TTD List

Day 151: "TTD Lists" can take many forms. Some are short-term, e.g., "things to do today." Others may have an obligatory completion date, as in "mop the kitchen floor before Rob comes to visit." Then there is the biggest category, the "things to do before I die." I've ticked off quite a few of those over three-quarters of a century, and although I never climbed the Willis Wall (largely because I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to partner with me), I did become a published author, if only of articles in small magazines, newspapers and instruction books. I hiked the Wonderland Trail twice. I climbed Mount Rainier six times by five routes and, as a bonus, spent a night on the summit. But those were the biggest of the "big ones." Not all my goals have been as lofty. Now, I feel the press of time, so I'm scientifically engaged in ticking off a few more, like "weave Norse Kitchen" and "do that bird blackwork piece you've wanted to do since you bought the book fifty years ago." Norse Kitchen is my next project for the table loom, and I started the bird yesterday. I think...at least I hope I have enough time to finish both.

Cultural Appropriation

Day 266: A recent fascination with the Japanese style of embroidery known as sashiko (translated as "little stabs") and its related craft of boro has raised a question in my mind. In poring over YouTube videos, I encountered one from a Japanese needleworker saying that they felt it was time to speak out about cultural appropriation. I was rather shocked, because as a fiber artist, I use techniques from numerous different cultures without giving thought to the traditions behind them, although I try to mention their origins when I write about them. Nevertheless, I have not felt the need to explain that knitting and crocheting come from the Middle East, or that weaving is an Egyptian art. It would never have occurred to me to think of them as having been culturally appropriated from those sources. However, in pursuing the two distinctively Japanese crafts of sashiko and boro (particularly the latter), I began to wonder where the line might be drawn. To the best of my limited knowledge, nothing resembling boro is found in any other culture. Sashiko has "cousins" in cross-stitch, blackwork/whitework, and chicken-scratch (the latter almost certainly a purely American invention), but none of them has been coupled with patching/darning in the way sashiko has been used to create the unique look of boro. The closest "relative" I can think of would be crazy-quilting when the patches are held down by ornamental embroidery stitches. On the other hand, sashiko is comprised solely of running stitches. Although the way they are placed defines the style as Japanese, the stitch itself is universal.

Tvistsöm Scaled Down

Day 53: In contrast to the tvistsöm embroidery I am working on a handwoven table runner at roughly eight stitches per inch, there little bitty birdies are set at 16 stitches per inch, and my old eyes are protesting the scale. There was a time when I could do counted-thread work including cross-stitch, hardanger, and especially drawnwork over two threads on 52-count canvas without a magnifier, i.e., at 26 stitches per inch, but no longer. Sixteen is about the best I can manage now, 18 in optimum light, and even so, I have to take my glasses off and hold the cloth a mere needle's-length from my eyes in order to see the holes. And no more working on dark fabrics! That said, this would not have been my first choice of canvas or thread for this particular project, but apparently three-strand crewel yarn is a thing of the past, now only available from hoarders on Etsy and Ebay, specialty producers, or in dedicated kits. Floss it is then, and if I look cross-eyed in my next selfie, you'll know why.

Tvistsöm

Day 48: What accounts for the popularity of some forms of needlework over others? While tvistsöm is really just a long-armed version of cross-stitch and almost as easy to work, it has never achieved the same distinction as its cousin. It gives a more highly textured appearance owing to the fact that it is always worked in one direction (left to right or right to left depending on your handedness), with the work being turned at the end of each row. Individual rows look braided; side-by-side, they resemble cables. It is a very dense stitch when worked with the correct weight thread, allowing "tails" to be concealed on the front of the work. The back, therefore, is much tidier than that resulting from cross-stitch, and what's not to like about that? Here, I am working tvistsöm on a handwoven table runner with clustered warps. The fabric is not the even-weave on which one would normally work tvistsöm, and I found that I got the best results when working the rows on the length of the cloth rather than its width. It is necessary to treat each three-thread warp cluster (where the yellow floats appear) as a "pair" of threads in order to keep the stitches equal to those in the tabby sections. Where single stitches occur in a tvistsöm pattern, they are worked as cross-stitches.

Leftovers

Day 43: You may recall from a post I made two weeks ago that I was worried I was going to run out of one of the purples in a counted cross-stitch kit, and that I expressed a negative opinion of kits in general due to the fact that many of them seem to always run short of one or more colours. I have only one four-inch line of backstitch to do before the piece is complete, so I have brought together all the leftovers to make my point. What you see in the background in this photo is the excess, colours for which the company supplied an overabundance. In the foreground, however, the needle holds the very last fragment of purple #14223 which predictably does not match any of the standard brands of embroidery floss on the market. That said, it was enough for all the charted stitches, if only barely. If I'd had to make one more backstitch, I'd have needed to unthread and rethread the needle to get it through the canvas. Surfeit and shortage! The incongruity boggles my mind.

A Different Approach

Day 312: As I mentioned two days ago, my mother took an entirely different approach to quilting. She preferred to make crazy quilts, in which the fabrics are individually stitched to blocks of plain material. Although crazy quilts are often quilted in the standard way, an alternate method is to apply decorative embroidery to cover the seams before the backing and batting is added. My mother preferred this method. This quilt is a small lap robe, the only example of her work which I still have, and for a reason which it rather shames me to admit: George (as most of her family and friends knew her) had the worst taste in patterns and combinations of colours of any person I have ever known. At least this quilt has a tartan theme to hold it together, unlike another hideous quilt top I almost wish I had retained for posterity. It was pieced from dozens of mismatched hippie-era psychedelic print cottons so bright that her skillful embroidery was almost completely camouflaged by the garish purples, oranges and day-glo greens of rainbows and peacocks, paisleys and daisies, mandalas and magic mushrooms. It was so painful to the eyes that I sold it at a yard sale just to get it out of my sight. If ever there was a "period piece," that quilt top was surely definitive of the Age of Aquarius, and I hope the person who bought it recognized it as a work of history.

A Couple Of Cute Chicks

Day 106: Some of you may have been wondering why, given all the other needlecrafts I do, that I have never mentioned counted cross-stitch. The truth is that I used to do a lot of it, and by "a lot," I mean acres of canvas and miles of thread. Lots. As in "tons," perhaps quite literally. My favourite source for patterns was a magazine which is still published today, but bears very little resemblance to its earlier self. As the changeover to "pink and fluffy" occurred along with a greater emphasis on crafts as opposed to needlearts, I dropped my subscription. Eventually, my interest waned as well, and cross-stitch went on the shelf, only to be trotted out when I needed a gift for someone.

Now it must be said that blackwork doesn't qualify as cross-stitch although some stitches are the same in both techniques. However, there is only room in a home for a limited number of blackwork pieces, and I have my two favourites on the wall of the living room. Still, the urge to create something with needle and floss has been nagging me these last few weeks, and these two cute chicks kept popping into my mental vision. I've stitched this pattern at least half a dozen times as the design at the top of a sampler, and seem to recall that I even made one for myself at one point, framed in dark red broadcloth, but where it is now is a mystery. In any event, I'll have to think of an appropriate verse if it's to hang in my kitchen per the plan.

Blackwork Off My Plate

Day 279: Tucked into a bookshelf where I only remembered it when I was getting out a new volume of sudoku puzzles, the blackwork Dresden plate I started some four years ago wasn't getting much attention. It was nearly finished when I stowed it there (I think because I had guests coming and did some quick tidying), but for some reason, I just wasn't getting back to it. Finding it again a few days ago, I decided to remedy the situation. For those of you unfamiliar with this style of needlework, it's similar to counted cross-stitch in that it is usually worked on counted-thread canvas (not always, but it's easier). Geometric designs are often shaded from dark to light by gradually omitting some of the stitches, as can be seen in the blades just right of noon and and those appearing in every fourth unit around the clock here. The possibilities for variation make blackwork visually rich despite being monochromatic. The blackwork plate is now off my plate, waiting to be mounted in its frame to match a companion piece (a maze).

Holiday Hardanger

Day 71: Years ago, I happened to connect with an elderly woman who was running a Scandinavian gift shop out of her home. She was also an expert needlewoman and stocked the fabrics and patterns for Norwegian Hardanger embroidery. After several visits and after I had shown her some of my work, she asked me if I would be interested in making pieces which she could display in her shop. She offered me supplies and patterns in exchange for allowing her to use the finished needlework for six months to encourage further sales of books and patterns. Then the finished pieces would be returned to me. I agreed, and over the course of the next several years, I must have stitched at least a hundred designs, most of which I have since given away. At Gloria's insistence, I entered my original work in a national Hardanger contest and twice took honourable mention, a distinction which came with a cash prize and publication of my designs in the promoter's annual pattern book. This holiday piece is not original, but it was one of my favourites from the many I stitched, and I bring it out for display every Christmas season.

Dresden Plate Blackwork

Day 85: Occasionally, there are times when nothing seems to work according to plan with respect to my daily posts, and for reasons I am at a loss to explain. It might be that I "slept crooked" or "got up on the wrong side of the bed" even though to do so literally would flatten my nose against a bookcase. My photographic "eye" will be off, compositions unbalanced; my physical eye likewise, focus an unattainable object. On those days, I often arrive at evening in a critical state: "What am I going to do for a blog shot?" In desperation, I cast about for anything within the confines of the house which (a) I haven't photographed in a while and (b) has the makings of a story in its depiction, whether related to the subject or not. More the woe on my part if my literary skills also turn turtle, as the saying goes.

Blackwork thus becomes topic du jour. The piece currently in progress is based on the classic Dresden Plate quilt pattern. In this particular execution, every fourth segment is done in a "shaded" style, stitchery more dense toward the center of the plate, fading out to the basic stitch elements toward the outer edge. In designing blackwork stitches, the artist starts with a basic form which allows for repetition within a given space. If a shaded look is desired, additional stitches are added. Note the sections at one o'clock and five o'clock.

Winter weather has kept me from working on this piece for the last two weeks. Cold weather turns my fingertips to sandpaper, and often as not, I pull the thread out of the needle before it can pass through the canvas. Using hand lotion is out of the question because it would carry to the cotton. Gloves (even thin nitrile) are not an option. I'm crocheting with worsted instead. Winter is almost the only time I work with heavy fibers.

Blackwork

Day 38: Blackwork embroidery is essentially nothing more than backstitch and/or running stitch and therefore is fairly simple to learn. What gives it its charm is creating filler-patterns using nothing more than those elementary stitches. The distance covered by the travelling thread (the thread on the back of the work) is the key to keeping the work flat and even. On Aida cloth, it should never be carried across more than two squares without catching it down under another stitch. Planning the line of travel for complicated patterns can be challenging. This piece is called "Lost in a Blackwork Maze" and was made following a commercially-prepared graph with a few variations of my own. I have made several versions of it over the years and finally finished one (11" x 11" on 16-count cloth) for myself!

Blackwork

Day 306: Forgive the hasty post today. It comes through a small hole in a busy agenda. Some days are like that, hard to find a moment to write, let alone take a photograph, but I haven't missed a one in almost five years and don't intend to let that record fall.

Closely akin to counted cross-stitch, modern blackwork embroidery is generally done on canvas or scrim (fabric to be removed after the stitching is complete). In mediaeval times, counted-thread canvas was not available, and thus the needleworker spaced the stitches by eye, and skill was measured by the uniformity of the work. The blackwork was often quite elaborate and extensive, covering large areas of a garment with tiny, delicate stitchery, the detail of which could only be seen close up. Such fine work is seldom seen today, as most embroidery is done on 14-22 count canvas, huge by comparison to the weave of the linens of yesteryear.

Floss Daily

Day 38: One of my favorite needlearts is counted cross-stitch. When I first took it up...must have been half a century ago...I decided to collect all the DMC colors so that I wouldn't have to make a special trip to town when I wanted to start a project. It took a while to build up my stash, money being somewhat scarce, but I reached my goal. I filed them away in three fifteen-drawer cabinets, organizing them by number so they'd be easy to "look up." Just a few months later, DMC added another twenty colors, and one color family in particular crowded the drawer. I reorganized, and of course that meant I had to renumber the drawers as well. Somewhat smarter for the experience, I left some room in each drawer, but I failed to anticipate DMC's next move. They added a whole new series at the end of the numbering system a few years later, and I had to reorganize the collection once again. Later, when they came out with a variegated assortment, I bought a fourth cabinet expressly for "specialty" floss.

If the drawers still seem crowded, it's because I have inherited several floss collections from friends who have given up embroidery or came by them when mom passed away. I seem to have an abundance of red #321 for example, left over from a project I was commissioned to complete, and at least a dozen skeins of black because I enjoy doing blackwork. Any time I find myself at half a skein, I put the number on my shopping list and pick up a spare when I go to town.

Once the collection was complete, it was easy to maintain, only replacing colors when I run short or adding in skeins as new shades are released. You'd think with all that floss, I could match every color in the rainbow, but I often find myself wishing for a purple with just a little more blue, a green just a tad richer or more golden, a slightly warmer brown. You can never have enough color in your day.