Chikan Embroidery Class Openings

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Hannah

Hey y’all! Anita has announced that her mom will help with the chikankari embroidery class. So there are now more openings if you want to join! Go here to register!

 

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Hello, world!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Hannah

WordPress added a new statistics feature – it now keeps track of where my readers are from! Here is the map of countries colored by hit count since it started keeping track.

I love it. I’ll have to try to post something about embroidery in every single one of those countries (105 of them!). If you want your country to show up earlier you can send me tips on where to find information!

The big surprise in the top twenty is Morocco. I had no idea I had so many people from Morocco reading my blog. Hello, Morocco!!!! I googled it, and Moroccan embroidery is gorgeous. I will try to write about it soon, but if any of y’all have a blog about Moroccan embroidery I would love to see it. Leave the link in the comments and I will go look.

The other surprise is New Caledonia, currently at #20. This was a huge surprise because I didn’t know there was a country named New Caledonia. Or Old Caledonia for that matter. It’s a cute little island off the coast of Australia. Hello New Caledonia! I love you!

I’m learning lots of geography through this blog. Here is the start of the country list, because I know you’re curious.

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Chikankari class: Part 2

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Hannah

I made some progress with my chikan work over the weekend (from Anita‘s stitch-a-long class). I added some variegated thread in blue and yellow. Here is the back of the work – this is double back stitch so from the back it looks like herringbone.

Take a closer look at the front of the work. The thread on the front looks like a back stitch outline of the design, but the herringbone in the back colors in the shapes. Pretty cool!

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Chikankari class

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Hannah

Remember my post about chikankari, which is an Indian form of shadow work? Anita is teaching an online class and I signed up for it! I picked out some ivory chiffon and some very pale variegated thread. It might be too pale for me, so perhaps I will mix it up with some colored threads too. This week we are working the double back stitch portion of the motif. I am having some difficulty photographing it – the light is bad because it’s pouring down rain, and the sheer fabric is messing with the camera focus. I will try again another day for better photos! In the meantime, these should give you some idea of what it looks like (though I do need to tuck the ends in). I am so excited! Thank you Anita!!!!

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Santa Fe: Colcha embroidery

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Hannah

Hello everybody! Sorry about the short break – I came down with a dreadful cold, had lots of work, then needed to travel to present at a conference, so writing posts just didn’t happen. I suppose I should mention I’m only a few months from finishing my PhD in applied math, so there will occasionally be short posting breaks when I run out of energy 🙂 Don’t worry, I have plenty more ideas! The blog will continue!

Anyway, this conference took me in Santa Fe, land of the colcha embroiderers! In fact, I had an absolutely lovely dinner with the wonderful Julia Gomez (mentioned in previous posts Colcha embroidery, The Garden of Swallows). What fun! It was so nice to meet her! She brought some of her work-in-progress and I brought some of mine, and we had a fantastic chat. You should watch her new video where she talks about colcha embroidery, it’s great:

She also gave me a piece of sabanilla, which is the traditional wool fabric for colcha embroidery. So I need to figure out a design and pick out some wool thread to try it out!

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Bluebird Joy: Stitching away

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Hannah

Well, I am still working on Bluebird Joy. I began work on a new area. I’ve done a lot of outlining, plus started work on one of the medium sized flowers.

Here you can see the layers for long-and-short stitch in progress.

I’m up to two finished petals and two finished leaves. I think the middle leaf is one of my favorite leaves so far. I like it.

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Silver Yemenite Jewish Accessories

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Hannah

So, continuing from the last post about Yemenite Jewish goldwork, these silver accessories are worn over the face. The strap at the top is for the forehead, and the lower piece hangs under the eyes, over the nose and mouth. I think these are for a bride? I have emailed various associations and I hope that someone more knowledgeable will write back with more information.

Now, these two dangling silver decorations may look like earrings, but they are not. They’re too heavy for ears! Instead, you put the hooks into the hair so that they dangle next to the ears as if they were earrings. I thought that was a very smart innovation.

Here is a closer view of the lower face veil.

This is one of a special series of posts based on the embroidery collection of Dr. Faegheh Shirazi, from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is on “textiles, dress, gender identity discourse, and material culture in the Middle East; the meanings of veiling; rituals and rites of passage as they relate to material culture.” Over the years she has collected a number of examples of embroidery from around the world, and has very kindly allowed me to photograph them for my blog.

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Goldwork Veil

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Hannah

This gorgeous veil is from the Yemeni Jewish community! Yemeni Jewish women wear it for special occasions, like weddings. Lucky them! The wide band at one end goes at the forehead and the rest of the goldwork hangs over the hair at the back. You can see Dr. Shirazi modeling it (and another piece from her collection) in this article about Dr. Shirazi and her research on the hijab. Take a look! It’s very informative about veils in general, though it doesn’t talk much about Yemeni Jews. Here is the Wikipedia article on Yeminite Jews.

I know y’all want to see it up close. Here’s a photo of the forehead band.

Now the middle (if you click on the photo you can see a larger version).

Here is the tail end:

Finally, a few more detail photos.

And finally, one more photo of the whole thing (click for the larger version). On Monday, I’ll show you the silver face veil and jewelry!

This is one of a special series of posts based on the embroidery collection of Dr. Faegheh Shirazi, from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is on “textiles, dress, gender identity discourse, and material culture in the Middle East; the meanings of veiling; rituals and rites of passage as they relate to material culture.” Over the years she has collected a number of examples of embroidery from around the world, and has very kindly allowed me to photograph them for my blog.

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Very Pink Hardanger Card

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Hannah

Well, folks, I owe a whole lot of people thank you notes. So, I went and splurged on the Hardanger Card Club from Nordic Needle. It’s a lot upfront, since they aren’t offering it in monthly installments anymore. On the other hand, there’s twelve of them! Hurray! And it’ll be nice to have some small projects I can actually finish. Like this one! Done in only 1 weekend 🙂

This one is a whole lot more pink than I usually go for. I love the design though! It’s pink twisted silk (Elegance Silk Perle #8) from Rainbow Gallery. Fortunately the other cards aren’t nearly as pink. I worked a fancy hem around the edges so it can be taken out from the card. I’m going to pin it in instead of taping it.

Here are the instructions for the hem, although Carolyn wasn’t kidding about it taking a long time. I got tired after the first row and stopped! I think I’ll try a new hem on each card. I’ve been looking around, and I understand usually you have to fold the edges over twice and mitre the corners before hemming. This will be an adventure! Anyway, here is the back of it.

Finally, here’s an in-progress shot.

Sure is nice to finish something! Y’all can expect eleven more installments in this series, though not all in a row. Oh gosh, did I really just add 11 projects to my list? Oops.

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Chinese Embroidery: Kingfisher

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Hannah

I don’t know if y’all remember but at one point I started a Xiang Chinese embroidery kit. I really felt like working on that style of project, but that one just seemed so very large and such a long way from finished! So, well, I started a smaller one! This one I am using both strands of silk rather than dividing it up. I will go back to the other one, I swear! But it sure is nice to make a lot of visible progress.

See, I finished the branches and started on the leaves already! I opted for split stitch on the branches – I have no idea if that’s what Chinese embroiderers would use. Here is a closer view. I don’t know if you can tell, but the fabric is developing some lines in places near my stitching. I don’t think I’m pulling my stitches that tight. I’m not sure what’s wrong.

Now, if you want to see something really wrong, check out my first attempt at using stretcher bars! Perhaps I should spend more than $3, read up on how to do it, and also improve my thumbtack methodology before the next project. However, this one is more or less stuck to the frame so it is staying right there until it’s done. I hope. I really need to work on having some patience when setting up projects.

By the way, I went back to the Elite Silk Arts website (where I got it) and they’ve been making some changes! They now have some video lessons for sale. I have no idea how good they are, but perhaps I will check it out at some point. Has anyone tried it? It also says they’ll be starting online classes sometime this year.

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