Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, Gay Ann Roger's, Dowager Countess
Last month, I realized that a few sections of Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham by Gay Ann Rogers were going to require extra concentration than can be done at our monthly ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter Stitch-in where chatting can disrupt with counting. We’ll be meeting next weekend which is a week early for our Saturday Stitch-in due to Thanksgiving.
So, I took advantage of this rainy afternoon after the morning Zoom session of ANG New Jersey Needle Artists Stitch-in to do the pulled thread stitch called Faggoting. My husband was grocery shopping and the TV was off. It was easy enough except on my hand. Pulling canvas threads on 18 count monocanvas hurts my hand. Congress Cloth would be easier.
So, rather than overwhelm my hand, I enlarged the holes (rows surrounding the center) as was done for eyelet stitches. I made all the holes larger along the whole row so that I could easily stitch the row without stopping. It worked out well. It gives a lacey effect and looks more and more like the Dowager Countess.
While I had the #8 Pearl cotton Ecru out, I stitched the slanting gobelin area with Smyrnas. With any luck, I will be posting a completed piece next weekend!
Filed under: Embroidery Guild of America, Mid-Atlantic Region, Overdyed Spools THaP
In October, I taught Overdyed Spools to 31 students at EGA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting and a few have finished theirs. They are turning out great. It’s so much fun and rewarding to see what others do with it. Donna shared hers in progress and is experimenting with shifting the color change on the diagonal. Love it!
I got mine framed at Michael’s – same as where I got the previous one framed. I wanted them to go well together. I’m happy with how it turned out.
Filed under: ANG Chapter Book Projects, ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, Orchid Lady by Mary Knapp, Starburst by Patricia Hartman
Part of the fun with ordering threads from Ann-Marie Anderson-Mayes in Australia was to see what solid colors she would pick to go with the overdyed thread we selected. Even though I am not stitching Celestial Twist with the others at ANG Main Line Stitchers, these threads will work for 2 projects on my To Do List which are Starburst by Patricia Hartman and Orchid Lady by Mary Knapp which will be done on black Congress Cloth. Hopefully, I have enough for both projects. They will look nice together.
Having had the Color Theory class with Susan Hoekstra recently, I tried to figure out how these threads work together. According to the color wheel, I have 2 split complementary colorways combined and yet not a tetrad. I see the overdyed thread (called Heather shown along the bottom and right side) as red-violet with green and yellow. By adding the red-orange, I see a split complementary formed with red-violet and green which I personally would not have seen as working together. But, if the red-orange is used sparingly, it will add some interest and may just be what I have heard referred to as the “poison” color.
Before I can start though, I need to finish one in progress piece. But, I can start to plan which threads will go where in Starburst. That’s the larger of the two pieces and the one I have wanted to do longer than Orchid Lady.
Filed under: Gay Ann Roger's, Countess of Granrham, Other People's Designs
Last month, I stitched 2 corners of Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham by Gay Ann Rogers. They were less tricky this month but I still could only get the third corner stitched during my ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter members Saturday Stitch-in yesterday. Thanks again to Buff for offering her home and lunch.
There was still a lot of baseball left when I finished the fourth corner. So, I kept going and added more to the inner diagonal chains, added a motif to the top and bottom large center ‘stones’. The next part on the outer diagonal chains looked tricky. So, it’ll wait until I have fresh eyes. I’m not sure if any additional areas will be ones I can stitch, count, and chat.
Filed under: Embroidery Guild of America, Mid-Atlantic Region, Overdyed Spools THaP
On Saturday October 16, I taught this to 31 students at EGA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting. About half are going back to teach it to their chapters. It was a great experience.
It’s not a complicated piece to stitch. The hardest part is finding the repeat of color within a skein. Some skeins work better than others. At least 2 people had to switch skeins. I brought a couple of extras and so did several people.
For this one, I am using Caron’s Watercolours Cantaloupe 079. The upper left area uses 11 strands before compensating but only 9 strands had color line up nicely on the horizontal. So, I had to run thread underneath until they lined up. And, I needed an extra strand for a couple of columns.
Since it is my third time stitching it, I tried something different than random in 2 of those sections. The top right has color matched threads moving left to right for 3 rows making vertical columns of matching colors. And, the bottom left area with the 6 x 6 Rice stitch has been stitched with the pink and light purple portions for the large crosses and the blue, green, and yellow portions used for the short over 2 diagonal stitches.
The bottom right area uses 6 strands for the vertical color arrangement and 3 strands for compensation. I think I used the designated compensation threads in the bottom left corner by accident. But, I managed to compensate the area with other threads.
The spools are stitched with DMC Floche 434 which is the same as I used in the other two stitched pieces. There is one hand-dyed thread in the spools. Can you find it without reading ahead?
Lucille C, one of the people who was in the ANG Delaware Seashore chapter when I led the project for them, brought her stitched piece and mentioned that she had padded under the wraps or wrapped extra to get a more rounded effect. Good idea and I padded under all but one spool (upper left corner).
The thread wraps include from upper left to right: The Pure Palette Baroque Silk 1192 (very subtle color change for the hand-dyed thread – really tough to see the color change in the small sample; plies not separated), Madeira’s Burmilana 3893 (two stands laid), Caron’s Impressions 1106 (one strand), The Thread Gatherer’s Sheep’s Silk SPS125; one strand) and from bottom left to right: four strands laid for each color of Rainbow Gallery’s Splendor S994, S977, S932, S1058.
The Pure Palette appears to have 6 plies but I read on several websites that it is has 3. It can be used as it comes off the skein on larger count canvas (13 or 14) or separated into 3. So, I contacted the company and was told, “If you separate it all the way down to the six strands, it becomes more difficult to work with.” It is kind of like Splendor which is a 12-strand skein. Initially it separates into 3 groups of 4 plies but is intended to be separated further into 4 strands. However, Pure Palette should remain in 3 groups of 2 plies.
I revised the text some based on feedback from the organizer of THaP and people can now see another stitched example. One of the messages that I hope I made clear is that one should feel free to experiment with the threads and have fun!
Filed under: Embroidery Guild of America, Mid-Atlantic Region, Overdyed Spools THaP
Today’s 3-hour class at EGA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting was fun and challenging. There were 31 students – larger than anything I’ve done on the chapter level. Everyone was wonderful.
The piece labeled original was done for a purse for my sister in 2015 and the second for the ANG 2017 Chapter Project Book.
I started stitching it for the third time in order to refresh myself. It is intended to be a small project where many (about 20) of the students then go back and teach it to their own chapter. The main idea is to manipulate an overdyed thread in 2 areas to create a striped effect and place color randomly in the other 2 areas. I shared other pieces where I manipulated overdyed, demonstrated a quilter’s knot, and how to find the repeating color sequence.
I sent this photo out to get people excited. After class, the best comment I heard was, “I’ll never look at overdyed threads the same again.” That’s wonderful to hear and fun to open up possibilities for people.
Filed under: ANG Seminar 2017, JP Bird of Paradise & Bamboo, Orange Orchid & Bamboo
I never posted my stitching progress since beginning this at the 2017 Seminar with Cynthia Thomas at her Painted Canvas Embellishment Class. She sent a wonderful one page document that I took to Rittenhouse Needlepoint to select threads for the project which I did show previously (https://melitastitches4fun.com/2017/08/24/ang-seminar-2017-anaheim/). She has you pick thread types rather than any specific brands because she doesn’t know what threads are in local needlepoint stores.
Rather than post all my progress which was pretty good until early 2018 when it got shelved, I am going to post it area by area over the next several weeks/months. As an incentive to finish our painted canvases and share our learnings with our ANG Main Line Stitchers (MLS), I selected this canvas and it was also selected by another member, Beth (same Beth who stitched the Lotus Kimono which was featured in an article of ANG Needle Pointers (Jan/Feb 2020) for A Tale of Two Stitchers). She is using the threads and stitches obtained from Betsy at Fireside Stitchery (although I’m not going to post hers here, I will mention some differences). They are both compared and shared during our MLS monthly meetings.
The first (far left) panel has an open stitch which is kind of a staggered Cashmere stitch with Vineyard Silk and Pepper Pot Silk and separating them are short diagonal stitches using Gloriana with a very subtle overdye that really isn’t apparent. Compensating through the coins was really tough. I like that some of the canvas shows through. The coins are shaped differently and are stitched slightly differently but with the same color of Kreinik. Beth has some open canvas as well because she used unequal armed crosses resulting in an oblong effect. But, she thread blended using overdyed blue and green ThreadworX for a much more subtle color change. Her coins are done in all tent stitch.
The unstitched portions are seen on the far left and right areas and they are stitched in the center.
Filed under: ANG Chapter Book Projects, Embroidery Guild of America, Flutterby by Kurdy Biggs, Rings on Her Fingers with Kay Stanis, Seminar 2021-Chicago
I wanted to showcase the Mauve Pansy that I stitched for the EGA class Rings on Her Fingers designed by Allison Cole and taught by Kay Stanis. Rather than making it into a ring, I selected Flutterby designed by Kurdy Biggs for ANG’s 2017 Chapter Project Book so that the butterfly would be flying around the pansy.
I switched the canvas color and threads from lilac to yellow and blue. My stash came through nicely with threads including Waterlilies 017 Blue Lavender (instead of Gloriana), ThreadworX 710161 (which was a little heavier than Kreinik #4 but worked well), Kreinik Petite Facets 014, Neon Ray’s N98 (rather than Panache which I had in the correct color but hated working with it), Silk Lame Braid Petite SP174 (instead of Treasure Braid), and Sundance Beads Size 11 Color 356.
Then, I enlarged a couple of holes, put the wires through the holes, and whip stitched them to hold in place. Lastly, the 6 strand Colonial Knot was added and covered up the little bit of wires that was showing in the center.
It may take a while to get it finished but it will be done as a stand up on an acrylic stand. My other Seminar piece, Annette’s Bouquet, is at the framers and will also take a while because the frame is temporarily out of stock. But, I am not in a rush for that either. I find it very gratifying to have finished both Seminar pieces.
Filed under: Annette's Bouquet with Deborah Mitek, Embroidery Guild of America, Seminar 2021-Chicago
The lilacs were the most fun flowers of Annette’s Bouquet (EGA Seminar class from Deborah Mitek) perhaps because they are French and Colonial Knots which I am more comfortable with than the other ribbon techniques.
These were also interesting because of the foundation consists of Fly stitches to raise the knots. I added extra Fly stitches than indicated in the instructions for the center top one because my line started out wonky but I had plenty of thread. By the second and third lilac, my Fly stitches lined up. You probably can’t see it but I poked a needle into the Congress Cloth to make the general shape.
Wrapping the lower stem stitches lightly adding twists and links with ribbon sounds easy. It took several attempts to get the first one (center top) and then when I finished it off, it almost looked better on the back. So, I tried until I was happy. Good thing I had plenty of ribbon. The second of the wraps worked great on the first attempt (bottom right). Then, I struggled with the third (bottom left). Wow.
You know that it took me 35 minutes to cut 4 skeins of ribbons for the lilacs (two were 5 yards and two were 5.5 yards). I know it was 35 minutes because dinner was cooking! The way it was cut yielded 4 threads of each color for the 3 flowers. That’s a lot of ribbon!
I saved ironing and separating them to get a good variety of overdyed thread in each set of three for the next day when I was ready to stitch.
The center top was my first one. It’s more dense than was probably intended but I kept putting my needle through thread which pulled the knots tighter than I wanted. Finally, I flipped the canvas and worked them up so the thread wasn’t in the path of where I was stitching. It’s a big lilac (compared to the teacher’s model but no two pieces would ever be the same anyway) which used 11 of the 12 threads one 7 mm strand left over). The shape is good, there is movement of color within the flower, and there is depth because some are tighter to the canvas. I am happy with my first lilac.
My second lilac was the bottom left. And, it too has a good shape, color movement, and depth. It is smaller. I had 3 strands of 4 mm ribbon left over (two solid and one overdyed).
The third (bottom right) is about the same size as the other one on the bottom and all aspects just as good. I had 3 strands of solid yellow ribbon left over (two 4 mm and one 7 mm).
Three lilacs took 3 days. But, I stayed up late to finish the lilac leaves and bow.
There are 6 lilac leaves using 7 mm ribbon in a Lazy Daisy and they were tricky. A little twist, a little luck, and a couple of tries finally got them in place.
The final step was the bow. Easier than the leaves because you twist, preview, and tack. I am very happy with the bow and the whole piece!!
FYI: I allowed my Surface Pro to get down to 22% (took about 3 hours of use) and then connected it to the charger. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to fully charge my computer (I kept using it during the charging) and was left with 15% on the charger. So, that’s definitely adequate for my needs in chapter meetings and classes.
Filed under: General comments, Organization
We are getting ready for carpet cleaners next week. So, I had to organize my projects that are accumulating in our dining room. There are eleven projects with threads but not on canvases calling me to work on them next! Since I am almost done with three projects, I put four of the projects on bars yesterday. Also sitting around were the needed canvases, bars, and tacks.
Speaking of canvases, I organized my collection of blank canvases that were in several locations throughout the house. I wrapped them up in acid free tissue paper, tagged each with the color and sizes, and now have to figure out where to store them-all together!
I have a whole bag of threads to put into my thread drawers! All those pinks are for a project that I’ve tried a couple of times but haven’t gotten it to turn out yet. I will get what I want eventually. How does this accumulation happen?? I know. I should put them away as soon as I finish the project but that’s not fun!
What four projects are next you ask? One is for my EGA Master Craftsman program Step 5 regarding appliques. I didn’t submit for the November review. This step is more tricky than the previous steps and isn’t something I have done before (or likely to do again). No need to rush.
Two counted projects are using threads from Australia’s Ann-Marie Anderson-Mayes. These are on black Congress Cloth.
Lastly, Razzle Dazzle by Ann Strike-Kurz has intrigued me for years. However, I do not want to stitch the whole piece as originally designed. So, I will make a couple of ornaments and maybe bookmarks of the various patterns. While cleaning up, I found the threads from Gail Stafford’s EGA class regarding overdyed threads which should be great for the design.