July 9, 2019 Tuesday

The First Day of My Remodeled Website

My New Year's Resolutions for 2021

I can't do better this year so I am keeping these for another year.

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 in 2021.

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.

Reminders for me as well as for all of you.

Thursday, May 12, 2022

I had hoped to write a summary of what I learned from stitching Tiny Flora, but I ran out of time.

Soon as my meeting is over this morning, I will write the lesson and post it on Friday morning.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

All along I have been learning lessons, yet more about faces as I tackled a difficult assignment.  I have always said, the hardest parts of a face in needlepoint: the severe geometric grid and not enough meshes.  

So I gave myself a challenge: I stitched a Tiny Flora. My Tiny Flora's face from nose tip to hairline is 5/8", from tip of forehead to chin, 7/8".  I just found the quarter in the photo: 7/8".

I wanted a struggle. Maybe not as much of a struggle as this turned out to be, but I wanted to experiment and then write about my trials.

This morning I have posted my three Tiny Floras made into small ornaments. Tomorrow morning I will write about my month-long journey down in the rabbit hole.

The first Tiny Flora took me a month to stitch and graph. Once I had the graph, she is so small I stitched the second and then the third each in a day.  It took me an extra day to make the backs. The way I put the ornaments together: 15-20 minutes.

So why all my fuss about small faces? I wanted to set myself up on a small study program in preparation for Susan B. I think she will have to be mostly in profile because of those tiny round glasses. The up side: I will have more meshes: if I keep her in scale with EC Stanton, I will have 26 meshes from side to side -- a huge 11 more meshes to work with. But what do I do about those glasses? Remains to be seen....

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

This Tuesday morning my comments about making FACES in needlepoint.

I wish I had had all the different needlepoint faces that I have collected. I have a super collection of both terrible and wonderful and they help guide me in some of my choices as I stitch.

But they aren't my images and I can't post them, so I decided to use cameos instead. I was delighted when I found the collection of cameos now on Queendom Webstie's Home Page because they showed unfortunate faces and then some possible corrections for the unfortunate faces.

Part way through these lessons, I spent a month down a rabbit hole: I tried to stitch my version fixing Miss Beauty Challenged in what was an impossibly small space. I simply didn't have enough meshes.

There is an upside: I will work on Susan B. Anthony to go with my tiny portrait of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It will be difficult but  perhaps made easier by the lessons I learned from Tiny Floras. My Tiny Floras were, at their widest, 15 stitches wide. On congress cloth that's somewhere between 1/2" and 3/4".  I have a more comfortable 26 stitches across for Susan B. if I am to match ECStanton. Much more comfortable, but of course I would always wish for more. Sigh...

Always about learning....

Monday, May 9, 2022

On this Monday morning you will find Miss Beauty-Challenged surrounded by a series of five prettier sisters. If you look carefully, I am hoping you will see how you might make some changes to help Miss Beauty-Challenged.

Tomorrow I wll weigh in on my observances plus a little bit of history about the cameos.

Then I have one more Surprise: I used all of these as inspiration and I stitched my own little interpretation. I will show you my little Surprise as we will transition to the final phase of my FACES Lessons: Part III, what can we take home about Needlepoint Faces from all these cameos?

With that, we will wrap up the series.

Sunday, May 8, 2022

Happy Mother's Day!

This morning I address some of the differences between Miss Beauty-Challenged and her more conventionally pretty sister.

Tomorrow we will start to move from Cameos to Needlepoint and I will begin compiling a list about creating faces on a defined angular grid.

I have spent the last month down a rabbit hole. Yesterday I dug myself out of that rabbit hole, ie I finished four tiny projects associated with these lessons and I will show them to you in the coming week, as my FACES Lessons draw to a close.

For all you mothers out there, I hope among your festivities you have a chance to spend a little time with your needles.

Saturday, May 7, 2022

You've seen the whole court now, all my cameos with beauty challenges. Now let's see if we can figure out what is wrong and how we might change the problems for the better.

How did I find these little cameos with beauty challenges? It happened when I was thinking of starting my little course on FACES and wishing I could post some of the problem faces in needlepoint that I had collected.

But the right to post the faces didn't belong to me and I'm not certain I would have posted them anyway. People do their best with their stitching.

That's when I found Miss Beauty-Challenged. I remember seeing her for sale and thinking, oh she's a perfect illustration of what goes wrong in needlepoint as well as cameos, how can I use her?  I bought her and once she belonged to me, of course I could use her how I wished.

After Miss Beauty-Challenged I found the others. I particularly like the four Handmaidens because they show a sequence evolving from quite dreadful to almost OK.

The cameos are all the same age, all mid-20th century, I'd say from the 1960's, so I began looking for cameos from the costume jewelry makers, particularly Krementz, and I found a small stash of cameos much the same style but with prettier faces.

I have a very small stash of 'Solution Cameos' as I call them and I will post them in the next few days.

Friday, May 6, 2022

I just posted my comments on Miss Beauty Challenged's Handmaidens. When I found them I thought they were a wonderful sequence as they improved, one by one.

Look at #1, then look at #4, MUCH improved.

Yes, she still has issues but she is a lot better.

I know we've lingered on cameos for a long time. I needed something to illustrate points. I thought it all out by looking at needlepoint and painted faces, some I loved, some I thought were dreadful but I had no right to post them on my website.

When I found Miss Beauty-Challenged I had the idea to use cameos and I hunted afterwards for ones that are about the same age as Miss Beauty-Challenged but they are her prettier sisters.

I will see if like my sequence this morning I can explain what is better. Of course, better than my own explanations: spend some time looking at them and making some notes for yourself.

If you collect  pictures of faces that run from least to most attractive to you, and you thumb through them and study them on an off, you will learn to identify what appeals to you and what doesn't. And that's the main point: beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

And it changes over time. It's like I love Miss Beauty-Challenged. When I first saw her, I thought ooo how frightful is she! But now because I feel such affection for her, I love the way she looks. We humans are nuts.

Thursday, Cinco de Mayo, 2022

Four Handmaidens for Miss Beauty-Challenged this morning on Queendom Website's Home Page, three of them variations on the same face, with different levels of success.  I will write comments about them tomorrow morning.

I am catching up gradually. I shirked web duties yesterday for an early start in finishing four sets of instructions and am happy to report I succeeded. These small projects will come at the end of my Lessons on Faces and they will help me make the transition from cameos to needlepoint.

For now let's concentrate on looking at the four Handmaidens and assessing their differences and varying degrees of success.

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

This morning, a little needle book that became an obsession of mine (I couldn't stop till I found out if my stitched QR Code worked) and a nice surprise.

I have to hand it to myself: I woke up eager to get on with all the work I'd been dallying over and I spent long long hours writing instructions yesterday, almos from before dawn until twilight. For once I ripped along!

Now I have to see if I can keep up the pace today and tomorrow and if so, I deserve a pat on the back.

Why all this fervor: I want to catch up so that I can work on Susan B.  I would like a month to see if I can figure out a small portrait of her to go with my ECStanton portrait.

I shall keep this short and get on with the day's work.

Tomorrow we will return to FACES lessons.

Monday, May 2, 2022

This morning on Queendom Website's Home Page I have posted questions I asked both Carol and Maxine about their progress with 15 Stitches a Day and their answers.

Thanks, both!

Tomorrow one more day away from FACES and then we will return to Miss Beauty-Challenged, her court and we will start addressing their problems. For tomorrow I had a little surprise recently and thought I would post my bit of news.

Life in a Rabbit Hole

Due to my FACES Lessons, I went down a rabbit hole about a month ago and have been trying to dig myself out ever since.  

In an attempt to demonstrate my ideas about fixing some of Miss Beauty-Challenged FACE problems I began stitching three tiny faces. Tiny pieces of needlepoint that should have taken total about 3 or 4 days took me the better part of a month!  

If I'd been smart, I would have given myself more meshes but I didn't, hence the rabbit hole.

Yesterday I finished. Finally. Now I can return to what I should have been doing all along.

Sunday, May 1, 2022

Happy May Day! I remember the joy of gathering flowers for paper May Baskets to hang on door handles when I was a child. Seems to have fallen by the wayside, the celebration of May Day. Now it has become a symbol of the labor movement all around the world. Things change.

Today I have checked in with Carol H. and Maxine M. and on Queendom Website's Home Page I have posted their progress.  Both have done so well this month!

Today I plan to write each a short list of questions and if they reply, I will post the questions and answers tomorrow morning.

It seems like the commitment to stitch a bit each day has helped both make progress. I should rewrite the program and say, A Minimum of 15 Stitches a Day.

I remember trying this myself. I think I worked either one minute or two minutes or 20 stitches a day for a month and at the end of a month it seems like I accomplished so much for maximum stitching time of 2 minutes each day.

The secret to this for me was leaving my work set up and always having my needle ready to go.

We will return to FACES Lessons day after tomrorow.

Saturday, April 30, 2022

The last day of April 2022 and now one of my favorite months has all but gone by.

May in our neighborhood is often overcast and foggy.  The locals always say 'May Gray' and 'June Gloom' and DH complains. But I think, better May Gray and June Gloom than the summer heat which can follow.

Good bye to a favorite month.

Behind the scenes I have been busy stitching a simple looking tiny project that has been hellishly difficult to do.

Have I succeeded? If you consider the power of sleight of hand in needlepoint, maybe. It has been an interesting journey and on down the line we will 'talk' about it.

So what is this hellish project?

So far in my lessons on FACES we have used cameos. On down the line we will transfer the discussion to needlepoint  and I've been making a couple of Tiny Flora faces to illustrate some points. In short, I have tried to fix some of Miss Beauty-Challenged's problems on the tiniest of needlepoint faces.

So what is the biggest lesson I've re-learned? The fewer the number of meshes in needlepoint, the greater the  number of problems. Sigh....

Tiny Flora Pink