Upcoming: A Bit of Ruskin Lace

Every year, Gay Ann Rogers holds a week-long sale of some of her patterns. Some are from her years of teaching, and this year, some were brand new. Gay Ann’s “E-Week” (as she calls it) was just a few short weeks ago. And despite the fact that I have many, many, many of her designs in my stash, I did feel the pull to purchase a couple more.

While I was combing through my stash to make sure I didn’t re-purchase something I already had, I decided that if I was going to order any more of her patterns, I should probably actually stitch some of those already in the stash.

I had two requirements for starting one:

• It had to be relatively small (with the assumption being that small would be faster)
• I didn’t want to spend a lot of money to get going (especially since I would be purchasing additional projects anyway. Fortunately, I had several already kitted up.

The one I decided on fits both criteria. It’s only about 8-1/2 inches square on congress cloth, and I had the kit.

Unfortunately, I don’t know if in this case small equals faster. Because I apparently didn’t choose something easy. This project is a study in ruskin lace, in which areas of the canvas are completely removed so the stitcher can add threads back in those areas and stitch on the added threads.

Here is Gay Ann’s Ruskin Garden Square:

It’s unfortunately not a terrific photo, since it’s printed on regular copy paper and seems to be a bit washed out.

Time will tell if this doesn’t take as long as I think it might. Stay tuned!

Magi #3 Underway

The first few sections of Magi 3 are indeed complete.

I’ll tell you, though, that it was a close thing. See that far right section? The one that’s kinda bargello-like, but without a repeatable pattern? It could have discouraged me. I could easily have set this aside again, as I did when stressing out over the bargello on Magi #2.

I’m happy to say that I forced myself through it. I’m not completely happy with the way it turned out, due to the overwhelming amount of “confetti” that’s coming through. (In case that’s not clear from the photo, “confetti” = little bits of white canvas showing up in between the stitches.) I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it. I could add one more strand of thread to a few of the stitches where this is most obvious, but I think I’m going to try ink first, instead. Perhaps just coloring some of the worst offenders would help.

I’m open to other suggestions, though! Please share your tried-and-true solutions to this problem!

Kimono Revisited

It should come as no surprise to most of you that I have a fairly extensive stash. Okay, a really extensive stash. I have project instructions that I’ve forgotten I’ve purchased. Every once in a while, I go through things and amaze myself with some of the stuff I’ve collected.

Then there are projects where I certainly remember that I have the instructions, but that project just hasn’t reached the top of the “STITCH ME!” pile. One such project is simply named Kimono. It was one of the first must-have counted canvas projects I can recall seeing when I purchased it perhaps ten years ago.

The front cover shows Kimono stitched in shades of ecru. It’s pretty, but I likely wouldn’t have purchased it if I hadn’t seen a few others in progress in other colors. They were gorgeous. And huge.

Kimono already has an interesting history to it. It began life in Maggie Lane’s book Gold and Silver Needlepoint, published in 1983. Maggie came up with the outline and all of the division lines. In 1998, Ietje Jackovich published her version, which used Maggie’s outlines, but included all new filler stitches.

And now, nationally-known needlepoint instructor John Waddell has entered the picture. John has reimagined this project yet again. Rather than just three values of a single color family, all stitched in floss, John has introduced multiple colors, variegated threads, and metallics. It brings this slightly dated piece to a project for today’s stitcher.

If the colors above aren’t your style, John has pulled together eleven different color combinations, or, of course, you can choose your own.

If you don’t want to stitch on 18-count canvas, don’t worry. Those eleven color combinations have also been pulled for congress cloth, with changes to the metallic sizes as needed.

To top it off, he’s teaching it as online class called Kimono Revisited through Shining Needle Society throughout 2012. If you already have the original book, you pay a discounted class fee (since you don’t need two books!).

Can you tell I’m excited about this class?

If you are too, just head over to the Yahoo! group for the “Home Room” of Shining Needle Society to read more about it, including the pricing information. If you’re not a member of Shining Needle Society yet, what are you waiting for? Membership is free, and you’ll have the opportunity to sign up for any one (or more!) of the seminar-quality online classes offered each year. All you need is a Yahoo! account (also free) to join the SNS_Home_Room group.

And yes, I’m completely unaffiliated with Shining Needle Society, other than being a very satisfied member, customer, and student! Thanks to Kate Gaunt of SNS and John Waddell for letting me post these photos here and go on and on about this upcoming class.

Is anybody joining me?

Two Down, One to Go

It’s amazing watching these lovely Magi come alive with just a needle and a bit of thread. Here is Magi #2 in all his glory.

My favorite part of this one is a technique that’s used in all three Magis. Strangely enough, it’s one of the least showy parts of this Magi’s garments: the underskirt (if that’s what it’s called).

The very front section of his robes, below his sleeve, is stitched simply with long stitches of #4 Kreinik braid, couched every four threads with a very thin matching metallic. The result is that it looks like the skirt is made of a sheer, glittery fabric, though that unfortunately does not come across in the photographs.

A Sampler from the WIP Pile

So you may be wondering just why I’ve suddenly actually started posting again. You’ll find the answer if you look at my posts in November 2007 and November 2009. Yes, I did it again. I signed up for National Blog Posting Month, a.k.a. NaBloPoMo, in which bloggers are challenged to write every day for the month. I’m hoping this will help me get back into the habit of posting more regularly, even after the month is out.

Over the past year, I have had a few prolonged absences from posting. For the most part, though, I did continue to stitch.

In the last few years, I’ve been in a bit of a counted canvas rut. I love it, but every so often I remind myself that I used to be much more balanced in my stitching practices, and I enjoyed other techniques, too. So I made myself pull out a sampler that hasn’t seen the light of day in a while.

The last time I posted about my progress on Hillside Samplings’ Be You to Others sampler, which I refer to as the Ninja Squirrel Sampler (for reasons that will become obvious as I stitch a bit more), was back in February 2010, right after my carpal tunnel surgery. At that point, the sampler looked like this.

After quite a bit of time with this sampler over the past six months, I’m happy to say it’s much further along.

The personalization and verse areas aren’t filled in yet because, frankly, I’m not that thrilled with the verse on this design, and I haven’t yet figured out what I’m going to replace it with, nor what I want to do about personalization.

Does anybody have a favorite verse that might work well on this sampler? Maybe four lines or so? I’m open to suggestions!

Anyway, I’m back to working on canvas projects for a bit, but I hope to not let this piece sit unattended too long again.

Ink: An Unusual Embellishment

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that my Magi #2 pictures from yesterday were from September. So if it looks like I’m much further along today, it’s not that I have smoking needles. I’ve just been such a slacker in the blogging department that I have plenty to catch all of you up on!

One of the last steps on Magi #2 (as on Magi #1) was the applique of Sensuede.* For Magi #2, the applique is used in one section in the robe, and also as the Magi’s hood.

Here’s how the hood turned out when the applique and trim were put in place.

It doesn’t look bad, but it seems to be missing some dimension. It’s a bit flat until the addition of an embellishment you don’t normally see in needlepoint: a tiny bit of ink. Specifically, the judicious use of a brown Micron Pigma pen.

Four nerve-wracking minutes later, the hood was no longer flat:

I did find that it helped to smudge the ink just a tiny bit while it was still wet. It’s not exactly realistic, but we’re talking about a guy without any facial features here. It works for me!

*As an aside, and to answer a few questions I received when first writing about Sensuede: Dorothy Lesher tells me that Sensuede is just ultrasuede (though I’ve seen plenty of ultrasuede that wouldn’t be as nice to work with). Specifically, it’s the name given to some of the ultrasuede sold by Nancy’s Notions. You can buy a sample pack of this, with pieces plenty big enough to work with, at a very reasonable price.