Questions & Answers, Autumn 2017

Autumn crocus in bloom

For those of you who expected this post to be another still life lesson, I want you to know that Part IV is under construction and will be posted later this fall. The final article in the still life series (Part V) should be available before the end of the year. For those of you who don't favor still lifes (or have grown tired of them), the next art form will be Landscapes. Like still lifes, they can't get up and walk away, but they change a great deal because of the seasons, weather, time of day, and the presence of animals, people, vehicles, etc. In the meantime, there are questions to be answered and promised projects to be presented step-by- step. Keep watching for them. Here are a few of the current questions:

Can you show me a picture of the four-leaf clover design and the shamrock you made from the corner heart pattern?

I would be happy to do that. These were also mentioned in the April 10, 2017 post. Actually, the idea for them was suggested by J.D., who observed a sketch I was doing of the corner heart as a four-way design and made the connections to four-leaf clovers and shamrocks. It is always valuable to get another person's point of view. Here are the charts for both:

Four-leaf clover & shamrock patterns

These may be done in either floss or tapestry yarn, depending on the background fabric. The outlines are done in dark green back-stitch. The leaves are filled in with a lighter green cross-stitch. The blue dots on the four-leaf clover indicate spaces where the background fabric should show through. The stem of the shamrock is done in dark green satin stitch. The shamrock, which is not a clover (it belongs to the oxalis family), has leaves that are spaced a little further apart, so I gave it a slightly more open appearance. But it is easy to modify the clover pattern to be done in the shamrock style, or change the shamrock to be done in the clover style.

Hey, J.D., how about you slow down and stop grumbling for a minute and explain something to me. I still don't understand what is so great about dandelions! Aren't we supposed to kill them on sight?

Okay, I’m calm again – after writing and discarding about a thousand words of impassioned tirade, I really am calm again. . . So, why would you want to “kill them on sight”? On the pro side, they aren’t toxic: as I’ve written previously, they are eminently edible and useful. And while I’m certain there are folks around who are allergic to dandelions, they are rare enough that I’ve never met any. Second, the bees seem to like the flowers – and assuming that you want to continue to see vegetables in your local supermarket, you’d do well to keep the bees as healthy and happy as possible. Third, a lot of birds like them, too: we have little finches come through every spring that absolutely stuff themselves on dandelion seeds. I don’t know how I’d put a market value on those little birds, but I think they are worth having around.

On the con side, you really can’t win the battle with dandelions. I once read something to the effect that in any cubic yard of typical topsoil in the continental U.S., there are enough dandelion seeds to plant an acre as crops. And that nice green lawn you’re trying to chase the dandelions out of is likely made up of grass species (probably bluegrass, or maybe Bermuda grass) that are completely inappropriate for the area you are trying to grow them in, requiring inordinate amounts of water and fertilizer which the tougher, more adaptable dandelions are just going to make better use of than the grass.

Now if, in the face of these arguments, you still have an uncontrollable urge to destroy innocent little yellow flowers, or just a pathological need to look out over unbroken swaths of uniform green, please do us all a favor and consider artificial turf. Hey, I’m totally serious: there are some pretty environmentally friendly products available these days. They don’t require much maintenance – no electricity or gasoline to keep them mowed, nor chemical fertilizers to make them grow, nor herbicides to keep out the dandelions; they don’t use up precious water resources; and they’ll free up your time for other pursuits – maybe meditation, which is bound to be better for your blood pressure than trying to kill every dandelion you see.

And mine as well.

Did you ever get a title for the bear and bee needlepoint picture (May 21, 2017)?

Yes, we did. We chose a reader's suggestion and decided to call it “What Kind of Sunflower Are You?”

Why didn't you use the set of objects J.D. did in his article for your still life? And why didn't you copy the things in the picture you chose like they were in the photo?

J.D. made many more photographs than the ones he chose for his article on arranging still life pictures. I particularly liked the one shown at the top of Part III. I liked the linear arrangement, the fact that the end objects were facing in opposite directions, and the fact that some objects overlapped others to give a perception of distance. The arrangement allowed me to teach several principles in the same project. I never intended to copy the textures of the objects, but rather to show patterns that suggested textures. Each object gave me a chance to make one or more points about the stitching (as given in the tips that followed the pictures). The patterns allowed me to contrast the different shapes, as well as comparing horizontal, vertical, and diagonal stitching, and all-over designs versus an isolated motif. Finally, with a little photographic magic from J.D., I was able to contrast delicate and bold outlining. I think the total design did everything that I intended for it to do. I hope you readers think so, too.

I like the tiny embroidery patterns you show from time to time (March 10, 2017). I have three kids under school age and I like to embroider small designs on their clothes. Do you have some more of them that you can share? Thank you.

I love to hear about mother-child projects like that! And you are very welcome. Below are some more for you. Since at least one of your children is probably past the toddler stage, some of these are slightly larger patterns to fit on larger clothing. They can be done like blackwork, with each line representing a single short, straight stitch. The patterns can also be modified to do in tent stitch with back-stitched details (good on the kind of canvas you can pull out when you have finished stitching) or in counted cross-stitch — also with back-stitching. (See also the post for February 14, 2017.) The size of your design will depend on the kind of canvas or cloth that you are using. The colors are only suggestions.

Thank you for asking for more designs. I imagine other mothers will thank you, too. I will try to remember to put new ones in more frequently from now on.

Some more small needlework design samples

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Still Life in Needlework, Part III

In Part II, I promised to show you a technique in which you could do a still life in black and white only. This is one of several related embroidery techniques which spread across parts of Europe after the Renaissance and eventually found their way to the Americas. It is called Spanish blackwork. Its patterns can be used in other styles of single-color embroidery, such as Russian redwork and Scandinavian whitework, as well as a multicolor style like Holbein embroidery. My choice of objects to portray is shown above in a photo that J.D. took at the beginning of the project.

I'm going to take you step-by-step through a still life picture in blackwork. The original 16^th century blackwork was done in black silk and gold thread on white linen. I urge beginners in any of these monochromatic stitch techniques to begin with black floss on quarter-inch checked gingham because it is so much like graph paper. It is easy to work out the individual patterns (called diaper patterns) on graph paper and then repeat each individual line with a single stitch.

"Cat Nap," blackwork embroidery on 1/4" checked gingham

If you have done counted cross-stitch, you may want to work on the smaller “baby check” gingham to get more complex-looking patterns. I prefer pastel checks so the blackwork design stands out dramatically. If you are working on “baby check”, you may want to divide your floss and use only three strands instead of six. The stitch used for the patterns is a simple back-stitch.

Hot iron transfer for still life

In order to have a truly black and white (and gray) design, I'm going to work on white monks' cloth, where the squares are indicated by tiny spaces in the weave at each square's corners. I begin with a piece of monks' cloth that I have backed with interfacing and basted around the edges. I find the vertical and horizontal center lines of the fabric and mark them with a running stitch in a color other than black. This is to center my design; the colored stitches are pulled out after the design is worked. I made a hot-iron transfer of my design outline and transferred it to the fabric. (The transfer will reverse the design, so I studied mine carefully from the back against a bright light to make sure it worked well in reverse.) I chose the area to begin and used an embroidery hoop.

You will need a sharp-pointed crewel needle with an eye large enough to accommodate the floss and several skeins of black six-strand embroidery floss. I like to have several needles so I don't have to stop as often to thread my needle. I was working on monks' cloth, which is comparable to “baby check” gingham, I divided the floss to use three strands. Here is a picture of the first completed section, and close-up of the pattern used for it. Each line on the pattern is a single stitch. Stitches begin and end in the same spaces at the corners of squares.

Blackwork embroidery, Step 1: the Vase

Stitch pattern for the Vase

Tip #1: The Vase. When you are stitching a pattern over an object with a complicated shape, begin at the widest part of the object. Start at one side and work the pattern line to the other side. Then stitch the pattern lines in order both to the top and the bottom of the object.

The next series of pictures show each of the other sections as they were completed, accompanied by a close-up of the graph-paper pattern for each. The lighter I wanted the section to be, the simpler the pattern I used; the darker I wanted it to be, the more complex the pattern.

Blackwork embroidery, Step 2: the Pitcher

Stitches for the pitcher

TIP #2: The Pitcher. When you are stitching a radiating pattern like this one, find the exact center of the place you want it to be and mark it lightly with a pencil. Begin there at the center of the design; work outward, one step at a time.

Blackwork embroidery, Step 3: the Cup

Stitch for the Cup

Tip #3: The Cup. As you reach the border lines of the section, make as much of the pattern stitches in each square as you can without crossing the border-line. When your outline of the shape is completed, there may be small gaps where the pattern doesn't quite reach the outline. Fill these in with tiny stitches.

In this project, I concentrated on shape, pattern, and perspective only. If objects of the same size are placed side by side, the one with the faintest outline will seem the furthest away. If you make the objects overlap, so that the more faintly drawn objects are partly covered, you have started the illusion that they are behind the darker figures and are farther away from the viewer. This is called “recession in space”. This illusion can be considerably increased by combining it with lighter outlines. Because I wanted to draw your attention to this visual device, I used gray floss for the two objects “behind” the front three. You will also notice that their bases appear to be on a higher plane. You can use all these devices in your own still life projects.

Blackwork embroidery, Step 4: the Birch Bark Box

Stitch for the Birch Bark Box

Tip #4: The Birch Bark Box. Instead of back-stitch for this pattern, I used a simple running stitch. The marks on the birch bark appear in clusters on the box, but I didn't think that would show up sufficiently so I used the stitches for the entire pattern. I left an empty space for the line indicating the bottom of the box lid.

Blackwork embroidery, Step 5: the Candle

Stitch for the Candle

Tip #5: The Candle. Here the back-stitch is used vertically. Be sure that your stitches are as straight as possible. To make the wick more visible, I stitched it in black instead of gray.

Finally, I covered the outlines with solid lines of stitching. I wanted a bold, modern feeling to the picture, along with many contrasts, so I used the full six strands of floss for the outlines. I chose chain stitch, but I could have used back-stitch, outline stitch, stem stitch or any of several other stitches. I outlined the gray objects with the same number of strands of floss that I had used for the black ones. You might prefer a more delicate treatment. J. D. has shown here how it would look outlined in three strands of floss in a back-stitch or outline stitch. I then removed the colored centering stitches. A quick hand-washing in the sink with dish-washing liquid removes the remnants of the iron-on pattern. Follow this by a rinse and pressing with an iron set on 'cotton', and it's done.

How the still life might look with narrow outline stitching

To make your own blackwork still life, start with a simple outline pattern. Follow the directions for preparing the material. Use the patterns I used, see additional patterns on the posts for October 6, 2013, October 18, 2013, February 21, 2014, and January 15, 2017 — or make up your own.

Now, you are ready to transfer those outlined areas of your design to your fabric. You can place your outline on a light-box or tape it to a sunny window-pane and trace it directly on your fabric., or you may want to use a hot-iron transfer. For directions to make one, go to the post for October 6, 2013. For more on monks' cloth, see see the post for April 30, 2014.

Go make something black, white, and beautiful!

Finished Blackwork Embroidery Still Life

Updated October 10, 2017, to replace all the illustrations Google Photo somehow lost :-p

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