Things Finished, Things Begun

Remember I said I had a Blizzard List? I really wanted to finish my son's sweater.

This is a case of not letting Perfection get in the way of Done. I'm not quite so happy with the center garter stitch at the neck opening. The last time I knit him this sweater, I did seed stitch there. The pattern calls for garter, but I like the seed stitch better. Too late now though, although at some point I am probably going to snag it back from him so I can try to neaten up the bottom of that panel, at least. Otherwise, this is a comfy sweater with room to grow. It's his second Wallaby, as the first was really getting too small. I used the same yarn, Spud and Chloe Sweater, and again, he picked the colors. As he said, the first one (which is two shades of blue) is a cool sweater, and this is a warm, fiery sweater. (This is the kid who identifies strongly with colors.) Details on Ravelry here.

I also wanted to finish my little embroidered trees for hanging. I knew I wanted to incorporate the selvedge, and I decided to stitch it to a backing, ready for hanging, rather than try to frame it somehow. This is what it looks like from the front.

The backing is red wool burel. I sewed on loops on the back for the dowel to slide through:

...and I'd hang it by balancing the dowel on a nail on each side. I'm running out of places to hang my stitching, though, which makes me think maybe it's time to try to start selling it? (I gave the birch trees, by the way, to my sister for her birthday. I'm a pretty awesome sister.)

Finishing my son's sweater means I could finally start mine. This is a dodgy photo I took this morning with my cell phone.

I'm making Tang, from Custom Knits, but without the turtleneck, because post-having-children, turtlenecks make me feel like I can't breathe, even though I used to wear them all the time and am still a very chilly person. The yarn is Dream in Color Classy, a total splurge, but it's so nice.

And finishing the hanging method/backing for the little trees means I can start on the next embroidery project, but all I've done thus far is transfer my drawing to the fabric. Oftentimes the first stitch of an embroidery piece is the absolute hardest for me, because, I think, embroidery is so very important to me.

Stitched: Little Trees

The year's second embroidery--a trio of small colorful trees.

We have a storybook that illustrates trees in almost a childlike way, with round circles at the end of stick-like branches. It's so unlike the way I draw trees, and they look awkward at first glance (and second and third, really), but they kept catching my eye. So I drew some in a similar style and transferred them to the fabric.

I'm not exactly sure how I'll finish these for display, but I know it will involve showing that selvedge edge somehow.

I'm quite fond of that selvedge edge, with its red stripe. I'm thinking the fabric needs to be sewn onto something sturdy and acid-free--heavier than cardstock, but not so heavy I can't sew through it. As for the year's first embroidery, my 8yo feels it would be best displayed in a hoop. I think he's right, so I need to get a wooden hoop and finish it off.

Embroidery makes me happy, and it's really all about the doing of it. If I don't force myself to figure out the display bit right away, I'll end up with piles of stitched images lying around, abandoned. I like what I stitch, very much; don't misunderstand. But once I'm done stitching it, it doesn't interest me quite as much anymore. I just want to get back to pulling floss through fabric, stitch after soothing stitch. However, I'm supposed to be knitting my son a sweater. If there's embroidery about, I tend to ignore the knitting. So.

But you can bet I'm planning the next embroidery piece in my head, while I'm working those knitting needles...

Stitched: Labyrinth

Hello again! It's only been a couple weeks since solstice but already the lengthening day light is noticeable. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I also feel the return of energy, ideas, enthusiasm. I have much going on to start the year, but I will get to that in another post. First I want to share my first embroidery of 2013. When I looked back on last year, I realized that energy spent on planning and stitching in thread was a good use of energy, indeed. I want to place more focus there. Since it's been a while, I decided to start with something small.

A labyrinth is not a maze; it contains no decision points. One path in, one path out. 2012 was hard, and I didn't have a choice about most of it. There was no, "Shall I take this path, or that one?" Most of the year was just the one path, and at times it felt rather thickety and brambly. Many days, I walked that path with grace. And many days, I did not.

So I stitched myself a labyrinth, this first week of a new year, to remind myself that even when I don't have a choice of which path to walk, to walk the path with grace and mindfulness nonetheless. And I share it with you. As our planet continues on its annual path--bringing those of us in the northern hemisphere incrementally more sunlight as it goes--we have another year to traverse. Our own path to follow, and while we don't always get to choose which path, we always get to choose how we walk it.

Welcome. Welcome to 2013. Step in, and step mindfully.

Display

I'm still trying to work on this schedule of mine. Meanwhile, all I have to show is that I've finally managed to hang the two paintings that came out of the Pages and Paint workshop that I actually wanted to frame. Both of these are hanging in rooms that don't get very much (or good) natural light, so the pictures are just so-so. Both were also painted on 6x6" flat gessobords, and I decided to frame them using Blick's gallery frames in the same size. I was just waiting until I had to place another order at Blick, and I just did, for the co-op art class that begins this week. (!yay!) These frames were each under $10 and I'm really happy with how the pieces look in them. I didn't cover them with the plastic front piece; I prefer these to be framed but still open.

This is the one I did using a sketch of my daughter playing at the beach, and it's hanging in her room now.

And this is my poetry quote (from Prufrock, of course). It's now hanging on my (still-unpainted) bedroom wall, where I can see it when I wake up.

You can see both of these paintings in much better light in photos from previous posts: beach and quote.

I've also finally gotten around to getting my birch trees ready for hanging. I always envisioned this hanging loosely, so I added casings at the top and bottom and bought some really beautiful oak dowels at the hardware store. I hemmed the sides, sewed the casings, and cut the dowels to size. The bottom one isn't meant to be seen--I may add a few stitches to hold it in there securely--it just adds weight so the fabric hangs nicely. The top one extends two inches out on either side, but you can't really see that, because my assistant (my younger son) has the dowel in a very firm grip, being very mindful that dropping mama's trees (which he likes very much) would get them dirty.

This isn't quite ready to hang--my original thought had been to gently carve into the top dowel near each edge, just deep enough so that some hanging wire or fishing line wouldn't slip out of it; I'd wrap the wire on each side, with some slack, and hang it from the middle. I still want to hang it that way, but I'm going to look for some finials or end caps that fit the ends, instead of carving indentations. I think it will give it a more finished look, and also make sure the wire or line doesn't slip off the ends. This requires another trip to the hardware store, so it may take a bit to finish this off completely, but I'm almost there. Another plus of hanging it this way is that it doesn't hide the back, which is just as interesting, in its own way, as the front.

Weekend Links

I've really been enjoying Feeling Stitchy's new series on Portuguese embroidery. I'm one-quarter Portuguese--my paternal grandfather was born in the Azores. But I don't have a sense of Portuguese heritage, like I do with Italian (which comprises my other 75%). I never even heard my grandfather speak the language until right before he died. To learn more about the country and its traditions through a craft that I personally love is making me very happy.

Quinn shares some thoughts about what gets in the way and how we react to it.

My daughter just loves this version of Feist's song.

I like this poem, A Prayer for the Capable, so much that I printed out a copy and taped it to my kitchen wall so I can read it whenever necessary.

Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day is May 21--that's this upcoming Monday! I'm not participating this year because hello, I've got enough going on in May for two months, but if you have time to blog hop next week, you might find something wonderful!

Weeekend Blather

This post is kind of all over the place, but I did warn you in the title. First, I finished my headband:

That's the full-on shot of (mostly) all the embroidery, plus some naked toes, because hallelujah for naked toes weather. And here's the artfully arranged shot, using my new(ish) forsythia bush that I bought after turning the car around when I passed the garden center because I just couldn't go another day without my very own forsythia. That's when it was blooming yellow, a month or so ago. Now it's got some new green leaves, so I hope that means it's going to survive despite my plant curse.

There was a catbird nearby chittering at me the whole while, but I didn't get a picture of him. I do have another photo of the phoebe nest. Thursday morning it contained one phoebe egg. Friday morning it contained two phoebe eggs...and one cowbird egg. Cowbirds are nest parasites, which means she lays her eggs in other birds' nests and lets them raise the babies. Unfortunately, the host bird's chicks are often out-competed and die. But wait, it gets better. Friday afternoon, there was only one phoebe egg, and no signs of what happened to the other one.

This is what the nest looks like today, Saturday:

Two cowbird eggs, one phoebe egg. The phoebe doesn't sit on the eggs until she's done laying them. I'm fascinated with all of this! But guess what--when the phoebe began building the nest, she started one down the slat a bit which she then abandoned--perhaps it didn't feel a secure enough spot? The bottom of it is just the wood of the deck slat, and it's not built up as much. But the cowbird laid eggs there too!

These cowbirds just lay 'em wherever they can, I guess. When I looked closely at the photo (which, again, I'm taking by reaching the camera up there and hoping for the best), I noticed the bottom egg looks like it might have a hole in it. It's like Mutual of Omaha, Backyard Version out there. I love it. (Except I'm hoping we get some successfully hatched phoebes, since my kids are watching this unfold, too.)

I want to do the nice thing and wish all the moms a Happy Mother's Day, but I think it's kind of a bogus holiday. I really wanted my kids, and I don't expect them to fall all over themselves thanking me for doing a job I willingly took on, nor do I want them to be all nice one day a year and then become entitled brats, and really I have it pretty darn good all year long and, anyway, I think it's a weird holiday. The first Mother's Day after my first child was born, I felt like I should be doing something for him. You know, Hey! Thanks for making me a mama, kiddo. I still feel that way.

So instead I will just say, I hope y'all have a great weekend, no matter who you are.

Loop'd

Over and over again, I have to learn that I can't control everything, no matter how tightly I clench my jaw and will it to be so. I can't control the badly timed fevers, the lingering coughs, the inevitable decision to delay that which has already caused quite a bit of anticipation anxiety. I've never been very good at going with the flow; the unknown and wiggly and tentative don't fill me with excitement but instead inspire an urge to make orderly lists in tightly controlled, neat printing with a smoothly flowing pen on a crisp page in a brand new notebook. It's not that I can't handle open, unplanned time, or that I always need to be busy--that's not it at all. I just don't like the uncertainty of out of my hands.

I'm trying. I really am. And when I forget, life reminds me. Amy, you gotta relax. Some things, you can't control, so you just gotta let it happen however it's going to happen.

Meanwhile, I've been embroidering those loops, a free-wheeling design drawn with a washable fabric marker on a piece of denim destined to be another headband.

You can click to make this bigger.

It's not done yet. Simple, loopy stitching.

Oh, and the phoebe nest under our deck has one creamy, beautiful egg in it so far. I can peek at it from above, through the deck slats. Later I saw mama phoebe resting in the nest. This makes me so happy I don't even have the words.

Linking up with my creative space, which has a brand-new shiny home.

Trees Follow Me

{There is still time to enter the giveaway--and be sure to check the comments; some wonderful poems have been shared there!}

Look what Karen sent me, a surprise just-because postcard!

Thanks for the trees, Karen. Perfect.

Remember the little blue canvas from the last post? It was destined for an experiment:

I wanted to try embroidering right on painted canvas. Because of the wooden frame, I could only embroider in the middle, so the buds on the edges are painted on. Here’s the back so you can see what I mean.

Haven't neatened my floss ends yet...

If I used a larger canvas, I’d have more area to work with, but then the French knots wouldn’t be in scale. Like I said, experiment. My mind will churn on this a bit more. Some of the French knots are wobbly, because I had a bandaid on my left thumb. Makes it hard to keep a good tension on the knot! I nicked it Sunday while stamp carving (I know better; I was being stupid) and then the next day I sliced it while opening a can of tomatoes. Whoops.

This is about the extent of my creative output for the beginning of the week, except for some knitting and two patched knees. For the second patch, I attempted to make an iron-on patch using the heat-n-bond. Alas, as I should have anticipated, the short-cut method did not work at all. I hoped it would, as I was patching jeans and it’s hard on the hands to sew through two layers of denim, but seven-year-olds are even harder on the knees of their pants, and the iron-on patch was half off by the time he got home from school. I’ll run it through the laundry and then patch it properly, with needle and thread.

May is hectic around these parts. It usually is, but this year, even more so. My goal for the month is to take one day at a time, breathing all the while. Amidst everything else, I need to lay the groundwork for leaving for five days in early June. With that in mind, I ordered yarn to make Azami, which I hope to bring to Squam to me—finished, preferably, but if not, I’ll work on it there, too. I may shift into more knitting than anything else this month, as it steadies me and helps me remember to breathe, when I might forget.

How is May looking for you?

Lots more creative people here.

Catching Dreams + Embroidering Trees

{Don't forget about the giveaway...plenty of time to leave a comment.}

This past week I was solo parenting again, and while I felt far more capable heading in than I did a month ago (thank goodness; I'm not used to feeling incapable), not much got done in the crafty/making department. I made lots of lunches, and dinners, and breakfasts. I made dirty dishes clean again. You know, that sort of thing. But I do have a couple of things to show you from the past week, both somewhat inspired by Mighty Girl Art activities.

First off, my daughter's dream catcher.

Many years ago, well before my daughter came along, I made dream catchers with my boys. They are still hanging over their beds, and they look remarkably like this one, because we used the same grapevine circles, twine, colored beads, and colored feathers. Not too natural looking, I know. My craft aesthetic may have been a little different then, or (I think this is more likely) I let the boys pick out the beads and feathers in the craft store.

When I saw the dream catcher activity as part of the Might Girl online course, I thought I'd bring it up with my daughter because it's probably time she has one, too. She's been in her own bed for almost a year now. But she brought it up first, and while Wendy's version suggests a pliable branch and natural materials, my daughter of course wanted hers to look like her brothers'. One day this past week we made it together, which her choosing beads and feathers as we went. She asked if she could add anything else. "Like what?" I asked. "A shell," she replied. Easy enough. I found my stash of small quahog shells with holes, she picked one out, and we added it. Then we hung it over her bed, of course.

The second project was inspired by the idea of a talisman necklace. This isn't truly a talisman necklace, but I had the idea of a meaningful necklace in mind when I decided to embroider yet another tree, this time a small one, with red buds. I was thinking of the red maple trees and the way their small red flowers, which bloom before the leaves bud, brighten up the sky in spring.

This is what I came up with, after several discarded attempts. It's hard to photograph because of the glass in front, so this first image has some glare.

But I included it because it shows the red rice paper I used as a backing. Here's another image. The background isn't as nice (the dining room table, thankfully out of focus), but there's less glare.

You can see, in this one, that I had some trouble closing the metal case flush. I think my piece was a wee bit too wide. Some of the glass crumbled a bit, but you can't really tell unless you look really close (or I give you a close-up photo and tell you about it). I don't have photos of my rejected versions, but I'll tell you about them.

(First, though, I'm using the pendant kids from Wendi Gratz, but my own stitching pattern. Also, I completely lost a split ring trying to get it on the top circle of the pendant, but I'm assuming I can easily find another one of those locally. That sucker flew.)

So, first I embroidered a tree using stem stitch, like this one. Or maybe it was outline; I can't ever keep those straight and am too lazy to look it up. Then I tried backstitch, but didn't like the look of it. Then I tried one in sort of long straight stitch, but I didn't like that as much either. So I went back to the first and added the buds with French knots, like you see here.

Then I had to get it into the pendant. Wendi uses spray starch to keep it stiff, but I didn't want to, for boring reasons. (I can't identify what kind of starch it is, don't want to spray wheat starch around, am too lazy to make my own. Anyone know what the starch in spray starch is?) (Also, someone once borrowed my iron, used spray starch, and ruined it. This was twenty years ago, but I haven't used spray starch since.) So I decided to try double sided fusible interfacing, but it was way too thick. I tossed the whole mess.

I rummaged around in my under-craft-table storage and came up with heat-n-bond. Tra-la! That stuff is awesome. I'd never used it before, but I'm making the next boy-knee patch out of this stuff. I embroidered a second tree and used the heat-n-bond, sticking the embroidery right to the rice paper backing, with the bond in between. The result seemed thin enough, and I don't think my troubles with the glass was due to thickness, but width.

Also this past week, I received my April Whimsey Box (love it), signed myself up for a summer weekend workshop on mixed media techniques through Rhode Island School of Design continuing ed, and read Tina Fey's Bossypants in no time flat, laughing out loud about 2.3 times per page. So all in all, a pretty good week, considering, if a little heavy on the dishes.

Poem In Your Pocket Day + Give-away

**Thank you for playing along! Naomi, commenter #9, came up on random. org. Congrats, Naomi! Check your inbox for an email.**









Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day! But first, a little offering from me to you, to mark one year of blogging in this space: a 5x7" embroidery piece.

My first thought was to sneaky-like enter everyone who's commented this month and then just announce who won, but then I thought, Probably not everybody would want this, especially considering the blue shape looks more like a dagger or an icicle because I did it first, before I got better at keeping my diagonals going in the right direction (harder than you'd think, against that fabric). So instead, if you would like a piece of original embroidery, by me, just leave a comment on this post and let me know. It's wrapped around a piece of bookbinding board; here's a back view.

I think you could probably slip it into a frame without glass, or just prop it up on a shelf--if the blue icicle doesn't bother you, that is. (I should just be quiet and say I meant to do it that way, maybe?) Since it's Poem in Your Pocket day, if you'd like to mention a favorite poem in  your comment, or link to a post with a poem, or tell me what you're doing to celebrate, I'd love to hear it. But you don't have to. You can just leave a regular old "hope you pick me" comment. I'll use random.org to pick someone, you need to make sure there's a way to contact you (ie, leave your email address in your comment if it's not going to show up in the profile), and I will mail to anywhere in the whole wide world. Leave your comment by 8 pm EST on Thursday, May 3, which is a week from today. I think I covered everything?

Today, I'll be passing out copies of my favorite e.e. cummings poem as I go about my day. (I love the beach, you know.)

maggie and milly and molly and may
by e.e. cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

Copyright © 1956, 1984, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, Edited by George J. Firmage.

...linking up with the folks at our creative spaces...

4x6 Embroidery

First, though, I am loving the comments left about the poetry and am glad to hear that people are enjoying the poems. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the poetry~more to come this month!

I finally finished-finished the Irish moss embroidery that I finished stitching over two weeks ago.

As I did with the circles piece, I sewed this around a piece of bookbinding board. It was sitting around, waiting for me to finish another small piece, so I could truss them up at the same time. Here's the other one.

That's really just some trippy sort of fun I stitched up, just because. This time, my back labels are slightly better. Definitely more legible, I think.

I've considered using a piece of felt on the back instead, and gluing it on...and while that might be slightly neater overall, I wonder if the glue will hold, plus it would require a label sewn onto the felt, plus I think it would be thicker overall. So while this method is more time-consuming, because it's stitched on by hand, and slightly wonky in places (because it's stitched on by hand, and sewing against a hard board isn't so easy), I'm sticking with it for now.

I'm planning on dropping these off for a local gallery's 4x6 fundraiser. Hmm. I hope they're suitable. (All those insecurities, you know.) I'm liking this size, though. I think these could fit into a frame, no glass or extra backing necessary, just the embroidery around the board. Maybe I'll move up to 5x7 next and see how that feels.

I'm linking up with the creative folks again this week...

Double Dog Dare DONE!

For the month of March, I decided my double dog dare would be to get my first winter tree embroidery ready to drop off in the Jamestown Art Center's Collaboration art show. (I kind of slid that information into this post here.) I dropped it off this afternoon.

A little bit of back story--I thought about entering something last year, but didn't. Both my boys did; my then-six-year-old won first place. This is an open show, which means what it sounds like--it's open to all, as long as you meet the criteria, which is 12"x12" format and a small entry fee. Any medium, as long as the finished piece is 12"x12" and ready to hang. So right from the get-go, this is about as low-stress an art show as you can get. In a juried show, you pay the fee, drop off your piece, and they may say, "So sorry, it's just not right for us," and your piece doesn't even hang. But this is truly open to all.

And still! I very nearly didn't get it done. In the end, the actual work to get it ready to hang did not take a lot of time, but it did take a lot of mental psyching up. I was just so afraid of messing something up along the way...but also, I was just sort of...afraid. I'm not sharing this to get lots of comments on how wonderful this embroidery is, but because it's so easy, I think, for most of us to see what somebody else is doing, whether it be entering a show, selling at a market, opening an Etsy shop, putting together a book proposal, and think, Oh, easy for her to do. Better that we realize it's not easy for most of us, so we don't think all that stuff is for those other people. It's for everybody, if that's what you want. (And really, I can at least be as brave as my kids, right? You can see their entries here.)

So some of the things that flew through my head (and, at times, out of my mouth)? Besides the fear that I would just plain screw up getting it wrapped around the canvas (here's a peek at the back side)...

...I worried I'd have to defend my choice of embroidery as art, that I'd have to explain it wasn't from a pattern (as if a painter would ever have to explain it wasn't a paint-by-numbers piece!), and, worst of all, Who am I to think I'm anything more than just a mother? You know, we'll just leave that right where it is for now. I'm just saying, I said it. And then later, I went and stapled that fabric to that canvas (the piece I embroidered on, by the way, is intact, except for very small stitches holding it in place behind the black piece) and told myself I SAID IT WAS MY DOUBLE DOG DARE AND I'M DOING IT.

Because, though it might just sound like a psychological mind-trick, I'd said I was going to do it, and I hated the idea of slinking in and admitting I hadn't. Because I'd have had to admit it, and the only reason for not dropping this off was fear. And I was driving there anyway, with my kids, to drop their pieces off, and I remembered the saying that you don't regret the things you do in life as much as you regret the things you don't do, and so I dropped it off.

The two women accepting the pieces really, truly seemed to like it. I did not have to defend my choice of medium (of course I didn't). It is sort of, um, obvious that it's not from a pattern. It's, you know, art, and just as deserving to hang on a wall in an art show as anything else.

The opening reception is Friday night. We're all going; I'm so looking forward to it. If you're local, it's at the Jamestown Arts Center in Jamestown, RI, from 6-8 pm.

Double dog dare DONE!

Small Things in Various Stages of Completion

Thanks for all your kind words on the circles embroidery for the 4x6 exchange. I sent it off yesterday with an extra stamp and a note explaining why (I heard back from the Art House Co-op folks and that's what they said to do). I wonder what I'll receive in return?

I have been falling short left, right, and center in my solo parenting role this week. I sort of hoped, after ten years at this job, I'd be better at it. In between meltdowns (mine and my children's), I've done a little creative work here and there. First, I decided I wanted some interesting, handmade note cards on hand for when I send off a package and want to include a note. Nothing crazy difficult to make...I just wanted to play around.

My kids have been spraying canvases with liquid watercolors, so I started by spraying red, yellow, and blue watercolors on a sheet of watercolor paper. I did them one after the other, so the colors blended quite a bit. When the paper was dry, I dropped on some black ink with a dropper and then tilted the paper so it ran in spots. When that dried, I brushed on some gesso here and there with a wide brush. I haven't played with gesso at all, really, and want to figure out what I can do with it.  Then I sliced up the paper into six 4"x6" pieces and printed them sparingly with circles and purple acrylic paint. Some are bubble wrap prints, some a small cork (the kind you can buy in a craft store--so smaller than a wine bottle cork), and some the end of a plastic tube. Fun.

Above is a second Baby Yours sweater in progress, and the embroidery that distracted me from working much on the sweater. After much consideration of other patterns, I eventually decided to go ahead and make another Baby Yours, but modify it to eliminate what I don't like about the pattern. This should be easy enough, given I've already knit it once. The embroidery is on a piece of fabric I printed, and it's Irish Moss (ETA: a type of seaweed) in progress. (I've shown it before as a stamp.) Since I didn't have the energy to post this the same day I took that photo, I get to show you the finished embroidery, too. (The sweater looks about the same, though.)

I'm going to finish this one similarly to the circles and I think it will be my contribution to the local gallery's 4"x6" fundraiser.

A note on trying to transfer the drawing onto the printed fabric...I tried to use stabilizer, because it's certainly easier to see a transferred pattern on a white background. But I really don't like stitching through paper into fabric. So I started over and used an iron-transfer pen instead. If you click on the in-progress photo to make it a little bigger, you might be able to see how faint the lines are in some places. They just don't show up well on blue/green textile ink. I kept the original nearby to consult when necessary and fudged just a little bit. But since it's my drawing to begin with, and I know Irish Moss quite well, it all worked out in the end.

I'm linking up with the folks at creative spaces and am kind of surprised I managed to join in this week!

4x6 Exchange, Take Two

I've decided that my overlapping circles embroidery will be my contribution to the 4x6 exchange. That link shows it in progress, and here it is finished.

I am really, really happy with this. While the skunk cabbage watercolor is okay--perfectly acceptable, I know--this feels more authentically me. Now, one caveat being that this 4x6 piece of embroidery weighs just over one ounce, which means one stamp won't cover it. Since we send in a self-addressed, stamped envelope to get someone else's work back to us, I'm not sure how that's handled. (The rules just say it has to lie flat to be mailed.) I emailed to ask. If this is too heavy to swap, or I don't hear back by the postmark date of Saturday, I'll send in the skunk cabbage instead.

So, back to the embroidery. I cut a piece of book board to size and sewed the embroidery around it. I followed the instructions in Stitch-opedia, but it's more or less like this. I didn't take a photo of the trussed-up back in progress. Here's what it looks like finished.

I need some work to make a nicer label thingy to go back there, I know. The plain piece of cotton hides all the thread work and is sewn onto the embroidery fabric.

One more view of the front!

Seriously, so pleased with this. I want to start another one (but different) right away.

{Thanks for all the good vibes you're sending my way! I can tell they're helping.}

Small(er) Things, Embroidered and To-Be-Embroidered

Remember that Japanese fabric that told me it wanted to be embroidered? I've begun.

(That was taken after dinner on my back deck because the weather has been beyootiful!!!)

Here's almost what it looks like now, not including what I added while I sat on the deck while my daughter played in the sandbox because the weather has been...oh, you know. I already said that part.

This right here is several things. Firstly, it's just under 4"x6", by design. Secondly, it's the first time I've embroidered on a multi-colored background, except for the August Stitch-a-Long, but that was different. I've admired many of the pieces I've seen that embroider on top of patterned fabric and finally got the nerve to try it (because the fabric told me to). This is just a simple design, so so basic--overlapping circles of primary colors, definitely not anything complex there! But I'm discovering that as the colors in the fabric gradually shift, my perception of the seed stitch against the background subtly shifts too; in other words, it's more interesting than I anticipated. It makes me want to try more (adventurous) things with color shifts of floss against color shifts of background.

Also, I think I am drawn to this piece of fabric because I had a similar-looking flannel shirt in college... (Pearl Jam, yes! Nirvana, blech).

I was intending this piece for a local gallery's Postcard Fundraiser (which does not appear to be limited to local artists--please click the link if you're interested). But then there are these...

(Photographed on the big rock in my yard, in the sunshine, because the weather has been...right, you know that already.) These are stamps I've carved, printed on cotton using textile ink, each 4x6. One of the thoughts I had while reading Hoopla was to try mixing embroidery with other images on the fabric. So these were heat-set the other night and are waiting to be embroidered upon, when I'm done with those circles.

I have some knitting to show you, too, but that will have to wait until the next post. But before I go, I wanted to share some of nature's own elegant weaving that my middle child spotted this morning:

Linking up with our creative spaces (click to see more creativity!).

Patching

I have boys, which means I've patched my share of holey knees. Both my boys wear size slim pants, which aren't available everywhere and therefore aren't cheap. For a while there, I was patching knees constantly. This year the rate has been slower...my younger son tripped at the beginning of the school year and ripped a hole in a brand-new pair of pants (argh!!), and my older son's favorite corduroys just required patches on both knees. It took me a night or two to work up to it--patching isn't my favorite thing to do--but he was so anxious to get them back, and then so happy when they were done. It's humble, the patching, but it's satisfying that I can repair with my hands, extend the life of an item of clothing, and make my kid happy, all in one swoop.

I also have a favorite pair of jeans, the ones I embroidered poetry on. My first-ever embroidery, actually, was practicing chain stitch to make a spiral on some batik denim, to turn into a patch when the left knee began to wear out. (The poetry came next.) When the right knee needed patching, I was lazy...I just cut a circle from a torn, rag pair of jeans and blanket stitched around the edges. (The denim frays, but the stitching contains it. It's easier than trying to stitch through a turned-under edge.) Well, earlier this week, I looked down an this is what I saw:

Ack! I decided it was time for another cute patch. I found some more of that batik denim, embroidered around some of the shapes in a bright lime green, then blanket stitched it on with bright orange. Because this fabric is thinner than the circle patch, I tried to cover all the edge. Here's what the jeans look like now.

Hmm. It was cloudy this morning. Here's a close-up of the old spiral patch with the new patch overlapping it.

Isn't that fun? Although it kind of looks like a mushroom house. So, I went around the edges twice. The first time, I was spacing the blanket stitching and aiming to get the thing on. It can be hard to get patches on without them buckling sort of funny, especially in a stretched-out area like the knee. The second time around I filled in the in-between spaces for as solid an edging as I could manage.

I keep the patches on my boys' pants plain and straight-up, but I can have a bit more fun with my own. These jeans make me smile, they're so bright and cheery. And this patch didn't take that long, especially doing a little here and there. I finished it up Saturday morning--I've been working on little tasks here and there all day--patching, sewing buttons, weaving in ends. Lots of stuff to share this week!

Winter Trees II

This is my second go-round with the winter trees theme. I'm calling this embroidery, although I suppose it's also applique.

Here's a photo of the back.

So you can see the white linen is the ground fabric, and I added the negative space with the black to create the birch trees. I both machine-sewed and hand-stitched the pieces. My intention all along was to blanket-stitch the edges, which were left raw, by hand, but I was concerned about shifting, so I zig-zagged them on the machine first.

Here's a detail:

I do think it's hard to get the feel for this just through a photo. Every here and there I added some longer blanket stitches extending in, and in a few middle areas I satin stitched and then snipped some threads, to give the feel of peeling birch bark, and the naturally fraying edges contribute to that too. It worked out more or less like I'd hoped it would, when I was figuring it out in my head. It is, I think, deceptively simple looking--and actually, rather simple in execution, once I had the shapes the way I wanted. (Although since my main time for handwork is after dark, I nearly blinded myself stitching on black linen with black floss...luckily a couple of weeks ago Joann's had Ottlites on sale and I bought a small floor lamp to go behind my chair. So I'm not completely blind yet.)

I haven't forgotten my embroidered trees. My challenge to myself this month is to enter something in a local arts center's open show. (Drop-off is actually in early April, but I need to have something ready.) Last year I asked my older kids if they wanted to enter something--it's truly open to all, if you're willing to pay the entry fee, which is only $5 for kids. They both did, but I chickened out. So. This year I'm entering something. It needs to be 12"x12" and ready to hang, so I considered various ideas, in consultation with my sister, on how to get the embroidered trees to comply. This is the solution I like best:

I'm basically matting it with fabric (black linen again). I cut into the black piece and folded the sides back to have a neat edge bordering the embroidery. I'll sew that by hand, and this way I'm not cutting the embroidery fabric. I'm going to wrap a 12"x12" canvas with the black fabric, centering the embroidery. I prefer that to framing it. What do you think? Opinions are welcome, as I haven't done anything beyond pinning yet.

If I can get the birch trees into 12"x12" format, I may enter that one as well. We'll see. I just need to follow my children's example and proceed fearlessly and confidently...

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