Looking Back at 2022

2022 is not as impressive as previous years. Yes I've started quite a few projects but due to the nature of those pieces, I don't have much completed. The pieces I do have completed I'm very proud of, especially my little pouch that I was able to wear to an evening with my guild.

Poppy Pouch

Astrolabe

Having said that I do have at least two projects that are very nearly done. I'll look forward to completing them in the new year.

December TUSAL

Last TUSAL of the year! All that thread is actually from the last week. Between work and Christmas parties, I didn't have any stitching time. Once my stitching vacation started, I figured I'd start slow by working on Betsy Morgan's Virgin Queen's Stitching Wallet and just never stopped. I was hoping to finish (and I'm nearly there) before the end of the year but no dice.

I got most of the larger panels completed. 

Right now, I'm trying to complete the last of the big panels, isn't this flower cute! I also still have the embroidery for two little panels left to do. I guess I'll have to leave it for next year.

Himotaba - Class

Now that my prep work is done and my colors were "selected", it's finally time to start stitching. Here's a drawing showing where I plan to have each color.

There are eight cords in this piece:

1. Double central braid in flat silk
2. Imitation wicker in twisted silk
3. Single central braid in twisted silk (2-color transition)
4. (real) Wicker in flat silk
5. Single central braid in flat silk
6. Imitation wicker in flat silk
7. Rein effect in twisted silk over couched gold
8. Double central braid in twisted silk transitioning into metal thread

As this is a study piece, it contains one of every type of cord. However, you'll notice some cords are repeated. This is so we can experience stitching the cord using both a flat and twisted thread. Not only will the effect look different, but the stitching process will feel different. 

The cords are stitched using the same foreground to background rule we always follow, ensuring we can leave a one point open space. This means the first cord to be stitched is cord #2, called imitation wicker. Since it's twisted thread, the stitching goes really fast. The slow part is those lambda's that go on top. We're meant to stitch it using gold thread, but for the purpose of learning the steps and right angles we used orange couching silk.

The second cord to stitch is another twisted thread, the single central braid (cord #3). This one isn't new, it's the same braid that is found on Hiogi. It looks so pretty in pink!

Once we got to the third and fourth cord, I decided I needed some bling. I mixed in some gold (minus the core) with the wheat and red cord. It gives off just the hint of sparkle between the sugas. Cord #4 gave me some trouble as I needed to stitch backwards and the angle was just so awkward. Cord #5 is another single central braid but with flat silk. That gold gives it almost a brushed paint look that is just perfect.

We skipped over cord #6 as it's the same technique as cord #2 but with flat silk. Instead we covered the last two cords. The rein effect (cord #7) is stitched over a foundation of couched gold using twisted thread. The idea is to make seven stitches and then skip seven stitches worth of space before starting the next stripe. Angle and spacing is very important, as always. The last cord #8 is a double central braid. It's the same cord as the very first one done in flat, but our teacher wanted to make sure we did the twisted version to ensure we understood the tightness of the twist. Although I'm a tight stitcher, it seems I'm not a tight twister. I had to do a few attempts before I got the right tension.

After class, I attempted the flat silk version at home. It has it's own complications, getting the silk nice and flat, and shiny.

I sadly had to put my piece aside. The picture below is from November 20 when I last worked on it. I only had one reel of silk per color, most of them opened reels. By the time I got to where I was, my pink was gone and I was almost out of red.

My stitching mojo has been in limbo since then. Luckily, I just received my order from the Japanese Embroidery Center. Right on time too as the holidays are coming up and I'll be starting my annual two weeks stitching retreat. I'm going to mainly spend my time on Himotaba and hopefully Eternal Grace as well. I also need to start planning next year's objectives. I usually start a new piece on January 1st but I have no idea what I want to pull from my stash. I'll have a look through my horde.

Himotaba - Color Palette

If you've been following along for a while, you know color is my weak point. This piece was actually supposed to be treated as an etude and I wasn't planning on spending too much time thinking of color. Just use whatever is suggested by the JEC and be done with it. Here are where the problems start, there are two versions of Himotaba: a standard one and an extended version.

I don't know about you but I find that stubby tassel really ugly, so I went with the extended version. More stitching to do but it will be worth it as the design feels more balanced. You'll notice that the extended version doesn't have a colored image even, thought they do have a suggested list of silks for it. I looked at the colors and it looked nice enough. Many of the colors are even used in Hiogi and my version of Eternal Grace, so I figured why not. Until I received the silks.

Although the colors look nice individually, once you put them together... my biggest issue is that orange. It's way too light, considering it's used for three cords. Place it next to the green and it becomes muddy. Then started my nightmare of having to pick colors

As you can see from the animation, I went through several iterations. Using my tablet to color the cords really helped me out in trying to visualize how it would look. There were a few conditions I needed to follow when picking colors:

• I needed two contrasting colors to make a transition (3rd cord from the top), usually from dark to light
• I needed another color transition, this time silk to metal (last cord)
• the rein effect cord (2nd to last cord) is usually done in red over a foundation of couched gold. This could also be a foundation of couched silver and a different color would then be selected
• this was a recommendation from my teacher: don't use too many colors as it will make the piece too busy. The original has five silk colors, plus gold. It's best not to go over that and in fact it would actually look nicer with less colors and instead use different shades.

In my first iteration I took the main colors from Hiogi that I liked: red, pink, white, green, blue and purple. In the end, the only colors that survived is the red and pink which I had used in the pink cloud and cherry blossom on Hiogi.

I was initially going to also use the same white, but it was a little too bright for the piece. I swapped it for a creamy/pinky white. I wanted green in there and after a lot of back and fourth, decided to use the same greens as my Grace's kimono.

So I finally had my color palette, with the original as a backup. However, I wouldn't know until I actually started stitching whether the colors would go well together or not. It will depend on whether the silk is flat or twisted, am I combining it with metal thread, what cord will it be used for, what color will be next to it... It would just have to be a trial and error.

And for proof, on the second day of class, I realized that I will be missing a color. I needed one more for one of the cords. Since I was clearly going for a floral theme, one of my friends recommended a wheat that just happened to be lying around that day (a few of us brought our entire stash of silks to make the process easier).

As all this happened over a month ago, I can confirm that the colors did play nicely together. I'll show you in the next post.

November TUSAL

 

It feels like I just posted one of these. Not much has happened since my last post. I did start a new bead embroidery piece or was supposed to. I prepared the fabric on a frame in time for the prep class but sadly realized I couldn't attend the first day of class because it landed on the same night as the office Christmas party. So I've had to push back my official start to February. Here's a sneak peek at the project

The piece is called Arabian Nights and is from Margaret Lee's book the Art of bead embroidery. I've loved this piece for years but sadly the fabric is no longer available. Luckily Margaret had a few pieces leftover. I did get a little bit of stitching from the prep session but I'll hold off sharing as I haven't heard back from the teacher if she was happy with it or not. The zippered case on the left is where my bead piece will end up when it's done being stitched. I'm excited to try a new finishing method.

Himotaba - Prep Work

You've seen a peek of this in a previous post, here's the official post introducing my next Japanese embroidery phase. As you know I switched things around starting Eternal Grace (phase 6) before cords (phase 5). The class was held with November but before I arrived to class, I had a few things that needed to be done first.

I realize now that I don't have many pictures of the process, but it's really a lot of the same thing. It's basically outlining all cords using Japanese running stitch. They need to be outlined to make sure that they are 7mm thick all the way through. This is required as sometimes the framing will distort the design line. Stitches are between 4mm and 6mm long, but when you can't go around a curve you switch to a line of held thread. Time consuming but super easy and zen.

One of the cords is called "rein effect", it's made up of twisted silk thread stitched over a base of couched metallic thread. I stitched mine with gold but it can also be done with silver to coordinate with your color palette.

Two of the cords are called "double central braid" and require padding, but they need to be outlined with metal thread (again the color used should coordinate with your palette). I actually outlined mine with Japanese running stitch using white couching silk first and then added the gold outline. The gold will peek between the stitches and give off a pretty effect.

Looks like a lot of work and although you need to have some sort of pre-work ready for class, you only need enough to get your cords started. Because let's be realistic, we'll barely get a few inches stitched on each cord during the four days of class.

While I was doing all this pre-work my mind was thinking about colors, more on that in a later post.

September & October TUSAL

 

I've been really bad at keeping up with my blog. I didn't realise so much time had passed since my last post. A lot was going on between work and at home. I even got to travel for work for the first time in 3 years. I've been stitching here and there as you can see from my TUSAL reports for September and October.

I worked on the Contrast Color Wheel, that should be finishing very soon. I hit a wall last week when I ran out of one of the materials in the kit. More is on the way and I'm really looking forward to finishing this piece.

Grace is at a halt right now. It might very well be the reason why I've been avoiding posting on the blog. I've set her aside for now and will get back to her over the Christmas holidays (maybe). For now, I will concentrate on getting back on track by working on phase 5 cords. We had a class the first weekend of November, more on that soon.

I did start a little cross stitch project. Something easy for those days when I don't want to work on a frame. It's Betsy Morgan's Virgin Queen's Stitching Wallet. I kitted it together with a stitching friend. By doing that it allowed us to save money on the threads as it doesn't need a full hank of each color to stitch it. I liked the shape of it and the colors.

As I write this, I'm away from home. I'm spending two weeks in Vermont, working remote. I brought some stitching with me but haven't had the chance to get any of the projects out. I'm hoping to have time tomorrow as I only work in the morning on Fridays. Just sad it won't be my cords as I had to leave that big frame at home.

2022 Lakeshore Exhibition

Two weeks ago we had our exhibition. This normally occurs every two years, but due to COVID it's been 3 years since our last one. The guild turned 50 last year and since it's a big milestone we didn't want to miss, we decided to do a 50+1 celebration.

Our guild members went all out with advertisements this year. We made the front page of the Montreal Gazette with a full page article in color. You can read the article online here.

We even made it on the local city tv news. My sister came and helped out filming short clips for us as I was busy doing demos.

(click post to see the video below)

Here I am demoing chipwork on the Contrast Color Wheel. I had loads of fun chatting with all the visitors. I even brought my Astrolabe. I'll have to make sure it's framed for the next exhibition.

I submitted a few pieces to the show. I realized as I was going through my finished pieces how many need to be "finished". I'll have to work on that. Still, I'm happy with what I put in.

None of my pieces won anything, but when you see the best in show you'll understand. The quality of stitching this year was amazing!

I have so many media files to get through. I have a video I took of the entire exhibition that needs to be edited and uploaded. I'll share a link once it's ready so you can see the full show.

August TUSAL

I'm late for TUSAL. I blame the long weekend. Now that the Astrolabe is done, I'm hoping that next month's report will have more color. Although I can't remember where that strand of red/orange came from. 

Ove the long weekend, I've framed up a new Japanese embroidery piece in anticipation of a class we're holding in November. Right now I'm mainly doing outline stitches in white (on white fabric) so there's not much to see, but I'll share a picture soon with my color choices. 

I've also been working on the Contrast Color Wheel, putting in the metal thread portion of it. I'm trying to get it to a state that it would look nice for observers as I'm doing demonstrations at our local guild exhibition. 

Please come by if you're local. I'll be there both days but demonstrating on Saturday between 10am and noon. I'll also have a few pieces entered in the exhibition. Sadly not the Astrolabe as it won't be framed in time, but there will be lots of other pretty things to see. For those not local, my guild is putting together a video tour (filmed by yours truly) and it will be shared on social media. I will share a link when it becomes available.

Astrolabe - Lesson 7 & 8

As we are nearing the end of August, I wanted to share the last bit of stitching on the Astrolabe so I can start September with a clean slate. In lesson 7, the empty areas on the yellow felt are stitched.

On the outside portion, the area is filled in with couched Japan gold going around. It looks really pretty but let me tell you my fingers were really sore when I was done. The felt is really thick, so I sometimes had to really push in with a needle. It was better to do this part over multiple sessions. Especially the plunging!

The other half, is my favorite. Using another weight of Japan gold, the thread was braided and couched down to hold the pattern. It was a new technique for me and I really enjoyed stitching it.

It really fills the area quite nicely.

Ta-da! All done! There are areas I'm really happy with and others I wish I'd done better, but I'm really satisfied with it.

Now onto the finishing! In lesson 8, glue is applied to the back of the Rete and Adelaide and left to dry. I did this ahead of time so by the time the embroidery is completed I can just get into the finishing.

The excess fabric is cut away and then with a craft knife, the areas are carefully cut away.

This was fun and frustrating and I had to stop myself at some point as otherwise I would keep trimming. There was always a bit of white that could be cut away.

I have a trick for that. If you find that you can't reach or can't safely trim off the fabric, just take a black marker and color the white. When the entire piece is put together, you won't be able to see the fabric anymore as the black will just blend in.

Here it is all put together. The finishing is done the same way we did on the Mariner's Compass, with a wire going through all three layers and tied down at the back.

With this, the journey ends. It wasn't that long ago since I started the first naval instrument, but it feels like years. The end game was always the Astrolabe. During my trip to Turkey in 2018, I saw an Atsrolabe at the museum and thought that would make an amazing goldwork project. Imagine my surprise when Cythina Jackson posts her goldwork Astrolabe. Using what I learned in this class I hope to stitch it one day. One day... I have a lot of projects I'd like to stitch on my wish list :)

(click on the post to see the video below)