Question & Answers, New Year's 2018

A Winter Scene

When can we expect Part V of the Still Life in Needlework series? And what is next after that?

There will be some delay, I'm afraid. J.D. is busy making prints of some of his work. His sister J.J. has just sent us several folders of her photographs that haven't even been downloaded yet. And I am offering beginning needle arts classes for adults on weekdays and mother/daughter or grandmother/grand-daughter classes for children 10 years old and older on weekends, starting in mid-January. All that is going to take some time to sort out. At this point, it looks like at least mid-February for Still Life V. I apologize for the delay. Next will be the start of a similar series on landscapes, hopefully launched before Earth Day. There will be posts on other subjects in the meantime, including our yearly Anniversary issue. Please keep watching.

Three student designs for Hawaiian quilts

Are you still going to show more of the Hawaiian quilt kinds of designs that you started showing last spring?

Yes, indeed. I have shown some of mine in various contexts throughout the years, but you may have missed them if you were searching the posts for Hawaiian quilt designs. You may remember that this was a project I once was doing with 5^th grade students who were studying about the state of Hawaii. I included three student designs (see above) that showed a real grasp of the Hawaiian quilt design style. Here is one more good student design that took a different approach.

Four-way design with strawberries

Four-way design with sea turtles

At the same time, I was teaching about different ecosystems in science, so I combined the two ideas and made several 4-way designs, each featuring something about a different environment. Some of these started at the center and worked toward the four corners of the square, while others featured corner designs with simple centers. Here is a central-focus design of sea turtles swimming outward through seaweed. I used a background that suggested ocean waters.

Four-way design with penguins

The second design shows pairs of penguins close together for both communication and warmth. The background suggests a pale sun and air filled with ice crystals. This one was a favorite with the students.

Four-way design using a desert motif

A third pattern features a desert habitat. This time the main emphasis is at the corners where large lizards surround cactus plants. The background suggests sand, while a hot sun fills the center spot.

There is quite a bit of detail in the corner designs, so we will show you a close-up of one of the corners.

Close-up detail of the desert motif

There are other patterns in my files … somewhere. I'll show them at a later date. I hope you have enjoyed all of these and that they have given you ideas for either paper or fabric projects. I apologize for making you wait for them.

Did you ever finish the Siamese fighting fish you were doing in reverse applique?

Finished reverse applique of Siamese fighting fish

Yes, it was finished as a small wall hanging. Here is a picture of it. I am currently working on a companion piece of a fantail goldfish, intended to face this one. In fact, you will see a post very soon with the pattern and directions for the goldfish. If you like, you can then make one of your own. So look around for those pretty scarves, silk handkerchiefs and men's ties that are never worn. Reverse applique can give them a whole new life!

Hey, Annake, those “roses” at the top of Part IV of the Still Life series sure look like tulips to me!?!

Good catch! We share the blame. J.D. wrote the caption and I didn't catch it in proof-reading. We both know better, since we grow both tulips and roses in Annake's Garden. Blame it on late hours and hurrying to get the post online. Sorry!

When are you going to show the real basket of flowers from Part IV?

Here it is now. How does it compare with your design?

Original flower basket photo

Thank you for your patience,

A Note from the Gnome:
We recently changed our ISP, and the email address on our contact page no longer works. Until we can get a new contact page built, please address any correspondence to:  annakes_garden@yahoo.com


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

More Needlework Tips, Tricks, and Hacks

Paul Scarlett rose in Annake's garden

I made a needlepoint from your rose chart (August 26, 2013). I know roses don't come in blue, but it is my favorite color, so I made the rose in shades from baby blue to navy and I love it! Now I'm ready to do the background and I don't want just a plain color. How can I make the background really interesting without making my rose disappear?

Rose Needle Arts Chart from August 26, 2013 post

Bravo to you for choosing your own colors! It sounds lovely. I'm going to suggest you try a patterned background (and learn a new type of canvas work at the same time). First, look at this rose (“our” rose) done in continental stitch in tones of baby pink to burgundy. The background is a bargello pattern. Bargello is an old form of tapestry work — stitched on needlepoint canvas to provide an inexpensive fabric that looked like the much more expensive woven tapestries of the late Middle Ages. It is done in straight up-and-down stitches over a varied number of canvas threads. It is done with yarn and a tapestry needle, just like continental stitch. As you can see, the pattern did not overwhelm my rose. Blue is a cool color, so I don't recommend using the warm browns that I used for this rose. A silvery gray (you will need a light, a medium, and a darker shade) or perhaps a lavender might be a good choice. Take your rose with you so you can see the colors side by side before you buy the yarns.

Rose needlepoint with bargello background, made from chart

I'm going to take you through the stitch process with pictures. Outline the shape of a frame on your canvas in pencil, centering your rose. You are going to begin in the upper right-hand corner of the frame, but leave an empty row of canvas squares at the top, just under the frame line, and another empty row down the right-hand side, just inside the frame line. Begin with the medium shade of your chosen color. Don't use a strand longer than 18 inches. Bring your needle up from the back in the row to the left of the empty row on the side and two rows down from the empty top row. Stitch over the thread just above where your needle entered and immediately push your needle to the back again. You have made a stitch over 1 thread. Now make a stitch that passes over the thread below your stitch, your stitch, and the thread above your stitch (3 threads in all). Moving left, make another stitch over 1 thread. You have made a design that looks like a plus mark (+). Moving left, leave an empty row, then make another plus. Continue in this pattern across the frame. If you cannot make a whole plus at the end of the row, make as much of it as you can. Your first row should look like this:

Working from either the left or the right, put a plus (or a partial plus) directly underneath each plus (or partial plus) in row 1. The tops of the second row of long stitches share the same “holes” as the bottoms of the long stitches in the first row. Rows 1 and 2 should look like this:

End your medium-colored yarn for the time being and run the end under the backs of established stitches. Thread your needle with the darkest shade of yarn. Secure the ends under the backs of some of your plus stitches. Remember those empty spaces between the horizontal arms of your pluses? Now you are going to fill them with stitches over one thread. Your first two rows should now look like this (I have used plastic canvas so that the individual stitches are easy to see): 
 

Finally, fill in the remaining spaces with upright stitches in your lightest color. Each stitch covers 2 threads. No empty canvas shows between the stitches when you are using the size of yarn or floss appropriate for that canvas. Your completed rows should now look like this:

Detail of needlepoint rose and background interface

As you come to the edges of your rose, do as much of each pattern stitch as the space allows. I did all the plus stitches first, to establish the vertical rows of the pattern all over the canvas. Then I did the dark stitches to establish the horizontal rows. Finally, I filled in the light stitches. You, however, may prefer to work just one row of stitches at a time. Here is an enlarged picture of an area where the background pattern meets the edge of the rose. Don't forget to fill in the empty top and side rows.

The “plus” stitch you just learned is called Hungarian stitch. I hope this project has given you an interest in bargello stitching. If so, go to the post for April 10, 2014 or use the terms “bargello” or “Hungarian stitch” in our search engine for much, much more.

I have trouble with doing needlework from charts. I keep losing my place. Any suggestions to help me?

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.

Chart and ruler

For an easy-to-make tool to mark both the horizontal and the vertical lines in 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.

Chart and cardboard "tool"

When I am doing latch-hook, I place my (much larger) chart above my canvas. I always start my rug or wall hanging at the bottom. At the end of each row, I turn that row of the chart under, crease it, and secure the ends with clips. I hope these suggestions make reading a chart easier.

Thanks so much for the article on counted cross-stitch (June 12, 2017). I used to do a lot of that but I haven't done any for years. Now I look forward to doing it again. Could you help me with a problem that I have always had? My floss gets twisted and I end up cutting a lot of it off and wasting it.

I'm so happy that you are going to start cross-stitching again! Encouraging people to do activities that they enjoy is one of the main aims of this blog.

First of all, I would suggest using shorter lengths of floss. I don't use anything longer than 18 inches (45 cm), whether I'm using floss or yarn. I tend to use shorter pieces of floss because the strands can separate and fray. Twelve inches (30 cm) often works better for floss. There are two ways to handle the twisting problem. The first is to hold the floss away from your work so that the needle hangs straight down. The floss should start un-twisting. Stop it before it begins to re-twist and smooth the floss between your fingertips before you begin stitching again. The second method is to put the fabric down and hold the loose end of the floss in one hand and the needle between your thumb and forefinger on the other hand. Gently slide the needle up and down the length of floss until the twists straighten out. Be careful not to fray the strands in the process. These techniques should save you both floss and frustration. Good luck!

Happy stitching.

Iris Needle Arts Chart; download from our June 18, 2015 post

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

Four-way Designs from Hawaiian Quilts

Orange & yellow tulips in Annake's garden

Not long ago, we had an interesting question on one of our Question and Answer posts. The question was, “Do four way designs have to be geometric?” (To date most of the four-way designs we have discussed have been for needlepoint, particularly bargello (May 11, 2014, December 22, 2014, August 22, 2016). I replied that the short answer was, “Certainly not!” I went on to say the long answer would require one or more complete posts on the subject. This is the first of those posts. I thought back to a time some years ago when three classes of 5^th grade students had been studying about the tropics, particularly the state of Hawaii. I wanted them to do an art project related to the subject to complete the unit.

I have never asked my students to do a project — from kindergarten drawings to junior college term papers — that I did not do right along with them, so I did some research. I came across some materials about traditional Hawaiian quilts. These were done on square blocks in two colors, one for the cut-out silhouette and one for the background. The subjects were usually native plants as represented by flowers, fruit, and leaves. I did some practicing with colored construction paper.

Annake's pink orchid design on grey paper

Tulip design, cut from a quarter-folded sheet

The next class day, I showed the classes how to cut a piece of rectangular paper to make it square. Then we folded each square into quarters. I drew a simple flower and leaf design on one of the small squares, beginning at the central corner. I cut out the design, unfolded the paper, and turned it over so that the drawing did not show. Pressing the paper flat on a square of a different color produced a design very similar to the Hawaiian quilt designs. I did a different design for each of the three classes and displayed them so they could be studied. Instead of the unfamiliar tropical flowers, I used familiar garden flowers from our town gardens, such as crocuses, tulips, daffodils and irises. I did, however, display photographs of tropical flowers to give them a choice.

Four-way tulip design, unfolded

The assignment was to produce “quilt blocks” of their own. The first task was to produce a corner design that they thought was attractive. Since the drawings would not show on the finished cut-out, each student could do as many as four practice drawings. During the next session, each student chose the best drawing and cut it out of the folded paper (after being cautioned not to cut the four sections apart). Then each student chose a background square in a contrasting color and glued his or her pattern to it, carefully centering it on the background. They were allowed to add additional decoration if they desired.

 

Later all the projects were displayed on a wall of the school cafeteria. Most of the students then took their designs home, but a few wrote notes to me on the backs of their projects and gave them to me, a gesture that pleased me greatly. I want to show you three of these. (Yes, I kept them.) Remember that these were 10-year-old and 11-year-old children. The first one is typical of the designs. It combined a leaf cut-out with drawings of flowers and detailed drawing of the veins in the leaves. The second one is a very carefully and skillfully done cut-out with butterflies added in the corners, facing inward rather than outward. The last one is by a rule-breaker. (Those of you who have been reading these posts for the last four years know that I am a rule-breaker myself, and therefore probably more tolerant of rule-breaking than most people.) While the swans do hold together nicely, they are not connected at the center. It was then necessary for the young artist to place a patch of blue and white “waves” in the hole in the center of the design.

Student "quilt blocks"

Now you may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with me and my art or needlework?” That's a fair question. I expect, however, that the quilters among you have already started envisioning designs of your own. These might involve silhouettes of animals or toys for a baby's or child's quilt or vehicles or sports equipment for a man's pillow. The possibilities are endless. For those of you who want to further explore Hawaiian quilt designs, and who have a Pinterest® account (www.pinterest.com), there are enough ideas in their archives to keep you busy for years!

But let's return to the simple tulip design. You may wonder why I didn't make all the tulip leaves form “hearts”. That is easy enough to do. Try it for yourself. The answer is that I wanted a design that could be manipulated to fit a rectangle as well as a square. Since I had the pattern made, I cut it out of a couple of papers with patterned designs. Then I tried them in various combinations: plain-on-plain, plain-on-patterned, patterned-on-plain, patterned-on-patterned. Some of the most unlikely color and pattern combinations worked rather well, as you can see below.

Four-way square paterns with different paper combinations

Tip: If you are a beginning quilter, you may find it useful to collect a variety of papers in various colors and patterns. Paint and wallpaper stores and decorator's shops often discard wallpaper pattern books. If you ask them to save those for you, many will do so, especially if you are doing projects with school children, Scouts, senior citizens, etc. It doesn't hurt to ask. Then you can take a pleasing paper pattern with you to a fabric store and look for fabrics in the colors and with similar scale patterns to your paper sample.

On our next post on the subject of four-way designs (later this year), we will discuss multi-colored four-way designs in painting, collage, crewel, tent stitch, reverse applique, etc. In the meantime...

Use your imaginations,

More tulips from Annake's Garden

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