What Is Earth Day?

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See more info at end of this post.

Earthrise, photo graphed from Apollo 8

ANNAKE: Those of you who read our post on Earth Day 2019 know that I worked on a project which in 1967 made the Earth Sciences (Astronomy, Geology, Meteorology, Oceanography) mandatory parts of the science curriculum for grades 1-12 in all 50 states. We did a tremendous amount of research while we were trying to determine what scientific principles should be taught at each level. Things that we learned in climatology (a branch of meteorology) and oceanography alarmed us, and we were also made aware of the mass extinctions of much of our planet's animal and plant life. Most of us had also read Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, published in 1962.

Not long ago we held a yard sale in which I included a number of outdated science books, including some that had been sent to me by publishers after the new science curriculum was established. One gentleman was very excited by the books and asked me about them. I explained about our efforts in 1967. He thanked me profusely for our efforts. He said he had never known there was such a thing as geology until he read about it in a new textbook. He was "hooked for life". He majored in geology in college and had spent his life as a geologist until the previous year, when he retired.

The Grand Canyom, a geologist's playground

But, while we got the courses into the textbooks, we did not get the emphasis on those disturbing trends highlighted as we thought they should be.  When we received the textbooks from various publishers the following year, very little, if anything, was said about these issues. We felt that no one was listening to us. We wrote letters to teachers in other states, members of state and national government, science magazines, etc. and spoke to our students in detail about environmental issues. Some very important people were listening to us — our students — but they were not really in a position to make much of a difference yet.

One member of Congress shared our concerns — Gaylord Nelson, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. He was alarmed by the air pollution that was prevalent in large cities and disastrous oil spills like the one in the ocean off California in 1969. He set out to promote what he described to the media as a "natural teach-in" about environmental issues. On April 22, 1970, 30 million Americans — many of them college students and other youths —  from coast to coast attended conferences and rallies on environmental issues. That was the first Earth Day. In that same year the Environmental Protection Agency was created. Many environmental projects were supported by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. (Yes, that can happen!)  Important legislation was implemented, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Environmental Protection Act. Earth Day was, and still is, celebrated on April 22nd every year.

Clean air, clean water, clean shores - the American Dream?

For some years, this was an American project, growing in strength and numbers every year. But in 1990 Earth Day went global. It reached 200 million people in 141 countries. President Clinton presented Senator Nelson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest honor a civilian can receive in the U.S.

"It was a gamble, but it worked."  — Senator Gaylord Nelson

The theme for Earth Day 2020, on its 50th  anniversary, is Climate Control, because this is a major issue which affects everyone and must be dealt with now.

J.D.: For about the last 25 years, it has become popular in certain circles to deny that climate change is happening at all; or, if it is happening, that it is just a temporary statistical anomaly or a slow, gradual natural process that we can easily adapt to. For whatever reason — greed, shame, an attempt to avoid blame, belief in massive global conspiracies, ignorance, or just inertia — some cling to this belief despite the overwhelming evidence right before their eyes. Like this:

• The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the highest it has been for 3 million years.
• The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years.
• In the year 2019, almost 400 all-time high temperatures were set in the Northern Hemisphere.
• The continent of Australia suffered extreme drought, enormous wildfires, and the loss huge numbers of endangered species.

Melting glacier

• Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice six times faster than they did just 20 years ago. The amount of ice lost by their ice sheets last year would cover the entire state of Texas with a layer of ice 30 feet deep.
• Permafrost, the layer of soil in the arctic that has been frozen for centuries, is melting. This is releasing methane gas gas which was trapped there. Methane is one of the most serious greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. NASA has equipped planes with highly sensitive methane detectors. They have flown over 11,583 square miles (30,000 square kilometers) of Arctic tundra in North America, Asia, and Northern Europe, so far detecting 2 million of these methane "hotspots".
• But there is something else disturbing about the thawing of permafrost. People have been buried in shallow graves in this layer for a very long time. Scientists have already encountered viable samples of the virus which killed so many people in what was called the "Spanish flu" pandemic in 1918. They are now concerned about finding scarlet fever. And it is possible that smallpox — which was declared eradicated in 1980 — may make a reappearance. People have not been vaccinated for that deadly disease for four decades.

• Famine is another danger; in just the past few weeks, countries in Africa and the Near East have lost — and are still losing — huge amounts of their food supplies to hordes of locusts.

Flood

• Hurricane season is expanding at both ends.
• In 2019 Hurricane Dorian tied the 84-year record for having the strongest winds at landfall and became the 5th strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in terms of atmospheric pressure.
• Since 1995 there have been 17 above-normal hurricane seasons.
• Now 800 million people are already vulnerable to climate change impacts such as droughts, floods, heat waves, extreme weather events, sea level rise and health issues.

That number goes up daily.

It’s bad, folks, and getting worse. If anyone wants to argue how we got here or why, or who is to blame, save it for another time and place; right now, we all need to do whatever we can to improve the situation. More importantly, we need to STOP doing anything that might make things even worse: when your house is on fire, you don’t solve the problem by throwing gasoline on it.

A climate agreement was signed by 195 nations in 2016, agreeing to limit global warming, adapt to climate change, and protect Nature. The United States is not currently one of them.

Endangered Lemur (Photo by J.J.)

ANNAKE: You probably know that those of us here at Annake's Garden are crusaders for the protection of endangered species. Recently the Weather Channel ™ did a nice interview with National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore. Some years ago, while Sartore was photographing a small, rather insignificant-looking sparrow called the grasshopper sparrow,  in Florida, he became interested in species — like that little bird — that were threatened with extinction. After his photo of the bird appeared on the cover of a national magazine, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service devoted resources to ensure its survival.

Now Sartore is devoting his life to photographing, to the best of his ability, every endangered species while it is still here. He thinks it will take him another fifteen years to complete his project, called The Photo Ark. He films mostly in studios and in protected places like zoos and aquariums.  Most of the animals are photographed against a solid black or white background so that the focus is entirely on the animal.

Sartore says that when people look at one of his animal photographs, they are drawn to its eyes. There they see beauty, curiosity, determination, and other characteristics the we, ourselves, possess. All the photos are the same size, so that a little mouse is just as important in its portrait as an elephant is in its portrait. Each one plays a part in the ecology of the Earth and every one is important to all of us.

Cheetah, print by Annake

I really identify with that idea. When I do an animal "portrait",  I look at dozens — sometimes hundreds — of photographs, paintings, even cartoons.  But I don't want to portray just AN animal; I want to show THE animal. The last part of the picture that I put in is the animal's eyes. It is only then that I know the animal — in a way and at a level that I cannot truly explain.

Sartore says that an iconic photograph, which stands the test of time, can long outlive the photographer.  It tells a story. Photographs and photographic projects like The Photo Ark can illuminate the problem and save many endangered animals, if we care enough to help.

For examples of things that young people (and even those of us not so young) can do to help this coming Earth Day — and every day — check out these documents under our Extras tab:

• Teachable Moments: Preparing Children to Be Good Environmental Citizens 
• Teachable Moments: What "Tweens" Can Do to Help the Environment 
• An Open Letter to Teenagers about Good Environmental Citizenship

*** Our  "Extras"  page (the last tab on the top menu) has PDF files of extra materials related to the subjects in our blog posts, mostly aimed towards young people, their parents and teachers. Due to the current pandemic resrictions, we intend to expand this section greatly over the next two months. Check back every week for new files.

J.D., Annake's Garden Gnome

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Medallions for Needlecrafts

I would like to spend some time discussing the stand-alone, small cluster designs that I like to call medallions.   You can use these medallions, either separately or joined, to make borders.

Now here is the same design ‘grown’ to a larger, more complex, motif. This can be done in a single color, but I have done it here with each addition done in a different color.

Besides "growing" the designs, you can continue to use the separate medallions, either as a single motif or as a repeated motif for a border. The motifs can be separated or joined.  They can be used — either singly or joined — for border designs.  Let's look at three simple medallion design patterns in black-line.

Here are the same three designs multiplied and done in more than one color.

Same medallions in color. repeated as border designs

Some of the simpler designs can be joined and repeated any number of times to make an all-over pattern. They may be in a single color, bi-colored, or multicolored.

Two colored medallions combined as a border. Stacked they could be an all-over design.

Two or more different medallions that are similar in size and complexity can be combined to make a border or a frame design.

Simple border using two medallions

Chart for frame with medallion corners

A corner medallion can give a distinct change to a straight-line linear design as well. This can be particularly attractive if you are using the border design to frame a picture, a collage, a print or a piece of needlework.

Recently we gave you a set of simple medallion motifs to be used in blackwork. Now I'm going to repeat the designs in color. You can substitute your favorite color combinations.  I prefer back-stitch to work patterns like these on fabric, but there are other straight-line stitches from crewel or folk embroidery that will do just as well.

Simple medallions in color

Finally, the individual motifs may also be enlarged to make considerably bigger designs. These may easily be adapted for blackwork, counted cross-stitch,  crewel, or needlepoint. They, too, can be joined together to make deeper borders, such as a design for the bottom of a jacket or a skirt, or to make them into all-over patterns.

Larger, more complex medallion

If you have followed our blackwork — or redwork, whitework, and Holbein embroidery — posts,  you have probably tried taking a central medallion motif and "growing" it into a larger, more complex, design. If you have not done so, please follow this link to see what I am describing.

Now let me take a different central motif and take you step-by-step through the "growth" process.  These larger designs are nice to frame. You could make several of them to decorate those "problem" places like on a narrow section of wall beside a door, in an alcove, or above or below a window. They are also suitable for aprons, placemats, and pillows. You can keep extending them until they are the size you need for a particular project. You might chose to to do something different than what I have done at any or all stages of the medallion's development. That is what makes this process such fun!

Original motif (black) and 'grown' design in color

Now here are some things hat YOU can do:

• Change a blackwork medallion to a red, white or multicolored one.
• Take two small medallion designs and combine them to make a border, either separately or joined together.
• Combine a linear design with four medallions to make a frame.
• Do a medallion design in another form of needlework, like needleweaving or needlepoint.
• Enlarge a medallion design to make it simple enough for a quilt block or a rug pattern.
• Design a medallion pattern for the back yoke of a Western shirt or jacket, along with an accompanying linear design for the collar and cuffs.

Stretch your imagination. You can do it!

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Into the Borderlands: Decorative Borders to Stitch

Colorful needlepoint border design

Borders are attractive by themselves, but that is not their only potential use. They can be used to construct frames, or they can be repeated multiple times to make an all-over design. One of the things that interests me so much about borders is that reversing them sometimes surprises me. For example, I planned to use the design above for the top of a wall hanging and then turn the pattern upside-down to complete the bottom edge.  When I reversed the design, however, I discovered that not only would it serve the purpose I intended for it, but it was also an interesting design in its own right, with an entirely different "feel" than its mirror image. Either one can easily stand alone. You will see the reversed design at the end of this post.

You may not feel ready to take on such a large project right away, so let's start with something simple and see how it can be changed a step or two at a time to work in a number of needlework techniques.  We will start with this simple cross-stitch pattern, which can be repeated over and over to make a border that is as long as you wish.

Simple cross-stitch butterfly, repeated for a border

Obviously, the same pattern can be done in counted cross-stitch on fabrics like checked gingham, monks' cloth, Aida, etc., or as blackwork.  The only modification I would  make is to switch from black to another color of floss.

Same cross-stitch butterfly border in red

I liked this one so much that I decided to make the body of the butterfly slimmer and enlarge the top and bottom wings. I also liked the empty squares on the original design, thinking that they could be left open or filled with a stitch like a French Knot or a bullion knot.   I finally decided to fill them with spots of other colors. The result for me was this multicolored butterfly. This version of the pattern was done in upright Gobelin on canvas with backstitching for the outline and antennae and French knots for the eyes. It could just as easily have been done in counted cross-stitch or needlepoint.

Simplified butterfly design in needle weaving

Once I started to think about canvas, I had to experiment with it some more. I modified the butterfly a bit, making it somewhat smaller for more repeats, and added vertical columns of stitches between the butterflies. This was done with acrylic yarn on # 7 plastic canvas  in a technique called needle-weaving, which consists of in-and-out horizontal stitches worked either left-to-right or right-to-left — or both alternately. I did not put in antennae on this motif. The colors were limited to red and blue.

Butterfly design, modified again, in Gobelin stitch

I had been looking for a motif to use on the hatband of a red hat for a dear friend who belongs to the Red Hat Society. With minor changes, I thought a modified version of the design above would do nicely. I put in simple antennae. I chose a dark purple for the bodies, a lighter purple for the lower wings, and a dark lavender for the upper wings. The design was eventually made on a stiff canvas with the butterflies done in upright Gobelin stitch and the white background done in tent stitch. You can see for yourself how many different techniques the little butterfly design has suited — and perhaps add a few more ideas of your own to the list.

Simple blackwork border design

I'm careful to keep patterns of my border designs  (in both black-and-white and color), not only for reference, but also because I often can change them into all-over

Simple blackwork border design, stacked

designs by simply stacking them with very little space between them or by joining them together.  For example, this simple border design becomes an interesting all-over pattern.

Flower motif repeated vertically, horizontally, & a fancy corner

Or I may need to design a corner block or modify a horizontal design to a vertical one, so that the motif can be used as a square or rectangular frame for something.



Here are a few new designs shown as blackwork. They can easily be done in colors.  If you play with them to make borders, frames,  or all-over designs, modify them in any way you like.

Three new blackwork borders

Some of you may be ready for a more challenging project.  For example, you may want to use a border design for many more repeats to produce an all-over design. Here is one I have done for a pillow top, tentatively entitled "Persian Pillow".  I made a single, repeatable design with the initial row and repeated it 15 times, each row in a different color.  Then I repeated the whole block until I had covered the pillow, filling in the corners at the top with stitches in the appropriate colors in reverse order. Here is the original block:

"Persian Pillow" pillow top

And the pillow top.

Now, here are some things YOU can do:

• Make up a simple border design on graph paper and try it out as blackwork or counted cross-stitch.
• Choose one of the simple blackwork line patterns that we have given you and do it in color.
• Choose a single line pattern and "stack" it four or five times to make an all-over pattern.
• Take a horizontal pattern and use it as a vertical one to make a corner deign, modifying it as needed.
• Use a simple line design to make a pattern for a small embroidered frame.

Border design from top of post, flipped

See, YOU can be a designer, too!!

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.