Absente and Away

 It's been a while since my last post. I didn't even publish my minimum of one per month with my ORT jar. The reason is simple, there was nothing to share. I've been busy getting ready for my first vacation since 2018. In 3 days, I'll be flying out to Seoul, South Korea! 

I swapped my embroidery classes for an intensive beginners course in Korean as I really want to be able to read and talk to people when I get there. It will be in broken Korean but I'll at least be able to order food on my own. I'll also be meeting with other embroidery students and teachers that I've been in contact with over Instagram. There are two embroidery exhibitions being held in Seoul as we speak with my name on it!

I haven't entirely stopped making for the last two months, I've just been making things with my sewing machine. Here is one example of something I've made that I will take with me. It's based on a pattern by Aneela Hoey called 4 pocket case.

It has a few imperfection and is a little wonky, but I'm so happy with how it came out as there were so many firsts involved. I put in my first zipper, used vinyl for the first time, added a binding with corner. I really love it as it's the right size to fit an A4 cross stitch pattern, fabric, threads and all my stitching tools.

I was initially going to take a different piece with me, but sadly despite ordering early the materials have still not arrived in time. So here's the kit I'll be taking with me instead. It's based on Alphonse Mucha's Brunette. It came with 16ct aida fabric which I've already swapped out for a 32ct. I'll probably concentrate on the stitching the frame around the portrait during the long flights.

Purple Iris - New Start

Way back when Margaret Lee released her book on Japanese bead embroidery, I purchased the kit for one of the designs from the book. It was purple, so I really couldn't resist. I always planned to stitch it one day on my own, but with Margaret's shift to online teaching, a great opportunity was presented to me. A few of my stitching friends also had this kit in their stash, so why not organize a class. 

We were a class of five students from Canada and one student from the US. Two of us had purchased kits directly from Inspirations and the other students purchased their kits directly from Margaret. Some are even doing this piece is a beautiful dark blue. 

While prepping for class, we discovered that the kits were not all made up the same when it came to the fabric. 

• My kit from Inspirations came with two pieces of fabric, one for stitching and one for lining. The design was not transferred, but chaco paper was included to make my own transfer
• My friend's kit from Inspiration came with two pieces of fabric, one for stitching and one for lining. The design was transferred (not printed) on the fabric. We asked Margaret about this later, apparently there is an early batch where they assumed stitchers would follow her instructions from the book to do their own design transfer. This was changed right after
• Those who purchased kits from Margaret had 3 pieces of fabric, one for stitching the main body of the purse with design pre-printed, one for the sides and one for the lining

My preference for design transfer is tissue paper and running stitch. Yes, it's more time consuming, but it's more accurate and it's really easy to make design changes during stitching as the lines are temporary.

It took about a day to stitch and rip out the tissue paper. It goes fast while you're watching a movie.

All the beads in this piece are the same color, dimension is added to the piece by the different types and sizes of beads as well as techniques used. We have round seed, tri-cut, bugle beads and aiko beads.

The class was taught in three lessons, with tutorials in between and a final consolidation lesson. In the first lesson, we looked at the feathers which make up the main elements of the piece. I'm treating this piece as an opportunity to expand my bead embroidery skills and learn those "extra" things to do to get my stitching to the next level. One of the things I learned in this lesson is how to properly angle my "stitches" to create movement. A lot of the theory goes back to the separated single layer and long and short techniques in Japanese embroidery, so what I am learning here will be a definite benefit when I go back to my silk embroidery. I'm really comfortable with the separated single layer, but the long and short is still giving me some trouble.

Here's another thing I learned in lesson 1: a better way to stretch my fabric. I usually prefer to use a Japanese frame when beading but I have too many on the go right now and wanted something lighter, so I opted for my slate frame. I could not get it to stretch tightly enough and when I did I had a sort of "bowing" along the edge of the fabric. Margaret showed us the method she uses for her Chinese embroidery and it's fantastic. If you have a copy of her Art of Chinese Embroidery book, the method is described under the framing up process.

Before

After

For the next lesson, we planned to go over the line of held thread technique with beads. In order to be ready we had to string beads to wrap around a koma. A lot of beads! This is 12 meters of thread doubled to give 6 meters of working length and there is 2 meters worth of beads on there.

The line of held thread technique is not a new concept for me, but I did pick up a few tips. How to better control the koma, watching out for tension and the best of all, how to travel to reduce the amount of stopping and starting. This technique alone was worth the cost of the class.

In the last lesson, we looked at three different filling stitch techniques and diagonal layer. As always, I'm terrible with random but Margaret gave us some tips especially for the scattered effect with the buggles. In goldwork, I learned from Alison Cole to create K's with the chipping to ensure a random look. Margaret suggests we create triangles with the beads. I think both in the end achieve the same results.

We have one final consolidation class in August. It's basically a last chance for students attending this class to ask Margaret questions on this piece if they needed help. Since we've covered all the techniques, I went back to stitching the feathers as those should be completed first before moving onto the next part. The correct order is:

1. Feathers (filling stitches for feathers could be done at this step or later)
2. Redo outline of overall piece
3. Couched lines
4. Right diagonals
5. Filling stitch

February TUSAL

 

I've not been very good at keeping my blog up to date, but I did try not to be too late for the TUSAL report. I've been busy with my Japanese embroidery and bead embroidery. One has been more satisfactory than the other. I need to make time to write something on it. However, neither of those will explain all the blue in my ORT jar.

One of the things I've missed is stitching something as simple as a cross stitch design. Something that doesn't require a lot of thinking, where I'm told what colors to put where. I had picked up this mill hill kit a while back and I just loved the colors. It's called Mediterranean Mares, a design by Laurel Burch. I'm thinking once it's done I'll try my hand at finishing it as a box top.

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.

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.

Astrolabe - Lesson 1 & 2

It's finally that time! I'm finally stitching the goldwork piece I've been eyeing for over a year. I stitched the first piece in January 2021, I had to look it up because it feels like longer. Cynthia really worked hard to get us to this design ready for us. And believe me we nagged her the entire way lol.

An Astrolabe is made up of many parts: the Alidade, Mater, Latitude plates (plural as a user could have many), Rete and Rule. Cynthia's Astrolabe is made up of 3 pieces: the Alidade, the Rete, and the Mater and plate making up one layer. There is no Rule. I've always been fascinated by this tool and will look forward to learning more about it.

The materials came in two shipments due to manufacturing delays. And there are a lot of them. There are eight lessons total with one lesson dropped a week. Cynthia estimates each lesson requiring 10 hours of stitching. We'll see if that's true. Lessons 1, 2 and 3 cover the Rete.

In the past, the fabric comes with the design pre-printed on the cotton fabric. This time due to the size of the design, Cynthia couldn't print the design for us on her printer. I used a blue chalk pencil and a window to do the transfer. I was too lazy to pull out my light pad.

Lesson 1 involves the overlapping cross at the center of the Rete. It's made up of five rounds and it got really tight as we got to the last round.

It's okay if we went over the blue outline as long as the shape looks nice (the fabric is going to get cut out later) but I did have to go back and trim the first layer of purl pearl in order to put in the last layer of purl pearl.

A picture just because it's so pretty. Fun fact, Cynthia crimped that plate for us using her crimper. Here's a link for you to see what it looks like.

The last part of lesson 1 is filling this pretty tear drop with chipping.

In lesson 2 we stitch the circle that goes around the cross.

And it involved a lot of cutwork. A lot of it! I did it over a period of two days. Alternating between stitching and cutting. They all had to be a specific size in order to cover the string padding and stitched at an angle.

All I can say is it took a long time and thank God for my time spent doing Japanese embroidery. I found that it really helped me in putting in the purl without losing my angle. It's basically a stripped cord. The trick is you always want to come out farther away from the previous stitch than you expect and go in right next to where the previous stitch ends. This helps you keep your angle.

Another thing I'm thankful for is this Lowery stand. My sisters got this for me on my birthday with this project in mind. I love it! It made stitching this project both easier and less painful. Using the clamp, I could easily rotate my frame as I went around the circle and I could quickly spot if I lost my angle.

Another picture just because. That black purl looks like velvet, so pretty against the gold.

The final step is to couch purl pearl all around the circle of cutwork. This really completes it and hides the edge of the cutwork. So if you have one or two that were a little short, it's okay you won't be able to see it.

I'm half-way through lesson 3. I missed a weekend to go help out L'Atelier de Penelope. She had a booth at the Cercles de Fermières du Québec provincial seminar in Saint-Hyacinthe. You can read more about it on my Facebook page. So I'm spending today catching up and hopefully will be done in time for lesson 4 when it drops tomorrow.

Japanese Embroidery Phase 6 - New Start and Homework

Since our last online class with our Japanese embroidery teacher, the COVID situation has been getting better(?). At least well enough that we felt comfortable enough to plan for an in person class in April. As there were no guarantees and there was a chance we'd have to cancel and do a zoom class instead, I decided to have a backup plan. 

Sadly not all those silks were for me

I purchased both my phase 5 (Himotaba the extended version) and phase 6 (Eternal Grace). As they each cover two different techniques, cords and short stitch holding, I felt comfortable enough to ask my teacher if I could switch the sequence a bit. If we met in person, I would work on Eternal Grace. If it ends up being a zoom class, I would work on cords.

Once our teacher confirmed her flight details, I got the green light and started to work on doing some pre-work. My design came printed on kimono fabric with gold woven in. It's really pretty in person. I've noticed online that there are many different versions of Grace. With guidance, many stitchers changed the color of her kimono to suit their tastes. My color selection came from a friend who had stitched hers with a green kimono and coral obi. I really liked her palette and she was kind enough to share it with me. Lucky for me she takes such great notes. The colors are from the Heian period, which I really love. Bonus: it will go very nicely with the Himotaba and Hiogi as both follow the same palette. 

As I've done this previously with Hiogi, my teacher was ok with me starting some of the foundation. This would help save time in class.

My mission was to put in the foundation and temporary holding stitch on the right side, the obi that sits right under it and then the rest of the kimono going all the way down.

For the obi, we have light and dark areas where the obi is folded. I tried to play with the length of the stitches so I wouldn't just have a block of light and dark. Those shared areas will be smoothed over when I put in the short stitch holding and then the outlines later.

There is a color change towards the bottom of the kimono. Mixed in with the lighter green is a metal thread. I went with a lovely white gold. It gives it just the right amount of shimmer.

The obi is done in twisted silk, but the kimono was all flat foundation so it was imperative that I put in the temporary holding stitch in order to protect it.

The pre-work took two weekends to put in and I really enjoyed it. I love foundation work! With this my piece was ready for class.