find that I lose track of which leg should be the next to be stitched. There’s a very simple way to find out. Simply look at the back. When stitched in the correct order, four-sided stitch results in a row of X’s on the back of the stitching. Doing the stitches in a consistent order keeps the pull at the corners of all of the little boxes the same.

When you near the end of a thread, bring the tail to the front about an inch further down the line of stitches. This is easiest to see from the back.

To start a new thread, I find it’s easiest to switch to a smaller needle, perhaps even one with a sharp point. Put a waste knot in the end of the thread, and bury it in the back of the most recent stitches. Doing this keeps the pull of the thread the same, so you can’t tell from the front where the thread was changed.

After bringing the thread to the front again, switch back to a larger needle and continue the line of stitching, working over the old thread tail. When you reach the point where the tail comes to the front of the fabric, give the tail a tug to make sure that last stitch is taut. Holding the tail tight, cut it very close to the surface of the fabric. If any of the tail is still sticking up, use your needle to poke it to the back.

When worked in a contrasting color to the fabric, four-sided stitch gives a neat and clean line of stitches and is a great addition to a border.

Four-sided stitch is often worked as a tone-on-tone stitch, though, and that’s when the lacy feel comes out. The stitch itself becomes almost unnoticeable, and the pattern that emerges from the resulting holes becomes the highlight. This is my favorite way to use this stitch.

I’d love to hear about some of the different projects in which you’ve used four-sided stitch. Please share in the comments!

WIP: Ukrainian Openwork Sampler (elements by Jan Walters)

Today's featured WIP is a sampler in Ukrainian Openwork. The individual bands were all designed by Jan Walters, but the arrangement of bands is my own.

Technique/Materials:  Ukrainian Openwork (primarily consisting of satin stitches and drawn and pulled thread work) in DMC coton a broder threads on 25ct Pearl Linen (which is a polyester/linen blend).

Background:  I took the EGA correspondence course in Ukrainian Openwork with the CyberStitchers chapter in 2004. For my critique, I stitched a table runner, but I could only put one main band design on that runner. I really wanted to try the other larger bands, so I decided to start a sampler of them.

Why it's not done:  I have no idea what made this project land in the "someday" box, since this was pre-blog and I didn't keep any records of my progress (or lack thereof) at that time. I assume I was just tired of stitching white and went on to something else that caught my eye.

What's left to do:  I'm not really sure. It's been so long since I looked at the course text, I couldn't tell you what bands I planned to do, although the picture roughly shows the entire design area (assuming an equal fabric margin on all sides of the design).

Another new project and a SALE!

I did make a tiny bit of progress on the Bargello needlecase Monday night, but finally, after almost two weeks, my 20" Evertite stretcher bars showed up in yesterday's mail. Last night, I managed to mount the canvas for Carolyn Mitchell's My Way and organize some of my stitching area. Tonight, I'll start this - the third new project in a week! (And remember, I've already finished one of them!) From all reports, a lot of time is needed to finish the pre-work on this, and I have just over three weeks to do it.

Of course, the overflowing stash (and WIP/UFO) piles won't prevent me from ogling the lovely items being offered as part of Gay Ann Rogers's "E-week" sale. Gay Ann, a noted national teacher, sells some of her old class pieces, some as instructions only, some as kits, only for one week a year. That week started TODAY. If you liked my Strawberry Girl, the pattern is for sale again this week. As I have many of Gay Ann's designs, both from last year's sale and from eBay and other online stitcher-to-stitcher sale, I'm trying to limit my purchases. Right now, the only piece I'm sure I'll pick up is her Almost Whitework sampler. Why do I always like the BIG and COMPLICATED pieces? :-)

Happy Dance: To the Acorn

Ok, it's been done for a few days, but I'm finally taking the time to get this post written! Here is To the Acorn by Pat Krahn, which is available as an EGA group correspondence course.

My final project looks very different from the original, because I completely changed the colors to those based on Caron Waterlilies #220, Cheyenne. It's on Platinum Belfast linen, and uses DMC pearl 8 & 12 in color 3033, along with Splendor from Rainbow Gallery, colors S889, S913, S937, S964, and S977.

The last area I stitched was the cutwork oak leaf. If anyone's interested, I'll do a post similar to the last one, showing this being worked in stages.

Since the pictures have gotten smaller and smaller as the sampler grew, here's a close-up of the bottom whitework area.

Before I forget, thanks to the many readers who left such great comments on the last post. To those of you who commented that you would be worried about cutting your fabric - remember: it's just string. If you cut the wrong thread, one can always be pulled from the edge of the linen and woven into place of the incorrectly cut thread!

Now I'm back to working on Jim Wurth's Camelot, then I'll pick up Winds of Color again.

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This is my first finish for round 2 of my WIP-loss challenge! Two more to go, including Winds.

Peahole hemstitch

The peahole hemstitch (from Schwalm embroidery) is used in To the Acorn as the cutwork band in lesson 5. This blog entry was originally planned as a complete set of instructions on how to do this stitch. Here's the story of how the best laid plans sometimes go awry.

I started out taking pictures of each step. It starts with the empty area.





On the back of the piece, certain threads are cut in the middle of the band, drawn back to the edges, and woven in to the fabric for a short distance. (If you're curious, the pattern is: cut 1 thread, leave 4, cut 4, leave 4, cut 1, leave 4, cut 4, leave 4, cut 1.)





Returning to the front, a satin stitch is worked in pearl cotton over this woven area. The ends of the woven threads are then trimmed from the back of the piece.

A four-sided stitch is worked over the upper-most set of 4 threads.

I started the next row, in which, according to the instructions, the first 5 "legs" of the four-sided stitch are done, then two of the "bundles" are wrapped together before continuing with the four-sided stitch. I must have put that in and taken that out 4 or 5 times. The wraps kept sliding down to the bottom, and it didn't look at all like the pictures. I reread the page. I had a friend read the page. Neither of us could make it work. The text says this is a Schwalm embroidery stitch. I searched my stitch books (of which I have many, including 1 Schwalm book.) This stitch is in none of them.

In desperation, I consulted the bibliography at the end of the text. There are three Schwalm books listed, two of which are in German. I found that Threadneedle Street (a wonderful shop on the outskirts of Seattle) had all three books for a reasonable price. I ordered them on Thursday. They arrived on Saturday, much to my surprise. I'm very glad I ordered all three. The first, an English translation from a German text, had the stitch with a knot around the bundles of threads. I didn't like how it came out. The remaining two German books, both by the same author, used a slightly different version of the stitch. From the pictures (I don't read German!), it looked like a buttonhole stitch was used around the bundles. I tried it. First a buttonhole, then a second wrap, then continue with the four-sided. It worked! The wraps stayed in place!

I got so excited that the stitch was working, I forgot to take pictures. :-(

As I neared the end of the band, I realized I had pulled the wraps a bit too tight. I cheated in making it work, though. I tightly laced both edges of the fabric to the scroll frame until the puckering (caused by pulling the stitch) flattened out.

Wetting the edge of a folded paper towel, I carefully dampened the band (making sure I didn't get water on the variegated silk) from both front and back of the fabric. After it dried, the linen threads had relaxed and given in to their new configuration. The puckering went away.
Despite the frustration in getting this to work, I really like this stitch. After I whittle down my stack of WIPs a bit more, I may have to do more Schwalm work. After all, I just invested in several books on the topic! Maybe I'll do something like this project that uses the peahole stitch as a dividing border.

Acorns and an ornament

Hooray! I finally finished reweaving the nut portion of the acorns.

The frogging went a little easier tonight, since I just cut out the old parts. After talking with my MIL, I discovered that I didn't need to worry about running out of thread. MIL and I both started this piece in a class together, and a few weeks after the class ended, one of the stitchers realized we would likely run short of this thread. The teacher (who owns a nearby shop), provided extra balls of pearl cotton to each person in the class. MIL picked up one for me, and I know she gave it to me. Can I find it? Nope. I've looked everywhere. However, she has both of her balls of pearl cotton, and is letting me take what I need from one of them so I can finish this piece! Thanks Mom!

On another note, I'd like to share something that I picked up from the finisher a few weeks ago. Here is the First Christmas ornament I made for my cousin's little girl. The hand-painted canvas was by Kathy Shenkel. It came out a bit oddly-shaped, because the heel of the stocking is almost as large as the toe. This wasn't that obvious in the original canvas, but it's evident now since it's been stuffed. I'm still pretty pleased at how it turned out.

And last, but certainly not least, today marks the END of NaBloPoMo! Posting every day for a month was difficult at times, but overall I've enjoyed it. I can't say I'll post quite as frequently going forward, but this experience has forced me to think about possible blog topics as I go through my day. Hopefully it has become a bit of a habit, and my posting may be a bit more regular than it was before this month. As for this weekend, though, I'll probably post a monthly recap and goals tomorrow, and then take Sunday OFF from blogging - just because I can! :-)

Frogs waiting in a UFO

Don't you hate it when you pull something out of the UFO pile, start to work on it, and then find out that one of the reasons it was a UFO in the first place was because it had a major screw-up in it? One that can't be fudged? Yup. I was there, last night.

Here is the top portion of Traditional Elegance I by Pat Taff. This is is fairly old chart, and all I have left to do is finish up the needleweaving in the cutwork portion at the top. I figured I could plug away at this for a few days and get it done. I started working the horizontal bars, filling in doves's eyes where needed. Then it hit me. I didn't have enough room to get all the dove's eyes in before I hit the woven part of the acorns. All of the weaving was one row too low! This can be seen in the center and two right-hand acorns. Since the acorn caps are the same on top and bottom, it would have been obvious that something was wrong!

I stopped working the horizonal rows, and found I was able to unweave the vertical wrapping and the fully-woven areas with minimal damage to the thread. This is important because I'm almost out of thread. It's only Anchor perle 12, but I'm worried about dye lot. Sometimes the dye lot is worse with white and ecru threads than with darker colors. Since Anchor's not the easiest to find, I'm trying to make this ball last through the rest of this cutwork section. As a result, I'm trying to reuse the thread, as long as it's not too fuzzy.

I've been able to take out and reweave the 1-1/2 acorns on the left side so far. (See how they're one row higher?) I should be able to finish all the frogging and fixing by the weekend, and then I can start back with where I thought I was yesterday!
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On a (rare) more personal note: It was two years ago today that my Dad, only age 62, was taken from us by way of an unexpected major cardiac arrest. We miss you, Dad! :-(