July 9, 2019 Tuesday

The First Day of My Remodeled Website

Permanent Resolutions for Stitchers

1.  Take all the pent-up anxiety about perfection and redirect that energy toward creativity. Open up your minds and think of creative  possibilities you can bring to your needlework, ways that will personalize it and make it distinctly yours.  Here are two ways to start:

Oops you made a mistake and you face a lot of ripping.

Ask yourself, is it really a mistake or a variation?

You do have to rip if you crossed most of your crosses in one direction and suddenly you started crossing them in the other direction, yep no way around that. Why? The real reason for good technique is that it allows all your attention to focus on your design (where it should be).

You don't have to rip if you made a leaf one row bigger than the design called for. This is obsessive behavior that needs redirecting.

You do need to rip if you make something so large it is out of scale with the rest of the design; you do not have to rip if it is barely noticeable.

You do not have to rip if you mixed up colors and the design is not exactly as the designer's model. For heaven's sake, if it looks OK, stop obsessing.

You do have to rip if a color or texture is not in harmony with the rest of the design.

You do not have to throw away a design if you run out of a dye lot.

If it looks like you are headed toward thread shortage, don't use the thread to the last strand, save at least 1/4 of it. Buy some more and decide where and how to introduce the new dyelot. I actually prefer to work with multiple dyelots. If you pay attention to lights and darks etc., they can bring an added depth to your design.

2. In memory of Audrey Francini, my generation's greatest needlewoman, slow down. Needlework is not a speed contest. Audrey was the slowest stitcher I have known. She was also the best. I have a couple of great stories about Audrey and her speed, I'll tell them in the next couple of mornings.

3. Forget about the Needlepoint Police. They don't exist except in their minds. You may meet people who think they know it all. Good for them, I applaude their confidence, but I don't buy into it.

I have probably told this story a dozen times but it is worth telling again and again. Years ago a friend wrote to me and asked, will this Kreinik braid look good with this silk?

I replied, beats me, try it and see.

Friend: whadaya mean you don't know, you're the teacher.

My reply: if the Immortal Artists Of The Western World don't know without trying, how would I, one mere mortal needlework teacher? (There's a bit more to thsi story too, I'll tell the rest another time).

All this goes to say once again, there is no real right and wrong, there are problems of course. The best way to find solutions is to think creatively.

Those are my New Year's Stitching Resolutions for 2021, still good for 2022, 2023 and for 2024.

Reminders for me as well as for all of you.

December 11, 2024 Wednesday

My 101st day today. So what did I accomplish yesterday? I filled in another small area with Tent Stitch and worked a pattern on the top of it.

Did it work?  For now it is a guessing game. Why a guessing game? Because the areas around this small area will be crowded with beads and pearls --- eventually.

Which beads and pearls? Haven't a clue yet, so I am guessing at how plain the small area near the beads and pearls has to be so that things eventually don't look jammed together.  If I err at this point, I should err on the side of simple, and that's what I elected to do.

Eventually, if I don't like the choice I made now? Of course that is always a possibility but I'm guessing I can live with it. It is a small area and so far harmony reigns.

Ahh the pleasures of designing. But as I have often said, I who am a timid person  turn into a Soldier of Fortune when I pick up my needle.

December 10, 2024 Tuesday

My 100th day today. What is this all about?

Last summer I spent a couple of months working away on a complex design daily for a minimum of 2 hours each morning. On days when I had time, I expanded my stitching to 6 hours.

I took an obvious break to mount my October EWEEK Sale and followed it by Mail Jail interspersed with Covid. On December 1 I started work again and today is my 100th day of work on my new project.

What is this new project? By far my most ambitious Queen. Another Queen? In 2018 I stitched Queen Victoria and declared NO MORE Queens. Now it is 6 years later and a flamboyant English Don changed my mind.  I couldn't wait to start, so start I did.

This one I'm not at all sure I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.  Tomorrow: how far am I in 100 days with my needle?

December 7, 2024 Saturday

A Day That WIll Live In Infamy.

So long ago the news programs rarely mention Dec 7 any longer, but it does make Kate Gaunt's Birthday easy to remember.   Happy Birthday, Kate!

I have been spending so many hours Tent Stitching so I have replayed a handful of favorite documentaries to keep me company.

My all-time favorite is a PBS American Experience documentary on FDR. It is old now, made I'm guessing 30 years ago when many of the people who remembered FDR were still alive and part of the program.

Scattered throughout were memorable reflections of FDR but this one was a favorite:  A year after FDR was buried at Hyde Park, Churchill laid a wreath at his grave "Churchill said that meeting Roosevelt was like uncorking one's first bottle of champagne." And that's how the documentary ended.

December 6, 2024 Friday

More on Gifts for a special stitching friend: in my travel teaching career, I often had pairs of special friends. They sat beside each other in class and oversaw each other's work, it was lovely to see!

In those days I made a lot of samplers with a myriad of techniques, and often the pair of friends would work on each other's canvases, so that one who was good at cutwork would do the cutwork on both samplers, whereas the other, maybe good at a technique demanding great control of tension would pay her friend back by working beautiful tension.

For avid stitching friends, in those days long ago, sharing experiences and techniques often bonded the friendships even more. Worth thinking about.

So how am I doing? Better. I talked to a friend about covid fatique and found out that he had it on and off for three months; it dwindled, he said, until one day he noticed it was gone.

I have better days now, then suddenly a flood of fatigue nearly drowns me. Then I'm fine again. I am taking the days easy with lots of mindless and never-ending Tent Stitch, but yesterday I transitioned to Brick Stitch on top of Tent Stitch. It is equally tedious but I love the effect.

All for today. Back to stitching.

December 5, 2024 Thursday

Yesterday and today, both days, I had some ripping to do. It is so tedious, but it is an important part of stitching -- sometimes you can't avoid it.

So how do I rip? I use a dangerous tool. When I first began, people warned me about the hazards to canvas and they are right, but over the years I have learned to pick at the stitches shallowly and (cross fingers) it has been a good number of years since I sliced and diced a bunch of canvas meshes.

Good example: in the last two days I have ripped a large patch of Tent Stitch on congress cloth; this morning a smaller patch. The trick, as I said above, is shallow pick pick pick of the stitches.

December 4, 2024 Wednesday

As I've been writing, I am stitching a new queen, and intensive she is.  So I've been putting in some long long hours including time after sunset.

How easy is it to pick up a close but wrong color and start stitching with it when the light isn't bright. I did just that and had to rip rip rip. Is there anything worse than ripping a fine Tent Stitch, row after row? Not a lot -- tedious, discouraging, who likes to go backward instead of forward.

My mistake reminded me of a long ago gift from one stitcher friend to another: do you have a good stitching friend who tabled a project because of an area that needs ripping?

Christmas present or birthday gift, offer to do her ripping for her. It isn't nearly as difficult for you because you don't have the hours of putting in the mistake so you won't sit there and think oh the hours you put into this mistake etc etc.

In my travel teaching days, stitchers I know dreamed up small gifts like this for their friends.  More on this one and other stitching gifts tomorrow morning

December 3, 2024 Tuesday

Ooops, I picked up the wrong brown on Dec. 1 and discovered my mistake. I groaned, no fun to rip a whole lot of tiny Tent Stitches.

How did I do it? I treated myself to my favorite tool for such tasks: a little Bohin seamripper. I got out a new one, guaranteed to be razor sharp.

I can imagine the number of people who KNOW that this can be a lethal tool slicing not only through the Tent Stitches but also through the canvas meshes.

I made it through the delicate surgery in a relatively short amount of time and nary a canvas thread disturbed.

How? Practice. A LOT of practice. If you do this quite often, your fingers become sensitive to the feel of a single ply of flexible thread and you learn to make a shallow scoop, when in doubt less thread plucked at 2 or 3 times rather than a giant scoop. Chip chip chip away at a small number of stitches, gliding along the surface of a small group.

I don't confess often that I use a seam ripper but I have for years, so I thought I would share this morning.

December 2, 2024 Monday

I got so engrossed in Tent Stitch yesterday, the morning passed and I forgot to update my website.

A day late, welcome to December on Queendom Website. My plans for this month: Stitch! Yes, as time permits, stitch and more stitch plans. Will see how it goes.

I stitched the weekend away and didn't tackle Wait Lists. I am going to stitch for 2 hours this morning, then hope I have the discipline to put aside my needle and get on with work.

TO REVISIT MY SALE,

CLICK ON DRESSING HENRY

How I rip rip rip: here is a Bohin Seam Ripper. Dangerous as it can be, it makes ripping faster and less painful.

Cost: $7.00- $10.00.