Beading and Embroidering

Here is the picture of the framed Wizard hat.  It was inspired by the description of the Archchancellor of Unseen University's ceremonial hat, written down by Terry Pratchett in his book Sourcery. I stitched in the footnote he had explaining things, and it is where I get my nickname. I am very pleased with the frame, and, for now, the rumpled look works for me.

On to beading. This is a design out of Bead and Button Magazine, the October 2010, Issue 99. It is their cover project, and I liked it because of the textures created by the different beads and the angles they were set in. I had to modify it a bit, as I am using the 4mm cubes, not the 3mm cubes called for, but everything else is the same. I think it looks like a circuit board because of the colors of beads I chose.

Meanwhile, I have purchased Stumpwork and Goldwork Embroidery Inspired by Turkish, Syrian and Persian Tiles by Jane Nicholas (Hardcover - Sep 7, 2010) and the pictures in the book are scrumptious. I mentioned before that I got to take a stumpwork class from her, and she is an awesome teacher, and she had pieces from this book with her, so I got to see the actual  pieces, not just photos. They are even more scrumptious IRL. I am currently waiting on an order from Benton and Johnson of various goldwork supplies, then I am going to order the wires and beads from Jane Nicholas' site, I have embroidery floss (even silks!) and ivory silk dupione, and you know I'll be busy. Speaking of Benton and Johnson, I'd like to post a sincere thank you to one Neil Halford, the ever so nice gentleman who answered a zillion questions for me, promptly and completely. And, I had my answers back the day after I sent the questions. He works for/at Benton and Johnson, and I really appreciated the awesome customer service.

My shoulder is continuing to twinge a bit, but nothing like even a week ago, and the neck seems to be pretty much all better. Hi ho, physical therapy is next.

THE Magpie

Oh to be by the Ocean, now that Fall is here

I belong to a group called the Tangle, stitchers of all sorts and ages who get together once a month to stitch and also to show off our stitching. We discussed the twelve steps stitchers might use, but we got to the first one, "We admit we have a problem regarding acquisition of stash", and decided there was no problem there, except for the problem of where to store it all.

Anyway, the Tangle met at Ocean City, and oh did we have fun. I finished two projects, the Jane Nicholas piece and also my Arch-Chancellor's Hat piece. Here is the photo of the Jane Nicholas piece. I think it turned out very well indeed.

This is the first piece of stumpwork where I have done the detached petals and leaves, and I really leapt in at the deep end with this one, as I had five flower petals, four dragonfly wings, three raspberries and two leaves to stitch and cut out. Oh, yeah, there was no partridge and no pear tree, but that might make a cute piece to do in stumpwork, along with the other eleven days of christmas.  I was a bit nervous about cutting out the petals and leaves, but I figured I had done the dragonfly wings, so I went ahead and snipped, but I did take them up to the room and did them in total silence. I think it turned out very well indeed. I am thinking of making an etui (that is a little sewing box that has a lid that you remove and the box kind of falls open like a flower) and putting this piece on the lid.

I also put the last ornamentation on the Arch-Chancellor's Hat, and also wrote in and backstitched the quote from Terry Pratchett's book "Sourcery", "When it comes to Glittering Objects, Wizards have all the Taste and Self-Control of a Deranged Magpie". I also did my initials in a signature that I came up with years ago, which I thought was very cool also. I sign a lot of my pieces this way.

So the only thing left is to get it framed and choose just the right place to hang it. I had a lot of fun with this piece, and if anyone finds this and wants to make their own version, just ask in the comment section and I'll give some pointers--although, really, I just cut out a hat shaped piece of red velvet that I had stored all balled up so that it would get lots of wrinkles in, and started adding shiny and sparkly stuff to it. Actually, I am thinking of doing another hat, this time from black velvet, and making it a flapper's cloche or something of the sort. But first, I have a plumeria flower to design and stitch. Although, maybe the plumeria would look nice on a black velvet cloche... hmmm...

Along with stitching at Ocean City, we also did treks to a shop a couple blocks down the boardwalk that is called Salty Yarns, where I got some new fabric for cross stitching, a couple of kits to stitch up, and the turtle bead on the hat, If you look closely at the picture, you may also notice a small shell just under the blue tassel, it is a shell I picked up on the beach and added as a memento of the trip. I got a couple of chances to sit on the beach and watch the waves as well, which is amazingly calming to the nerves.

THE Magpie

Goldwork and Stumpwork, this time with photos!

Of the stumpwork. I have yet to do any goldwork, although I have played with some of the materials. Anyway, the Jane Nicholas piece is still moving forward. I have finished the five petals for the hellebore blossom...

 ...and now I just need to cut them out and apply them. Deep breath here, but I survived cutting out the dragonfly wings, so everything should be fine, so long as I am careful and don't have anyone watching. I finally taught my daughter that the one way to cause hilarious pratfalls or failures to perform as planned was to shout, "Watch this!" as you did some amusing athletic/magic trick. Maybe I should stitch a sixth petal as a spare, in case of cutting errors. Hmmm. That sounds like a good plan, and a way to delay the scissor thing.

Here, I have finished outlining one of the two leaves, and the other is mostly done. After I finish the outlines, I will be filling the interiors of the leaves. There is a very faint oval drawn on the leaf fabric, that will be the final raspberry. I will be doing it with very light red, a peachy pink, and a very pale green floss in french knots, and of course, some beads.

Still waiting on a last email from Benton and Johnson, regarding sequins and spangles. The spangles are probably more authentic, but the sequins are heaps less expensive. So now I just have to find out it the sequins are flat or cupped. If they are flat, I am going that route, at least for now. If I decide in future to do a goldwork/stumpwork/Elizabethan embroidery priest's stole and want to use the spangles I'll definitely rethink the miserly route.

Also, I've been thinking that I have got to try doing a plumeria blossom in stumpwork. I think it would be a show stopper, and the flowers come in such a variety of coloring that it would be fun to embroider as well. And, speaking of plumeria, one of my stubs has developed what I think may be flower buds, about a year before I expected any. Here is a picture of it.

THE Magpie

The Queen of Stumpwork, Jane Nicholas, Thank you for teaching me!

The class with Jane Nicholas was totally awesome. She is very nice and a great teacher. If I get a chance to take another class with her, I will absolutely take the opportunity. And she has a new book out, Stumpwork & Goldwork Embroidery Inspired by Turkish, Syrian & Persian Tiles, and she showed us the actual pieces that were photographed for the book. Yum! They are so, so gorgeous.

So on to the class project. It is a stumpwork piece, with a dragonfly, raspberries, two leaves, a hellebore flower, and some wrapped bead berries with detached-work cups. Here is a picture of three of the petals for the flower. They are done with wire couched around the petal shape, then I did buttonhole over the wire. Next, I did a short row of long and shot buttonhole stitch around the outer half of the flower, slanting down toward the inner point. Then I filled in the petal with long and short stitch, and finally added seed stitch in a dark burgundy to add a bit of color to the flower, I love hellebores, they come in a wild variety of colorways. I liked the photo of this one, partly for the contrast between the petal color and the spots.

Next is where I had gotten to on the background as of Thursday morning. The branch with three twigs is the raspberry branch, and it is formed with wrapped chain stitch in DMC floss. The other branch is plain chain stitch, and forms the ivy. The blue "log" is the body of the dragonfly. It will be getting wings, which is the next picture in the queue. The body is formed of two soft cotton strands, which are couched down and then you do a stem stitch anchored by the couching stitches. It looks very cool. I have also seen this stitch used for twigs on larger pieces.

 Here are the dragonfly wings. They are stitched using a fine gauge wire held down with whipped stitches in light aqua rayon machine embroidery thread. The base fabric is a sandwich of aqua chiffon ribbon, metallic fabric like lame in rainbow iridescence both held together with stitch witchery. After the wire is wrapped, veins are stitched in fly stitch down the center in a metallic cord. 

 This is the fabric I did two of the raspberries on. The circles you see is where I cut them out. They were done with french knots using six strands of floss and one wrap. After the knots were finished, I did a running stitch around them, cut out the circle and pulled the running stitches tight to gather the berry into a ball. This is then stitched to the ground fabric at the ends of the twigs. I haven't yet done the sepals, so on the fabric they look rather lonely.

 This is the cupped berry base, my practice one. It seems pretty easy to do, although also it is very easy to get it wrong. Mostly, I was hoping I was doing the knots in the right holes, but it looks pretty nice, I think. Also, one of the leaves is on here in process. It was very neat, the way she showed us to do them. First, you line the wire up along the central stem and couch it, then you whip it all the way to the tip of the leaf. Next, using the same piece of wire, you bend the wire to follow the leaf from the base to the tip, couching all the while, then down to the base again. Finally, you bend the wire out to form the leaf stem and couch the two corners together. Then you do buttonhole stitch all around the outside edge. I have several options for filling, and have yet to decide which I will do.

Here is the piece as of Thursday afternoon, with the dragonfly finished on it. There are also two raspberries applied on it. After I anchored them onto the base fabric, I added some beads in various coordinating shades of red and pink. It gives them a little shine, just like real berries.

After I draw up the directions, I will also be posting the awesome tip Jane gave for starting buttonhole stitch in stumpwork. I never will have to try to figure out how to get it started again. And it is so simple.

THE Magpie

Of cats, and trees, and embroideries

Sadly, a little over a week ago, Einstein, my cat, aged 17.5, died. He was the boss cat of the four we had. So. We currently have three kitties left. Let the Battle for top cat begin. Mostly, the contest seems to be between Nero and Marie who are both a bit over 10 years old.

Nero, that crazy rat bastard who hates everyone

Marie, in whose mouth butter would not dare to melt

Berkeley mostly keeps out of the whole thing, although she will smack at anyone who comes between her and her food. Since she is only a year younger than Einstein, you would think she would be the natural choice for the succession, but she is by nature a shy and retiring sort, hence the nickname Phantom Kitty. For years, people thought we only had one cat, until we found her weakness for grilled meats. Once she found that visitors occasionally handed out grilled meat, she became much more personable, if by that you mean an importuning little mooch.

Berkeley, aka Phantom Kitty, can you believe she is 16 + years of age?

The plumeria count is up to 12, and here are pictures of plumeria seedlings, as I couldn't find any on the web at all, and believe me, I looked. Some of them are starting to grow their first true leaves, the ones that come out after the initial seed based leaflets. I have a bad record of keeping things alive over the winter, so we'll see how I do with these. Here's hoping I do better. I am keeping a record of what I do, so hopefully I won't completely forget about them.

Plumeria seedlings. The center has a nice pair of true leaves.

Tomorrow, and again Thursday, I am taking a Stumpwork class from Jane Nicholas. So you'll be seeing stuff from that here at some point.

Finally, I finished another Cats and Quilts by Diane Graebner, and a little Elizabeth Foster piece that one of my very good friends got me to comfort me over Einstein. Now I have to make a little pillow out of it, once that is done I shall post a picture here.

THE Magpie