A Decade of Blackwork

Day 64: This is by no means the only blackwork I've done in the last ten years, but it has taken me a decade to complete the triptych. All are 12 x 12, and are mounted in identical frames. I put the final stitches on the Bird last night. It was a "bucket list" project I never seemed to get around to embroidering until now. The pattern is shown on the front cover of "Blackwork Embroidery" by Geddes and O'Neill, but I used different filling stitches throughout to personalize it. The Maze was made in 2016 from a "Stitch'nspiration" design, but again, I changed up the fillings. The Dresden Plate (from Buell's "Blackwork", also using different stitches in the blades) followed along in 2021. I stitched a pair of overlapping plates for a friend at some later date, and dubbed it "Eclipse." It felt good to put in those last few stitches last night, to have the Bird "done and dusted." I mounted it in the frame this morning, and now all three are hanging on the wall.

Blackwork Bird

Day 39: I've been doing a lot of embroidery lately, mostly as "slow-stitching." As I was working, it occurred to me that I'd started some blackwork months ago, and hadn't done anything on it for quite some time. I dug down in the bottom of my workbasket, and underneath a pair of half-finished socks, there was the Bird. First let me say that those socks will probably never be finished. The yarn is some utterly horrible, loosely twisted, irregular stuff I picked up on sale from Herrschner's. I've sworn never to fall into that trap again! I will probably unravel the socks and use the yarn in a weaving project so it isn't a complete loss. Anyway...the Bird has been on my Bucket List of projects ever since I bought Elizabeth Geddes and Moyra McNeill's "Blackwork Embroidery" (a Dover book) some forty years ago. It is on the cover. My version of it uses different filling stitches and some small amount of artistic license, and when it is done, it will go in a frame to match two other pieces of blackwork hanging in my living room. I don't often keep needlework for myself, but blackwork is something I particularly like, both to work and to see. The three pieces are quite different from one another: the Bird (when it's done), a Dresden plate design, and a square maze, which together show the versatility of blackwork. Time to get some of these "Bucket List" pieces done!

Norse Kitchen

Day 356: For all of Norse Kitchen having been a "bucket list" project for me (the one draft from "A Handweaver's Pattern Book" I most wanted to weave), I got distracted from it by quilting and other fiberarts. My weaving friend Ed said he'd like to come up from Oregon for a visit, and I thought, "Damn, I really wish I had that thing off the loom!" I've spent the last three days finishing up the runner. Done! The two towels (lavender and dark blue) measure in the raw at 31.5" x 20", and the runner (teal) is 51" x 20". I am expecting the towels to shrink to roughly 27" x 17", and the runner to 46" x 17" after a thorough wash-and-dry. It's hard to believe that this is a four-shaft design, and trust me, the draft was difficult to decipher. As Marguerite Davison had written the repeats, it was hard to tell what went where. I eventually wrote out all 495 threads in Fiberworks and taped a printout together so I could check off each section as I threaded it. Yes, this one requires very meticulous attention while threading! The treadling is less confusing, but this is not a pattern you can work on while your mind is on anything else. I wove it on my table loom which meant that I was working standing up at the desk which serves as my workbench. Merry nearly always occupied the chair which was tucked into the knee-hole, and every now and then, a little soft, grey hand would reach up from underneath to let me know I'd been weaving long enough for one session. If I failed to respond appropriately, a light nip on my leg would remind me where the true Center of the Universe is situated. I probably won't reload the table loom until I'm closer to the end of the warp on the floor loom. I need to get that piece done because I need the extra width to weave a winter ruana.

Update: Got a little more shrinkage in the length than I anticipated. Towels are 24", runner 41". Width came in exactly at 17" as predicted. Fibers were 10/2 cotton for warp and tabby, 8/2 for overshot thread. 

When I Said Complicated...

Day 162: This is Norse Kitchen, and when I said it was complicated, I meant complicated! But only in the threading. The weaving/treadling is actually relatively easy, and especially once the bottom border is done and you're into the central motifs. There, it's just a matter of 1/4 three times, 3/4 three times, 1/4 three times, 1/2 three times, over and over and over until you're ready to add the border again at the end. Oh, did I mention that this is woven on a four-shaft loom, and that the design is entirely loom-controlled? I can't imagine how anyone developed the draft ages before weaving software became a thing. From the time I got my copy of "A Handweaver's Pattern Book," Norse Kitchen has been on my Bucket List. To me, it represented the ultimate challenge for a four-shaft loom. As I am weaving it, there are 497 ends (495 for the cloth, and a floating selvedge adds 2 more). That it required meticulous care in threading goes without saying, proof of the aphorism, "Patience is its own reward."

Praying Mantis, Mantis Religiosa

Day 10: Had it not been for needing to pick up some work from Kevin which must be completed by Monday, I would not have met his little friend, Mantis religiosa. I have a vague recollection of having seen Praying Mantises as well as Walking-sticks when I was in my early twenties and lived briefly on the east coast, but even though the species was introduced in the Pacific Northwest, I had never seen one here. Thus, this may or may not be a Bucket List critter for me, but as they say, "It's close enough for gov'mint work." Kevin, who has more experience with the insect from other locations, assures me that the shape and size of the abdominal segments indicate that it is a female. I have to wonder if it's the full-grown adult of the little green one he spotted a few years ago, or perhaps one of its kin. Roughly two and a half inches long, she didn't view me as a particular threat, although she turned her head toward the camera as I maneuvered into position to photograph her. What a beauty!