Irises: Nature's Living Rainbows

Iris needlepoint by Annake

This has been a difficult time for Annake’s Garden, outdoors as well with staying indoors because of the pandemic. We have lost a beautiful 50-year old crab-apple tree. The late freezes have destroyed this year's daffodils and hyacinths and we are concerned about our fruit trees, grapevines, berries, rosebushes and other plants.  It is evident that we will not be able to work the Farmers' Markets the way we have done for the past several years. The art and craft shows will likely be canceled. Annake's Garden will definitely be starting over and much of that cannot be done until as late as this time next year. That is why I am so looking forward to the irises. They warm my heart.

Irises, which my mother used to call "poor man's orchids", are my favorite flowers. I would rather have an iris in a vase than an orchid pinned on my shoulder any day. Even my favorite perfume is Iris Noir, or "Black Iris". We have three versions of ‘black' irises here in the garden, one of which is truly black. Some of our favorites will be used to illustrate this post.

Rainbow (Public Domain photo)

In Greek mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow. Her name means rainbow. Her father was a minor sea god and her mother was a cloud nymph. Iris was the messenger of the gods. The rainbow was a bridge that she used to carry messages back and forth. She was portrayed as a pretty girl with golden wings, a messenger's rod (sometimes also winged), and winged slippers. She is sometimes shown with a pitcher, and was believed to refill the clouds with water from the sea. She was always shown as good and helpful. We use her name in the word "iridescent", meaning giving off rainbow reflections, like butterfly wings and hummingbird feathers  — and iris petals.

Iris needlepoint in progress

I use irises frequently in needle arts. Now I am going to show you several examples of irises in those arts, while demonstrating the use of various pattern-making techniques that you can use at home — and you can even design your own patterns. Let's start with a charted pattern, which will probably be the one most familiar to you. You can download it here.

This is a charted iris that can be done in counted cross-stitch on checked gingham, monks' cloth, or Aida cloth in any size you like. It can be done in tent stitch on plastic canvas, conventional needlepoint canvas, quickpoint canvas or rug canvas. If you think of each square as a patchwork square, it could become a quilt. If each square were a ceramic tile, you could make a back-splash for a kitchen or bathroom sink..It is designed to be done as a bi-colored iris, but can also be done in a solid color. In fact, it can be done in any colors you like — even imaginary ones.  If you are doing a bi-colored iris, the standards should be in a light color, the falls in a dark color, the beards in yellow or orange and the stem, of course, in green.

Irises, latch hooked wall hanging

There are some things to remember when you work from a charted pattern. Each square on the chart represents a single stitch. Count the squares horizontally very carefully. The white squares on the pattern represent the background color. if you are going to use one. Do the same thing with the vertical rows. Make sure your canvas or fabric is going to be big enough for the finished picture, plus some space for turning over to hem or turning under around a cardboard spacer for framing, turning under for backing a rug, etc.  It is much better to have to trim off some fabric when you have finished the pattern than to find out at the last minute that you don't have enough background for all your work.

The next possible problem is that of losing your place in the pattern and working the wrong row.  There are a couple of simple techniques and devices to help you with this problem. It is certainly important to keep track of the line in the chart that corresponds with the line of stitches you are working, as well as to keep an accurate count of the number of stitches you have completed. Otherwise, your finished project may not look very much like the chart! It is a good idea to keep the chart on a flat surface where it is easy to see all of it from your working position. I use a clipboard to hold mine in place. I keep a pencil with it. If I'm interrupted or have to be away from my work for any length of time, I make a small pencil mark by my last completed stitch.

If you are primarily losing the horizontal line in the chart and are not concerned with losing count of your stitches, the simplest solution is to place a 12-inch ruler with its top edge just under the chart line you are following. If you need to add weight to the ruler to keep it in place, glue a couple of coins to the underneath side of the ruler, near the ends.

For an easy-to-make tool to mark both the horizontal and the vertical lines of your chart, cut two pieces of stiff cardboard about 2 inches (5 cm) wide and 6 inches (15 cm) long. Staple or glue them together so that they form an L-shape. Place the L on the chart so that the bottom part of the L is directly below the horizontal line of the chart that you are following, and the upright part of the L is just behind the first stitch you are going to count. Mentally remind yourself to move the upright part of the L every 5 or 10 stitches you complete. This takes some practice, but will soon become automatic. Slide the bottom of the L up (if you are working from the bottom of the chart) or down (if you are working from the top) one space at the end of every completed row of stitches.

Tracing pattern on canvas

The next type of pattern is one that you can make for yourself. Draw or trace your pattern on lightweight white paper. Tape it, design side toward you, on a sunny windowpane. Tape you canvas or a thin white fabric on the pane so that it overlaps the drawing.  Trace the design. Carefully re-trace the design onto the canvas or fabric. I use pencil on fabric because it will wash out. If you like, you can color the design lightly later with permanent markers that will not run. A semi-transparent fabric like organdy is excellent for this. Even if you don't embroider the design, you can trim the fabric away from the edges of the hoop and hang it in a sunny window. We call those "Window Wonders".

I use permanent marker on canvas because the stitches will cover it, as you can see in the picture on the right.

I carefully wipe off any excess ink, as you can see me doing in the photo on the left.





The kind of needlework I am going to do on this pattern I call "stained-glass stitchery". I'm going to pause here and show you the steps I used to work the pattern of an iris in this technique.

1) Stitched iris  2) Background 'panes' added  3) All sections backstitched in black

Sweatshirt with needlework

Working an iris design on a dark sweatshirt requires a different technique.  First I draw the parts of my design on tracing paper or a good grade of tissue paper. I pin the pattern in place on the sweatshirt, being careful not to pin the front and back of the shirt together. Then I thread an 18 inch piece of white yarn, floss, or crochet cotton into a sharp-pointed needles. Working from the inside of the sweatshirt, I back-stitch all around the lines in the drawing. You cans see that I have started doing that in the picture below, on the left. The completed design outline is in the middle picture.  When the complete design has been stitched, I pull the paper away gently. A pair of small tweezers is good to have to pick out any tiny pieces of paper caught in the stitches. The embroidery work is shown in progress in the picture on the right. Once all the embroidery has been done, filling in the sections of the design, you can snip out the pieces of white yarn.  Or you can simply work over them as you fill in the sections of the design.

There is another kind of pattern transfer — hot-iron transfer. However, it must be done with a special kind of pencil. With the shops likely to carry such a pencil closed and you readers at home, perhaps it is best to leave that one for another day.

Assisi-style iris on canvas

This iris pattern represents an embroidery style called Assisi embroidery. I did this in needlepoint on canvas for a quick demonstration, but if you are doing authentic Assisi embroidery, you would do the stitches in cross-stitch and leave the iris petals empty so that the background fabric shows through. What appears as background here, along with the features of the iris which are  given are done in cross-stitch. I later filled in the iris with additional needlepoint so it could be framed.

Finished iris needlepoint

Graphing a needle arts chart

If you want to make your own graph patterns like the one we started with at the beginning of this article, you will need quarter-inch graph paper, erasable colored pencils, a small pencil sharpener, a good eraser (kneadable ones are the best), plain paper to draw your design, and a hard surface to work on (a clipboard will do if you don't have table space). Curved outlines will need to be "square off". This is easiest to do with a counted cross-stitch design, so I would recommend that you start with one of those. You can use half cross-stitches, either upper left to lower right corners of the square or upper right to lower left corners. I like to back-stitch around the major parts of a cross-stitch design to make them stand out. If you are doing that on your pattern, indicate it with solid lines.

We are going to leave you with a collection of J.D.'s favorite iris photos.

Enjoy,

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

Projects, Pet Portraits, & Patterns: Summer Q & A, 2018

Blackwork butterfly on checked gingham

Are you still doing the Spanish blackwork?

Yes, indeed. Both the lion and the butterfly blocks are now completed. I was especially pleased with the butterfly.

Here is a picture of the chart for the fan-tailed goldfish, which is meant to be a facing companion piece to the tropical fish shown previously.

Downloadable blackwork goldfish pattern

Look for more pictures and patterns in our Autumn and Winter Questions and Answers.

You had a cute picture of mushrooms on one of your classroom posts. Are you going to do anything more with mushrooms?

That would be the January 16, 2018 post. I’m glad you liked it. Yes. I am working on a rather large piece in crewel embroidery that features several different kinds of mushrooms. Some of the sections have been shown before, but there are still a few to be completed. This is our busiest season, however, with farmers’ markets, art shows, and local events, so it will be some time in the autumn before the entire project will be ready to be shown in a post. Keep watching.

Are any of your embroideries done on a programmable sewing machine (asked at a recent show)?

None at all. All my work is handwork, done with a hook or a needle.

In a recent post you wrote about showing your classroom students how to get some special effects on pictures of their pets. Can you tell me more about those?

Iris needlepoint with light colored top stitching

Certainly. I first addressed the topic of how back-stitching around prominent features enhances a picture. This is true for pictures of plants and other subjects besides animals. Top-stitching need not be done with black yarn or floss, although that is traditional for counted cross-stitch. It can be done in a darker tone against a light feature or a lighter tint around a dark feature, and the two may be used in the same composition. Here is an example of a floral piece that I did recently.

Detail of Boston terrier pup's eyes

Next I talked about putting an accent in the animal’s eyes. Because eyeballs are round and moist, they reflect the source of light as a small bright spot, usually at the upper part of the eye. In needlework, this is commonly represented in close-up pictures by a single white stitch in each visible eye, often done over yarn with a silky or glossy floss for additional “shine”. If both eyes are looking forward, the reflection must be in the exact same position in both eyes, not as mirror images of each other. I always put the reflections in last because they really bring the animal’s — or person’s — face to life.

Detail of mouse puppet whiskers

Most mammals have whiskers of some sort. Nocturnal animals, including cats, and animals like seals that spend a lot of time underwater tend to have prominent whiskers, which give them information about their dark surroundings. Each whisker emerges from a slightly enlarged pore on the animal’s muzzle. I use a very fine-pointed pen or marker to indicate a few of these pores on the animal’s face, making them mirror images of each other. I do this even for puppets in many cases. If you prefer, you can replace these dots with tiny French knots.

Detail of raccoon puppet whiskers

Starting at each dot, I make a long stitch outward in a realistic length for a realistic picture or an exaggerated one for a toy or puppet. The whiskers fan out slightly to cover more area. Use a dark thread over a light muzzle and a white or colorless thread over a dark one. I like nylon thread or even extremely fine fishing line for the long stitches.

Detail showing shine on Boston terrier's nose

Finally I talked about putting some “shine” on an animal’s nose. A healthy pet will have a moist — or even wet — nose. In most cases the faces are small enough that the nose-shine will be on the same side of the nose as the eye-shine is on the eyes. Since skin does not reflect as much as the surface of the eyes, I don’t use white for this reflection, but rather a lighter gray or even blue for a few stitches on the animal’s nose.

I hope this expanded explanation has been helpful. Thank you very much for asking.

Have you made any more of the little squares with the animals on them (January 1, 2018)? My kids love them! I printed them out and we glued them on cardboard with magnets on the back so we could put them on the refrigerator. I hope that was all right. I guess we should have asked you first.

It is fine with me. After spending half a century as an educator, I’m delighted when something captures children’s imaginations and interests them in the natural world. I’ve been looking ahead to fall and working on this design of squirrels and oak leaves. It is still in progress and I haven’t added the colors for the squirrels, but perhaps your children might enjoy coloring the animals themselves.

Four-way squirrel design

Enjoy!

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

How One Thing Leads to Another...

Examples of different needle-craft techniques

Working with introductory needlework classes, I stress several things: learning basic skills so that you don’t need to depend on kits or patterns; making comparisons as you move from one technique to another so that you can apply the same skills to more than one kind of needlework; stressing your personal preferences for color, texture, stitches, etc.; saving money on materials and equipment; and using your imagination to create new uses for what you have learned. I believe that creating things builds character and confidence and brings a kind of satisfaction that is unique.

More classroom examples

I begin with some general principles that I have learned from experience over many years — most of them learned from my own errors. (See “11 Secrets for Needlework Success” on our June 1, 2014 post.) These include such simple things as how and when to remove a bad stitch (using the eye of the needle rather than the point, and doing it immediately). I don’t believe in asking students to purchase a long list of supplies, so I provide most of what they will use for their first course of instruction. I do ask them to bring a bag (preferably cloth), that will not be used for anything but their needlework, scissors or shears that have not been used to cut anything but fabric or yarn, and a notepad and pencil for writing down instructions.

Butterfly line drawing on plastic canvas

We begin with a choice of simple outline drawings on 5-inch by 7-inch (10 cm X 15 cm) pieces of plastic canvas. Plastic canvas will be used for the first activities because it resists stitches being pulled too tight, which is the most common beginner’s mistake. The designs are simple — a flower, a butterfly, a cluster of mushrooms — yet they can be attractive when completed and can even be framed if the student likes her work. At the very least, they can be filed for future reference. After choosing a design, they are asked to decide on the colors they will use in completing it. They are not allowed to choose black as one of their colors (why will be evident later).

Egg carton with balls of yarn

Each one is given an egg carton with 12 openings in the top and invited to fill it with small balls of yarn. I roll balls of leftover yarn from each of my projects and store them in similar cartons, so there is always a large variety available. Once the yarns are selected, the free end of each one can be drawn through one of the 12 openings and the carton can be closed to keep the yarn clean.

First stage of a small water lily picture

Once they have made their choices and seated themselves, each one is given a tapestry needle with a large eye. I explain how the needles are numbered and tell them where they can buy additional needles locally when they decide they need them. I ask them to choose a section of the design to stitch first and to select a color of yarn. I explain why we don’t use lengths of yarn longer than 18 inches (46 cm.) and often use less. Each table has an 18-inch tape fastened to it so they can learn to estimate that length. After they have chosen and cut their yarn, I demonstrate the use of a waste knot to begin the work. I then demonstrate the upright gobelin stitch and show how it covers both sides of the canvas. I then ask them to make 5 stitches and stop.

Back view of water lily project

If the yarn they have chosen does not cover the canvas, I demonstrate the proper way to remove the stitches and replace each one with two side-by-side stitches. They are then to complete the section of design that they have chosen. As the first student nears the end of her yarn, we stop and I show them how to secure the end of the yarn under completed stitches and clip it close to the back of the canvas. I encourage them to look often at the back of their work. I don’t expect the back to look quite as good as the front, but there is no reason for it to look like an unmade bed, either! I then show them how to start a new piece of yarn by running it under existing stitches and we continue. I answer questions as we proceed.

Once a student has completed an entire section of her design, we stop. I show them how to start an adjoining section using the canvas “holes” where the stitches of the first section ended. In other words, how to make the design without leaving any bare bars of canvas showing inside the design. Once all have completed a few sections of their designs, I point out that there are details in each design which are so narrow (flower and mushroom stems, butterfly bodies, etc.) that they would look better worked horizontally rather than vertically. Students work one of those and make a note of any others. Then we ceremoniously sever the waste knot, thread the needle, and secure that piece of yarn under completed stitches.

Picture of mushrooms, in progress

Beginning sessions, especially with a large class, usually end with the rest of the central design to be done as “homework”. The next session begins with a consideration of the background. We look at a number of color samples and compare the effects of dark and light colors. I also demonstrate the effects of variegated yarns for this purpose — as a “water” background for a waterlily or “straw” for the ground under a group of mushrooms, for example. Long, straight stitches will be used for this also, but I will show that there can be advantages to using both horizontal and vertical stitches. Students work at least two adjoining sections of the background in class, joining them together and to the central design. The rest will be “homework”.

Students are then amazed to find they have learned the basics for doing a more complex design like these pictures in French long-stitch which are among the more than three dozen technique samples on the walls of my classroom. Moreover, since they have essentially been doing satin stitch on canvas, I show them how everything they have learned will ‘translate’ into work on either finer canvas or cloth with tapestry yarn or embroidery flosses (even the variegated ones).

Pronghorn and bighorn in French long-stitch

But the lesson is not yet finished. Students are given black yarn and taught how to separate strands. Using 12-inch (30 cm.) lengths, they are taught how to back-stitch, square to square, around their central design (and the background divisions if they like) to make “stained-glass” stitchery like this picture or the butterfly on this pillow. Back-stitching is one of the most useful and versatile stitches in a needleworker’s “vocabulary”.

Examples of "stained-glass stitchery"

See how “one thing leads to another”?

Cedaredge/Surface Creek/Delta County readers:
Annake is now offering needle arts classes on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and still has a few openings for the class that begins January 27th, 2018. If you are interested, please contact her at:  annakes_garden@yahoo.com

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

An Iris Bouquet

Last year we offered you A Big Bouquet of Roses (July 2, 2014). This year's “bouquet” is of irises, my favorite flowers. My mother used to call them “the poor man's orchids”. I have loved them since childhood and often make them the subject of my art and craft work. An example is this pink iris rug, shown below in a picture from our Gallery, from a few seasons ago. The design for the rug was based on a paper collage I did as a sample for fifth-grade students who were studying the work of the artist Georgia O'Keeffe. Following it are some more contemporary examples. We hope you enjoy them all.

Iris latch hooked rug, after Georgia O'Keefe

Our second iris was done as an example of Assisi embroidery (May 21, 2014). The sample languished in our workshop for a while. Eventually the center area was filled in to make a conventional needlepoint picture, mounted and framed. Here are the two examples for comparison.

 Downloadable Iris Needle Arts Chart

 I liked the stencil effect in the first example; it became the inspiration for three irises on a latch-hook wall hanging. The pattern is a simple one, which could be used to represent any bi-color iris color combination. I used the number “2” to indicate the darker “falls” or lower petals of the iris flower and the number “1” to indicate the lighter “standards” or upright petals. There are irises, however, in which the standards are darker than the falls. This is just as easy to arrange without changing the pattern. You can even “invent” color combinations that don't exist in nature –- at least not yet. The number “3” represents the “beards” on the petals; these are usually yellow or orange. The number “4” represents a short segment of the iris stem and may be done in any shade of green. The open squares on the graph represent the background color. The pattern can be used for counted cross-stitch or needlepoint as well as for latch-hook. You can probably think of other uses as well. To download the pattern, just click on the picture's caption.

"Spring"

I used a medium green background. When the piece was finished, I didn't think the flowers showed well enough. I carefully removed a row of background knots from around all the petals. I outlined the lower petals of each flower with the color of the upper petals and the upper ones with the color of the lower ones. This made the flowers larger and they were more noticeable. If you plan to do this, it is a good idea to mark your pattern to show the changes before you begin the work. You may remember that, when I showed the snowflake design of the Winter wall hanging (January 28, 2015), I promised that a Spring wall hanging was in the process of development. Here it is, featuring three bright bi-color irises. Incidentally, the Summer piece in this Four Seasons collection is in the design phase now.

Our feature on “stained glass” stitchery (March 8, 2015) produced two new projects. The first was a picture, shown in step-by-step photos as it was completed, of a blue iris done in the style of a stained-glass window panel. Here is the finished picture, mounted and framed.

The second project developed from a demonstration for transferring a design to dark fabric by stitching with white yarn or floss through a paper pattern (March 26, 2015). In this way, an iris design was transferred onto the front of a dark plum-colored sweatshirt. The original purpose was to show a simple method of transference with materials already present, rather than with commercial products. Once started, however, the outline just “begged” to be filled with stitches. J.D. calls this my “Cubist” iris. It isn't Cubist, of course, but I admit that it is rather abstract. Here is the decorated sweatshirt.

Iris embroidered sweatshirt, with detail closeup

Last of all, here are two conventional needlepoint pictures featuring bi-color irises. By now you have probably decided that bi-colors are my favorites. You're correct! The round picture is from our first season of this blog (February 12, 2013 and May 16, 2013). The other one is currently a work in progress. I painted the picture onto needlepoint canvas before stitching it. A future blog post will be devoted to the subject of painting your own pictures onto canvases. I'm experimenting with a novelty yarn in the background of the picture which adds a “pebbled” texture to it.
 

Now I will turn this post over to J.D. so that he can show you some of his favorite iris blossoms. I hope they will inspire you to use flowers in art or needlecraft projects of your own.

Remember to stop and smell the flowers,

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