Leaves for the Bluebird Floral

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Hannah

I’m still going strong on the project (the Bluebird Floral by Elsa Williams with modifications).

I filled in the center of the peach flower with french knots. The other flowers are supposed to have dark green centers, but I’m still skeptical. I left them blank while I think it over.

I left the spots off the peach flower until I decide what to do about the first pink flower.

I’m working on choosing  a color scheme for the leaves. As a test, I worked three leaves, each with a different set of three colors. I think I like the top one best. What about y’all?

Here is a closer view of the leaves so you can see the color and shading.

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Bluebird Floral: More flowers

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Hannah

I’ve been working away on the kit. Here are my progress photos.

When I was at the store selecting floss I initially tried to find a match for each wool color individually. But that was a slow process which rapidly became very irritating, so I ended up getting three main ranges of colors for the flowers: a set of purple-pinks, a set of orange-pinks, and a set of pink-pinks. Thus the color scheme is not a complete match to the original, even though I’m more or less following the kit picture.

A few random thoughts:

If I had wanted to radically alter the color scheme I’d have made a few copies of the design and used colored pencils to plan out the overall effect more carefully.

I’m glad I decided on two strands of floss. This is supposed to be my easy motivational project, after all. One strand is very delicate but it does take more time. The very thought makes me tired.

Floss is very pretty – these flowers really shine in the light.

Finally, I would like to officially blame Mary Corbet for all the split-stitch outlines under the petals. It’s extra work but the edges look so much better that I always do it ever since I read about it on her blog. My goodness this project requires a lot of split stitch outlining.

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New Project: Bluebird

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Hannah

Y’all, I am back!  I was totally swamped by work for a few weeks, but I am resuming posting now. To motivate myself, I started on this lovely Elsa Williams kit, Bluebird Floral. Pretty, isn’t it? I’m just doing this one fairly simply – mostly long and short stitch – so that I can work on it even when I’m tired.

You know me though, I can’t resist meddling. Most of the design is supposed to be worked in wool. I don’t like the wool they provided, so I’ll be working all the flowers in floss. I might leave the birds in wool though. I like that effect in the Bird Brocade kit I’ve been working.

I like it already. Except for the brown french knots on the first flower. I know what they’re supposed to represent, but I think it looks like the flower has chicken pox. I’m probably going to take them out. What do y’all think?

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Shisha mirror embroidery

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Hannah

This embroidery from India features a number of mirrors embroidered into the design. I don’t have much information on it – perhaps if you know something about it you could leave a comment? It’s another piece from Dr. Shirazi’s personal collection.

The central motif is a bullock or ox (depending on whether you’re speaking British or American English). Cows are considered sacred in Hinduism, but I have no idea how that relates to this piece. I don’t believe this is a religious embroidery.

Anyway, design-wise, blue and blue-green are good colors for outlining the central motif so as to draw the eye to the center – they contrast strongly with orange.

Here are some details of the border. I like the bright feeling from the mirrors and colors. Note how the main colors here are yellow, orange, blue-green, and blue – they form a whole section of the color wheel. White is a neutral accent color here, and along with the mirrors helps the design feel light even though the orange background isn’t pastel or pale in any way.

Here is the back – very neatly done.

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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Book review: Palestinian Embroidery Motifs

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Hannah

I found a wonderful cross-stitch book, “Palestinian Embroidery Motifs: A treasury of stitches 1850-1950, ” by Margarita Skinner and Widad Kamel Kawar. Melisende Publishing, London and Rimal Publications, Nicosia, 2007. ISBN 978-1-901764-47-5.

It has over 150 pages of charts and photos of Palestinian cross-stitch (see this example from Dr. Shirazi’s collection). There’s an amazing variety of motifs, borders, and designs, all stylized and very interesting. Somehow they have a totally different flair from most of the cross-stitch designs you find in the US.

I was even inspired to try it myself! This is as far as I got before remembering that I really just don’t enjoy cross-stitch. I love the patterns though, so maybe I can trace them and work them in other embroidery stitches, after I finish up some of my other projects. Isn’t it a neat little flower border?

Here’s a few pages from the book with photos of finished work (plus check out the cover!). There are tons of charts too, but I didn’t think that would be OK for excerpts. The book has a huge variety of interesting designs in it and I definitely recommend it.

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Eyeballs for the Joker

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Hannah

He’s looking at you.

I’m afraid it’s gotten very dusty. I’m not sure what to do about it, at least until I have a few more of the sketch lines covered. I don’t want to wash them off. I haven’t fixed the teeth yet. Here’s the full view.

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Embroidery of Kashmir III

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Hannah

Here is another embroidered shawl from Kashmir from Dr. Shirazi’s collection. This one is for a man – unlike the shawl I showed before (Embroidery of Kashmir I, Embroidery of Kashmir II), it has no central motif.

The border is quite intricate. It must have taken a lot of time to work it around such a large piece.

Here are some photos of the details:

The ends are worked with some type of drawn thread fringe similar to hemstitching.

This shawl is signed by the creator. In fact, these are produced in workshops. Each workshop has its own copyrighted paisley designs, and someone familiar with the embroideries can tell which one created a shawl based on the embroidered designs.

Take a look at the back.

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.

Posted in Embroidery around the world, Indian embroidery, Shirazi | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

The Big Green: History of a Project

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Hannah

I’ve asked my mother (Laura) to do a series of guest posts about her embroidery. Today she presents some of the history of The Big Green and some work-in-progress photos. Follow up posts will show further progress on the work. Over to her:

Several years ago I saw a wonderfully intricate crocheted garden doily in one of my daughter’s pattern books. It measured 12 x 14 inches and was, of course, white. I thought, “ What a wonderful pattern!  But I can do it Better!”  I used afghan weight yarn in a multitude of garden colors. I crocheted yellow sunflowers with dark red centers, red roses, blue and purple delphiniums, pink and yellow daisies, green leaves.   When I started attaching all the flowers together I realized that this was Not working. Instead of an inch or maybe two for the largest flowers, the sunflowers alone are a good foot across.  The flowers are so large and heavy that there is no way that they would stay linked by the delicate structure called for in the instructions. So what to do… Think, think… Inspiration-Ask Mom!  She looks at my project and says I should mount it on a backing sheet for support. I do this and yes it is holding together now. That’s the good news. The bad news – It looks like a bunch of crocheted flowers stuck on a sheet for some reason.  Not Nice.  Again, what to do?   Time passes…Think, think.  Maybe some decorative embroidery around the edges of the crocheted flowers?  So, it begins. I mount The Big Green on a stretcher frame and the garden really begins to grow.

A gold finch is embroidered first (split stitch) since it is my opinion that a sunflower is not complete without one. Buttonhole stitch reinforces the applique stitching on the largest petals and finishes the edges. A ladybug button supplies cute.

Stem stitch outlines other flowers and leaves. Using the same yarn that I crocheted the original flowers with I embroidered similar pink daisy shapes and leaves. (Buttonhole for the pink flowers, stem stitch and scattered straight stitches for leaves) Fly stitch in normal embroidery floss created small ferny shapes. A praying mantis hunts. The ground is a mixture of colors and stitches in floss including French knots, colonial knots, straight stitches, bullions and beads designed to create interesting texture.

Other plants and flowers are outlined in contrasting colors using stem stitch. The alternating green and gold stripe background uses dark green crochet yarn and gold embroidery floss in twisted chain stitch.  The reeds are yarn couched with contrasting green.

The final step is yet to be taken. Finishing. At the moment I am trying to decide just how to finish the edges. I could just turn under the raw edges and hem them and be Done. That appeals. However, an embroidered band framing the piece would be a more elegant solution. So, now I am trying to decide just how to do that. And then the question becomes What do I do with this? A bedspread for the dog to sleep on? No way. But what?

I just love this project. Mom has added some additional details since these photos were taken, so there will be more photos in future follow up posts!

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Lots of flowers

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Hannah

It’s all flowers in today’s update on the bellpull from the Mary Jane Collection. My blue flower is filling in and I love, love, love my yellow french knots.

And look, farther up on the vine I’ve made progress on the flower with the long and short stitch petal y’all loved so much. I’ve departed radically from the suggested stitching and colors at this point. I filled in the central space with Castelo Branco stitch, so it looks like a flower bud slowly opening.

Here is a closer look at the flower. I think I’ll make the pointy things green leaves, though I haven’t decided on a filling stitch.

Farther up on the vine, there are two more flowers I’ve been working on!

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Update: Trish Burr Wild Rose

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Hannah

I worked two more leaves trying to incorporate y’alls suggestions and hints from the introductory post on this needlepainted flower (it’s also now listed on my Projects page).

As you can see in the close up photo of my new leaves, I’ve tried to work the colors much deeper into each other this time. After I worked the top leaf I realized that the illustration didn’t match my shading. They should be shaded light-to-dark not just from the outside leaf inwards, but also from the tip to the base of the leaf. So I tried to incorporate that into the last leaf.

For comparison, here is a photo of the first two leaves I worked (and I just noticed I forgot a line of split stitch on one of the branches). I’m learning a lot! Good thing there’s so many leaves.

Do y’all have any more critiques/suggestions for improvement? I have two more leaves to go! (Ignore the rosebud, I need to restart that one.)

Posted in My work, Needlepainting | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments