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.

TAST Week 12: Barred Chain Stitch

I skipped week 11's Whipped Wheel stitch, which I'll probably come back to later.  It may not be destined for this particular block, but we'll see.  In the meantime, I added this week's Barred Chain stitch in brown there in the middle and accented it with a brown button.

The pink and blue stitch combination on the left is Chevron stitch accented with pink buttons and French knnots, and blue Lazy Daisy. The curved vine with purple buds is a hybrid of some stitch combinations in a Judith Baker Montano book.

She has several pages of floral stitch combinations in this book.

It also include instructions for a number of basic stitches.

Here's the block so far.  I'm saving that blank spot on the lower right for a special accent I'll add when the seams are done.

TAST Week 10: Running Stitch

I had an unusually busy weekend, but I managed to fill in a few spots on my March block.  I found a bit of sparkly thread to interlace with running stitch, and I added some fly stitch to the center image of the block.  I  used outline stitch to sew the doves motif, which I found in this old embroidery pamphlet I've had for awhile.  Since it has 55 cents penciled in on the cover, it must be a garage sale or thrift store find.

The pamphlet is undated, but it brags that, although it it written in English, it was printed in France, and it has the imprint of Thiriez & Cartier-Bression of Lille-Paris.  It also announces that a series of these "albums" is available "in Stores, Habersashers' and Ladies' Needlework shops."  Oh my.
 

The designs are charming and not snooty at all.

It gives illustrated directions for stitches, and some sweet projects.

Some of my favorite on-line sources for embroidery motifs are: Vintage Transfer Finds, where florecita has started posting again, and the mother lode: the Hoop Love Vintage Transfers site on Flickr, which you have to join to access, an easy process.  Once you're on the site, be prepared to spend some time browsing.

Have a great week everyone.  I'm on Spring break this week, which means I'm doing my taxes, car maintenance, and other deferred projects.  

TAST Week 8: Chain Stitch and Week 9: Couching

The February CQJP block is done.  I added more fly stitches to mimic feathers on the blue jay, and along the base of the tree as leaves for some blue French knot flowers.

I used chain stitch to create a vine for the tree trunk, and gave it some red berries.

The March block has an image of flying geese at the center.   I couched a wooded bead with Coral Zig Zag stitch right above it.
 

With some tiny beads, this became a fancy beetle.

I've picked some morning glories and some doves for the patches opposite the beetle.  Onward, onward.

TAST Week 7: Detached Chain

My little block is filling up pretty quickly.

This week I used the detached chain stitch (aka Lazy Daisy) to make silk ribbon leaves for my tree.  I had originally filled it in with perle cotton leaves, but they didn't show up against the busy background, so I pulled out the heavy artillery.  I didn't take out the original stitches, but just sewed right over them, and that worked out fine.

Like I have done with other accent motifs, I traced this little owl from an old embroidery book onto some tear-away stabilizer and stitched through it.  

The bird in the central panel got a few accent stitches, and I added a gold spider web.  My spider blends a bit too much into its leaf, so I'll add some outline in a contrasting color.  My double herringbone stitches got some green buttons, and I added more herringbone stitches and French knots next to the butterfly.

The middle of the block got some dark green buttonhole stitch and some red lazy daisy blooms.

I'm planning to embellish the two short seams to the right of the tree, and to add some foliage to the left side of the tree.  Then I think this block's done.  Onward to the next block!

TAST Week 6: Chevron Stitch

It's been very inspirational to work the TAST and the Crazy Quilt Journal Projects alongside my sister stitchers on the Tuesday Stitchers blog.  This week I shameless stole was inspired by Jane's post from last week about using wool felt to make a tree.  I had some felted wool, and I applied Heat n Bond Lite to the back, took some rough measurements of the space I wanted to fill, and drew a tree in reverse of the image I wanted.

I had to trim the tree branches a bit to make it fit the space, but after I was satisfied with the placement, I ironed it down.  Now there was no going back.

I've also been inspired by the way several of the Tuesday Stitchers have stacked their TAST stitches, and also the free form approach some have taken.  I filled my tree with chevron stitch in a rustic way.  I added some heart buttons that Debra sent me, which provide the pop of red I was looking for.  I'll add more later after I add a bird to the long branch on the right.

Because others have posted their work tables, I'm posting mine here too.  This is the mess I had to clear away in order to do my stitching today.  At first I wondered how I would ever think up enough ideas to fill 12 blocks.  Now I wonder how I'll ever fit it all in.

TAST Week 5: Herringbone Stitch

Thank goodness for the Superbowl.  It allowed me to sit down and get this bit of embroidery done while the rest of the family watched the game.   I got one seam done with two layers of herringbone stitch.

I'd been looking for something to help get my stitches even, and this peel and stick tape that I found in the embroidery isle at Michael's worked really well.

I positioned it on one side to do the light blue stitching, and then I flipped the same piece to the other side to do the larger dark stitch.  It was easy to use the centimeter measurements, which conveniently have no numbers. 

I stitched a butterfly over some iron on stabilizer, a method I showed in an earlier post.  I used satin stitch and chain stitch.   The little bird at the bottom was transferred onto a piece of linen and then cross-stitched on.  Maybe I'll add some beads to the herringbone stitch.  It needs a bit of zip.

TAST Week 4: Cretan Stitch and CQJP Block 1 Finished

I used this week's stitch, the cretan stitch, to make some grapes for the wheat.  Cretan isn't one of my favorites, and some folks over at the Tuesday Stitchers group agree.  I used a piece of ribbon to help space the stitches, and I think that helped a lot. I hope it doesn't look odd that there are grapes missing around the wheat,  but I didn't want to layer one motif over the other.  The grapes are lazy daisy and French knots.

I'm pretty happy with the finished block.  One down, eleven to go.

 I added a bug for the birds to eat.  The blue stitch to the left of the bug is called snail's trail.

The stitch immediately above the bird's head was the dry run for the snail's trail stitch.  I got the loop going the wrong way, and this is how it came out.  Because it otherwise looked okay, I left it.  If this stitch doesn't have a name, I'm naming it Snail's Trial.

The combination of stitches that runs behind the humming bird is the one I'm considering replacing.  It's got a wrapped herringbone stitch as a base, and it's accented with yellow lazy daisy (that's the part of it I like) and some pink French knots.  I've decided that my wrapped stitches look messy, and the spacing changes behind the hummingbird.  I'm not going to tackle this now, but I'm going to think about taking this out and re-doing it in an edited form.

Not bad for a month's work.  I'm really looking forward to starting February's block.

TAst Week 3: Feather Stitch and Some Design Inspriation

 

 I used this week's feather stitch to make a little plant for the hummingbird I also stitched.  The hummingbird is made up of satin and long and short stitch, and I used the background fabric instead of stitching on its breast to mimic the iridescent feathers of a hummingbird.  In spite of the stormy weather I still see hummingbirds in my backyard.  They come for the scattered jasmine blossoms that have bloomed out of season on the porch.

 

Here's another bit of feather stitch, embellished with buttons, that I actually made the week before.  I used perle cotton and some tiny buttons from JoAnn Fabrics.

Here's an updated photo of the whole block.  It's a nice spring scene, a respite from the winter storms that have finally come late in the season, but with full force.

Before I decided to make this St. Francis piece, I coincidentally found this book at a thrift store.  It's a collection of popular stories about Francis written about a hundred years after his death. 

The book has this wonderful inscription, and I felt included in its good intentions.  I've long felt an attraction to St. Francis's story.  He was the son of a rich man who rejected all worldly goods and recognized the brotherhood not only between people of different social ranks, but between people and animals as well. 

When I first thought of this project I though it might be in rustic browns like the Franciscan order's habit, but reading the book I came across a description of the place where Francis first undertook his work, a part of central Italy between the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea, considered an area of immense natural beauty.  When Francis and his friend Giles arrived in 1209, the introduction says they saw "deep warm valleys and sloping meadows rich in wheat and vines."

"While the two friars walked through the vast forests of poplar, oak, and beech, and inhaled the soft  fragrance of honeysuckle, clover, mountain lilies, and white roses mingling with the fresh sea breezes, it is no wonder that--as an old chronicle noted--'Francis sang aloud in French, praising and blessing the Lord for His goodness.'"

This description is guiding my design.

A St. Francis statue hanging in my house