Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2011
I held off posting this until the traditional start of the holiday season, the day after Thanksgiving!
At our October ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter meeting, Heather discussed the Waffle and Amadeus. I’d already made the Waffle into an ornament.
The Amadeus is only tricky where the two join together for the first 5 stitches in the North, South, East, and West. I have to pull the thread off to the side, find the hole, and then pull it taut.
I worked the Amadeus motif using Kreinik #12 Braid 421 Azalea and 5982 Forest Green with DMC #8 Blanc for the Alternating Continental background. A large gold bead filled in the center using a cross stitch through the bead to hold it upright without wobbling. The cording is DMC #5 666 red and 701 green (6 strands each).
A couple of people in my chapter wanted to see what I had learned from my finishing class. So, I brought everything to our October Stitch-in (wow-a month ago tomorrow). Most everything fits appropriately in my lovely A Place for Everything, a ByAnnie and by Linda bag. The tools are in another holder. I found my glue gun and brought it. I bought a Mighty Travel Iron by Dritz. My big iron is too big for these ornaments. A few bottled waters (Evian, which is easy to find, and Ocean, which we had in the fridge) are soft enough to use in the iron. The last time I bought a gallon of distilled water, it leaked. I got 1/8″ thick foam board from Ebay before learning that the Framing Dept at Michael’s have the thin boards. The 3/8″ board is out in the aisle. Thanks to Michael’s for their 40% off coupons, I got a nice price on Friskar’s nip scissors. Lots to bring.
I finished the Amadeus into a diamond. And, it was done in about 3 hours. I am getting faster.
I forgot I’d brought along a 3″, 4″, and 5″ circle template from mommymadethat (.com) for any rounds. Molly has some great templates (free) on her website. But, Nanda’s circle was very round. So, marking the shape with a pencil worked out fine.
The cording with Kreinik didn’t turn out nearly as tight as with the drill. I did sew it into place to reinforce the top at the loop and went around adding a couple of stitches to connect the cording to the front and back on each side.
No Black Friday shopping here. We’re busy at home cleaning, resting, decorating, resting, and more decorating over the course of today while listening to holiday music and will be all ready for Christmas!
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, Imperial Topaz by Sue Reed
I did get good contrast between the threads so that you can see the pattern in the couching which are the 4 areas surrounding the center large rectangle. It was easy stitching, but you do have to count correctly. I’m ready for the next area. I am looking forward to my ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter meeting on Monday’s night to get Linda’s tips on the next area.
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, From Dawn to Dusk by Textured Treasures
I got the 3 designs from Dawn, a portion of a larger From Dawn to Dusk done on Cashel linen or Lugana, framed by Jim at Repenning Fine Arts in Audubon, NJ. It needed a custom cut mat, which he said wasn’t easy, but he did a fine job. I need more wall space!
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, Imperial Topaz by Sue Reed
Getting the Square Rhodes color matched and reflected went well. I got all the colors in the overdyed thread, 168 Rainforest, represented. Counting that far away from where you stitched was a bit tough because the first stitch in the Square Rhodes stitch is not one of the corners. I was off once, but thanks to double-checking, I caught it relatively early and was able to reuse the thread. I needed about 32″ to stitch three of them. All the top stitches point towards the center.
All the slanted gobelin stitches surrounding the Square Rhodes in the 4 quadrants are pointing to the center as well. So I wouldn’t forget the slant while talking at our Saturday Stitch-in, I had already started with the inner most over one stitch and the over 2 with Neon Rays in some of each quadrant. I did have to take my curling iron – a must when working with Neon Rays. But, no mistakes. Not a very exciting portion to stitch, but it was a rainy weekend here, and I finished it. Yes, the north, south, east, and west sides are purposely not closed in.
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2011
Between needing the bars for the upcoming EGA Seminar, getting the proper color DMC for cording, and having a free day (thanks to a PGA golf tournament), I was able to do the finishing for the individual motif from Flowers of Italy by Ro Pace, an ANG Stitch of the Month from 2011.
Using the same colored DMC floss as the tent stitch to cinch the 2 sides together.
Heather is leading this piece starting in September. The original was done on Congress Cloth but I will do them on 18 count canvas. I’ll probably do four of them as a unit and the rest as individual ones.
The finishing of the waffle went faster than usual. I stitched 3 rows of tent stitch around the motif. I laced the sides down over a piece of Craf-tex (thanks to to surplus from Linda’s Boutique). I cut the corners a tad to decrease bulk.
I used Scotch Tape Runner, a double-sided tape to hold the backing in place on a second piece of Craf-tex.
The cording was a double cording of matching DMC Perle #3 (thanks to Nanda for picking it up for me).
Again, using the matching colored DMC floss I attached the cording. Perhaps using a thread I can see (as opposed to Sulky invisible thread) made things easier. Or, perhaps that both sides were together before attaching the cording helped decrease the complexity of stitching.
I was worried that the laid threads would get messed up with all that handling but a little careful adjustment fixed a couple of strands that were askew.
Thanks to a rain delay for the golf game, I will work on another ornament!
Filed under: ANG Stitch of the Month, 2011
My ANG Main Line Stitchers is gearing up the next counted project. We usually have 2 pieces working because not every project appeals to everyone.
Heather will be leading Flowers of Italy by Ro Pace, the 2011 Stitch of the Month. It’s one I kept looking at but have been intimidated by some of the diagrams. She’s got a camera at home to demonstrate the stitches over Zoom at our meetings. I’m looking forward to seeing the technology utilized. I’ve only seen a camera used by a teacher a couple of times.
The original design was done on Congress Cloth and that’s what Heather did. So, I stitched the Waffle Stitch on 18 count canvas. I used 4 strands where 2 are used on Congress Cloth. It’s about 2.5″ and will make a cute ornament. More practice finishing! I think I’ll stitch a couple of rows around the outside before finishing it. I don’t want to mess up the laid threads.
There are 12 motifs in all. I might do 4 motifs in a larger diamond arrangement for framing. We’ll see what happens as we progress.
Directions are free for previous Stitch of the Month pieces to all members of ANG.
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, From Dawn to Dusk by Textured Treasures
When we introduced the project, From Dawn to Dusk by Textured Treasures, to my ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter this past fall, I stitched one of the motifs on 18 count in Christmas colors as a single motif for an ornament.
I decided to do 2 more ornaments in Christmas colors because I like 3s and because I wanted to try an Interlaced Maltese Cross. If you don’t lay the foundation correctly in Step 1, then the interlacing in Step 2 won’t work. I got it right on my second attempt.
This was the third motif in Twilight Too. All three had the same instructions as From Dawn to Dusk but written for 28 count ground. So, I used the same threads as the first ornament. Just needed to figure out where to use the threads and how many strands.
Nothing difficult in the second motif in Twilight Too except color matching the Anchored Vandyke. I think I’m using a discontinued Needle Necessities 153 (overdyed red thread). It’s 6 stranded. So, I used 3 strands on the North-South areas from one length and 3 strands on the East-West areas from the second length. It turned out good.
To start the finishing, I used newly purchased fusible web and just to be 100% sure nothing would ever happen to the iron again, I used a pressing cloth! All went well.
At some point I am hoping finishing will come more naturally. If I don’t do it regularly, it takes me time to get the swing of it again. But, I am happy with how it turned out.
In October, I’ll be taking an irregular shaped ornament finishing class from Kelly Starke. So, I think my third ornament will be good for that class.
Continuing on with the first rectangle for the center. I stitched the gobelin outline at home because I didn’t want to count wrong at the Central Jersey Chapter (CJC) Saturday Stitch-in that I was invited to join. They worked last month and this month on my Festive Fireworks from NeedlePointers (July 2017). I really enjoyed seeing theirs. Linda M worked them on a single piece of silver sparkly canvas each motif with a red, white, and blue gobelin border which looks really fantastic. Sue is stitching them for Christmas ornaments in red, green, and white. It was so nice of them to invite me. Such a nice group. I took Autumn 3-Ways for Show and Tell because it was their chapter who held the workshop.
In line with their patriotic themed project, I demonstrated the Or Nue Flag. Most had not heard of this technique and were quite interested. One woman even finished a flag after lunch.
So I could start stitching Imperial Topaz there, I prepared 6 bundles of 4 strands each that was needed for the Mosaic stitch to fill that area. Linda, from Main Line Stitchers, is leading this project and suggested 4 strands by eliminating the middle value of the coral rather than 5 originally suggested. The 4 strands laid well on the diagonal. Good call. I made good progress during the day and finished up in the evening.
Because Waterlilies has 12 strands and I started with a 30″ length, I had enough of the same overdyed thread to complete the entire center. Had I needed another length of the overdyed for part of the area, the color differences in the overdyed thread may have been evident.
I liked the Waterlilies 168 Rainforest because it’s muted and selected the Color B (coral) thread, AVAS Soie d’alger 2921 Rouse Ancien, to brighten the Waterlilies and provide the contrast. One of the colors in Waterlilies looks like a shade of AVAS 2921 which means black would have been added to AVAS 2921. I didn’t want the exact match because that would wash out the crescents. In fact, Sue mentions that you do not have use any of the colors from the overdyed skein for Color B.
I cut the thread just where the shade close to the coral would start the crescents near the center solid diamond. The stretch of thread that follows offers a nice cross section from the skein of Rainforest.
The value contrast wasn’t what I expected but there is contrast of color and temperature (reviewed my notes from Laura Smith’s lecture, “The Seven Ways of Color Contrast”; excellent talk).
I’m ready for our July ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter meeting Monday night.
ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter is starting another counted needlepoint project now that Circles is done. Needlepoint Now sells reprints for $3 (https://www.needlepointnow.com/product-category/project-reprints/). We began Imperial Topaz by Sue Reed with a road trip to Busy Lizzy, a store (open on limited days behind her home) owned by one of our members, Cleo. Two of our other members and employees, Karen and Louise, were holding down the fort the Saturday we went. Linda, who already stitched the project and who is leading it helped Lori, Buff, Kristen, and me pick out threads in 3 color families which work with the overdyed thread selected. On a second road trip to Fireside Stitchery to meet 2 other members, I switched from the blue I had chosen to a blue-green that Betsy recommended. All set now!
My overdyed is Waterlilies Rainforest 168.
Color A (blue green) threads are Splendor S869 Dark Green Aqua and Silk Lame Braid Petite SP214 Lake Blue.
Color B (coral) thread is AVAS Soie d’alger 2921 Rouse Ancien.
Color C (peach) threads are Splendor S1150 Deep Flesh, S895 Dark Flesh, and S1149 Light Peach Flesh; Neon Rays N117 Medium Peach.
Kreinik #12 Braid 0013 and 1/16th Ribbon 013 Beige.
At our June meeting, Linda discussed how to find the color matching portions of an overdyed skein. Sue Reed wrote a very complete article about that topic in Needle Pointers magazine March/April 2021 page 22 in the same issue) on “Color Matching Hand-Dyed Threads”. Selecting portions of overdyed threads for manipulation and thread blending are the 2 main lessons in this piece.
No matter the light source, the Coral appears brighter in the picture than it does in person where it is slightly muted.
I am celebrating Happy Thread the Needle Day which is an entire day devoted to stitching! Hope you got some stitches in today. Even one length of thread stitched per day will allow you to progress on a project. Enjoy your time!
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