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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