May CQJP Block and Buttonhole Wheels

I caught up with the CQJP challenge and finished my May block.

On the blue patch I did the butterfly stitch from last month's TAST challenge.  I took out a bag of crewel embroidery thread, which I used here to tie the "butterflies."  I'll be using this more, it adds some nice texture.  I added minimal seam embellishments behind the vine, just to balance things out.

I figured out the knotted cretan stitch, shown above in coral, and embellished it with some French knots and lazy daisy stitch.  I found this birdcage in the jewelry section of a craft store, and hung it from the vine.  It's pinned in place temporarily, and I'll stitch it down when I piece the final project together.

Here's my semi-naked June CQJP block.  The cardinal print was a gift from Debra.

In stitching the buttonhole wheels, I stitched it once in a dark gold crewel thread, and then repeated the stitch over the completed wheel with a lighter gold thread.

The hand is also a jewelry component.  I'm going to figure out a way to camouflage the rings at either end of the piece.

...Some half wheels.

Not a bad start on this block.

Knitted Cardigans from Reclaimed Wool

I live in a climate where I always need some kind of sweater at some point in the day and  I recently finished knitting two new additions to my sweater wardrobe.  They both started its life as a 100% wool bulky pullover that  someone hand knit for the South American tourist trade.

When I saw it at the thrift store I knew it was too heavy for anyone to wear around here as a cabled pullover, so I brought it home, unraveled it, and gave it a koolaid dye bath. I wrote a tutorial for koolaid dying in an earlier post.  My favorite tutorial for unraveling sweaters for their yarn is here.

The yarn was a nice fluffy single, with no twist.

This reclaimed sweater yielded what seems to be an infinite supply of yarn.  I didn't dye it all, but most of the yarn I dyed blue went into knitting Abbi: Shawl Collar Cardigan, a pattern I bought on Ravelry.

This has turned out to be the most comfortable sweater and it has a slightly retro 60s look to it.

Some of the undyed yarn went into my Mitered Threesome cardigan, which you can see here drying on the floor after some mild blocking. 

I fell in love with this pattern when it was featured on the cover of Love of Knitting magazine in Spring 2011.  The pattern calls for multiple yarns in different weights, and so I cleared some small amounts of wool from my stash that were too small to be knit into a sweater by themselves.

Of course there's STILL more of the bulky reclaimed wool.  We'll see were its reincarnation takes it next.

Deja Vu

I'm catching up with the CQJP, stitching my May block with the TAST stitches from last month.  There on the bottom you can see that I did a half chevron stitch seam embellished with buttons.  The little yellow bird is being auditioned for that spot.  It's the bird or a red poppy, I haven't decided yet.

I used bullion stitch to add fanciful flowers to a branch that frames the white crane.  I like bullion stitch, it has a nice rhythm to it once you get going.  I added glass leaf-shaped beads instead of embroidering them.

The basic design for the branch comes from this 1970s-era crewel embroidery book.  I've added this to my collection in the past few years, but I know we also had one of these at home when I was growing up.

I stitched this vine motif when I was a teenager.  This piece of crewel embroidery was turned into a pillow and then had an unfortunate run through the laundry, but I still have it.

 It was an important learning piece.  Instead of the original poem I substituted a stanza (it continues on the back) of W.B. Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."  Here's the whole poem:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

You can hear a recording of Yeats reading the poem here on poets.org.  His lovely

recitation sounds like singing.

Travelogue: Barcelona

Michael and me on the roof of the Cathedral of Barcelona

Right after the semester ended Michael and I left on our anniversary trip to Europe.  We feasted our eyes (and our stomachs too) in Barcelona, Nice, and Florence.   I'm sure part of it is that everything was new to me, but I kept seeing one strikingly beautiful thing after another.

One of the first places we visited was La Boquería market where produce, candy, meat and fish were artfully arranged and very photogenic.  The colors and textures were very seductive and we ended up taking bags of goodies back to our apartment.

Griffins (?) on the roof of the Maritime Museum

Barcelona is an old city, founded by Roman soldiers around 15 BC as a military outpost.  Remnants of the original city wall, built in 350 AD, can be seen in various places in the old city.  Different styles of architecture from diverse periods in history can be seen side by side.

Doorway in the Barri Gotic

Sculptural medallion on the Teatre Principal

 I'm a closet history buff, and the history of Barcelona is fascinating to me.  One of the best museums we saw was the Museu d'Historia de Barcelona on the Plaça del Rei, next to the Cathedral.  They have an extensive excavation of a Roman site under a medieval palace, and you can see the way one era's structures are layered over another.  Interestingly, part of the Roman ruins included a textile dye works, weaving equipment, and a laundry: yes, the important stuff.


Upstairs, in the palace part of the museum, was an exhibit on the importance of calico or "indianes" production to the economic development of the city. 

Cathedral of Barcelona

 We visited the Cathedral of Barcelona twice.  It's an imposing structure begun in 1298, and built over several centuries.

The interior is almost completely accessible to tourists, unlike other major churches we visited on our travels.  The video screens you see in the picture above remind visitors how to behave in church.  No kidding.

We took the elevator to the roof for a panoramic view of the city and for a close-up of the spires of the cathedral.  

Among Barcelona's architectural  claims to fame is the Modernista movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Modernisme is Catalan Art Deco.  We went to a concert at the Palau de la Música Catlana, an excellent example of the style.

Ceiling detail, Palau de la Música Catalana

Ceiling detail

You gotta love people that decorate their buildings with flowers.

detail, Casa Lleó Morera, Lluis Domenech i Montaner, architect, 1864/1902

Another architectural bauble

And of course there were many Madonnas. 

Here's my favorite of the Barcelona bunch: Mare de Déu del Carme, taken in Santa María del Pi church. 

I'll be back more regularly now, with more stitching and with the rest of this travelogue. 

April CQJP

I finished my April block, only a few days into May.

The green seam is zig-zag chain stitch, and the flowers are straight stitch and French knots.  The yellow seam is plain old cross stitch.

In this photo the blue seam is wheatear stitch, the TAST stitch from two week ago, with orange French knots.  The orange seam is fly stitch with some tiny silver beads.  The pink seam is the TAST crossed buttonhole stitch for this week, accented with some tiny heart buttons and detatched chain stitches.

I used outline stitch, satin stitch, and stem stitch to embellish the center image of the hummingbird.  Tahlia sent me some retro-reflective thread from Textura Trading Co., which I combined with two strands of cotton for the bird wings.  The retro-reflective thread has a sparkle which is hard to see in the photo, but which gives the wings a bit of sheen.

In the right upper corner I put a little black bird like the ones that stand in the grass next to my house.  It guards some silk ribbon fuchsias. 

I'm going to put this project on hold for the rest of the month.  I'm wrapping up the school year and then Michael and I will go on vacation.  I may post some other projects in the meantime, but I'll pick up the next block in June, when I hope to catch up with the rest of the Tuesday Stitchers group.

French Knots

When my friend Catherine gave me the lace Madonna I used in last month's block, she also gave me these two small medals, which the merchant gave her as a gift when she bought the lace medallion.  These are images of St. Francis and St. Clare, and I added them to this month's block using shisha embroidery.  The medals are surrounded by some fern stitch and French knots, this week's challenge stitch.

The image of St. Francis has birds flying over his head.

These accents fit nicely into the block.  I see I'm going to have to step it up a bit to fill the remaining empty space before the month ends.

More TAST and April CQJP

The middle of the month was getting very close when I finally sat down to  work on my April block. 

Once I began I got in the groove.

In the top left corner I feather stitched a vintage robin patch.  The seam treatment is herringbone stitch accented with lazy daisy and straight stitch.

I put on my big girl pants and tackled the whipped wheels, the TAST from a few weeks ago.  This composition also has the stem stitch for this week's TAST. 

The leaves are woven picot stitch from Pat Trott's book Three Dimensional Embroidery Stitches, which has a lot of great floral designs I'll probably dip into again.  These cool little leaves are detached, which adds to the textual element.

A Brief Aside

All I've shown this year on the blog is embroidery, but I have kept the knitting needles going behind the scenes.  I'm perhaps a bit obsessive as a knitter.  I like its rhythmic nature, plus I get to wear the results.

Lately I'm especially enamored of garter stitch.  The repetition is meditative: it's knit stitch on both sides, and no purling, plus the fabric made by knit stitch is thick and cushiony.  I knit this shawl from a free Ravelry pattern: Kay's Tess D'Uberville Shawl by Kay Meadors.  It's blissfully mindless knitting, and I used leftover fingering weight yarn from the Faire Isle vest I made for my mother last year.  The color changes synced up nicely with the increases in the pattern.  I've noticed that I have a minor fascination with stripes these days.

When I wore this shawl to work, one of my colleagues was very complementary and also let me know that her birthday was coming.  I was happy to take the hint and to reward her enthusiasm for knitwear.  Over the Christmas holiday I made her this shawl, the Ridge and Furrow Triangular Shawl by Sue Grandfield, also free on Ravelry. 

Although not entirely knit in garter stitch, the ridges are garter.  This shawl was made from some reclaimed raspberry tweed wool, and the stripes are made from a skein of Noro Kureyon, a beautiful Japanese yarn with long color repeats.    My colleague was very happy with her shawl.  When she wears it to work she stops by to show me.

I decided to make myself another shawl with some leftover wool and alpaca blend yard that I had in my stash.

The pattern, 22.5 Degrees by Martina Behm, is also free on Ravelry. 

I've made this pattern before, but this time I made it extra long to wrap around my neck.  It's a garter stitch feast, soft and drapey. 

I'll return to the embroidery needle next week.  In the meantime, I'll curl up on the couch with some knitting.  Happy Easter and Happy Passover to those who are celebrating this weekend.

March CQJP

My March Crazy Quilt Journal Project block is finished.  I had left about half the block for the last few days of the month knowing that I'd have extra time to finish up.

This seam is a combination of Maidenhair stitch with Lazy Daisy and beads.

I used two bird charms that came in the swap box that's making the rounds between some of the Tuesday Stitchers group members. 

I finally stitched the morning glory motif in the upper right corner, but tearing away the stabilizer distorted some of the satin stitches.  I pulled them on the back side to straighten them after I took this picture. 

This lace Madonna motif was a gift from my local friend Catherine, who brought it to me from Assisi when she went to Italy last year.  She asked me if I was going to use it in this piece, and at first I said no.  I intended to save it, like a lot of very special things, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it really needed to go in this project.  Assisi, of course, is the home of St. Francis, and Catherine's gift is one of the inspirations for this whole project.  This very special accent is appliqued down and accented with French knots and Lazy Daisy.

Thanks again Catherine for your thoughtful and inspiring gift.