Singapore: Chinese embroidery

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Hannah

Look what I got for Christmas! My parents bought this in Singapore in the mid-eighties. It’s definitely from the Chinese tradition, and probably created in Singapore itself. Sorry about the flash reflection in the glass.

This is partially painted and partially embroidered with silk. I like the idea of painting the background – embroidering everything can sometimes take a long time. It allows for very detailed faces too. Perhaps I should look into how to incorporate fabric painting or background prints into my work.

Below are closeups of the two women who are the focus of the design. The woman on the left has wonderful hair ornaments made of jade beads. It’s a great way to subtly accent the piece. I also love the tiny golden fans decorating her robe.

If you look closely, you see that the hair of the woman on the right is actually free strands, not stitching. I plan to try this on my Balinese dancer.

The stitches for this embroidery are incredibly tiny. Everything is worked in a single strand. Look at the feather stitches at the bottom of her dress! The flooring grounding the pillar in the background is such a neat use of herringbone stitch.

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Bird Brocade II

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Hannah

So, I’ve been stitching up a storm in the last week. You can see the last report in the earlier post Bird Brocade. As a reminder, I am keeping the colors and designs from the kit, but inventing my own stitch directions. The photos are linked to larger versions if you want more detail.The rest of the piece is in floss, but the bird is in wool. The change in texture and gloss make it really stand out. Something to keep in mind for later works.

This bird is lovely, with a soft look, but the Paternayan wool is so fuzzy I can’t imagine fighting it for  stitches more complicated than long and short stitch.

I love this flower. It’s an example of what my mother told me: gold is a brown, not a yellow. If you want gold, go for tans and browns and combine them with some lighter and darker shades for the glow. These tan shades in the flower look very brown on the skein, but the purples and pinks bring out the yellow so they look golden (know your color wheel, people). I also learned that open chain/ladder stitch/square chain is a giant pain.

One stitch combination I thought up for this project is large masses of lazy daisy stitches (see the half-finished purple flower at the bottom). It looks like a pile of flower petals. Start at the top of the flower and work down, since the stitches need to overlap.

I haven’t quite decided how to finish the reddish leaves with backstitch outlining. The outer layer is theoretically two shades of green in long and short stitch, but I may change that.

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Balinese legong dancer

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Hannah

I finished the Rowandean cat, so that means I can start another project. Technically, this is double-counting since I started the Bird Brocade crewel project on the basis that I was almost done with the cat, but whatever. This post is all about Bali. When I was a toddler, a legong dancer gave me one of her earrings. I still have it, and I still love these dancers. This design is based off an illustration in a children’s book I absolutely loved as a child (Ayu and the Perfect Moon) about a girl dancer in Bali.

The fabric is from a thrift store – it cost only a dollar. It’s perfect since she is supposed to be dancing under a full moon at night. I love fabric from thrift stores – the selection is random, but that makes things interesting.

This is the first time I’ve used tracing paper to transfer a design. I think next time I will be more careful with the running stitches – I had to undo a lot of them. I am especially proud of the feet and face, but I might have to leave those as outlines. I don’t know how to fill them in without losing the details like toes.

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Rowandean Cat – finished

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Hannah

Finished! Previous post on the cat.

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Les Patrons-Modèles “Echo”, Les – Album No. 3 – Travaux de Dames

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Hannah

This is a free book from Paris, 1925. It’s another find in the Antique Pattern Library, and its focus is cutwork. Not that you have to do the designs in cutwork.

I haven’t tried cutwork yet, but one of these days I will. My understanding is that all you need for even the most complex design is running stitch,  buttonhole stitch and the ability to be very careful with scissors. The third requirement might disqualify me though. An explanation for how to do it is found at Needlework Tips and Techniques, and I found an extra-detailed explanation of buttonhole bars on Sarah Whittle’s blog.

There are a lot of medieval scenes, like this noble lady, various hunting scenes, St George slaying the dragon, and so on. A few scenes are Egyptian hieroglyphics style. Some of the designs are mostly eyelets and smaller holes with few buttonhole bars, like the flowers and skates below. Finally, I’ll wrap up this review with a really complex design of two squirrels. If I worked it, I’d revise it to involve fewer bars. Goodness gracious.

If you’re interested in yet more cutwork designs, there’s a review of a book of fables illustrated with cutwork patterns (available free at the Antique Pattern Library) at Needle’n Thread.

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The Yao (or Mien) Hill Tribe of Thailand

Posted on December 27, 2010 by Hannah

My mother bought the embroidered pants below at the Chiang Mai night market in Thailand in the mid eighties. They’re from the Yao (or Mien) Hill Tribe.

To the left is a closeup of the pantcuffs.

My mother was told by a Thai friend of hers that traditionally the women in the tribe embroider one pair of these pants per year. They change to the new pants at the hilltribe’s New Year celebration (not the calendar new year) because it’s bad luck to wear old clothes in the new year. 

I’m not sure how accurate this story is, since a year is a long time to wear the same pants.

Looking closely, much of the embroidery is cross-stitch. Some of it seems related to needlepoint, and there are also a few bands of work that seem like they may be a relative of blackwork. The designs are very geometric, and the color scheme for the pants is  different from a standard western palette.

Here’s another photo of hilltribe women in traditional clothes.

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Rowandean cat

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Hannah

Here is yet another kit I’m so very close to finishing. It’s a small kit from Rowandean Embroidery, which is a British company with a huge variety of kits. This design is about 3 inches by 4 inches. I don’t see this particular kit on their website, but I believe it’s from their Cats in Gardens range. The stitches are straight stitches, lazy daisy stitches, and french knots. I’ve linked this photo, and the kit photos from their website, to the appropriate range on their homepage.

I love Rowandean kits, but they aren’t as widely available in the US. Some of their kits come with a fabric mat so that the embroidery spills out into the frame. Stone Bridge is from the Mini Plus range, and is about 3 inches on a side. Seagulls, on the other hand, is about 12 inches per side, and is still not their biggest kit.

There are other ranges of kits in different styles and techniques (trapunto, chunky textured threads, flower portraits, etc). The flower kit is from the Exotic Flowers range, with colored organza and embroidery. I really enjoy just browsing their website, looking at the designs.

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Swedish weaving/huck embroidery

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Hannah

I’ll be showing this form of embroidery in two very different materials: one is a sampler I stitched with embroidery floss on huck cloth/popcorn fabric, and one is an afghan my grandmother stitched in yarn on monk’s cloth. For each one, I have a larger overall photo and then some closeups.

The photo on the left is a discontinued kit – Pralines and Cream, from Avery Hill Designs. The directions included little gold beads all over it, but I disliked the effect so I left them off.

This was the quickest type of embroidery I’ve ever done. It really covered ground in a hurry. This kind of fabric has little raised threads all over it – you take your thread and run it under them, creating a couched effect. The thread doesn’t pierce the fabric except where you tuck the threads in at the end of a row. The back of this is blank. I’d like to experiment more with using different materials.

Mary Corbet has a post on huck embroidery, with more details on how-to.

The photo to the left is the afghan from my grandmother. I love the colors, it’s just beautiful. Huck embroidery is often done on monk’s cloth with yarn to make afghans. With floss on a smaller scale it’s often used to decorate towels, runners, and placemats.

Places you can find patterns and/or kits: Nordic Needle, Thistle Needleworks, and Stitch On It Direct.

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Enciclopedia de las Señoras

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Hannah

I found a little something in Google Books: “Enciclopedia de las Señoras, que Contiene las Artes y Labores de Utilidad y de Recreo” (Encyclopedia of the Ladies, that contains recreational and useful arts and works) translated from French to Spanish by Mrs. R. C.-B. and published in 1853. Fortunately, Spanish is one of my languages.

(To find more in Google Books, go to the Advanced Book Search, select Full View Only, and put either embroidery or needlework in the subject section. There may be other search combinations that are worthwhile, but those are the two I tried.)

There is a whole section on border designs:

There’s a series of interesting alphabets (many pages worth), with whimsical lettering. This encyclopedia presents crowns for a Baron, a Viscount, a Count, a Marquis, and a Duke – I guess this was the in thing to do at the time (see the Encyclopedia by Therese de Dillmont).

There are some flower designs (and another chapter on making artificial flowers):

And some really interesting patterns:

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There are needlepoint charts as well. It’s fairly encyclopedic.

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Crewel embroidery: Custom House of Needlearts

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Hannah

Before I go on to the rest of the post: OMG SHARON B AT PINTANGLE LINKED ME!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYWAY, the photos below are of my Mini Bellpull Kit #46 from Custom House of Needle Arts, the original range.

I’m almost done with it – the hill at the bottom needs finishing and there’s a few minor details on the rest (the purple-red flower at the top needs a repair – golly, I suppose there’s a reason people put their embroidery scissors in a case instead of just throwing them in the bag with everything else).

This was a lot of fun to stitch! It costs $24.50 including the wool. The kit is my first foray into crewel, but the directions were totally clear. Besides, if you don’t understand stitch directions in a kit the internet will tell you. Or you can ignore the directions – I do that a lot. This time I mostly followed them, though.

Just so y’all know, Custom House of Needle Arts doesn’t take orders except from retailers, but their shop distributors are listed here and you can order the full range online from Thistle Needleworks. Thus, I’m linking all the pictures (except the closeups) to Thistle Needleworks where you can actually order things.

Custom House has a wide variety of crewel kits in different styles and of different subjects. Here’s some of their birds (by designer Blanche Virgien):

Some of their kits are also available as purses, neckties, eyeglasses, bookends, etc:

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