Adventures with Stitches: Early Summer Q & A, 2021

I have read all the articles in your Archive, back to the beginning, about Blackwork.  Are you going to do any more on that subject?

Goodness!  You must really like that technique!  I hope you also read the information on Redwork and Whitework, which use similar techniques.  Today I am going to discuss a technique I call China Bluework, which I hope will please you. As is often true when discussing any kind of artwork, it is necessary to give some background information.

 

Jade pendant &earrings, ivory earrings, white silk

From the 16th through the 18th Centuries wealthy people in Europe were importing a great number of things from China, including porcelain, jade, carved ivory and silk.  The porcelain pieces included dishes, pitchers, jewelry boxes, plaques and tiles, many of which were decorated with scenes and delicate designs in one to three shades of blue on white porcelain.

It wasn't long before European countries  decided to "cash in" with similar ware. The most successful were the Dutch.  The best pieces, which came to be called Delft Blue, were made in factories in or near Delft, Holland, beginning about 1620.  Although the potters called their ware "porcelain", it was a cheap copy of real Chinese porcelain, which was made from porcelain clay.  These pieces were made from an inferior clay and were coated with a glaze after they were fired. Nevertheless, handsome pieces were made.  At one time, there were more than 300 factories. Only one, Royal Dutch, exists today.  The little pitcher you see here, which has been in my family for generations, was probably made in the Makkum, Friesland factory, since my grandmother was born in Friesland. The factory, on an island off the coast of the Dutch mainland, was established in 1594. It was still operating after World War II and may have gone on for some time after that.

I think these three patterns are ones that we have not shown before.  I have done each one in a single color to make the design easier to follow, but there is no reason that you cannot use as many colors as you like. If you are using the design to cover a large area, "stack" the repeats of the design without spaces between them. You may have to add some small joining stitches to anchor the rows.  If there are places where you cannot work all of the design, work as much of each row as you can. You may want to separate the areas of your finished work with a single row of stitching in something like outline or chain stitch to give it a more elegant effect.

Hereafter I will call this technique Bluework.  You will need at least 3 distinct shades of blue yarn or floss. It should be worked on a white or pale cream background if you want authenticity.  Another way to use the three shades of blue would be in a sampler of designs,  using all three shades of blue, that would be suitable for framing.  Each one could also be used alone as an all-over pattern for something like a pillow top. I will take up the topic of samplers again in a future article.

Here is a simple Oriental design to be worked in straight stitches as well as Bluework patterns.  I would suggest that you use more than just the light, medium, and dark blue flosses or yarns and collect more shades of blue, perhaps adding blue-greens and blue-violets.  The arches are in satin stitch done vertically and the back braces of the bridge are worked horizontally. The little finials at the tops of the bridge gates are made with three French knots. The water is done with alternating medium and light blues to suggest motion and reflection, using something like chain stitch for texture.

I have broken with tradition to also present the bridge in the red that is usually used on such bridges. The large areas should be outlined with stitches. You can wait to do this until the patterns are done.  I prefer to outline first. I then do as much of the pattern stitch as I can, slide the point of my needle under the outline and secure the stitch on the back of the work. There is quite a bit of empty sky at the top of the pattern. You may want to put in a cloud or two, the sun, kites flying, etc.  I indicated a couple of birds coming down for a drink as an example.

You can download a (hand-drawn) pattern for this design here. Have fun!

In your recent post about the summer solstice, you said that all the countries in one quiz are in the Northern Hemisphere; but what about Egypt?

No. The statement that all were in the Northern Hemisphere referred to the sentence immediately preceding it, which suggested a person might need a map to find unfamiliar countries like Latvia or Croatia.  I assume that almost anyone could find Egypt on a map or globe. (Incidentally, Egypt is in the Northern Hemisphere; the majority of it is even above the Tropic of Cancer. Check it for yourself!)

From time to time you decorate your articles with border designs. Are you going to do some more of those?

Your question fit so neatly with the one about blackwork that I decided to devote most of this Q and A to design work.  I have indeed been working on a series of border designs, beginning with simple ones shown singly and then designs doubled by working them also in reverse.  Patterns like those can often be adapted to other techniques, such as counted cross-stitch or Swedish weaving. (You can use the Search feature in our sidebar to find articles on such subjects if you have missed them.)  As usual, I recommend doing one or two samples or small projects in ANY new technique before starting a larger project.  Too many of those get abandoned before they are completed.  Also, don't be afraid to combine two or more techniques in your own original designs.  Express your personality.

Here are some simple one-color designs.  They can be used vertically or horizontally.  With a little careful shifting around, the leaf motif could even make a "frame" for a picture or canvas. The stitches can be done in counted cross-stitch or solid satin stitch in floss on even-weave fabric or checked gingham, or in upright stitches (gobelin) on needlepoint canvas.  Try the stitches on scraps of different weaves or patterned backgrounds until you find a combination that you like.

Sometimes a simple design can be improved by mirror-imaging it like this sample. I also added an additional row of the red border in the middle of the reversed design to make it show up better.  The technique is something you can try on any border design which has a straight-edged base.  If you don't like the white parts of the design, use an additional color, but keep that color light because you already have a dark and a medium color in the design.  To make a narrow border from a wide one, find the center of the design and cut the design apart horizontally.

Here are some more simple border designs that have been doubled.

 

Color schemes can be revised endlessly. Take time to experiment on scraps of fabric before you start a large project.  Or make an old-fashioned "sampler" of designs. You may find such a piece worthy of framing and hanging. On a personal note, I sincerely hope that at least some of you who are dedicated "stitchers" will take the time and effort to pass on your skills to young people and give them a start on their own Adventures With Stitches.

Enjoy your work!

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

Needlepoint Tweaks: No More Boring Backgrounds!

One od Annake;s many work bags

Backgrounds don't need to be boring! My mother used to buy needlepoint canvases with the central motifs already worked and then fill in the backgrounds with a simple tent stitch. I thought it was the most boring occupation that I could imagine. But one day she cut off a strip of the canvas that didn't suit her purpose and threw it away. I picked it up and studied it carefully. Then I drew a small picture of a flower on it. I collected some scraps of yarn and a couple of needles. Using the background stitch I had seen my mother use so often, I filled my flower with bright colors. I was "hooked" for life! Since then I have always had a bag of canvas or even-weave fabric and yarn (or two or three) positioned by every comfortable chair in the house.

Backgrounds can be fun to do and they can give your work a very modern look. There are a couple of things that you need to consider, however. You don't want the background to overwhelm your central motif. You can use use muted colors that complement the center design — light ones for a bright design or darker ones for a motif with a collection of pale colors, for example. Of course, as with all "rules", there are always exceptions. Take this "Screaming Eagle" picture for example, with its many background patterns and its diagonal arrangement of them.

The second thing to keep in mind is to slip your background stitches under the edge of the center design wherever they meet. This ensures that no empty canvas or background fabric shows through where it shouldn't. You can see a light-colored background with a bright-colored motif.  Notice that there are no spaces between the motif and the background.

I'm going to do some samples of background patterns for you on plastic canvas because the stitches are fairly large and show up well in J.D.'s photographs. We will start with upright stitches because they are the easiest. I'm using small balls of leftover yarn that I store in egg cartons for practice or demonstration pieces. You can split or double such yarns to cover your canvas or even-weave fabric completely.  I have used colors that have more contrast than I would usually use in a background so that it is easy to see what I am doing.

 

In the first sample the rows of stitches are the same size, with the different colors starting and finishing in the same squares of mesh. If the yellow rows look narrower than the orange ones, it is an optical illusion. In the second sample, however, the yellow rows are narrower than the orange ones, and in the last sample the yellow is a simple line of back-stitching between two rows of orange stitches. The differences are slight, but the results are subtle shifts. In each case, the yarn covers both sides of the canvas.

Now, instead of strips of color, I am going to use little blocks of two colors.  Notice that the colors alternate on each row.  This gives a checkerboard effect. No empty canvas shows because the stitches are placed right next to each other and the stitches in adjoining rows begin and end in the same squares of mesh.

The second set of red and blue blocks are made with stitches that slant upward and to the right. The first block stands alone at the beginning of the group, along with a small diagram of the stitches. (Unfortunately, many stitchery books are made for needle-workers with wide experience, and their diagrams may be difficult to decipher. I hope this simple one will be more useful.) The block looks a bit difficult at first, but, after doing a couple, you should find them easy and even fun. Use a separate needle for each color. This is the same checkerboard idea, but with somewhat different effects. This block is known as Scotch stitch. There are several variations, and we will see more of them as we go along.

Here is a good muted background made with closely related colors. Study the number of lines of stitches carefully to get the first couple of layers established. After that, it is just a matter of following the pattern upward or downward. The dark blue stitches show a single row of the design stitches so that you can see how the line is constructed. I would not use this pattern at a larger size unless I were working a fairly large design. The two lighter blues are appropriate for the background around a bright and colorful center design. The sample also shows you how to use partial blocks to even the top and bottom edges of the background. The second sample in the light blues shows a half-size pattern that would work with a smaller or more delicate design. I don't recommend using white in one of these backgrounds, but off-white, cream, or soft light grays and beige work well.

Here is an easy pattern of little diamonds in two or three colors. The third sample is done in a variegated gray yarn that gives a random all-over effect.

Here is a slightly more complex diamond pattern. Instead of three stitches to construct a diamond, we will use five stitches.  Use different needles for the two colors.  Look at the first light-colored diamond. The first stitch goes over two bars of plastic canvas,  the second over four, and the third one over six. The fourth stitch is just like the second one and the fifth stitch is just like the first one.  Work a row of the light-colored diamonds from left to right as I have done in the sample, leaving an empty row of canvas between them. Check each group of stitches as you make them and correct any mistakes. (It is easy to think: "That one is a little off, but nobody will notice it." I hate to disillusion you, but "that one" is exactly the one they will "zero in" on!)

Once the row is complete, work the row of darker color below the diamonds, starting in that empty square of mesh. After the row is complete, start working a row of light diamonds under the darker row. Don't worry about the first diamond in that row.  You can fill it in later.  Notice that the darker diamonds have a double stitch at top and bottom, with the two stitches sharing that empty square of mesh.  Finish the darker row.  By now you should know all you need to know about the pattern and can begin working across the top of the sample from right to left.  This is a fairly large pattern and works up quickly. If you are looking for a pattern that is fast and fun, this one might be just the one you want!

Now I am going to use the Scotch blocks to make a pattern with more "movement" to it. Let's start with a solid block of one color at the upper left of the sample. (If you are left-handed, feel free to work any of these patterns in reverse.)  Once that block is done, move your needle to the row of canvas just below the block and bring the needle up under the last stitch.  Work an identical block, starting there. Continue to work the blocks in the same way until you have established a diagonal pattern of them.  With a second color, work a block just below the top block in the series and all the blocks as far down as you have space for them.  Continue in this fashion until you have used all the colors you want to use.  Follow the sample. To finish the large square, continue making the blocks, but do the colors in the reverse order. In this case, yellow-green, medium green, and dark green.

This technique can also be used to make a rainbow of lines for an all-over design which stands alone rather than being used as a background for a central design.  Here is a somewhat different version of the technique as a stand-alone project. Can you spot the differences?

As you find a design that works for you. it is a good idea to make a copy of it on canvas or even-weave fabric and save it in a large envelope or a box for future reference, whether you have used it or not.

These ideas for background treatments lend themselves to other kinds of craft-work as well. For example, see how the idea works for this latch-hook rug. Because rugs are made to be walked on, the background is darker than it would be for a picture or pillow, for example. The background for this rose rug involved closely related tones of gold.

I am rapidly running out of time and space for this issue, but I'm certainly not out of patterns! So let's consider this the beginning of a new series and I will add more issues on the subject from time to time.

 

Stay safe, keep warm, and practice your patterns!

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

Something Fishy

Recently J D. pointed out that I had done a number of sketches, designs, and pieces of needlework involving fish and other water-dwelling creatures, and that perhaps I should "do something" with them. Without giving the matter much serious thought, I replied that I might do a post called "Something Fishy".  I hadn't given the project much thought, until he later asked what I had done about it.  I said I had to think about fish before I write about them. I got a long look with a seriously raised eyebrow in reply. "I'm thinking!"  I said. His expression suggested that I just might think a little faster.  So when, I thought, did I first get interested in fish? (Isn't memory a strange thing?) And there was the memory, as vivid as if I were watching it on a screen.

Bluegill

It was the summer before I turned seven. It was a hot, dry summer.  Our well had not run dry, but there was already talk abut hauling water for the livestock from an artesian well in the next township. (We did not have electricity, running water, central heat or indoor plumbing, if you can picture that.) We did have a cistern to catch rainwater, but it had gotten so low that we had already hauled enough water from a spring at the back of the property to refill it. I volunteered to go to the bottom of our big hill and see how the creek that ran there was faring. The creek was no longer running. There were a few pools of water that were rapidly evaporating. In the largest pool I found three colorful fish lying on their sides, just barely alive.

Crappie

 I raced to the top of the hill. Charlie, a teen-aged cousin, was staying with us for a couple of weeks. "Charlie," I cried, "We have to save the fish!" Once he understood, he agreed.  We dipped a couple of buckets of the water from the cistern and hurried back down the hill. We carefully lifted the fish from their puddle and hurried to relocate them in the cistern. My dad had been attracted by the commotion. He was a hunter and trapper as well as a farmer, but not much of a fisherman. He identified the fish for us: bluegill, crappie (pronounced croppie), and sunfish. He suspected they came originally from the Wabash River, to which our creek was distantly connected, and mentioned that all three were tasty.   Charlie and I both protested that we hadn't saved their lives just to turn around and eat them!

Green Sunfish

Dad agreed good-naturedly and we three set about catching flies, mosquitoes, earthworms, any any other handy tidbits to feed the fish. We kept that up for two more days, between chores. And then Nature relented and produced a spectacular thunderstorm and two full days of rain, through which we slogged to care for the livestock. We carried the fish back to the creek and released them. They swam away in three different directions, apparently anxious to end their forced association.

 

Tropical fish needlepoint

A couple of decades later I was the head of a science department in a junior high school in northern Virginia. One of our favorite field trip destinations was the National Aquarium in Washington  D.C., which was then housed in the Department of Commerce Building. By that time I had flown back and forth across the Atlantic, seen the coast of Newfoundland, gotten acquainted with the North Sea from Holland, and gotten a glimpse pf the Irish Sea, but I hadn't seen the creatures that lived in those waters. So I also visited the National Aquarium on my own, content to sit for hours. sketching or just watching the infinite variety of fish. Those are also good memories. But, like today, those were turbulent times, and eventually we were forbidden to take field trips into D.C. because of the dangers from riots. Perhaps it is that memory that has been what has turned my eyes and hands to depictions of fish recently.

When you are showing a fish like this, its shape and colors make it stand out. Then you are left with the problem of what to do with all that background around it. You can, of course,  just paint or stitch a flat background in a single color, as if the fish were stuffed and mounted, but that isn't very interesting. I prefer to at least suggest the water through which the fish is swimming.  This is the simplest way to do that. Just use several closely related shades of blue in the watery background, varying the concentration of of each shade so that the water doesn't look like it has stripes.

Rough pattern for oscar needlepoint

This is a color sketch for an Oscar. Oscars are cichlids,  freshwater fish originally from South America, which have now been established in parts of Asia and Australia. These fish have become very popular for personal aquariums. Many are smaller than this one, which is depicted (on an 8.5" x 11" sheet) at about the size limit You can feel free to make the fish in any color scheme you like. If there isn't one like it in captivity, no doubt one will be discovered — or bred — sometime soon. There are multitudes of color photos online if you want to do a realistic rendering. I 'squared-off' some features in order to make a needlepoint picture of the fish which I worked on a standard canvas.

 

Oscar needlepoint

I chose to put my fish in shallow water, lit from above with sunlight, and to surround it with suggestions of different species of water plants. Their unusual colors and patterns, despite their brightness, break up the fish's outline and provide good camouflage.  Some species can also change color to some extent. It is a hunter and has even been described lying flat on one side and "playing dead" to attract its prey. In aquariums they are usually fed crustaceans, earthworms, insects and specially prepared mixtures that are designed to be fed to much larger carnivorous fish.

My memory served up another delight. We were living in Idaho at the time. My husband had some leave time, so we had gone to a weekend affair in the Grand Tetons. We both liked to fish, but he wouldn't eat the fish so we went to "catch and release" before it was even popular. We always had fishing gear in the back of the van, even when we weren't pulling the boat. So we decided to stop at a reservoir on the way home to see how fast the ice was melting.  There was about a three foot stretch of open water, so we took our gear and started along the embankment. We met a lone fisherman and he and my husband started talking. I moved on quite a way ahead of them.

Brown trout

The water was as clear as glass. I could see a big brown trout — my favorite trout — on the bottom. I had a small red and white lure with a lot of action to it on my line, so I dropped it gently on the surface some distance ahead of the brown and started twitching it every few seconds.  I watched him come up from the bottom, opening his mouth wide as he hit the lure.  I set the hook. He fought me the short distance to the shore. My shout as I lifted him out of the water brought the two men running.  The brown was indeed a beautiful fish.  He wasn't badly hooked, and was soon freed. I took him back to the edge and eased him into the frigid water, watching him until he disappeared under the ice.  It was one of those small, perfect moments that you remember forever.

I am often asked for border designs for embroidery, and so have used several in this article. I hope you will find them useful. These are designed for linear stitches like outline and chain stitches. The figures can all face one direction or be used in face-to-face positions alternating with tail-to-tail pairs.

But counted cross-stitch and needlepoint can also be used for larger panels and borders. Here is a segment of a repeatable design that can be done in either of those techniques. If you are going to do needlepoint on a fabric background, use the kind of canvas that is designed to be pulled out when the design is completed and don't pull your stitches so tight that the canvas threads cannot be removed. If this technique is new for you, I recommend you practice on a piece of the canvas and fabric before you undertake a larger composition. Check the work from time to time to make sure your stitches are not getting tighter as you go along, because that is an easy mistake to make.

Fishing can, of course, be frustrating, especially when the fish aren't biting.  But I remember one occasion when it was frustrating because the fish was biting. No, that is not an error in grammar. Let me explain.  It was during the time when we were stationed in Panama. My husband wanted to try fishing from a solitary dock on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. I went along to keep him company. It was a nice

Tiny, spiny puffer fish

day and I was enjoying watching the water birds skim and dive to do their fishing.  My husband was not getting any action. Finally he got a strong tug on his line. The fish put up a good fight, but he finally brought it in. Much to his dismay, it was a small puffer fish that had swallowed enough water to become the size of a football. There are quite a number of these species in tropical and sub-tropical waters. This was one of the kind that, when inflated, was covered with sharp spines poking out of its skin in all directions and was able to deliver a poison if handled improperly.*  He put on heavy gloves and freed the fish from the hook. It was obviously not the first time it had been hooked because it had a distinct scar on one side of its jaw. He took it to the far end of the dock and dropped it back into the water. Twenty minutes or so later, he got another strike and reeled in the fish. He groaned, "It's another one!" "No," I said, pointing to the scar, "it's the same one." He decided that the third time had to be the charm he needed.  Another twenty minutes. Another strike.  Same fish. (I really thought it looked ashamed that time, but it was probably just water-logged.)  My husband announced that since there was apparently only one fish left in the water that the birds hadn't eaten, we might as well go home.  So we did.  And I managed not to laugh once, at least not out loud.

*Not all puffer fish produce the potentially deadly tetrodotoxin, but, if you encounter one, it is probably best to assume that it does. The toxin is also found in other fish like porcupine fish, triggerfish, and ocean sunfish, snails and other mollusks,  some crabs and sea urchins.  On land, it is found in some newts, toads, and frogs. The deadliest carrier of the toxin is the blue-ringed octopus.

Panama Canal. Pacific end

The Panama Canal has caused a lot of problems for local populations of fish and other aquatic or marine creatures. Pacific species, long held back by the unbroken shoreline, invaded the Atlantic Ocean and Atlantic species did the same thing to the Pacific Ocean. These transfers, no longer in a controlled environment, affected not only the species themselves, but also the organisms which ate them or were eaten by them. Some species have disappeared completely and some of the "foreign" species have spread widely, affecting areas a long distance from the Canal itself.

Seahorse drawing by Annake

Here is a big drawing of a very small fish. I think that if I had to choose just one kind of fish to study and draw it would be the seahorses and the related — and even stranger — sea dragons.  These are among the most fascinating of sea creatures, both in appearance and in habits.  many people don't even realize that they are fish.

But there are many species of sea creatures on tropical coral reefs, under the polar ice, and at the bottom of the seas that are little known or understood, if they have even been discovered. And many of them are in danger of extinction before they have even been studied.  The effects of climate change have been magnified and multiplied by our failure to understand and protect the lives of these creatures, many of whom have survived millions, even billions, of years of planetary changes before we ever existed.  The damage that has been done to both freshwater and saltwater habitats in just the past couple of centuries is appalling.  However, I am greatly encouraged by the growing interest among teenagers and young adults in combating these problems. They are taking a global approach toward the problems and are prepared to work cooperatively to overcome them.  I hope all of us will get behind their efforts and support them in any way we can.

Stay well. Stay safe.  Stay positive.

 

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