Spring Questions and Answers 2018

Butterflies, photo by J.J.

I have been looking for the pattern for the yellow (middle) butterfly from your wall hanging (March 21, 2016) I can find the orange one on the top and the purple one on the bottom. Did I miss a post somehow?

I’m afraid the “miss” was mine. I am so sorry. I was sure that I had posted it, but a thorough search of past posts did not find it. Here it is, with my apologies.

Click HERE to download

You said we should watch the Questions and Answers for more blackwork. Do you have more?

Blackwork fish quilt block

Yes. Here is the fish block. You will notice that it differs from the original stitch pattern. I usually stitch a pattern first and make changes before I do the printed pattern. This time I was working from a pattern I made years ago and had never done as embroidery. As I worked, I found I didn’t particularly agree with some of the stitch patterns that I originally drew. I liked the partial stitches for the back of the fish, considering they looked more “scaly”. On the other hand, I thought the pattern for the lower part of the fish’s body needed more stitching, not less. I curved the lines for the tiny bones in the top and bottom fins, working them in alternating lines of small chain stitch and backstitch. If you like the straight lines of the original pattern better, I suggest that you use a straight edge to put in light pencil lines on the fabric before working the lines in the stitch of your choice. Never follow a pattern if you think of one that you like better. My patterns are suggestions — not commands!

As it appeared when it was first finished, I thought the fish looked rather lonely. One of my “doodles” was of a small fish that might have belonged to the same family, so I gave her some for company. I like the finished block much better now.

Graph of small fish from quilt block

Here is a little graph pattern for the “baby” fish.  I outlined them first. The interior lines are done in back stitch. The eye is a French knot. Fish change greatly during their lives, so they seldom look the same at all stages of their lives.  Many young fish are very nearly transparent, so you don’t need to put in many details. I didn’t make a transfer for the baby fish — just stitched them free-hand.

While I’m on the subject of fish patterns, here is the Siamese Fighting Fish (betta) that was done in reverse applique as it would appear as blackwork patterns. I told you I never discard a pattern I like!

Tropical fish done as blackwork pattern

Look for more about Blackwork and see more new patterns in our upcoming "Summer 2018  Questions and Answers" post.

You mention several stitches to use as outlines, but you seem to use chain stitch most of the time.  Why is that?

Examples of decorated chain stitch

It is because the chain stitch has so many decorative possibilities itself. Once you establish it, you can embellish it in many ways. For example, you can:

• backstitch the center of the chain;

• do a double-running stitch down the center with two colors;

• whip-stitch the chain;   

• whip-stitch the sides of the chain separately;

• work a Pekingese stitch through the chain;

• interlace the chain;        

• interlace the chain and then couch the laced loops down with a third color.

And that’s only the beginning!

Owls seem to be on people’s minds this month! That is shown by the following group of questions.

I’m working on the owl blackwork pattern and I’m really enjoying it, but I’m not sure what I am supposed to do with the parts that are solid black on the pattern?

I’m so glad you are enjoying the work. The solid black parts of the pattern, like the feet and the eyes, are supposed to be worked in solid stitching. I use Beauvais embroidery for mine. This is done in continuous chain stitch. I first outline the area with chain stitch. Instead of stopping when I join the ends of the outline, I move my needle just inside the outline and follow it around and around until no background shows through. You can do the same parts in satin stitch or long-and-short stitch, and outline them when they are completed. If making the circles for the eyes does not suit you, make them diamond shapes, with the corners touching the mid-points of the outer square. Or you can simply fill in the whole square with long, straight stitches. Your results will not be exactly like the pattern, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Keep up the good work!

Did you ever finish the little needlepoint owl sitting on a branch?

I did. I gave him a full moon to hunt by. Here he is, completed but not yet framed. I have not yet done the little fellow in Holbein stitch or counted cross-stitch, but you can easily stitch him in either technique from the pattern on the post for January 1, 2017, and give him any background that you like.

"Night Owls", Holbein embroidery on gingham

A long time ago you did a mother owl and her baby in colors. Are you going to print the pattern for that one?

Oh, my!  That was a very long time ago! That was a fairly large picture done in Holbein embroidery and the figures were larger than the blackwork animals that I have been making. I’m sure they would not fit a one-page pattern. Let me think about it. Maybe I can find a way to make them smaller without losing the Holbein patterns. In the meantime, here is the picture she is talking about.

Have you ever made a really BIG owl?

Well, I made a latch-hook wall hanging of an owl once that was larger than any of the owls you have seen in other techniques.

"Autumn Owl", large latch-hooked wall hanging

But last fall I made a really BIG owl. It all began with a dream I had about an owl being attacked by two boys with paintball guns. He suffered greatly, but one evening he awoke to hunt and something wonderful had happened. His feathers had turned to autumn colors. That wouldn’t be a problem while he hunted in the dark. In the daytime he could hide in trees where the leaves were turning autumn colors until the boys gave up hunting for him and turned to other pursuits. Waking, I thought,”What a nice story. I must write it down for Angie to tell her class.” (Angie is one of my “honorary” grand-daughters and a first-year kindergarten teacher.) I needed an illustration. J.D. and I thought of a poster the children had given me long ago of a bright-colored geometric owl. When we found it, however, it wasn’t as either of us remembered it. So I sat down with my rug canvas and yarn to recreate the owl of my dream. Here he is, just waking to find himself wonderfully changed.

Enjoy the Springtime!

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Summer Questions & Answers, 2016

Orange butterfly picture by J.J.

“I made a hot-iron transfer from the Butterfly chart (June 1, 2016) according to your directions (October 6, 2013). I did the pattern with X's and did the embroidery in cross-stitch. My colors weren't all the same as the ones one the chart, but they were close. I put the butterfly on the back yoke of a denim shirt and I really like it. Now my 12-year-old daughter wants a butterfly on the back of her shirt and my pattern is too big. Do you have a smaller butterfly pattern I could use? It doesn't have to be the same butterfly.”

Thank you for telling me about the interesting way in which you used the pattern. I love to get information like that! I'll be glad to give you a pattern that should be small enough for your daughter's shirt. This one should be enough smaller to fit. I hope it does and that she likes it! This pattern is for the smallest of the three butterflies on the wall hanging (March 21, 2016). The colors represent those of a real butterfly, but you are free to use any colors you choose.

Small butterfly from latch hooked wall hanging

If your daughter wants her butterfly in the same colors as yours, you can do the following steps:

1. Leave the body of the butterfly (F) brown and the antennae black.

2. Substitute violet for the darkest brown (A) on the wings.

3. Substitute lavender for the light orange (B).

4. Substitute purple for the dark orange (C).

5. Substitute cream, white or whatever you used around the edges for the light tan (E) on the upper wings.

6. Substitute mauve or rose for the medium brown (D) on the lower wings.

Click here to download Butterfly Needle Arts Chart #3

Here's the chart.

Readers, look for a chart for the third (center) butterfly from the wall hanging on one of our autumn blog posts.

Butterflies come in a huge variety of colors, but the colors are not evenly distributed worldwide. Here in temperate North America, the main colors are black, white, yellow, orange and brown. Purple and blue are less common and true red and green are rare. However, those colors can be found on many butterflies from the tropics. In fact, you can make up a fanciful fantasy butterfly and later find out that a live one very similar to it exists somewhere on earth. I'm beginning to think that fact applies to flowers, too. A couple of years ago, I did a large needlepoint of a daylily, giving it all sorts of unusual shades of color. This spring I opened a garden catalog and there was “my” daylily being offered as a brand new variety!

"Dayglo Daylily," framed needlepoint from our Etsy shop

“The little lion on checked gingham (July 31, 2016) is so cute! What stitches did you use?”

Head of lion on checked gingham

Basic blackwork (October 6, 2013) is done with 4 small, straight stitches: a vertical stitch in the center of the squares a horizontal stitch in the center of the squares, a stitch slanting from lower left to upper right, and a stitch slanting from lower right to upper left. If you combine the first two, you get a plus sign (+). If you combine the second two you get an x (a cross-stitch). The more of these stitches you place in a given square, the darker the area of stitching appears. The darkest area of the lion is that of his back legs, which were made by stitching a cross-stitch in each square and then stitching a horizontal stitch across the middle of each x. All the patterned areas were designed this way. Each individual area was outlined with plain chain stitch. The eyes, nose, tongue and fangs are done in solid chain (October 31, 2015), sometimes called Beauvais embroidery. You begin by outlining, but continue stitching around and around inside the outline until the area is completely filled with stitches. I'm glad you liked the little fellow!

Finally, some gardening questions, which I will turn over to J.D.

“What have you been able to grow in your straw bales? (April 30, 2016)”

Spice basil growing in straw bale

The bale gardening experiment has had mixed results: in one batch of bales, I seeded summer savory, curled cress, sylvetta, chervil, and mustard spinach quite successfully and transplanted some fennel plants, all of which are doing pretty well. In another set of bales, things have not gone as well, though I do have one batch of a special spiced basil variety doing fairly well. In the third set, zilch. The limiting factor has been how thoroughly I could soak the bales regularly both before and after planting. The soaker hose setups popular in much of the literature simply can’t do the job in our arid climate. Fortunately, I can try again in the infertile bales next year with a new watering system.

“Your irises are so beautiful, and seem to grow so well! I haven’t had much luck with irises, but you’ve inspired me to order some from a catalog – they’ll be here in the fall. Any advice for me?”

Well, if you saw the collage of iris pictures in our July 10, 2016 post then you probably saw my instructions for transplanting in the same article. The only things I would add are: 1) Make sure you don’t cover the rhizome (the thick, gnarly part) when you cover the roots (the skinny, dangly parts) – the rhizome needs to breathe; 2) Make sure your soil has good drainage, irises don’t like wet feet. If you have clay or other heavy soil, add some sand or other amendment to be sure excess water drains and doesn’t stand where you’ve planted; 3) Don’t baby the irises, they seem to thrive on benign neglect.

Iris, out by the alley...

A couple of years ago, Annake got three fancy batik irises of different colors. Two of these were planted in selected special locations, and carefully nursed along. They do all right, giving us a couple of nice blooms each year, but that’s about all. There was no good place for the third plant at the time, so I stuck it out by the alley, just out of the gravel, in a location that gets irregular sun and absolutely no irrigation. Of course, it has thrived – it’s multiplied and needs dividing now, and throws up multiple heavy blooms from every stalk.

“At one point you mentioned that you were going to try some new methods for starting plants. Did anything ever come of that?”

J.J., my sister, did forward me an article about starting cuttings in raw potatoes; so, I got a sack of cheap russets at the grocery store before I bothered to do any real research on the subject. I found out that many grocery store potatoes are treated in some fashion to keep them from sprouting in storage, and that these should NOT be used to start cuttings. Sure enough, not a single potato from that bag ever developed any ‘eyes’ (sprouts), and I tossed them all when they started to rot.

However...

About the time I brought those potatoes home, we found a stem broken off one of Annake’s potted geraniums on the greenhouse floor. Since I didn’t yet know any better, I bored a hole in one of the potatoes and stuck the stem in to try to salvage it, and put the whole assemblage on the back of the greenhouse bench. After my research, I knew nothing would come of the whole exercise, but I never got around to tossing the stem and potato on the compost pile. So, I was flabbergasted when Annake showed me the cutting a couple of weeks ago, not only growing but blooming!

Geranium cutting blooming in a potato

It seems that the geranium never bothered to read the articles that said you can’t use treated potatoes.

Until next time: go make something, grow something, and have a great summer,

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Designing from Coloring Books

A local (and loyal) reader asked me: “You said we could use a child's coloring book to make designs for needlework (April 10, 2016). Are you going to write a blog post about that?”

I'd be happy to do that. The picture I planned to use was from Landolls, Inc.'s Let's Color coloring and activity book, © 1993. (I never throw anything useful away!) But, to prevent any possible copyright infringement*, I'm substituting a sketch of one of my puppets in a similar pose. The advantage to such drawings is their simplicity, with large open areas. I've added back legs and feet, which wouldn't show on the puppet, and moved the front legs downward and the tail partially around from the back.

Lion puppet

Once I had a working sketch, I erased all the unnecessary pencil lines and traced the sketch on tracing paper with a wide-pointed permanent marker. I ran this through the copier to get an outline picture like those you might see in a child's coloring book. Click on the outline below to download it.

Click here to download

Now that I have the outline, how would I use it for needlework?

1) The use for applique seems obvious, especially in felt. Felt does not need to have its edges either turned under or overcast with stitches. It holds its shape well and comes in a wide range of colors. The first thing you have to know about felt applique is that you cannot just cut your picture up and use it as pattern pieces. You need to decide which pieces will overlap others and which pieces need to be cut out, even if they will never be seen. I used tracing paper again to make a set of the shapes I would need to pin to the felt to cut out the pieces for the applique. The picture is formed in layers with the shapes from the back layer sewn down first. You then work forward toward the front of the picture, overlapping pieces as you do so. To make this easier to visualize, J. D. took photographs at four stages in the development of the appliqued picture.

Lion applique sequence, steps 1 through 4

2) As for embroidery, the outlines could easily be done in plain chain (October 31, 2015) and the eyes, nose, teeth and tongue in satin stitch. If something more complicated is desired, the outlined sections could be filled in with solid chain stitch (Beauvais embroidery, January 31, 2016). Or do the picture in cross-stitch, or Spanish blackwork, perhaps on baby-checked gingham. Embroider each section in a different diaper pattern (October 6, 2013).

Transfer pencil on tracing paper

Do you want an easy way to transfer your outline to your fabric? Make a hot-iron transfer. Trace your outline on tracing paper with a hot-iron transfer pencil. These red pencils are made by several companies. I use Aunt Martha's®, 2 to a package for $2.99. Each pencil will make many transfers. Keep the pencil point sharp and go over the lines firmly until they look dark. Cut and press a piece of quarter-inch checked gingham about two inches larger on all sides than your outline design. Pin your transfer pattern (red-penciled side down) to the gingham, centering it with the checks. Press the transfer pattern on the back with a hot, dry iron (no steam). Press hard and go back and forth several times, but don't scorch the paper. It takes at least 5 seconds to get a good transfer. Unpin one corner and lift it carefully. Peek under it to see if your lines transferred. If not, re-pin it in the same place and iron over it until they do. Remember that your picture will appear reversed on the fabric, so avoid lettering or anything that looks “wrong” if reversed. The red lines will wash out of the fabric with warm water and a mild detergent once your project is finished.

Lion outline transferred to gingham

I plan to do this sample in Holbein embroidery, which is done in blackwork patterns, but in many colors of embroidery floss. The transfer was ironed onto light yellow-green baby-checked gingham with a dry iron set for “cotton”'. You can use a transfer pattern on many plain-colored fabrics, too, but be sure to try a small sample transfer on the fabric first. Not all fabrics will accept a transfer. If you go over a transfer pattern again with the transfer pencil, pressing firmly, you can often use the pattern again. I file and save mine.

Lion latch hook,  front

3) Draw the pattern on rug canvas, to be filled in with latch-hook knots (June 16, 2013). Ordinarily, I would work the background of the latch-hook picture as I made the picture itself. This time I did the picture and will fill in the background later. (These are all works-in-progress; I will show the finished items at a later date.)

Lion latch hook, back

If you look at the back of the latch-hook lion and disregard the vertical lines of canvas, you can get a good idea of how the picture would look if it were done in tent stitch on quickpoint canvas.

I'm sure you can think of many other possibilities. Of course it is not necessary to use a cartoon animal as a design. There are many coloring books with more detailed, realistic pictures of birds, flowers, houses, automobiles, and nearly anything else you desire. Dover Publications has enough of those to keep you busy for a lifetime! If you want something more elaborate, look at some of the beautiful and intricate adult coloring books which have become very popular during the past year.

*These simple coloring book designs are perfectly acceptable when you are making projects for yourself and your household or for gifts. If you plan to sell your work at craft shows or shops, however, do not use any copyrighted materials in your designs. The legal complications can be awful. I will continue to give you suggestions in these blogs for creating your own original designs.

Thank you all for allowing me to discuss one of my favorite subjects. Now, design something of your own!

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Interlaced Hearts: Chain-Stitching Around Curves

Embroidered Vest Pocket

You have now practiced several different kinds of chain-stitch, along with a number of ways of modifying those stitches. There will be more varieties of chain-stitch in the future, which I recommend you continue to practice along straight lines of pulled thread until you have mastered them. It is time now, however, to use what you have already learned and to practice it in an actual design.

Embroidered Vest Back

One of the most popular characteristics of chain-stitch is its flexibility. This makes it ideal for embroidering curved shapes and loops like the ones embroidered in silk on this decorative vest. Look, for example, at the detail in these pictures. Now it is time for you to take a pencil or a permanent marker and draw a variety of curves and loops on your practice fabric. Place the fabric in an embroidery hoop or a frame and embroider the curves and loops with the stitches you have already learned. This will tell you which ones follow curves best, as well as showing you which ones you most enjoy using.

Bird in Beauvais Embroidery

Plain chain is also very useful for filling blank spaces and the insides of closed shapes. This kind of solid chain stitch is sometimes called Beauvais embroidery. The bird on this purse is an example of that. Draw a closed curved figure — circle, oval, heart, etc. — on your practice fabric. It should be at least a couple of inches (4 to 5 centimeters) across. Embroider around the outline in plain chain, turning your work as you go. But don't join the last stitch to the first. Instead, keep stitching just inside the finished chain stitches, getting as close to them as you can. Continue in this way until the entire shape is filled solid with stitches. Carry your yarn to the back of your work and secure it under finished stitches. It is possible to start in the center of a shape and work outward, but I find this more difficult to do. Remember to keep turning your hoop or frame as you work.

Iron-on Transfer

In the May 12, 2015 post, I promised to make a design based on one of the free-hand painted patterns on my Costa Rican cart. I have done a simplified outline design which you can download and copy. You will find it at the end of this post. I then made a hot-iron transfer of the design and ironed it onto light gold Aida cloth. (There are other ways to transfer a design, but this is one I use regularly.) For more information on making your own hot-iron transfer, see the post for October 6, 2013. The transfer is pictured here.


  

Interlaced Hearts, Step 1

I made a completed crewel picture, emphasizing the heart shapes in the design. You will see stages of the work, in progress. For the first stage, I outlined the heart shapes in various chain-stitches, using a variety of reds ranging from a dark maroon to a bright pink. I also filled in small empty sections with Beauvais embroidery, using the same reds.

Interlaced Hearts, Step 2

In the second stage, I worked various sections in other colors, using more chain-stitches. I employed a number of techniques, such as back-stitching, lacing, double-stitching, etc. Once this was done, I washed the piece carefully in lukewarm water and a gentle liquid detergent to remove all traces of the transfer pencil. I hung the fabric to dry and later pressed it on the back with a warm iron and replaced it in the embroidery hoop. (Pull yours taut in the hoop to keep the fabric from wrinkling. This will make it easier to block when it is finished.)

In the last stage, I added details and embellishments with a fine white yarn. I like to do white embroidery last on a project. This means that the work is not handled as much and that there are fewer chances of the white yarn or thread getting dirty or discolored. Finally, the design went to J.D. to be blocked, backed, and framed. Here is a picture of the finished project.

Interlaced Hearts Embroidery, Finished and Framed

Click to Download Embroidery Pattern

And here is the pattern to embroider in your choice of fabric, yarns or flosses, and — most of all — your favorite stitches. I added a few details to my finished embroidery that are not on your pattern. I would expect you to do this also to your project to make it a one-of-a-kind piece that is uniquely your own.

Happy hearts to you,

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