Castle Sampler border progress Tuesday, Sep 25 2007

Here’s my border progress. I am very curious and hurrying to work on it to satisfy my curiosity. *g*

 

  

Some things of note. 

All the colors are coming out much darker than on the reference photo. I also noticed on some people’s photos the design  has lighter colors than mine. For example on this one

http://image24.webshots.com/25/7/28/90/36572890uEnJfj_ph.jpg

But my result will rather look like this

http://image07.webshots.com/7/8/24/1/106582401IEpdEQ_ph.jpg

 Quite a difference! I suppose the only reason is the lighter version is coming from the kit and there the colors are different than in the book. I like the way my colors are coming out by now, as the other version looks too yellowish. (that means I am lucky to have this version).  

The over-one areas: I really enjoy working over-one (it’s not my first time but in the past I was doing it with a bit different technique). But I’d say that it does have some negative sides. You put the same amount of work and it takes the same amount of time to do full crosses over-one, but the result is a # of times smaller and less visible (or often almost invisible). Close colors placed together are almost non-distinguishable. The big letters look very good, but the tiny ornaments are IMO not worth to apply all the color changes the chart is calling for. Over-one is most suitable for detailed body parts like faces, hands and occasionally for some decoration ornaments.

 

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Прогрес на рамката.  Излиза че най-вероятно има две версии на този дизайн, като едната е от комплект, а другата е публикувана в книга. Тази, която имам, е по-тъмната, но на повечето снимки е показана по-светлата (жълтеникавата). Аз лично предпочитам по-тъмната.

 Техниката “през едно” която се вижда върху миниатюрните орнаменти и буквите, е подобна на гобленовия бод 1:1, но се шие с кръстче. Тази техника е най-подходяща за шиене на лицето, ръцете и понякога на отделни малки орнаменти, но не винаги си струва да се шие, защото количеството положен труд е същото както при обикновеното голямо кръстче, а това което се вижда е значително по-дребно и понякога едва различимо.

 

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Symbol clarification Saturday, Sep 15 2007

There’s one symbol in the chart which does not always appear exactly in the middle of the square - a black-filled “p”. It is placed that way for a reason, but there are no instructions given as to where exactly to stitch it. To some the answer might be obvious, and it did came to me after some thinking, but still it does need to have some additional guide of the principle of placing this symbol.  I understood the idea from looking at the finished reference photo (it was large enough to notice where this symbol was stitched).

The black-filled “p” in the middle of the ornament

 

should be done this way:

 

Similar principle applies to the symbol in the middle border, which surrounds the castle. 

I think this is an important information for all those who will work on this design.

 

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Има един символ в схемата, който не винаги е разположен точно в средата на квадратчето - черно “p”. Особеното му разположение има причина, но няма специални обяснения къде точно да се шие този символ.  Черното “p“ в средата на този орнамент трябва да се шие както се вижда на сканираното изображение. Подобен е и принципът при малката рамка, обграждаща замъка.

 

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CM update and blackwork Tuesday, Sep 5 2006

A lot of updates this time (and picture heavy) 

Firstly CM - the Knight’s figure was finally finished.

 

This is a 100dpi scan, so suppose the white rayon is better visible here. Somehow scanning at higher resolution and then resizing the image makes the more delicate light effects be lost. So as less resizing as possible.

What I have now waiting for me is the (a bit boring) upper part - stone walls and windows.

Now something blackwork-related.

While I did blackwork that presents in some cross-stitch designs (like Grapes and Quilts), I won’t say to have wide experience in this type of needlework, as entirely separate from cross-stitch. It is a different type, and also has a different style and requires a different look at things. Blackwork by now was something supplemental for me, a way to ornament the main idea. Also I have a big adversion to “old-fashioned samplers” (don’t know how this style is called exactly), and if there’s something to remind me of them I rather turn my head away.

But blackwork of itself is different than that; as said it does require a different view on things, and this is something I’d like to try to achieve. As with any art and craft, a certain understanding is needed so to uncover the special (and valuable) content. I don’t know yet if I’ll like it, but firstly I have to try to uncover it for myself so to know.

I have that book, “A beginner’s guide to blackwork” by Lesley Wilkins. I needed to browse it many times to understand that the motifs given prompt the reader to compose a sampler of his own, and not just provide ready charts. I like samplers, only if they’re not of that other primitive kind; if not then I enjoy the sampler idea very much. It also took me a while to find out that most of the motifs in the completed pieces are provided, but separatedly. My eyes are not yet used to quickly distinguish between motifs.

I don’t want to work small separate ornaments because there’s no application for them. Having enough of such stored in between books, I prefer something medium-sized that could be later put into frame. Thing is, I’m also not much convinced if a blackwork sampler will look good when framed. It should be something advanced so to have an artistic value beyond the technical appreciation from people who do needlework. Also for me a sampler must have a central motif/idea which should be large enough, and it supplemented with borders, ornaments, alphabet. To make several rows of blackwork motifs and call it a sampler wouldn’t be precise. What I would do, is rather pick a large blackwork ornament for the center, and fill it in addition with cross-stitch, so to achieve an exposure. That wouldn’t be a pure blackwork style but rather a mix, but blackwork for me is and will probably remain supplemental. Not a matter of taste, as “taste” is something very irrelevant when it comes to art. In art there’s no “various tastes” but “various degrees of understanding”…

So all this blackwork, there’s a big chance that I myself might not like the result and the style. But also there’s a chance that I might and will most probably employ a lot of creativity so to achieve the “like” result. *g* I’ll keep everyone updated.

On a side note I bought some different threads today, with a thought that blackwork done with DMC cotton will not look good. Cotton threads, especially dark ones (one strand) are too thin - esp. black 310 if used primarily to do the design with. What I bought are very nice shiny threads of turkish origin. Here they’re mostly used for very fine crochet. “Polyester dantel ipliği”. Will see if they fit for blackwork; nonetheless it was a nice shopping time.

They look a bit like balls, heh. Someone’s in a mood for scanning.

And that’s all I got for today.

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Teach yourself stuff in 5 minutes Wednesday, May 31 2006

Yesterday evening while having nothing to do (or rather having nothing to do that is worth it), I've decided to mutilate the remaining parts of the fabric the Drake is on, and do some excersizes. No worry, these parts are intended to be cut out anyway.

Having 3 new speciality stitches on the Celtic Cross (diamond eyelet, lazy dazy and satin), I went to search for some graphic examples on the net, as seemingly I am too dumb to figure it out from the examples given on the chart. This esp. RE the eyelet. It just didn't worked. I tried following several more examples and abused the fabric further, then gave up and went to search for a different example. This one worked perfectly from the first try:

I'd recommend this one for beginners, because it is easy to count your steps. I had difficulty with his type below because it is not very visible how many "overs" you have to go through.

But suppose it's a matter of growing experience, once you managed to understand the principle and do the counting correctly.

The lazy daisy gave me some headaches, not from being unable to do it but because of the thought that such loosely standing stitch WILL be squashed during framing. The framers hardly have an idea that there are some stitches which need to be paid attention to and are usually unable to tell the difference if they squash something. But as I am not planning to frame the celtic cross yet, this issue will be postponed.

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Animated Techniques Thursday, May 25 2006

Don't know what people think about this sites, perhaps they help some and some don't. There are many sites with animated "how-to"; I just found another one here:

http://www.victoriasampler.com/VS_Club/Animations/index.asp

(Review)

I've looked through the stitches that I already know, so to be able to compare my methods with the ones presented. Those I don't know yet, the animation makes little sense to me, mainly because of the fabric graphic. Hard to see your way on such "net", I am still struggling to figure out where the square is.

But lets look at the "lazy dazy" stitch example. On all graphics it seems quite easy to do, and here is shown the same method. However in practice the loop is not staying as shown on the photo - it tightens up into a straight line. If you really manage to have the loop remain looped, another issue comes - the thread is too loose. Try to frame a project with such loosely placed threads, and they will be totally misplaced from pressing the glass over the fabric.

French knot example - this thing shown here is a VERY difficult variant. Although faster than mine, try to stick the needle into the fabric while it has bended thread on TOP of it. My method is very slow and contains more steps but is relaxed enough. People, save your nerves, too.

Attaching beads - beads much sit tight and not loose, so there should be additional tightening of the thread on the back. Some people even recommend doing a full cross instead of only half cross because of that.

So generally, no matter how good the example may be, one has to be thinking about what he's doing, and whether it couldn't be better than that shown. Sometimes own thinking will be the thing to actually lead us to completing the task - because the various online instructions often lack a deeper look into things and do not reflect the idea that a type of stitch is also linked with other things and other steps of the whole needleworking process. "Seeing the bigger picture".

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Type of stitch Thursday, May 11 2006

I started to ponder whether I am doing something right or not-so-right. When there's a half of the symbol in the square I assume it is fractional stitch OR 1/4 stitch. In most of the charts it is not specified which one. Most of the time I do fractional (3/4) as it is easier for me and logic speaks to me that the intention is to make a curve in the design. But I've noticed Here that 1/4 stitches are done instead. A bit puzzling as I wonder whether this is actually the right thing and I am doing something wrong. But I also wonder that if you only have 1/4 stitches then (as seen on the photo) you have a bigger space showing through where you resp. have to lay the backstitch (again see photo). Backstitch done with 1 strand, wouldn't the fabric show through instead of being firmly covered with stitches as when using fractional? And generally, what is the principle when having half-symbol - 1/4 or 3/4?

Here I found something related to two "half-symbols" in one square.

"Where two colours share one square on the chart, work a 3/4 stitch in the more prominent shade, and complete the block with a 1/4 stitch of the other shade, as shown in the diagram on the right. Make your own hole with the needle in the centre of the block.

The combination of 1/4 stitch and 3/4 stitch often looks better than two 3/4 stitches, where you end up with a bulky four strands across the middle of a block of fabric."

I generally do two 3/4 but is no issue to do combined. Yet which one to do when I have only one half-symbol in the square? Btw, 1/4 is not very possible on Aida, but we're speaking about evenweave or linen for easier understanding.

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Chinese satin embroidery Sunday, May 7 2006

This morning I was referred to this image. Now sit tight on your chair.

This is a "two-face" embroidery as actually the back is a perfect mirror of the front. The thin fabric is also making some light effects possible, as you can see at the bottom of the picture - a lamp light or candle light.

Some more incredible examples here: http://forums.melissa.ru/index.php?showtopic=825 One of the forum participants actually embroidered one of the fishes.

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Rowandean Embroidery Thursday, Apr 20 2006

Was showed an interesting site, a type of needlework I haven’t seen before. http://www.rowandean.com/

The final result of such 3D embroidery reminds me of oil paintings; at least one has a freedom to produce a gloomy sky effect for example, and overally to experiment with light effects. The threads seem to be mostly wool and the types of stitches are many and combined. This already seems to be more “art” than “craft” as imagination can be used to add certain mood to the scene.

 

I used to paint a lot of gloomy sky scenes and rural scenes. But am not sure if combining needlecraft and art will give me the same pleasure as doing cross stitch. These two are different (at least for me). Cross stitching invokes a sense of Order and creation, a micro-universe of some sort where you especially lay down every element of the big picture. Art is something where you don’t have definite borders and the freedom is big and often paradigm-breaking. The less definite is the material you’re using (paint vs thread) the less definite is the world emerging under the fingers.

Anyway, back to this embroidery style, I think that I’ll have to try to see if I like doing it, but will either need a lot of graphic examples to learn it, or have someone teach me. There are workshops and courses mentioned on the site, but they’re in UK.

…Well, whassup with being an optimist, or even more, crazy enough to break free from time to time from the common sense? Another reason….to go perhaps.

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