The Floss Box

Crewel Bird

2012-03-07T03:52:00.003-08:00

I finished a new little crewel project. This one is a little bird.

I think I might have spent more time removing stitches than stitching them on this one. I decided I really needed to break out of using the same stitches all the time. I used closed cretan stitch for the red part of the wing and closed herringbone for the white part. I don't know if I have ever used cretan in a project before. I don't think so. I have used herringbone and even closed herringbone at least once, but it isn't so often. It's a really nice stitch. It turned out to be a real challenge picking the right colors for the darker fabric! There is so much more contrast with the light colors and the medium colors can disappear a bit.

Time to move on in any case! I think I will do another little crewel project before I move on to something else. I have to keep these little projects rolling if I am to ever get a bedspread made!

Crewel Crazy

2012-03-04T01:27:00.000-08:00

I can't help it, the wool is beautiful to feel and see. My "new" book came in the mail this week:

It's 50 years old, but it's easily the best book on crewel embroidery that I have seen so far. It's not a pattern book and only some of the pictures are color. But it doesn't matter, there is history, design ideas, stitch instructions, and lots of inspiration. She was a prolific embroiderer and designer. Her love of all things embroidery really shows through in both this book and her other Book of Embroidery. They are both worth owning. I found my copies on Amazon in the used books tab.

One thing I don't understand why she and her editor included in the book is a very strong attack on people encouraging embroiderers to learn to draw and design their own work. Learning to draw, anyone can do. I'll come back to this another time, but I taught myself to draw just last year with the help of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I have a lot to say about this - but it will wait a little. As for good design, it IS a matter of practice. Good designers are good because they put hour after hour in, and they go a step beyond just the time, they push themselves to do it better and differently every time they start a new design. However, she is absolutely correct that there is nothing wrong with being inspired by beautiful historic examples. I would go farther though and say all designers are influenced and inspired by others around them. All ideas come from somewhere, the good designer or artist will see something new in those ideas and take them farther, putting their individual interpretation and expression into their work. I also agree with that no matter the source of the design, each of us as an embroiderer has the opportunity to make our own personal, artistic interpretation of the design through the use of color and stitch. (It's the main point of my embroidery book and I do plan to expand on this idea in the next book!)

I have been uncertain what to do with my small crewel projects. But her book gave me the thought to sew them together. Maybe a wall hanging or even a bed spread if I do enough of them. I laid them all out to see how they might look together:

The answer is they look great. (Ooops, just noticed that the bee is upside down!!) A little photo does not do them justice. They each have their own color and feeling but none of that is diminished when seen as a group. The wool makes it easy. Now I have a little birdie here sitting waiting to join the group. Better get busy!!

TAST Time

2012-03-01T09:16:00.002-08:00

I made a little couching sample for this week's stitch. I decided to try something a bit different.

I did a little weaving - very simple with wool yarns, plant-dyed. I cut yarns and left them long. The outside yarns wanted to fall out, but I pushed together as much as I could, then couched down the lose threads, but not the whole way out to their ends. Then I added a couched border. I ended up first couching the threads down with regular small straight stitches to anchor down the yarn. I really wanted to anchor it down with something a bit more unusual, but it just didn't work going around a circle. So after I couched down the yarns, I stitched over them with cretan stitch. It was fun. It's not a composition, just a sample of using couching in a different way. There is much more you can do with it. One of the most fun things I ever saw was couching down rolled up candy wrappers. The added sparkle!

Weaving

2012-02-27T22:13:00.002-08:00

Weaving feels like a forgotten craft. But I was visiting blogs last week when the light just went on. On Spirit Cloth I saw Jude's simple weaving, and I just said ohh, I can try something like that too.

When I think of weaving, I think of giant complex looms. It's because Mr Floss Box's mother used to do a lot of weaving and her loom is very large. It's not something you can just sit and play around with. You have to Weave. This little project is made with wool, and I used string for the warp threads that is made for weaving old-style rag rugs. I made the "fabric", then I just had the thought to put a simple embroidery on it. I am a little surprised that I don't see more textile workers creating their own fabrics to use in their work. Maybe they are, but I just look in the wrong places.

Weaving is a craft with a long history as you know. Machine-made cloth is a new thing in human history. Sweden has a long tradition of hand-weaving. It's been popular up to about maybe 20 years ago. It still has some fans, of course. But there was a time, and it wasn't all that long ago when women (and some men!) still did a substantial amount of weaving of home textiles out of necessity. Linen was the traditional material to use. The climate allows for flax to be grown, but it's an unbelievable amount of work to make it into fibers that can be woven.

So when we go around to the flea markets, I often take a minute to check the home textiles to see if there are any of these lovelies to be had:

This is my small, but growing pile of hand woven linen towels. The quality is unbelievable. A few are barely used, but some saw a lot of use. Even so, modern kitchen towels are no match for these. How can you tell if they are hand-woven? Look at the edge.

The uneven edge is a hallmark of hand-woven cloths. They didn't just limit themselves to little towels, but also wove sheets and tablecloths and other fabrics for embroidery. The cloths were made fairly narrow, so two lengths sometimes had to be very carefully hand-sewn together. On the bottom and top edges of the towels you can see how carefully the edges have been turned over and sewn with tiny stitches. An added tag to hang the towel is also carefully sewn down.

Weaving wasn't just for making towels and other linens, also for making rugs. All leftover fabric scraps could be used. In old pictures and artworks you can see rooms criss-crossed with long rugs. We have been picking up old woven rugs when we find them to put down in our houses.

They were usually laid over the areas that people walked. They look great sitting on the old wooden floors.

We've come a long way. Now we have machines to do it all. We throw away old clothes and bits of cloth. You are free to spend the evening watching TV or sitting on FB, but I have to think... These people that worked with their hands doing slow, careful work, created objects of amazing quality that stand the test of time. What are we creating that will be here when we are gone? Do we expect that future generations will have the same luxury to consume without thought that as we have had? It's my belief that future generations will look at us as incredibly wasteful, not just with our resources, but our time too.

My work is simple, it was mostly an experiment (or that's my excuse!). It's an honor to see it stacked with these fabulous cloths.

One final thought to end with. There will be those that sigh, that think that it's so much time "wasted" when you sit and work with your hands especially when you can just go to the store and spend a little money. Instead focus on that you have to let the time create the quality.

The Hare Crewel Embroidery

2012-02-23T05:40:00.000-08:00

This is my finish for the week:

As you see more crewel embroidery. This has a little bit of spring feeling to it, which is good timing because the weather is improving quickly! I didn't really plan it, but this to me has a little bit of old time sampler feeling. I like that. I might think of other ways to bring that feeling out.

I wrote a long post about Pinterest, but I wasn't sure this was the best place for it. I have to think about it. I am not writing about how to use it, but rather how to protect yourself from it. They are basically uploading your photos to their server and claiming ownership whenever someone "pins" something of yours. A flurry of articles is being written, and most are calling it wholesale copyright infringement. I think a lot of crafters and artists need to be very wary. Personally I welcome people to use my images IF I get proper credit, but in this world, that is not a given, so I am going to be marking my photos from now on, even if I think it ruins them in a way.

Now I have to see what projects there are for doing! I am waiting on some needlepoint canvas to come. Am I about to start needlepoint? Well, there will be some but what I really need is a sturdy fabric so I can try my hand at some projects with more dimension in them. There is lots to learn. It should be fun!

February Embroidery Journal Project

2012-02-17T00:30:00.001-08:00

Yesterday you got a sneak peak with my tutorial. Today you get the finish!

First a few details about the project. I stitched this on plain woven cotton. I used Appleton crewel wools throughout. Lots of long and short, but a few other stitches are in there too, stem stitch, split stitch, french knots, satin stitch and couching. I wanted some interest in the background but nothing to overwhelm my little bird, so I chose to add some beads to give the feeling of snow falling. They look dull in the photo, but in the light they add a lot of sparkle. They are nice contrast with the fuzzy wool. This here shows by the way that "stumpwork" or raised embroidery as I really prefer to call it, is not just meant to be stitched with fine cotton and silks, but any thread you can imagine. So this I call my crewel stumpwork project.

Now for the reason I chose this subject. This bird is the great tit. I feed the birds all year round even in the summer. The woods surround us (the woods don't actually have many birds in them as they are production forests not natural forests - more about that another day) but when you come to our property you can hear the birds singing. These little birds stay here all winter long and keep me company. They are one of the most common birds in Sweden and have a truly wide variety of songs, but some are reserved for the spring and summer.

Like many of you, I long for spring, the winter is long and dark here. So it was quite a welcome surprise and a reminder that spring is on its way when I heard the first mating song already in the middle of January. The days are growing longer fast now, the sun shines stronger each day, but the air is still cool, and the snow remains on the ground. But these little birds are in a hurry just as we all are.

My little tribute to the birds wouldn't be complete without a photo of a real one. This is a young fieldfare. I'm counting the days till new life flutters around us.

Embroidery Slips Tutorial

2012-02-16T01:35:00.000-08:00

This week I have been working on my embroidery journal project, and I thought I would take the chance to show a useful embroidery technique. Making slips has been around for centuries. It was a convenient way to make an embroidery that could be moved from one object to another when the background fabric got old, thus preserving the work. So what are they and how do you make them?

Embroidery slips are bits of embroidery that are sewn on one fabric then appliqued to another. They can be fully stitched in or partially. They can be stuffed in order to give dimension to your embroidery. They are widely used throughout stumpwork, raised embroidery, for this reason.

So the first thing you need is a design! I have made these slips many times now, and I recommend always enlarging the area to be attached by about 7% - this number will be higher for small objects. How can you tell how much that is? I made a little graphic of my before and after to demonstrate this. In this example it's maybe 1/16 inch.

This is something to consider to when planning your slips: It is really difficult to make nice little points. So in this example. I don't include the beak. It's easy to stitch those little details on at the end.

Next, you really should embroider as much of the background fabric as you can before attaching your slip because it will be in the way and might get worn or dirty. So that is what I have done:

A note about marking the fabric with the slip is to be attached. I have had troubles in the past with the slip not being the size I intended, so I really recommend that you mark it very lightly or with washable ink because it is very difficult to get the slip to sit exactly over the lines. It's a little hard to see, but I marked the beak, the top of the head, the lower belly, and a little on the back. The tail feathers are also a reference point too in this example.

Next mark and stitch your slip on another piece of fabric. Then cut it out leaving about a quarter inch seam allowance. You will need to trim curves and points a little which I haven't shown in the photo.

Then turn under the seam allowance. You can use pins to hold them down. I always pin the slip to the fabric by just poking the pins straight down. They will be in the way, so you have to work around them, but it is simply to bulky to pin them properly. At the very start you need to go slowly and be sure the slips stays where you want it to be as you make your small stab stitches.

If you plan to stuff it, start in a place that is easy to leave a little opening. I chose the back of the bird. I have used floss, but I think sewing thread is best for attaching the slip. This time I used hand quilting thread. It's extra strong. Continue around the shape making little stab stitches.

When you have a little open space for stuffing anchor your thread to the back of the fabric so it doesn't pull loose while stuffing. I have done these with very small gaps, but this one allowed me a little extra space, so my gap is maybe 3/4 inch. You will need something sharp but blunt at the end to push in the stuffing. I sometimes used tweezers I hold shut. It can even work holding your embroidery scissors closed, just don't push to the edge.

Stuff your shape lightly. It nearly always bulges a little on the back, so don't make it stuffed like a pillow. Then close your opening with more stab stitches.

The next step is optional, but it separates the pros from the amateurs. It takes a little extra time, but it improves the appearance substantially. You will need to go around the edge of your shape and make little straight stitches with matching embroidery thread to cover where the fabric and the slip meet.

Go around the whole shape like this. For this example, I also extended the stem stitching on the wings by 1 stitch to cover the gap.

You can seen above that I have covered all around the edge. I also added a few straight stitches for the beak, coming up through the slip and down in the back ground fabric. If you do it the other way, you will squish your slip down.

And now you are done!!

My little bird really stands out from the fabric. More and better photos are coming when I am finished with the project.

Final notes. This technique is not hard, but it does take a little extra time and patience and some practice. It really does look great in the end, so I highly recommend it as a way to make your embroideries more interesting.

Embroidery Journal Project Blog

2012-02-12T23:59:00.000-08:00

I decided it wasn't really working for me to have posts about this all over the place here, so I created a new blog for the project. If you want to join so you can make your own posts, please send me a message for an invitation. If you want me to make a post for you, send me the photo and a short description. Otherwise you can send the photo to our Flickr group.

I have created introduction pages about the project which I have just copied and pasted from this blog. I will keep doing as I have and make monthly posts for people to leave links to etc as they wish. Hopefully I will find time to make lists of all the projects posted by month!

Go to the Embroidery Journal Project blog.

Herringbone stitch

2012-02-12T00:52:00.000-08:00

I have been busy so far this weekend! Here is my herringbone sampler:

1. The basic stitch.
2. This stitch can be varied horizontally and vertically. The possibilities are numerous.
3. An example of a threaded and woven herringbone stitch. There are other ways to wrap, thread, and whip this stitch.
4. Layered herringbone stitch. This has a really lovely texture and feeling.
5. Rows of herringbone can be stacked on top of each other with different sorts of alignments.
6. Herringbone broken into discrete units.
7. An irregular, but repeating herringbone variation.
8. Herringbone is well suited to fill irregular shape. Add extra interest by changing the spacing of the stitch.

I am nearly caught up with these. I realized that I am missing a sampler for the buttonhole stitch, so I will try to do that this week when I work on the next stitch. These samplers take me about 3 hours to do. It does take a bit of time, but not so much. And they are great to have. I really need to figure out a way to collect them all together though! By the end of the year there will be many of them.

Chevron Stitch Sampler

2012-02-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

I've completed my chevron stitch sampler. This is for this past week's TAST.

I numbered my variations, so I could easily describe them.
1. The basic stitch
2. Chevron stitch can easily be varied in height, width and width of the horizontal stitch. I just have a few example shown, there are many more possibilities.
3. Here I have woven through the bars with a contrasting thread. There are many other ways to whip, wrap and thread this stitch.
4. In these two examples I have made the stitch in discrete units.
5.There are many ways to make rows of this stitch that line up in different ways in order to fill an area.
6. Overlapping rows make a denser filling and have a lot of interesting texture.
7. A row with varied heights.
8. A row of irregular stitches.

This type of sampler seems to suit me, so I plan on continuing with them. I am up to 14 little samplers now. And I do actually find myself referring to them when I am looking for a stitch to use. I would encourage everyone to do some sort of sampler where you just focus on making variations as they are a great way to get an idea of the possibilities the stitch offers, and you will learn a lot about how it looks on the fabric.

A note about the fibers I use: For these samplers I use linen thread in different thicknesses, wool in both crewel and tapestry weight, and soft cotton yarn. I like these threads for their thicknesses and the texture they add.

Bee and Flowers Stumpwork Embroidery

2012-02-10T02:41:00.001-08:00

I have to admit that this project tested me. I wasn't at all happy with it as I went along. I was determined that it would be finished though.

Hard to say what exactly bother me so much. I can tell you though that I thought the bee body looked very odd when it was just the fuzzy yellow and brown, especially next to the flowers. After I add the beads and antennae it suddenly looked much better. The wings of course helped too.

I made everything with cotton threads but the bee body. Those are Appleton wool threads. I just wanted to try a different look than cotton offered. It worked out in the end.

Now I put this aside and see what is next on the list! I am going to do a chevron stitch sampler next, and maybe the herringbone too. Then I plan to do my February journal project. I already have a picture ready to stitch. Then there is a rabbit waiting for me. You see, there is much to do! :) I have a new side hobby I am going to show soon too. I just need to get some scans. I have a lot to say about it so I have to think a little. I'll be back soon! :) Until then keep those needles flying!!!!!

TAST in a row

2012-02-06T05:11:00.000-08:00

Everyone is making such lovely compositions with their stitches! If you haven't seen them, you can pop over to Pin Tangle or Stitchin Fingers and have a look at some of them. I sat down and wanted to try a composition too, but I just wasn't excited about what I had drawn, so I just picked up my needle to see what I felt like doing. It turns out I just wanted to make some simple rows with the stitches.

So far we have feather stitch, buttonhole stitch, cretan stitch, herringbone stitch, and fly stitch. I think it's great to see them side-by-side. It gives you the chance to see how each has a different movement and feeling. (Remember to think of them as brush strokes!) I will continue making rows of stitches on this cloth. I may add variations, I don't know. Sometimes you just have to wait and see what feels right. I didn't re-post my sampler that I had made for summer stitch school for cretan stitch.

Tomorrow is a new stitch. We will see what fun there is to have with it!

Cross Stitch WISP

2012-02-05T05:25:00.000-08:00

I haven't been as fast as I had hoped, but I am making steady progress! Enough so to justify a little update.

I made this design in honor of my mother who is a quilter. So of course, guess who I am stitching this for. I just have to be done by June, which I can surely manage! It's a nice project, and I already know she is going to like it!

Europe is in the midst of a deep freeze, but it's perfect for staying inside and getting lots of stitching done!! Next I have to catch up a little on the TAST stitches. I got behind. Also time to think about this month's embroidery journal project. It feels like winter should be my subject, but I don't know about that. I am counting the days until spring starts!

Love Birds Crewel Embroidery

2012-02-03T01:01:00.000-08:00

Hi, I rested a few days last weekend and spent some time thinking about what projects I most want to do. Sometimes the way isn't always so clear, and I get easily distracted. We'll see in the days ahead if I can focus in on what I most want to do. In the meantime, I at least found a fun project to do! I call it Love Birds.

I like the feeling of the birds flying towards their nests. Feels a little both of Valentine's day and spring. The colors are soft to add to the feeling.

Something a bit unrelated that has been on my mind late is that I hope I can find some balance with the blogging. I admit I am very alarmed by the ever-decreasing privacy we are allowed on the web (which itself has become a sign that you are suspect). It used to be no one would use their real name or post family photos, now the opposite is routine. There are profound implications of this new behavior. It feels better to consider those than rush out and write about all the details of your life. So I refrain from showing too much about myself and the other things I do because I really intensely dislike that my life can be sold to the highest bidder. Think twice about what you write and post. Even the most innocent can be twisted in ways you didn't even imagine by those that collect and save your data. I feel compelled to limit myself to my stitching and a few nature photos here, even if it makes me more distant and less "social". I know there are still many stories to be told even if I am selective!

In case you wonder where that all came from, this issue has been in the news and on my mind lately. I and many fellow crafters are completely reliant on the web. It's worth a putting a little thought into what we put out there because it will follow us around for a long time.

February 2012 Embroidery Journal Project

2012-02-01T00:54:00.000-08:00

A new month begins, and so it's time for a new month of the embroidery journal project. If you want to know more about this, please visit the embroidery journal project page.

After you completed your project please post a link here. It will be easy for me to collect them then. There is also a Flickr group available to send your photos to as well.

Thank you so much for joining in!!

Sheep Crewel Embroidery

2012-01-26T03:31:00.000-08:00

I finished another little crewel embroidery yesterday, so here it is.

I didn't plan to do the sheep with turkey knots from the start. I had been thinking long and short, but then when I stopped to think about my other choices, I decided to give the turkey knots a go. I used 3 strands in the needle. It made it easier to try blending the colors. I didn't really know how close together the stitches should be for a nice result, but three strands is really a lot of yarn. I didn't really expect the result to be quite this dense though!

It's very soft and fluffy, just as a sheep on fabric should be. It is quite high above the fabric too. The only thing is, the head is looking a bit flat compared to the body. But since the head was already stitched, I let it be as it is.

I got some questions on Flickr about crewel work last week. I had been thinking to write out nice answers here as Flickr really isn't a good format for anything other than very short messages. If any of you have any questions, you can leave them here. I will be answering them shortly!

As always, thanks for the comments, and thanks for reading my posts!! I hope you get a little inspiration from my work to pick up your needles!

Creature of the Deep Blue Sea

2012-01-22T01:28:00.000-08:00

I've been busy working on more wool stitching! My subject this time in an octopus.

I wanted a semi-realistic shape so I did a photo search and got a feeling for how the head should be. The tentacles are a bit exaggerated, but I wanted them long so you get the feeling of them floating around in the water.

After I made the octopus, I added the seaweed on the sides and the middle. I managed to use this week's TAST stitch, the feather stitch in there! And even better I found a great use for the wheat ear stitch. Makes perfect sea plants.

Lots of french knots and a starfish finished off the embroidery. I really filled the fabric this time! Next up is a sheep. I already made the design.

And finally, we went out to the flea markets yesterday as we often do. I found something a bit special this time.

Unfortunately the name and name plate are missing, but this is a Willcox and Gibbs sewing machine from about 1885. It has no bobbin and makes a single thread chain stitch. This design was patented in the 1850's. I can tell you, this little machine isn't a lightweight. They surely don't make them like this anymore! In the background is an antique Husqvarna sewing machine from the early 1900s. So now the count is up to 3 antique machines. I swear I am not a collector, it's all Mr Floss Box's fault!

Feather Stitch: TAST Week 3

2012-01-19T22:57:00.000-08:00

I made a little sampler. This time I used tapestry wool yarns. They are soo nice for making these sorts of samplers. Nice, fat yarns, so you can really see the stitches. And I discovered that I really like these yarns because they sit up on the fabric and give lots of extra dimension. This sampler is different!

Basically, I threw out the idea of making nice even rows of perfect stitches. Why not let some of the chaos that surrounds our lives come out in the needle. I know there is an instant left-brain reaction not to like it, but you can't help looking extra, trying to find the patterns. I just stitched, I stitched right over other stitches if they were in the way. I really like the layering in any case. It's complicated and sometimes hard to see what's underneath. Ok, maybe I am reading a lot in, but I just couldn't be "neat" with this one.

You can refer to a previous sampler I made if you want some really nice laid out variations of this stitch:

Winter Bliss in Black

2012-01-18T00:33:00.000-08:00

I re-stitched a design, something I almost never do. I needed to know the amount of thread I used, so I chose to do the skate in black for something different.

The black is a little more dramatic maybe, but not so different. I was uncertain of my color choice for the branches on the side, but working with the colors again, I think they work together quite well. I mirrored this one so I could place the two skates side-by-side.

They look good together.

Stitches are like brush strokes

2012-01-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

I've worked hard on this, but now it's finally completed. It isn't a project, but instead my first book of embroidery, and I just have to say something about it here.

This is my first book, so I start at the beginning. My main theme throughout the book is that embroidery is an artform and for us, the stitches are our brush strokes. We can learn to use them, just as an artist would to achieve different effects. However, we must learn to use those brushes through practicing the stitches and seeing the possibilities each one offers us. I start with 10 basic stitches, not just how to form them, but ideas of how they can be varied and used in projects. There are suggested exercises for each one to help get you started. Then there are 7 patterns included for you to work with. The book is 42 pages plus the patterns with many photos from my embroideries. In short, I don't just tell you how to make a bunch of stitches, but rather the goal is to show you some of the possibilities and get you thinking in a different way.

This book is a beginning but not just for beginners, but for all of us seeking to make our work more personal. We all have a different viewpoint, let this come across as you choose stitches to incorporate into your work. And remember, the main thing about art is that it is an expression from within by the artist, so take the time to learn the media and techniques to help you increase that expression.

It took me 8 months of on and off again work to put this together. In that time my ideas had time to grow and develop, and in some ways, this book is almost like a journal (although it isn't written like one). I've been a stitcher and an embroiderer for awhile now - I'm not a "beginner", but as I came to the conclusion of this project, I realized that I really am just a beginner, there is so much more to do and learn. Now it's time to get going and really start stitching!!!

Buttonhole Stitch TAST Week 2

2012-01-16T04:55:00.000-08:00

I am slow posting this! I did actually have it done on Friday.

Lately I've been interested in stitches that can be layered for interesting effects, so that is what I focused on in this sampler. There are many ways to layer the blanket (buttonhole) stitch when stitching in a straight line. All my straight rows are collected there in the middle. I then tried some different ways of layering the buttonhole wheels. Those are fun and lend themselves well to layering. The variation that I thought was most interesting was the curved line. After I stitched it and looked at it from a distance, I saw something that would make an interesting bending leaf/branch for a tree or plant. My arc got a little uneven at the end, but try to look past that.

I think I will use it in a project soon. I tried a few variations, managed to find one that will be useful to me, that's a success in my book.

Next week - or I should say this week, I'm going to be a bit quicker!!

January 2012 Embroidery Journal Project

2012-01-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

I've completed my embroidery journal project for the month! It's a bit different, but it has a meaning.

I thought about what theme I wanted for the month and decided I would use new beginnings. It took me awhile to choose this theme. I've considered many others. New beginnings - not just because it's a new year, but also because I feel I am starting a new phase with my embroidery. I am hoping to break out of some of the boxes I put myself in and try new things and new ways of incorporating stitches. In short to see more of the possibilities embroidery offers as an art-form and hopefully to increase my creativity.

After I decided on a theme, I sat down with a pencil and just starting drawing. I didn't know what it would become. I decided that what I had drawn represented a seed - the small plant and the shell around it. I thought a seed was a great symbol for new beginnings.

I used a lot of blanket stitch in this project. It isn't a stitch I have used all that much so far, but I put it in my drawing and decided to stitch it that way. I stitched this project with a fine wool thread - also new for me to work with. It went through the woven cotton fine and even with the backing fabric it was fine too. But it didn't feel right until I switched to a bigger needle, then it was much smoother.

I admit I had doubts as I worked on this project - it felt a lot different than my other projects, but in the end I am satisfied with it as a starting point for my embroidery journal project.

Fly Stitch TAST Week 1

2012-01-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

This year I signed up to follow along with TAST run from Pintangle. This is the first week, and the stitch is fly stitch.

Here is my sampler. I just sat down with a needle and thread and tried a few different ways of lining up the stitches and spacing them. It was fun. There is no better way to really learn and understand the possibilities each stitch offers than to sit down and practice the stitch and try a few variations. I've said this before, embroidery is an art form, and the stitches are our brushes. Learn to use them like an artist would, and you will be on your way. I'll be revisiting this idea again, so stick around.

I've worked this sampler with a fine wool yarn (2-ply like crewel yarn) that I offer in my etsy store. It's the thinnest wool I have ever seen, and it's a delight to work with. It's just barely the thickness of two cotton strands.

Last year I made another fly stitch sampler as part of Summer Stitch school. Here is that sampler:

You can read more about these fly stitch variations here.

First project

2012-01-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

The first project of the year is now completed! This one I am calling "Crewel Beetle". That gives the whole thing away, so here it is!

I used some classic crewel embroidery stitches here, namely the beetle's body. I took the time to lay the lines carefully to be as parallel as possible. Nearly all of them I had to pull out and re-lay at least one time, but I think this is the best job I have done so far with this stitch. The first leg section on all 6 legs are bullion knots. I thought those worked out pretty well. I was a little bummed because the paper slipped a bit while transferring the design, so the body is not perfect. I didn't realize it until I had the body already filled in. Sometimes that is the way it is, so I pressed on.

These crewel projects are fun. I'll be making more of them, but I am mixing in some other projects too. I'm calling this series of patterns "Crewel in a Hoop". It wasn't a planned out idea, but the 6-inch hoop is a great size for working in. Plus they are easy frames for displaying the projects.

I have more little projects finished or near finished, so I will be back when the light lets me get a good picture. Until then, keep on stitching!!

Embroidery Journal Project: January 2012

2012-01-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all stitchers everywhere! I hope this year will be the best stitchy year yet. This year I am getting the Embroidery Journal Project going. The main purpose is to give you a chance to make your stitching more personal.

This post is the gathering place for anyone wishing to participate in the Embroidery Journal Project for January 2012. Everyone is welcome to join, and it doesn't matter if you complete your project in January or later. Just leave a note in the comments with a link to your project. I will collect links and post them on the main page for the Journal Project.

If this is your first time reading about this project, you can read up about the embroidery journal project here.

Thanks for participating! And those who are just checking things out, be sure to go to the links and see what people are doing! I'll post the link to my project here too when I have made it.

A Wintery Project

2011-12-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having a great holiday so far. Things are good here. I managed to find some time to do some stitching, and that always makes things better!

This is another crewel work project. I really like working with the wools, but I still have a limited collection of colors. That will be changing soon! This was fun to work on. There are actually quite a few stitches squeezed in there. To be honest I wasn't 100% happy with the placement of the flowers, but I will make a few adjustments!

I think there may be enough time to squeeze in one more project for 2011, but I will have to get going, time is getting short!!

Happy new year! May it be the best one yet!

Time to get that old Christmas feeling...

2011-12-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

It's almost time! I made this little embroidery to celebrate:

I used Appleton crewel wools. They are sooo nice to work with. This time though I used linen, because I found out the hard way that it really isn't so easy to pull them through a tight, woven cotton - they just get worn fast. The size of this piece is about 5 inches.

This project is a bit special for me because I just started with an idea, not a complete design drawn on fabric. I wanted a reindeer head, and I decided it needed to be a realistic shape rather than a cartoon. So I found a photo on Wikipedia, drew the head on paper and transferred it over. Then I added the leaves. I used the edge of the hoop to help me make a nice circle shape. Next came the ornament, then the candles. I tried a red for the inside of the candles, but it was too intense. Since I had no orange, I tried a dusty pink and that worked great. It looks like orange in the photo and in real life too. Funny how colors sometimes become what you want them to be. I then added the branches to anchor the candles and ornament a bit, then added the beads, and the little white stars and french knots.

This was just lots of fun to make. It's a bit scarey in a way, just picking up the needle and stitching without a drawn pattern to guide. But there is something so fun about just letting the feeling of the embroidery guide you. I would encourage everyone to give it a try. You just need an idea to start with.

I made this with crewel wools, so officially it's crewel embroidery. Just thinking about how my fall stitch school petered out a bit. I didn't quite carry it through to the end, but really it is just a beginning. I will be coming back often to this type of stitching. I hope this piece shows you that you don't have to do the traditional big flowers and leaves or birds with very long tails in order for it to be crewel work. There can be much, much more to this type of embroidery to learn - and for me, the exploration has just begun.

I hope to be finding some time for my needle over the holiday weekend, so I will be back early next week! Until then have a great holiday!!

Little Stumpwork Project

2011-12-18T01:57:00.000-08:00

Last week I got some new embroidery books! I love getting them. There is always much to learn and see in them. One of them is the new RSN Stumpwork book. It isn't a pattern book, but rather a book of stitches and techniques. The designs shown in the book are clean and more modern looking than a lot of the traditional stumpwork that I and many others have been doing. Anyways, here is a little project inspired by the book.

The leaves are a new stitch I found in the book. It's really cool how the leaves turn out. They have a little extra dimension without being a full-out wired shape. To be honest I found the book's instructions a little lacking. I'll be back with more on these leaves soon. I'll definitely be making more of them.

My ladybug has 4 layers of felt this time for a really nice rounded body. The little snail is my favorite. The body is a bullion knot with 3 different floss colors. The shell is 7 strands of 3 colors couched down in a spiral.

Bullions on the brain. I've been seeing a lot of bullion knots in the projects I have been looking at in my ever-growing pile of embroidery books. So I think this is the reason that I have included them in 3 places in this little project. Actually the pink flowers were going to be standard "berries" with french knots, but after I made a ring of knots, something said no, we are going to try something different. So it became rows of bullion knots and beads. I will say if I had known that project would lead me that direction, I probably would have made different color choices, because maybe the pink flowers are just a little bit strong, just a little though. They are solid colors, but repeated in the project and with interesting textures, and so they work well enough with the other colors. The third set of bullions are the little sepals beneath the pink flowers or berries. When I added those, the whole thing looked much better.

So - the moral of this little embroidery story to not forget the details and not to forget interesting textures, they can really make a project! And don't forget to do something a bit unexpected now and then too. ;)

My books are wrapped up by the way, as they became my Christmas presents from Mr Floss Box. It was the only way to get what I really want for Christmas. ;)

Small Embroidery

2011-12-11T23:14:00.001-08:00

I've been a little slow lately. Maybe it's the short days and grayness - we are down to about 6.5 hrs of light now. Soon things will turn towards slowly lengthening days again though, and it only takes a few weeks before you start feeling the darkness lifting.

I made this small embroidery for a change. I didn't follow a pattern just an idea.

I call this embroidery "Autumn Nights". It didn't quite turn out as I envisioned, but it's ok. It was a little experimental, as these small embroideries are intended to be. I wanted the sky to feel like a cool sunset in the fall. The tree is couched down yarn. Then I added the first set of branches with linen thread. I thought it could be more interesting with further branching with 1 strand of cotton floss.

The ground is supposed to have fallen leaves made of wool with satin stitching. Then I filled in between the leaves with cross stitches using a thin linen thread. (Can you buy linen thread in the US? I never noticed it. It's a traditional type of thread in Sweden and is readily found in the stores.)

I made the moon from angelina fibers. My first time using them. It looks a bit odd in the photo, much better in reality though.

It doesn't really matter if the design isn't quite what I had in mind. It's actually quite fun just to pick up some thread and follow an idea and try some different things without being bound by a pattern. I would definitely recommend trying it. Don't worry if you are uncertain of the result. It doesn't matter. You will find it interesting in time when you look back on it. And the most important thing is to take the opportunity to try new and different things. It's the only way to learn and make new and even better embroideries. I can't emphasize it enough, if you want to be able to incorporate new stitches in your projects, you have to learn them first, not just how to form the stitches, but how they look and feel. The best way is either sample cloths or small embroideries where you free yourself.

Anyways, this would be an embroidery journal project, but I'm not "officially" starting until next month. In January the fun begins, and you are all welcome to join in whichever format you like!

Wool Embroidery Project Update

2011-12-06T11:02:00.001-08:00

I've been working on this project a bit lately, trying to get somewhere on it.

You can see the project in all its glory here. There is much to be done. This is a reproduction of a Swedish wool embroidery. This type of stitching was common in southern Sweden in the 1700 and 1800s. These types of projects were usually made into cushions and meant to be used for sitting on. I don't know about you, but I can't imagine letting anyone sit on a project that takes this much time to make!

These wool embroideries were folk art at its finest. Colorful birds and flowers, horses, and sometimes figures are common motifs. My reproduction is stitched on thick felted wool. Sometimes it's literally a real pain to stitch on it. Historically, the stitchers used woven wool, the type made into clothing which I believe must have been easier to work on than the felt. It's cool doing this type of stitching, it's actually quite fun, and the wool is very forgiving. It's become a bit popular lately here in Sweden. The reproduction is fine, but I long to try my hand at some folk art themes too. They just have an irresistible charm!

Christmas is coming fast now!

2011-12-03T04:10:00.001-08:00

First weekend in December and I have I finished another little Christmas ornament yesterday. This one is in cross stitch.

It was fun to make this one. When I saw this one next to the embroidery ones, I realized I can't stop at just one, so next up is the mouse king!

I'm also chugging along on my Swedish wool embroidery project too, so an update on it will be coming very soon. I'm playing around with some needle felting on the side also. Always lots and lots to do! :)

I took this picture the other day from one of the bedroom windows. I think there must have been at least 10 bull finches out there - a new record. They are such beautiful birds. The male is red, the female brown. In the winter they form little flocks, but during breeding season, they only hang out with their partner, the rest get chased off.

Embroidery Journal Project

2011-11-30T21:37:00.001-08:00

Hi all,
Maybe you have heard of the Bead Journal Project or the Quilt Journal project, there is apparently also a crazy quilt journal project. For some time now, I have been a bit jealous of them and their projects. But not any longer. I'm officially starting the embroidery journal project. It's a bit informal to start with, as I don't know if it will just be me or others will be interested. And to start with, I'm running it from here. Perhaps if there are others who are serious about joining in, I will make formal lists of participants. I've made a page here on this blog for the 2012 embroidery journal project. Anyone is welcome to join in, even if you join in late.

I made this project because these little black birds that live around here have an incredibly beautiful song, but you can only hear it in the spring and up to the middle of summer, then they are quiet. Attracting a mate is but one reason they sing. The little bird sitting on the branch was planned, the rest just came out as I went.

I've already experimented a bit with this whole idea myself this year. The projects I am putting in this post to break up the texts a bit are my practices, if you will. There was some particular thought behind each of these that I stitched. The projects are all 4 x 4 inches. This is a size that I feel gave me plenty of room to create without being overly large.

This is actually one of my store patterns, but it's me also experimenting with using a lot of colors in this style of design. The rainbow type project coloring can be a bit of challenge to get it to work right.

So what is this about really? I believe there is something inside us that motivates us to choose certain themes and projects over others. We only have so much time after all. What is it that is trying to get out and what are we hoping to say?

I believe embroidery is an art form. We can use it to express ourselves, perhaps even learn to understand ourselves better. When you silence the inner critic and let the stitches flow, you let your right brain have its way, and amazing things can come out. Things you just can't put into words.

A fall project, of course. We have some maples on the property, they are beautiful trees. I wanted to use my summer stitch school stitches in a project, and experiment with texture. It's fun to do this type of embroidery. Of course, the leaf shape was drawn on the fabric, the stitches just came from there.

Everyone has a story, everyone has different experiences. Use your embroidery to tell those stories. Let others learn from you. Each of us has our own way of making stitches on a fabric, even the same exact stitch is different from person to person. Let those be part of your story.

There are really no technical requirements, just a willingness to try and share. The project can be anything, if you insist on following a pattern you of course, can, but it really is better to just pick up your fabric and make your own themes and motives. If you feel that is beyond you, then take a pattern you really like and make some effort to change or personalize it, so it's the way you want it to be.

The project can be any style, it can be very definite forms and shapes or it can be free and abstract. Neither is wrong. But do take the chance to go out of your comfort zone just a little, try some new technique or new stitches. There are many ways to tell your story, perhaps a new method will open new opportunities for you.

This was my first completely unplanned project. I started with letters. I knew I wanted a spring theme. Something to capture the exploding new life around me.

Just one more thing to say: that is this is part of my effort to help make stitching more personal, because this is what it is about. It isn't about making perfect stitches and perfect designs. There is enough press in the world for us to all be "perfect". In addition, our personalities are getting lost in the mass manufactured culture out there. Use your crafting skills to be unique.

Nutcracker Ornaments

2011-11-28T02:07:00.001-08:00

I finished up the last in the series of Nutcracker ornaments this weekend. It seemed easier to do the ornament-making steps all at once when I had the materials and tools out. So here they are!
Clara

The Toymaker

And the nutcracker himself

The whole set in a photo together!

I have to say these were surprisingly fun to do. There was no expectation of super fine stitching like the stumpwork is sometimes. I actually managed to do a variety of stitches too. There is plenty of sparkly metallic threads, just as Christmas ornaments ought to be!

Flat Ornament Tutorial

2011-11-22T11:00:00.001-08:00

Hi, all. I am working through the set of Nutcracker ornaments, and I thought it might be a good chance to write up how I make them. This kind of ornament makes a nice finish perfect for hanging on the tree or around the home. I'm putting a "glue warning" on this project for those of us that sometimes have trouble with getting it all over-;) Keep an extra piece of paper handy to wipe off glue and try as hard as you can NOT to get it on your embroidery. :)

First my pile of materials. (Not shown is some kind of trim for the edges.)

I cut my fabrics about 1 inch bigger than the intended size. (I add about a quarter of inch around the embroidery.) I have two rectangles that I cut from mat boards, the kind used to frame pictures. Also, I use white craft glue, a piece of quilt batting, masking tap, and an exacto knife and clear ruler to cut the mat board.

I first glue the quilt batting to one of the cardboards. This will be for the front. Let it dry all the way, or you risk the glue seeping out to your embroidery, and that's not so nice.

Next I use the tape to attach the fabrics to the mat board. This isn't the fanciest of ways, but it works well. It can be annoying lining the design up nicely, but it's worth the time to make sure it is. I tape down the corners, then the sides. Pull firmly on the fabric, so isn't loose on the front side. If you are a perfectionist you can make perfect mitered corners. It will make the corners less bulky if you do that, but the trim can hide some of the imperfections in the corners.

I do the same for the embroidered piece, using a bit more tape to hold it down evenly. Note, make sure the tape doesn't get too close to the edge or it will be hard to glue the pieces together in the next step.

Next is to glue the two pieces together. Spread a layer of glue around the back side of your covered mat boards. Make sure it goes to the edges and corners, but preferably not over, especially if you plan to sew your trim in place. I put the two pieces together, then put the ornament down on a flat surface face up. I cover the embroidered surface with a folded towel, and put on some heavy books. Then let this sit until it's all dry.

Now it's time to attach the trim. You can choose to glue it on or sew it on. You can use pretty much any kind of trim, yarn, ribbon, or beads that you want. In this example, I couch down some soft cotton yarn. I like to leave my stitches a bit uneven.

I tuck the ends of the yarns a bit in between the two pieces to keep them out of the way.

I like to use beaded hangers for my ornaments. I usually use 2 strands of cotton floss and attach it firmly will several small stitches, then add the beads, and make several small stitches again before cutting the extra floss. And that is pretty much it! It isn't hard or time consuming. :)

Fall Stitch School: Crewel Embroidery Seed stitches

2011-11-18T03:21:00.001-08:00

Welcome to another lesson from Fall Stitch School with The Floss Box. This week I'm going to look at seeding stitches. And I don't mean "seed stitches", well I do, but I mean more generally stitches that can be sprinkled about in a regular or irregular pattern in crewel embroidery. These are filling stitches that don't completely fill an area. These types of stitches add a lot of interested to your stitching without requiring as much time as covering the area completely with long and short stitches or satin stitching. Plus it is a nice variety with areas that let a bit of the background fabric show through.

What types of stitches can be seeded then? Basically any stitch that can form discrete units. Detached chain or french knots are classic examples in crewel embroidery. Seed stitches are another. By definition these are small straight stitches sprinkled about randomly. But straight stitches can be placed in more regular patterns too.

The photo shows various stitches that could be used in crewel embroidery.

My Swedish reproduction wool embroidery project has examples of using scattered french knots - in this case they follow regular patterns.

You can see they add quite a bit of interest even without shading in a hole area.

Let your imagination guide you! These sorts of stitches are not limited to just the crewel world!

The Mouse King Ornament

2011-11-18T03:12:00.001-08:00

I managed to stitch 1 of 5 Nutcracker ornaments. I am hoping to do all them. This one went pretty quickly for me.

I started with The Mouse King because he is the meanest of the lot and maybe that makes him the most fun! ;) I've already started the next one in the series.

These are store patterns and they are fun and make great ornaments! You'll find them in The Floss Box Embroidery Store.

Finished Squirrel Project!

2011-11-16T05:43:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I put in the final stitches!

I took a few closeups too you can enjoy. I'm pretty happy with this project. It was a good challenge for me.

The squirrel was a bit tricky to stitch in place, but I made it work. The tail is made out of turkey knots that I trimmed and brushed out. That's a fun step by the way. It's fun to snip away the uneven strands and see things even out.

The acorns and leaves were easily set in place.

The berries were too. The needlelace leaves were a bit tricky since I had to push the wires through some thick stitches, but in the end it's all as it should be.

The mushrooms perhaps aren't so exciting, but I really didn't want them to draw much attention from the rest of the piece.

I am not sure what's next, probably a bit of Christmas stitching. You've got to start early!!

Little Pieces

2011-11-14T22:39:00.001-08:00

One of the fun things about stumpwork is all the little pieces you make and attach. They are a lot of work sometimes and sometimes are a bit fussy to work with, and above all demand patience. But the result is quite often worth the trouble which is why I do this type of needle work.

First the beetle.

I haven't been so big on insects in my embroidery, but they are growing on me. So many possibilities with them.

This beetle has 3 layers of felt for the body. I do satin stitch over, then I added some metallic thread. It's so nice and sparkly. I will add wired antennae at the end.

The leaves - I have done two styles of leaves. The larger oak leaves will be at the top, and the little ones on the side somewhere. Mr. squirrel joined the photo too.

Next I have two acorns and some "berries"

These are all made with strips of rolled felt, then covered with either threads or beads. As you see the berries are rather large next to the acorns. They ended up a bit larger than intended, so I may or may not put them on the piece. I have to see how it looks together.

And finally some thread-covered wooden beads.

I actually made these for another project, but I didn't think they really fit it very well. You can use any type of wooden bead for covering with thread. The trick is to get a file in the middle and make the hole larger so the thread will fit in there. The larger the bead, the bigger the hole will need to be.

Those are my little pieces! Next time you will see them all in their place on the fabric. :)

Squirrel Update

2011-11-13T11:40:00.001-08:00

Apologies for the lack of updates! I got hit with the flu this week and it made everything slow down for a few days. I'm still in recovery, but doing much better. I missed another week of stitch school while sick, but I will get it back going again this week. I have been working away on the squirrel project in the meantime. I meant to do a better series of progress updates for this project, but the sickness just made it hard to do. Anyways, here is at least one update: I stitched the squirrel!

It's about 2 inches big. Everything else on the project is ready, so I will cut this little guy out and sew him on tomorrow. Then stitch a nice fluffy tail. I have made acorns, leaves, berries, and a beetle these past days while I've been ill. Pictures of the parts will be coming soon!

I have spent some time pondering what to do with my blog, (I haven't been a very engaged blogger for quite awhile now - always thinking to write more, but never quite making it much of a priority to sit down). So it seemed timely to run across a little reader survey on Sew in Love about what readers want in a good needlework blog. (It's definitely worth a read if you have been wondering this too.) I read the responses and Elizabeth's summary. It's very informative and gave me a lot to consider. I'm going to try to do a better job documenting my projects and posting good photos, not just of the final result but of the steps and how I work when I am doing a project. The stitch schools and that sort of thing will continue as time allows, even if I do get a bit discouraged by the lack of feedback on them. In the end, I just have to accept that I do them for myself (they've already helped me in many ways) and that most of the readers who pass by here just aren't interested enough to take the time to let me know they are appreciated.

Book Cover

2011-11-08T00:39:00.000-08:00

My "top secret" project was for the Feeling Stitch Covered in Stitches contest. I chose the book Persuasion by Jane Austen.

I did put some thought into choosing a book and a design. I wanted to be able to somehow capture the book's theme into the design. The wind blowing is my representation for persuasion. If you let it, it will blow you off course.

The background I painted with water colors. I really like to use this technique for the backgrounds. I wet down the fabric then lightly brush on the color with lots of water. If you don't use a lot of water, you can get a clump of color in one place, and it stays there.

I tried to use different stitches in places where different textures would be nice, like the hills. I used 12 different stitches for this project, including 2 summer school stitches. (They do come in handy!)

Mostly I used DMC cotton embroidery floss with strands varying from 1 to 6. I did add some Appleton crewel wool to the tree to help add a rougher texture to it. The figure is stitched in fine silk threads.

The colors are nearly all blended in order to get interesting colors that are a bit varied and more realistic. It was a good challenge to select out colors that worked well together.

I absolutely enjoyed this project. I have been struggling for the past few months with my projects. I don't know where it came from, but the feeling of not being good enough (I'm certain many of you are all too familiar with that sensation!) just has grown too strong, and it has made it difficult to pick up the needle and work on anything. This was simply enjoyable though from start to finish!

I have no idea if mine with make it to the voting, but it was a good learning experience for me, and it's fun to participate and help promote embroidery!!

Lots of stitching going on

2011-11-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

But I won't show the project just yet, it's top secret! ;) I will in a couple days when it's done. I got a couple close-ups though!

I am working as much as I can to get this done, I'm on a deadline. So stitch school is delayed just a few days. It will be back very soon though!

Back soon with more pics! And more details too!

Fall Stitch School: Jacobean Couching

2011-10-28T05:34:00.000-07:00

This stitch is called by everyone Jacobean Couching, but everyone also seems to have another name for it, like Laid Filling or Trellis Stitch. This stitch is one of the classic crewel embroidery stitches. It creates a nice patterned filling stitch and is often used in stitching larger areas.

There are three steps to this stitch, making a grid of long stitches which can be either upright or at an angle, anchoring down the long stitches at the intersections, and making a filling stitch in the grid's squares or diamonds. Actually the filling stitch is optional, but it's very common to have one.

It's straightforward enough to make the grid. Making an upright grid is easiest, the diagonal grids can be a real challenge, since it's so easy to change the angles.

Then make small anchoring stitches. These can be whole crosses or half or some other variation of your choosing, but they really are a must as they hold down some very long stitches.

Then I just added a simple filling of french knots.

I made a few other samples. The first is with a diagonal filling and a single horizontal anchoring stitch.

Another option for fillings is detached chain stitches.

And finally, you can do a satin stitch filling, but you stitch this first, then the grid on top of it, followed by the anchoring stitches.

An example of this stitch used in a project.

It's an easy way to add some interest to a larger filled area.

I hope this lesson was useful! There will be a little project to stitch at the end of this Fall Stitch School lesson, so you can practice a bit of crewel embroidery yourself!

Finally Live and a New Project

2011-10-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

That's right, after 6 months of work, my new site is up and running. It's at the same place as usual, www.theflossbox.com. It's super fast now compared to the old one! I think that's the best part of all. No sitting waiting for the pictures to load. The last site turned out to be a big headache, and my web hosting company, Green Geeks, turned out to be a drag. They did things like delete my whole site and not offer the courtesy of a backup. So stay away from this company if you are looking for a web hosting company. I know there are far better out there.

Anyways, I haven't had that much time over for much else lately. Working on the site just took a lot of my creative and mental energy. It's far from finished now (it will never be completely finished though!), but at least I can start thinking about other things that I have left sitting waiting for me. For starters I put up a new free biscornu pattern for Christmas stitchers. It's the least I can do for all the people that have been following me. :) I am going to think this weekend about what other fun things I can do.

I did manage to squeeze in time to start a new project. This one has been on my mind for some time, and since it's fall-themed, it's now or never.

A little close-up of the bottom.

I did the ring with raised chain band (a summer stitch school stitch!!) I wasn't sure if it would look right, since it's a little "wobbly". So I outlined the inner and outer circle with 1 strand of gold floss with stem stitch. That helped a lot and added a little sparkle to the project. I did the little green mound in detached button hole. I like the texture of it a lot.

I'll be working on this some, but I lately decided to jump in the Feeling Stitch book cover competition. I have an idea and a book, I hope it will work!! Go read this post on Plays with Needles for the inspiration behind the contest. I just love those book covers!!!

OK, back soon with Stitch School. :)

Embroidery Exercise

2011-10-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hi, all. I found a little embroidery exercise in an embroidery book I picked up at a flea market. I thought it was worth sharing, and maybe some of you might like to try it. First though, I have to say that to allow yourself to do this, you have to turn off your inner critic. This isn't about making a fabulous project, or making any thing at all. It's just to practice stitches. Let your needle and your fingers work together without so much steering from your brain.

Gather up all the different white threads, yarns, and flosses you can find, thick and thin.

Here is my collection that I used. If your wondering where to get all these fibers, my advice is to try flea markets. I picked up many there. Even if you have a limited selection of threads, don't let that stop you from the exercise, you can use what you have. Feel free to compliment your threads with buttons and beads as you like.

Next, pick out a piece of a looser brown or tan woven fabric. A linen or sack cloth type of fabric is perfect. What you will do is make stitches, bunches of stitches of all kinds to cover your cloth. Feel free to use a stitch book to help you try new stitches. Don't worry if they aren't perfect, that isn't the point. Combine the threads in different ways, use several at once on your needle. As you make your stitches, don't make them regular, vary the size and shapes and angles, make them overlap, switch between stitches, however you feel as your work the stitches. Don't tell yourself it's not good enough because that is not the point with the exercise. I just bet at the end you will see some interesting textures and structures emerge.

Here is my result:

I most certainly did battle with my inner critic, but I didn't let it win. I continued until I felt satisfied with the amount of stitches. And I can say that I definitely found a few interesting effects in there.

The books suggests that this exercise is a "must" if you want to do free-style embroidery. I can definitely understand the author's reasoning. If you like this, you can try it again, or you can try it with some idea of making an actual composition. I myself have never really tried free style embroidery - too much of a pattern person, but never say never! Perhaps it just might show up in stitch school someday, but until then, I got to go practice a bit more. ;)

Fall Stitch School: Long and Short Stitch

2011-10-22T03:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another week of Fall Stitch School. This week, we're studying long and short stitch. This stitch is troublesome for many embroiderers, but I'm hopefully going to show you that it is not any harder than any other stitch and it can be quite fun to fill an area in. Long and short is very useful not only in crewel embroidery, but thread painting as well. Embroiderers can achieve beautiful shading affects with this stitch. It really is worth a little practice to improve your technique and gain confidence in your abilities.

The basic idea behind long and short stitching is simply to vary the starting and ending points of the stitches so that you can get a smoother color shift and to be able to easily stitch contours. I've made three sample shapes with long and short to show you a couple ways to use it. The first thing to do in crewel embroidery and (thread painting too) is to outline your shapes with split stitch or split back stitch.

First shape is a basic box. The first row of stitches is composed of some longer and some shorter stitches. For the rows following, you use only long stitches (except at the end of the shape, of course), but this isn't a precise science, so the stitches will have some natural variation in length anyways.

Notice my stitches aren't made perfectly even with each other. You will see that it hardly matters, in fact maybe it's better because it's so important to vary the placement. I went ahead and added another row of this color. It's very important to always, always bring the needle UP through the stitches and never down into them.

The next row of stitches is started by bringing your needle up in the color above.

Again you see I haven't made a perfect row of stitches. It looks a little odd in this contrived example, but in a real project, it will look fine with the variation. Start the next row bringing your needle up through the color above. This picture shows how far in you need to bring the needle up - it can be surprisingly far in.

The next shape is a flower petal. Another thing to keep in mind, is that it's important to work from the outside edge inward. This example shows how you may need to change the angle of your stitches to get a nice shape.

Some of the shorter stitches end up tucked under the longer stitches since the stitches are converging toward a single point and there won't be room for them all.

The most challenging (and fun!) thing to do is fill complicated shapes that bend around curves. This is particularly useful when filling animal shapes.

To move around a curve, you make stitches with varying starting and end points (this is really important for the making a nice filling), but the angle of the stitches changes a bit as you move around the stitch. The stitches are placed quite far up into the row of stitches above. Only a little part of each stitch is left showing, so you get a nice progression of stitches at different angles as you move around the curves. If you make the stitches a little shorter you will get a really smooth curve.

Here you see all three shapes filled in. I have limited colors on hand, but I think that you can still see the potential this stitch offers.

I have a small example from a project stitched with long and short using crewel wool. You can see how I have made contours around the shape of the animal

I hope this lesson was helpful in demystifying long and short stitching just a little bit. Give it a try! It's not so hard as it seems. :)

Soon Halloween!

2011-10-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

Fall and Halloween are a great time of year. The colors, the cool air, the candy, the monsters, it's all great. I just needed a little project to get me back into stitching a bit. We've been out everyday last week and the weekend working on carting away the broken part of our barn that is being re-built. I can tell you it is a lot of work! But beautiful fall weather makes it very enjoyable to be outside. And this time of year, thoughts turn to Halloween too. I really liked this little design I made, so I thought it could be an easy project for me, and it was. ;)

I made it into a flat ornament. After I glued together the front and back I wrapped a fuzzy yarn around the edge two times. (We embroiderers should definitely not let the knitters have all the yarn fun!)

I tried glueing it down first, that was a bust. The glue got in the fuzz. Then I tried couching it all down, but that made little bumps where the couching stitches sat, and the fuzzies were all smooshed down. So I just used a little glue to tuck the ends in the gap between the front and back sections and made a few stitches in each corner to hold down the yarn. It works well enough and the fuzzies are still free.

So what's next. I'm contemplating making an embroidery version and doing that, but it needs to be soon, Halloween is very close now. Otherwise, some naturey-themed projects are calling to me!

Fall Stitch School: Crewel Satin Stitch

2011-10-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first of the crewel embroidery stitches for this season's stitch school! Things have busy here with fixing our barn, so the stitching suffers a bit right now, but things should be improving soon. I ended up starting with the "easy" satin stitch. It is very straightforward as many of you know. Just line up the straight stitches so they cover the area to be stitched. There is one small complication with crewel embroidery though. Satin stitching is outlined first. This helps make a nice edge and adds just a little bit of padding.

To make the crewel embroidery satin stitch, first you outline the shape with either split stitch or split back stitch.

I usually end up using split back stitch because I feel it's a bit faster to make than split stitch. It's quite simple, just bring your needle forward for the next stitch as you do with back stitch, but bring it down so you split the previous stitch. As I said, either this or regular split stitch does the job.

The next step is the actual satin stitching. The stitches are placed so they cover the outlined shape - just follow the edge you made and place your needle just on the outside of them. Making nice, even stitches takes a little precision. It can take a lot of practice and patience to make really nice ones. I usually start in the middle of the shape and work to one side, then go back to the middle and work to the other edge. Often you want them all to have the same angle, like when you might fill a box or a circle. But other times like filling a leaf or a curved area, you may want to purposefully change the angle on the stitches. I made a little example of each of these shapes.

So there y

Fall Stitch School: Crewel Embroidery

2011-10-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

It's finally here! For this season's stitch school I am trying something a little different, which will be to focus on a type of stitching instead of just a bunch of more or less random stitches. This is still all about the stitches, of course, but I will pick stitches traditionally used for crewel embroidery. At this point I am not entirely sure how many weeks I will run this, but I promise you at least 6, not including this introduction.

So, the first question is what is crewel embroidery? I read up a bit to see what today's embroiderer's say about it. There are basically two opinions. The first is that it is defined by the type of yarns chosen, ie 2-ply wool yarns of varying thicknesses. The stitches are a bit secondary, as many types of stitches can be used. Other embroiderer's are a bit looser with the definition and think it's ok to use other types of threads as long as you are using stitches fairly typical to crewel embroidery. I am not taking a side in this debate, but in this stitch school, I am sticking with wool mostly because I enjoy them and because they sit a bit higher on the fabric since they are generally thicker than other threads - some think this is an important component of what crewel embroidery is.

A crewel-type project, but with cotton threads.

Crewel embroidery has a very long history. The Bayeaux tapestry stitch about 1000 years ago is considered a crewel embroidery. The embroiderers used only 8 colors to create this magnificent embroidery. It's definitely worth a look at. I took a quite peek at a book about in the library the other day, and they really made interesting use of the stitches to create textures and lines. Crewel embroidery has gone in and out of fashion. In the 17th century is was popular and is often called Jacobean embroidery. Many of you may think of the 70s when you think of crewel with its browns and oranges and avocado greens when this type of stitching enjoyed a bit of popularity. Today's crewelers have a multitude of patterns to choose from traditional to contemporary. There really isn't any rule for what type of design can be used in crewel embroidery. And really, you can make any type of pattern into a crewel project by the threads and stitch choice.

Ladybug project stitched with Appleton crewel wools.

As far as fabric choice goes, there are many options. Often linen or linen-cotton blends are chosen because they have a looser weave so there is a little more room for drawing the needle through the fabric. In Sweden, they just call it wool embroidery rather than crewel, but it really is a type of crewel embroidery, but it is quite common to use thick wool felt to stitch on.

The stitches are divided into 6 categories: outline stitching, satin, couched stitches, seed stitches, french knots, and long and short (some people call this soft shading). I will go through these 6 types in the following weeks. Outline stitching and couched stitches have the most variation as far as types of stitches, the others are just one type of stitch. Crewel embroidery often uses a mix of stitches and filling and lines to create interest and textures. I will try to highlight some of the possibilities with these stitches in the coming weeks. Hopefully you will get inspired to try a bit of crewel yourself!!

Fall Leaf Embroidery

2011-09-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I did this little project over the weekend. The fall colors around here inspired me to pick up the needle and try this little assissi embroidery project.

My main point was just to practice some of the summer school stitches in something more like a regular project rather than just a sampler. It is good to see them with other stitches too.

If I have counted correctly, I used 8/12 of the stitches. Not bad! Using them all really wasn't the main point, but just to use some of them. You can see in my close-ups that there are lots of nice textures to these stitches. It really does make it more interesting to look at.

I used plant-dyed wool fibers throughout the whole project. The colors are just so nice and earthy. It was a pleasure to work with them.

Wool Embroidery Update

2011-09-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots of french knots in this section of the project. They are very decorative, and I have to admit I never really thought to use them in this way myself.

Here is the whole project laid out. You can see how far along I am now. There is much left to do still. The whole project is about 2 x 2', so it isn't small! The fabric is a thick wool felt. It isn't so easy to stitch through at all, but it feels nice. I've moved on to stitch a whole bunch of the green fronds in the corners, as you see. It's a nice project and fun to do something a bit different from my usual stitching.

I'm starting to get ideas in my head about a fall stitch school. I won't say too much about it until my ideas are more set though! But I will say it's inspired by this type of stitching.

Sheep

2011-09-13T01:37:00.000-07:00

I have to say I have a little thing for sheep. They make fun stitching subjects. It's easy to turn them into balls of fluff. I often or rather pretty much always use french knots for them, although I think there some other stitches that could also do the job.

This was just a fun little project. I used a colored pencil to color the hills. I have tried crayons a number of times, but I really don't like the feeling of clumps of wax sitting on the fabric. The color pencil shades the fabric without looking like all the color is sitting on the surface.

Anyways, I am hoping the day soon comes that we can have real sheep here. There is much work to do first, like fixing the barn they will live in. That will hopefully be happening this fall.

Summer Stitch School 2011 Wrap-up

2011-09-11T01:59:00.000-07:00

First, I want to thank everyone who left comments here or at Flickr on the stitch school entries. It helped keep me motivated knowing people appreciated the work. This is the first time I have tried a long series, and to be honest I wasn't sure if I would make it to the end. It has been some work to make the samplers and take the photos. But it turned out to be quite enjoyable to take a closer look at some different stitches, some of which I use often and some never. So often we just use the stitches in the standard way without much thought about how we could vary them to get a special effect. But now the idea is there, and it can be built on. It's definitely worth a small amount of time to just practice a little, even if you don't have hours and hours to spend. After you have done a stitch a few times, it becomes part of your stitching experience. Then it's easier to think of the stitches when you work a project because they are closer to you than otherwise.

I put together a little mosaic of all the samplers, just for fun.

I have no idea if I will put them together in some way. I might because it would be nicer than a bunch of loose cloths. I will say these are definitely fun to have.

As for what's next. This isn't the last time I will do this sort of thing, but I don't know what form the next presentation will take. I am contemplating some sort of stitch shcool as early as this fall, but it will be shorter. I will be considering what might be interesting to do!

Fall is coming

2011-09-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially over. Actually it ended in a big rain cloud here - which is not so fun! The falling birch and maple leaves turn thoughts towards fall things, like Halloween. It's still a little while, but it seems like a good time anyways for a little fall cross stitch.

This was a fun little project. I have to admit that I actually started it in the early summer, but so many projects piled up on me that this fell behind a little. But this week was a good time to get it done.

Summer Stitch School Week 12: Cross Stitch

2011-09-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the final week of Summer Stitch School! This week's stitch isn't so exotic. I picked the humble cross stitch. Not many stitches manage to have a full industry based around it, but the cross stitch has managed this, and it's probably what you think of when you hear "cross stitch". Today's goal is to show you that it much more than that! It is in fact quite a versatile stitch as you will see.

The cross stitch
Cross stitch is very straightforward, simply make two straight stitches that cross.

That's all there is to it.

Variations
Now you know cross stitch can be both a filling and a line stitch, so I am not taking time to show a bunch of x's lined up. Instead the goal is to show you that there are many ways to use this simple stitch to create interest and texture.

Variation 1
The basic stitch. Traditionally, the lower and upper stitches are made in the same direction. Of course, one is free to turn that upside down and experiment with that. I will leave that to you though and focus on shapes and uses instead.

Variation 2
Stitch a row on top of another. Adds a lot of interest, especially when you use two floss colors. Also shown are some single cross stitches with variations on the layering.

Variation 3
Change the height and width of your stitches. Also, a line of cross stitches are quite pretty when spaced out a little.

Variation 4
The cross stitch can be wrapped, threaded and whipped like many other stitches. In the upper example I have threaded the x's in alternating directions as shown in the photos.

Also you can whip the x's. Just bring the needle under each x from the same direction.

Variation 5
The legs of the x don't need to be the same at all. Vary the angle or vary the length. Line up two rows of x's with varied angles for an interesting pattern.

Variation 6
Cross stitch is a great stitch to use when couching. Use it to couch down yarns, ribbons or perhaps an odd material such as a rolled up candy wrapper.

Variation 7
Cross stitch can be used to stitch on beads. In this example I have widened the x so that it shows a bit under the bead. The x can be small so that it is not seen too.

Variation 8
Turn the x on it's side and make an upright cross stitch.

Variation 9
More layering of stitches. This time a regular cross stitch on top of an upright cross stitch.

Variation 10
Size is another important way to vary the x's. When making a row of x's, try making some larger. Adds interest!

I hope this has been an interesting lesson! I've certainly done my share of "normal" cross stitch, so this way fun to see the stitch in a new way. This is the last lesson, but I will make a summary post!

Butterfly Wreath

2011-08-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile now, but I finally have a completed project! I am quite happy to have this one done.

The ladybug was probably the funnest part to make. The butterfly - well I didn't have any idea how I would do it until I sat down and started working on it. Mostly it ended up being a bunch of padded satin stitches for sections on the wings. I used chain stitch for the padding. It's actually quite effective. Makes a far greater raised effect than normal padded satin stitch.

I am really pleased with the buttterfly. I plan to make more of them. It might be cool to do a whole collection of them. I've been out collecting photos of them this summer for inspiration!

The one above is a Red Admiral butterfly. I saw quite a few of these this summer, and I can tell you, they are beautiful!

Summer Stitch School Week 11: Feather Stitch

2011-08-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

We've made it to week 11 of The Floss Box summer stitch school. Time flies when you are having fun, and stitching is lots of fun! This week I chose a good, classic stitch: the feather stitch. It's easy to make and very pretty and versatile. Traditionally, it's a line stitch, but pretty much all line stitches can be made into fill-in stitches.

The Feather Stitch
This stitch has a side to side pattern as shown the pictures. With your needle grab a bit of fabric to the right and in the middle where the needle was brought up. Make sure the thread is wrapped under the needle. For reference, I call the individual units "loops".

After you pull the needle through, simply make a similar loop to the right of the first.

Repeat the pattern down to make your line of stitches.

At the end of the line just make a small straight stitch at the end. You can of course, make the straight stitch longer or shorter as you like.

Variations

Variations 1 and 2
The first variation is the standard feather stitch. Variations marked 2 are different ways to form the right and left loops. They can be made so the loops follow a straight line down the middle, or formed with very wide, shallow loops. The right and left sides can be assymetrical too for an interesting effect. There are many, many more ways to line up the loops, these shown are but a few of them.

Variation 3
This shows two lines of feather stitches with one on top of the other. This layering gives a whole lot of texture to the stitch.

Variation 4
You can vary the number of side to side loops. This shows two loops in each direction. You can do many more or make them with varying number of side to side loops.

Variation 5
The feather stitch can be easily wrapped, threaded or whipped. Here I have threaded the feather stitches with a different thread through the loops.

Variation 6
An example of how you could add beads to the feather stitch.

Varation 7
By making rows of stitches, you can make the feather stitch into a filling stitch. In this example the stitches are lined up so they share holes. An interesting wave pattern emerges when the stitches are lined up like this.

I hope you enjoyed this week's lesson. Next week will be the final lesson. I hope these have helped a few of you out there to be inspired to pick up your needle and try something new!

Swedish Wool Embroidery

2011-08-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

Has it ever happened to you that you see some type of stitching or other craft, and you just know that's what you want to do. That's what happened to me when I first saw the traditional Swedish wool embroideries. Maybe it's the colors, maybe it's the motifs or likely the combo, but it really appealed to me.

Swedish wool embroidery was popular in the 1700 and 1800s. Usually the stitched pieces were made into pillows for sitting on (there were no stuffed couches!) or bed covers.

The primary region of Sweden known for this type of stitching is Skåne in SW Sweden, but pillows have been found in other areas too. (Wool embroidery was popular through other areas of Scandinavia also).

Knowledge was passed from one generation to the next. Nothing was written, so when this type of stitching lost popularity, a lot of knowledge was lost.

The most popular stitches were satin, stem, and split stitches and french knots and trellis couching. It was all about the color too - it was a sign of wealth, so white background fabric was rare. They used the material they had on hand. Everything that could be used again was saved.

Often the pillows were pieced together from bits of different fabrics - even in wealthier households - no one wasted. The fibers were usually wool, spun by hand, of course, and dyed with plants. In the late 1800s aniline dyes were available, so the colors were more varied.

There was no way to mark the patterns on the fabric, although later in the 1800s stitchers were using starch mixtures to make some basic lines to follow. So the stitchers did the best they could with shapes and lines, but that is part of the charm of these embroideries.

So that was just a little summary of info I picked up from a recent book called Yllebroderier (the photos are from the book too.)

I haven't really been into doing reproductions - generally I think it's nice to stitch things that reflect our own time. But there is nothing wrong with them, and they can be a nice way to understand old techniques and methods and designs. So for my first wool embroidery, I chose a reproduction of a pillow found in SE Sweden from 1806. The whole pillow is going to be big - it's about 20 x 20 inches. Here is just a small section of the pillow that I have completed.

The area above the year originally had the letters HOD, presumably the stitcher's initials. I will probably but the year I finish the pillow instead. I will try to find a place for my initials somewhere else. I already "personalized" the design by mixing up the colors for the french knots - not that anyone would know, but that's the whole point of this type of stitching. It isn't about making everything perfect - it's about the joy of creating and letting the stitches flow.

A little needlefelting

2011-08-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

I think it's been about 9 months now since I bought some wool for needle felting. The reason I wanted to try it, is because I just felt some need to see some of my little design ideas in 3 dimensions. I haven't actually managed to do very much with it - yet anyways. But I felt inspired to try another little project. This one became a sheep! Sheep are always cute and fun to make.

I made the sheep shape first. Then I just made a little patch of grass and some water flowing by. I then added a bit of embroidery - flowers in the grass, some stones along the water, and a bit of movement to the water. Very simple, really. I attached the sheep the it with 4 small stitches, one into each leg. Then glued the whole thing on to a little chunk of cherry wood.

It was fun. I don't know if anyone will agree, but I like how it turned out. I'd like to try some other animal shapes too.

The sheep stands with my other little creations.

I'm going to have to think of some more things to try!

Summer Stitch School Week 10: Needle weaving

2011-08-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hi and welcome to another summer stitch school adventure. This week I've selected needle weaving. It's a little different from the others because it's more like a technique than a single stitch, but the stitches are just variations on the idea of weaving the needle in and out of bars. Needle weaving is very nice for adding textures and interesting details to your projects, so it's definitely worth a little time to learn it.

The needle weave stitch
The basic idea is the same for regular weaving on a loom. First, make a series of vertical straight stitches.

Then with your needle weave in and out of the straight stitches. In this example, the needle is brought down at the end of the row of stitches, and up again for the next row.

Variations

There many ways to use needle weaving to create different effects and types of stitches. The sampler shows a few of these.

1. This is the basic needle weaving stitch in a few different forms. As shown above you can end each row of weaving by bringing the needle to the back of the fabric or you can just wrap the thread around the last bar and start the next row. Note that the more firmly you pull on the thread while weaving, the more edges will bow inward.

Also note the difference that making the straight stitches farther apart makes. This is especially apparent in the irregular shape example.

2. This type of needle weaving is called needle woven bars. This stitch is formed by first making two straight stitches, and then weaving back and forth around them. The sampler shows both a variation with parallel straight stitches and one with nonparallel straight stitches.

3. This variation is known as woven spiders wheel. To form this stitch, you make an odd number of straight stitches radiating out and weave in and out of them. You can fill the radiating bars completely or leave the spokes showing.

4. This type of needle weaving produces a raised effect. To form this stitch, bring the needle up and down just slightly over to the right of where the needle was brought up. Then with a scrap of thread pull the loop firmly.

Bring the needle up again at the base of the loop and begin needle weaving. You will have to hold onto the scrap thread while you work up the loop. Gently push the weaving down a little as you go along. Be sure to pull firmly after each turn, but not so firmly that the weaving is pulled upwards.

When you reach the top of the loop, remove the scrap of thread and bring your needle down to the back of the fabric. You can bring the needle straight back so the woven section lies flat, or you can twist it a bit or let it bow over a bit above the fabric.

5. This stitch is called a needle-woven picot. To form this stitch, loop the thread around a pin. The placement of the pin will determine how long the stitch is.

Then bring the needle up again to the right of the loop and pull it behind the pin. Then begin the needle weaving. Like the previous stitch, pull firmly, but not too much after each turn. At the bottom, bring the needle to the back.

That concludes another week of summer stitch school. I hope you enjoyed seeing this stitch.Grab a needle and give it a try. It really does help to play around a bit and try the stitches - plus it's lots of fun!!

New WIP!

2011-08-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, there are projects being stitched. It feels like a long time. I got off to a slow start with this project, but now I am far enough along to start looking forward to a finish. This project is called "Butterfly Wreath".

There will be a flower at the bottom and a butterfly, of course, in the middle and there are a few other details which you will soon see. There is a lot of 1-strand stitching in this project, but there is some bit of multi-strand stitching coming soon. It's always fun with a closeup of the stitches, so here you go:

Summer Stitch School Week 9: Queen Stitch

2011-08-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another week of summer stitch school! This week's stitch is the queen stitch also known as the renaissance stitch. The queen stitch isn't one of the more common stitches, but there is nothing hard about it, and it has a nice shape that can be used in a variety of ways.

The queen stitch
The stitch is composed of a series of straight stitches. First make a vertical straight stitch, then a small horizontal stitch in the middle of the first stitch.

Next, make another vertical straight stitch in the same holes as the first. Then make a small, horizontal anchoring stitch to the left.

Repeat on the other side.

Now the stitch is complete!

Variations on the queen stitch
There are of course, a whole wide range of variations for the queen stitch. Here is shown just a few of them.

1. An example of the standard stitch formed.
2. Addition of more color is just one idea. There are many possibilities for arranging the individual stitches. Here they are lined up on their sides.
3. The queen stitch can be a filling stitch also. If you don't want a zig-zag edge, try making some half stitches to fill in the gaps.
4. Different examples of aligning the queen stitch. You can make your stitches wider or narrower by changing the width of the center straight stitch. For a wider stitch, just make the middle straight stitch wider.
5. This is an example with 3 colors. Each of the colors has its own needle. Handling all those needles can be a challenge a serious challenge in itself!
6. The queen stitch is well-suited to beading. In this example, a bead is added to the middle straight stitch.
7. In this example a thread is whipped around the middle straight stitch. There are many other possibilities for wrapping and threading the stitches.
8. Another possible alignment of stitches. Lining up two rows can make an interesting line of stitches.

I hope you enjoyed this week's stitch. Grab some thread and fabric. It really is fun to experiment a bit!

Wool Crazy

2011-08-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

I've mostly been a cotton kind of stitcher. It's easy, it's accessible, there is lots of it around. But lately I have been dabbling a bit in wool. I bought a few Appleton crewel wools and got a pile of tapestry wools from the flea markets. If you have been looking at the summer stitch school samplers I have been making, you know that I have been using plenty of the tapestry wools in them. They are thick and chunky and are really nice for demonstrating stitches. Now though, I have become a true fan of wool. There is just something so satisfying about working with them. I'm still trying to figure it out, but the wool is making embroidery fun right now.

This past week I picked up an entire set of colors of threads for wool embroidery by Borgs Vävgarner - the oldest mill in Sweden, running since 1734. They are beautiful to look at and to touch. There are only 50 colors, but there are lots and lots of possibilities in those colors. The thickness is about that of 2 strands of embroidery cotton.

I think I can't resist making some designs intended to be worked with these. I can make these lovelies available in my store soon.

I was at another store that had a pile of wool yarns dyed with natural materials like birch tree bark and onion skins. I bought a big pile of them because they were super cheap since the store owner had just bought them from someone going out of business.

Such lovely earthy colors just as you might expect from wool dyed this way. These will find there way into projects too.

I'll be showing my new project with the lovely wools very soon. It's a bit different since I bought it, but more about that in a day or two.

Summer Stitch School Week 8: Cretan Stitch

2011-08-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

Summer Stitch School Week 8: Cretan Stitch

Welcome to The Floss Box summer stitch school week 8! This week the focus is on cretan stitch. This stitch works great both as a line stitch and a fill-in stitch. As a fill-in stitch this stitch has a really nice texture. Often it is used for leaves, but any shape can be filled in.

The stitch

This stitch is best worked left to right. After bringing up the needle, pick up a small amount of fabric above and to the right of where the needle was brought up. As you pull the needle through, make sure the thread is placed under the needle. The fabric picked up should be vertical to the intended stitching line.

Next pick up a small amount of fabric below and to the right of where you have again brought up the needle. Once again, the thread should lie under the needle as you pull the needle though.

Continue down your stitched line.

When you reach the end, make a small diagonal stitch to the right, so that it has a similar slant as the previous stitches.

Variations

There are plenty of different ways to use this stitch. Below are just a few examples to get you thinking!

1. The basic stitch with evenly spaced stitches.

2. Try lining up rows of stitches in different ways to create interesting patterns. This example has the rows meeting at the verticle points.

3. Cretan stitch is well-suited to being layered. Use a different thread color or type for extra interest, or make the rows of stitches different sizes, either horizontally and vertically.

4 and 5. Varing the horizontal distance between the stitches. Variation 5 shows the cretan stitch with no spacing. This makes for an excellent fill-in stitch with some interesting texture. This variation is also known as closed cretan stitch. Try varying the length of the vertical stitch to push together or lengthen the threads that lie on top of the stitches.

6.The verticle part of the stitches does not all have to be placed at the same heights. Vary them regularly or try an irregular pattern of stitches.

7. The cretan stitch lends itself well to be wrapped and whipped in different ways. Here are show two ways to wrap the stitches.

8.For some extra sparkle, add a bead to the cretan stitch. Here the bead is added after each vertical stitch is made.

There are many more possibilites for the cretan stitch! Grab a needle and some thread. It's fun to sit and just test out different ideas.

Hexagon Quilt Update

2011-08-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I made an update on my hexagon quilt. I have been steadily working on it since the spring when I began it. It isn't fast by any means, but now you can see my little stacks of hexagon flowers are starting to grow big.

I have around 31 of each color now. I am planning to add a fourth color, probably green. I still don't really know exactly how many of these I need, but it's lots more, I am certain! If you are wondering where I find time to do all this, the answer is in the car! This is a perfect travel project, either commuting or a longer car trip - until I start the assembly anyways.

There has been a definite lack of embroidery projects lately. Maybe I got distracted by all the choices - so much to do, so little time - it can be hard to know what is most appealing. This week and next week though, new projects will be started! In the mean time though - it's actually been fun and rewarding to work on the stitch school samplers.

By the way, thanks for all the comments. I can't seem to leave replies for some reason. But I do appreciate them nonetheless!

Summer Stitch School Week 7: Sheaf Stitch

2011-07-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

This week's stitch is the sheaf stitch. This is a great, little, two-step stitch that you might enjoy working into your embroidery. It's sure fun to make, so grab your needles and some thread and give it a try!

The stitch
It's not hard at all. First make 3 vertical straight stitches.

Next bring up your needle somewhere under the first straight stitch. Just push that first stitch over to the right slightly with your finger to make place for the needle. Now wrap the three stitches by bringing the thread over all them and then sliding the needle under them.

Then bring the needle down to the right of the little bundle.

There is the finished stitch!

Variations

There are quite a few little variations you can try with this stitch. Of course, these are just to get you thinking, there are many, many more to try too!
1. This is a small row of "normal" stitches.
2. Add some contrast by wrapping the straight stitches with a different color thread.
3. There is nothing that says you must use 3 straight stitches. This example has 2, 3, and 4 straight stitches.
4. You can also vary the number of times you wrap the straight stitches. Here 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 wraps are shown in the example.
5. This example shows both alternating horizontal and vertical straight stitches with the straight stitches a bit wider apart.
6. You can extend the wrap if you want too. Instead of pushing the first straight stitch over a little, just bring the needle up just on the side of the straight stitch. Wrap under, and bring the needle down in line with the final straight stitch.
7. The stitches can be line up top to bottom. This might make an interesting border or maybe a great fill-in.
8. This shows various irregular sheaf stitches. In some the straight stitches are place at varying distances from one another. Also the length of the individual straight stitches can be varied.
9. Add a bead to the wrap stitch. The bead is passed through two times - once before wrapping under the straight stitches, and again after.

Week 7 is now complete, but there is still time to join in!!

Framed!

2011-07-28T05:45:00.000-07:00

I confess I am extremely bad at doing something with my needlework projects. Most of them end up in plastic boxes. Maybe times are changing, finally! We have framed two of my projects.

So why is it that projects look more "serious" when they are framed? The photos don't really do enough to show how much better the projects look, but it was a big difference. These frames we made ourselves, or Mr. Floss Box did most of the work. ;) Yes, there will definitely be more framed works in the future!

Tomorrow is stitch school again, but in the meantime, make sure to stop and enjoy the beauties of summer because soon they will be gone back into hiding!

Summer Stitch School Week 6: Spider Web Stitch

2011-07-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome to week 6 of summer stitch school here at The Floss Box - half way through now. This week stitch is a fun one: spider web stitch. It can add a lot of nice texture too. It can be stitched both as a detail-type stitch or used to fill an area. The stitch is made in two steps. First a set of spokes are bars is made, followed by another length of thread which wraps around each of the spokes or bars.

The stitch
First make spokes radiating outward from a central point. You can either make straight stitches from the center or make stitches that go over the whole diameter of the area to be stitched. If you are making a 5 point stitch, then you can make one fly stitch and two spokes.

Next bring the needle up close to the center. Slide the needle under the first spoke and then over and under it again. You can slide the needle under the next spoke in the same movement.

Continue until the spokes are filled.

Bring the needle down near a spoke, so that the whole stitched area is even.

Variation 1 and 2
This shows the basic stitch. You can change colors as you go along, or perhaps use threads of different thickness for the spokes and wrapping stitch. Also, you can make how many spokes you like, even or odd.

Variation 3
You don't have to fill up all the spikes. It can be quite effective with the spokes partially filled.

Variation 4
The spider web stitch can be used to fill different kinds of irregular areas too. First make your spokes or bars. Then wrap the threads around them as before. You can bring the thread down at the end of the row, then up again in position for the next row.

These are just a few ides to get you started. This really is a great stitch, so pick up your needle and give it a try!

Quilt block

2011-07-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

When a family member asked for quilt blocks for my dad's wife I knew just what I would do. Sandy has lived in Florida all her life, so this is perfect for her. I took my state map pattern, but I decided it needed a bit more excitement. I added a sun, and a bit of stitched lines and some more writing. I hope she likes it.

The embroidery has been a little slow since I finished the bluebird project last month. I had some kind of mini crises - didn't know what type of project I should do, but the way is getting a bit clearer now. The stitching school has given me a focus. I feel like I am finally learning how to embroider. Tomorrow, another lesson.

In the meantime I can't help a little photo essay on summer's bounty. This year has been good for all the fruits - except the wild blueberries - which happen to be my favorite. A late frost wiped them out, so I am forced to compensate with other berries. I read in the local paper that homemade jellies and jams are making a comeback, but picking yourself is definitely out. I know not everyone has access, but if you are making homemade things, why settle for anything but the best, and I don't know anything better than home-grown, hand-picked, and untainted by unnatural intervention.

Cherries! This year is a great year for them here. The trees area loaded with them. You can fill a bucket fast even if you eat half of them along the way.

A different cherry variant - these are black when ripe. They are sweet and juicy.

The gooseberry is best in pies slightly before it is fully ripe. The acidity is perfect with the sweetness of the sugar.

So many currants. These are hard to find in the store, so delicate and beautiful - they are easily squished.

The pink currants are the sweetest of all the currants. These look like little pink pearls on the vines.

An apple slowly ripening.

The blackberries take a long time, some vines still have flowers while others are well on their way to ripe berries.

The pear trees is loaded this year. I'm looking forward to them.

Home grown plums are amazing. The supermarket can't compete with these lovelies.

A gooseberry pie. There's no need to do a fancy lattice over your pies. A simple one is well appreciated.

The wild raspberries last the shortest and are the hardest to get a pile of, but they are worth it. I baked some into muffins and saved some for later. I freeze as much as I can, a taste of summer in winter is just the thing to remind you that it isn't long until the sun shines again...

Summer Stitch School Week 5: Fly Stitch

2011-07-15T05:15:00.000-07:00

Another week flew by, so it's time for another stitch school entry. This week is the fly stitch. It's not so uncommon as some of the others, so no doubt many of you are already familiar with it, but it's one of my favorites, so here it is! This is another stitch formed in two strokes, which makes it easy to think of lots of variations.

The stitch
Bring the needle down over to the right, in line with where the needle came up, and then up at a point lower and in the middle of the top two points.

Pull the needle through, then make a short straight stitch to anchor down the loop.

The variations
Easy enough, now for a bunch of variations:

Variation 1
Who says the fly stitch can't be a filling stitch? Line them up in horizontal rows and there you go. Switch colors and add some shading along the way.

Variation 2
Line them up vertically. As you seen in my sampler, they become larger as I went down. This wasn't done purposefully, but it's good anyways, shows how you can vary the size a bit.

Variation 3
Again, they can be a filling stitch, this time scattered about at random angles.

Variation 4
This is one of the primary ways of forming the fly stitch, the stitches are stacked up vertically with no space in between. You can start out with a small straight stitch at the top.

Form the stitch as you would for a single stitch. But on the second stitch, the side spokes, need to be formed much closer to the first set. The vertical straight stitch begins where the one above ends.

Variation 5 and 6
I did something like this for the wheat ear stitch. Basically the fly stitch can be whipped, threaded and wrapped in many different ways. For varation 5, after making the basic line of stitches, bring up your needle with a second thread, and wrap it around each stitch on both sides.

For variation 6, after stitching a row of fluy stitches, bring the needle up at the bottom and thread it through the vertical stitches.

Variation 7
For variation 7, I added a bead to the small vertical stitches. The stitches are lined up, but they don't touch each other.

Variation 8
The fly stitch lends itself very well to making fronds.You can make them the same width as you go down the frond or maybe widen them a bit at the bottom. For the stem, back stitch or stem stitch work well.

Variation 9
The fly stitch can be used to make leaves with nice texture. To do this, make the stitches vary close together - the vertical stitches will be very small.

Variation 10
If you can keep track of two needles, try two colors. Note - the vertical stitches end up being more like back stitches, otherwise you go down and up in the same hole.

I hope you enjoyed this week's lesson! Grab some fabric and experiment a bit. Many of the variations I make up as I go along.

Summer Stitch School Week 4: Burden Stitch

2011-07-08T01:26:00.001-07:00

Stem stitch, chain stitch, french knot; it isn't often you come upon a stitch that is actually named after someone. The burden stitch is a very old stitch, used during the middle ages. It was re-popularized by Elizabeth Burden, sister to the designer William Morris. This stitch is useful because it can be used to quickly (or relatively quickly anyways) fill large areas. It has a basket-weave type texture and since it is made in two steps, it is easy to imagine lots of variations.

The basic stitch
First make rows of horizontal bars.

Then make straight stitches going over the horizontal lines going across. The stitch is started at the top of the lower horizontal bar and extends all the way up to the bottom of the next higher bar.

Continue filling in the space with the straight stitches over the horizontal bars. Note that the colors can be changed to give contrast or add shading. They can be varied across the rows too!

Variation 1
The first variation, is the length of the vertical stitches. They can be placed so that the horizontal bars end up completely covered if the stitches are placed so that go over two horizontal bars instead.

Fill in the area.

At the top, you can make half stitches so there is a nice, finished edge. (You can do this at the bottom too).

Variation 2
Try spacing out the stitches some. They can be very close, or spaced out a bit, depending on how much fabric and horizontal stitching you want to show through.

Variation 3
The vertical stitches can be made double. This allows for more of the horizontal bars to show. Note that you can have differing thread thicknesses for the horizontal and vertical stitches.

Variation 4
The horizontal bars can vary in color too.

Variation 5
Use some metallic thread for a bit of glitter!

Variation 6
Fill in other shapes too. The diamond shape is well suited, but round shapes can work too, just alter each stitch's starting point as you move down the curve.

Final note
This stitch is often stitched on evenweave fabrics so the stitches are evenly spaced. But there is no reason why you can't carefully lay down the stitches on woven fabric too. Maybe it isn't your intention that the stitches are evenly spaced anyways! It's quite ok to do things your own way, after all. :)

Birds!

2011-07-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

So many birds we saw last weekend! I'm posting some of the better pictures. Many of them had a whole flock of little birds behind them. Apologies that some of the pics are a bit blurry. We really couldn't get very close, so this is the limit of my camera. We also noticed a tendency for the birds to move away from us, sometimes it was a running escape. ;)
We counted 18 different types of birds, not counting the terns and seagulls. (Why is it that the "common" birds become boring?)

Barnacle geese with babies in toe.

Redshank

Shelduck - no less than 8 little birds!

Grey Heron

Northern Wheatear - this bird seriously objected to our presence

There were lots of swans out!

Oystercatcher - you can barely see it, but this bird has orange around the eye too. Very striking bird.

Greylag geese taking off in a big hurry

I like this goose's expression

Merganser - look, the baby caught a fish!!

Merganser - 8 little birds, notice the one riding on mama's back!

Eider with 16 babies in tow. They probably aren't all hers, these birds group together for protection.

Tern - taking a break from the food hunt.

Presents!

2011-07-04T00:32:00.000-07:00

Birthdays are great - and it doesn't even have to be my own! Everyone is in a good mood and there are presents and cake and ice cream to be had. This time around it was Mr Floss Box's turn. I took the chance to make a few things, because he always appreciates things I make so much. First thing was pot holders. He loves cats, so I used some colorful cat fabric.

Actually they are the second version of some potholders I made at Christmas with the same fabric.

They are easy enough to make. I don't bother with a binding or anything, just sew the two right sides together and turn them out. A bit of machine stitching around the seams, then sew the hole closed is all it takes. Pretty quick and easy, and they have a nice solid feel to them. A bit of hand-made, personal style instead of mass-produced, made-in-some-country is far better, if you ask me.

Next, I put together some placemats. They took a bit of work to do with all the borders, I can tell you, but it was satisfying work. I chose an Ikea print for the center section. It's a big print, so all the placemats are different.

It's a fun print with fun colors. Perfect for summer.

I have to admit that I am a bit jealous of the paper crafters with their personally made cards. But there is no reason textile crafters can't do the same, is there? This is the second year for making a fabric card.

This design was unplanned. I just added stuff as I went. Of course, I wanted it to say Happy Birthday David, but beyond that, I just added things I wanted to try. I'm not sure it was 100% successful, but it is definitely personal, and that is what matters most. This card doesn't open, instead I printed on fabric a little birthday message and sewed it all together. Here is last year's card for reference:

This one was a planned out design and opens like a regular card.

All in all, a fun day!

There was more weekend fun beyond the birthday party. We went by a couple flea markets. I found some more vintage patterns.

I love the old alphabets. I'm certain it's just a matter of time before I do something with them.
I also bought a bit of embroidery that was super cheap:

We also spent hours out watching the coastal birds. There were lots of baby birds out. I have to see about the photos though. I might have enough good ones. All I can say for now, is that the variety of birds was quite impressive. In the meantime, if you want to enjoy these poppies, best to get up early. The flowers only last about 7 hours.

Summer Stitch School Week 3: Raised Chain Band

2011-07-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Raised chain band is a nice stitch for adding lots of interest and texture to your projects. It is medium in difficulty, but really is quite easy to master. The stitch is made in two steps, so it lends itself quite readily to lots of variations.

Step one is to make evenly spaced horizontal stitches of equal width. Next bring up your needle up just above the top-most stitch in the center. Then bring the needle over and under the top stitch. Next bring the needle under the top horizontal again on the other side of the center and wrap the thread under your needle as in a chain stitch.

Repeat the stitch by bringing the needle over and then under the next stitch again and then form the chain stitch as above. Continue down the row of stitches.

At the end bring the needle down to the back of the fabric.

The picture shows some variations on this stitch that I could come up with.

A horizontal row of single stitches line up one after the other.
A regular row of stitches. You can do them in many color variations. This example has 2 colors, but you can add more color either with variegated floss, or perhaps putting two different colored strands on the needle.
This is an example of a filled area. The horizontal bands are wider such that several line of stitches can be made. If you do this, make sure the horizontal stitches are not too loose. Don't pull too hard on the chain stitches as you make them or you will distort the horizontal stitches. Also, if you are filling an area more than an inch or so in width, make more horizontal bands across the width. Be sure to overlap them a bit, so you don't get strange breaks when you make the rows down.
Single stitches with different widths for the horizontal stitches, or try them lined up evenly with a small space between.
This is a comparison with the horizontal bands close together and farther apart.
Curves and circles are no problem. Just make sure to space the band stitches closer on the inside of the curve and a bit wider on the outside, like spokes.
Here you see a comparison of wide and narrow horizontal stitches.

I didn't even get to making variations with beads. It should be quite easy to add a bead at some point where you make the chain stitch.

This is a great stitch to try! It's well-suited to tree trunks, for example. Other things with a bit rough texture could be interesting too, such as rooves or flower stems.

It took a year

2011-06-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

Or very nearly so. I bought this as a gift that I would stitch for Mr Floss Box's father. It felt like I promised to do it, so it had to be done. I thought it would take a month or two, then I thought I could be done by Christmas. Not a chance! It's a nice looking project, but the design was stamped and it's supposed to be certain colors, and it isn't at all very small. But I just decided it would be finished by this year's birthday and in time to put it in a frame. So it is!

This is called Blekinge stitching after the region in SW Sweden. The colors, the floral motifs and the stitches are all part of this type of stitching. It was popular in the mid-1800s. It's good to be able to move on!

Now just a few images from this area of Sweden that I took this weekend.

Summer Stitch School Week 2: Colonial Knot

2011-06-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

This week's stitch is the colonial knot. I have been stitching for awhile now, but I have never actually tried this stitch. Time to change that. This stitch is a medium difficulty stitch. It just takes a few tries to get the movement down, but then it's quite fun and not at all hard. Essentially this stitch can be thought of as two loops around the needle to make a figure 8, but don't think of it as a figure 8 if that confuses you. This stitch will need of your both hands. One to hold the needle and make sure the thread doesn't slip off, and the other hand to wrap the thread around the needle. I left mine out of the photos, but it just doesn't work without them both. First thing after bringing up the needle is to make the first loop. You can do so by wrapping the thread around the needle like so:

Next is to form the second loop. Wrap the thread around your needle again, this time bringing it over the first loop and around to the other side.

Now hold the thread with one hand while you push the needle down close to where you brought it up. If you let the thread slack just a little you will end up with a slightly looser knot with more thread on the top.

Now you are done! Not so hard.

I made a small sampler with colonial knots and french knots in order to compare the two. I think you can tell that the colonial knots end up slightly bigger as they have a bit more thread sitting on top the fabric.

You can vary the threads as I have done, depending on the effect you are after. You can mix two colors for a more interesting coloring - I did this on the bottom two samples with a light and dark green.

Summer Stitch School Week 1: Wheat Ear Stitch

2011-06-17T04:42:00.000-07:00

It's already halfway through June, so I am slow, but it isn't too late to start the summer-long stitch school I have been thinking about. It will be fun. The plan is to have 12 stitches through the end of the summer - since I am a little behind I will either squeeze in the extra weeks or go into September. I will pick a different, slightly unusual stitch to show you, then hopefully a few variations or applications of the stitch, as time allows. The first stitch is wheat ear stitch. It is an easy stitch that is quite versatile due to it's 2-in-1 nature. If you want your stitches to be very even, use an evenweave, or you can draw the stitches on the fabric first. First the stitch:
Make two straight stitches with equal lengths meeting at a downward point:

Then bring up the needle down a bit and thread the the needle though the 2 straight stitches, be careful to not divide the stitches with the needle or things will get a bit distorted.

Bring the needle down in the same hole to form the loop. Next begin a new stitch by bringing up the needle straight down from the first stitch, ideally to make the same angle as the previous stitch. Then put the needle down through the fabric just below the previous loop stitch. Make another straight stitch on the other side, and form a loop as above.

Continue as long as you like!
Now the variations, which there are quite a number of.
You can stitch them as single units. Either in a vertical row, or a horizontal row.

Consider using two different colors and vary the ending. You can continue making loop stitches or maybe add a bit of back stitching or both!

The next variation was sort of cool. You can do different types of threaded and whipped stitches with the wheat ear stitch, I chose to wrap the thread around the straight stitches:

It's quite an interesting effect. You can easily add beads. Just put a bead on in the middle of the loop stitch, or perhaps on the straight stitches. If you add to the loop, you may need an extra little horizontal stitch to keep the bead straight.

And finally, why not turn the whole thing upside down and make a little tree or flower:

So these are only a few of the possibilities there are many, many more!
This little sampler took quite a bit of time to do, so I may not always have time for this kind of effort, but for now:

Homemade is best!

2011-06-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is a quick little project. I didn't do really any stitching last week because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. Sometimes that happens after a big finish. But I just decided I could find a small project to do that might be fun. So I picked this since I am making a little collection of food-themed embroideries to put in the kitchen. I managed to squeeze in 10 different stitches in this little project! I thought that was quite good. Saved myself from doing a whole lot of satin stitching, and succeeded in making the project lots more interesting than it otherwise would have been.

I still have to find a new project again. I got an interim project to work on this time. Something that is taking a long time since I'm not excited about it. Maybe I can do an update on it to motivate myself. ;)

May ATC

2011-06-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is the ATC I stitched for the May stitchin fingers exchange. I made a needle-felted nest with polymore eggs I glued in. The branches are pipe cleaners wrapped with yarn then couch down. Then I added lazy daisies with some kind of yarn and added beads. I couch soft cotton yarn around the edge. It was fun to make. I really didn't know how I was going to do this when I started, so I just went along trying to see what worked, and I was happy to have found a way to make this idea work.

Framing

2011-06-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

Something actually got framed for once! Actually it was more than one project even. Mr Floss Box made this frame for me. I painted with white acrylic paint - that's true for all the frames too. My spring unicorn looks very nice in its frame. I know some people avoid such cute pictures, but it does make you happy to look at it! And in this world that's worth a lot.

I made these 3 samplers. Actually they all have the same 10 stitches and are only 1.5 x 1.5". It's part of something else I am working on. The Flickr crowd wasn't so impressed with them, but they do look kind of cool in reality. I thought maybe they would have looked less busy with just a normal single color floss, but it's so fun to play with the variegated, I just decided to do them that way anyways. But as I said, they are part of something else I am working on.

I'm going to do some more mini embroideries in time. I'd like to try some landscapes. Maybe I will do that next because since I finished my big project I have only been working a bit on my hexagons. Sometimes it's a bit hard to decide what to stitch next, I have too many choices. I will start something later today though!

Spring Bluebird

2011-06-05T02:40:00.000-07:00

I finished this project on Friday. It took some time to attach all those little pieces. I tried a bunch of different things for this project. The wired needlelace was the big thing. As you see, the leaves, the daffodil and butterfly are all done in this manner. They are the same technique but slightly different. I used three colors for the butterfly, that was a bit interesting with all those threads hanging everywhere. Plus I used some silver metallic for veins on the wings. Maybe hard to see, but it sparkles in the light! (Sparkles are cool.)

I am happy to have this complete. It was a bit of a challenge with all the wired parts, but that's what I wanted. I will be trying some new things with them soon.

Yesterday was a bad day. My web hosting company deleted my site. It took all day to get them to restore my account, and then I had to set the whole thing up again from backup. It's mostly done now although some info is lost. I have to say it is a challenge to deal with that part of having my own site, but I have a new site in the works that will hopefully solve at least a few of the difficulties I have been having, although the way things go, new problems will probably present themselves instead! ;)

Finally getting somewhere

2011-06-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time, or maybe I have, just let other things and projects come first. But this weekend is a long weekend and the bluebird project will be done! For once, I remember to take a few pics while I was working on something.

Here I have begun the bird's body. As you can see, I am filling it with long and short stitches. I added a bit of darker blues in the bird for some shading.

For the wing, I couched down a 30g wire, then around I go doing buttonhole stitches. I switched colors because the wing darkens quite a bit on the lower part.

Now I have all the little pieces for the whole project collected. There is more than one to say the least! First I will sew on the bird, after that, I will probably do the ladybug and daffodil. The only stitching left really is the butterfly body. Soon, I will finally be finished.

I also have worked on two small projects in between this one, pictures of those coming soon.

If you haven't read Susan Elliot's post about time and needlework, then you really should! Important stuff to think about if you are the kind of person who spends a significant part of your life with a needle in hand! ;)

ATC from Annet

2011-05-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

This came for me this week. I decided to join the stitchin fingers May exchange. The theme was bird's nests. This is very nicely stiched, and nice spring colors. Thanks, Annet. I sent one off this week, so as soon as it arrives, I will show what I made.

I'm working away on my projects. Too many, too little time, but there will be more photos soon. In the meantime. I will show you my latest score at the flea market. I'm quite happy about this one.

I found the ikea cookbook! The photos were featured in the NY Times because they are so clever. Here is just a little sample:

It's a beautiful book with classic recipes. You can't buy this book, it's "free" - if you buy an ikea kitchen appliance or cupboards, neither of which we wanted, and it's only available in Sweden. But digging around on the floor at flea markets sometimes pays off!

Baby geese visited us this week too!

It was fun seeing them, but they moved on after a couple days with us. The parents are super protective of these little guys.

Back soon with my project pictures, I hope! :)

New WIP

2011-05-18T01:38:00.000-07:00

I have been very slow getting a good picture of this. It doesn't quite feel like a "new" WIP anymore. I manage to work on it some most days.

I already showed the nest earlier. It's a whole lot of bunion knots stitched over some couch soft cotton. The tree branch is stitched with raised chain band over a piece of felt. First time I used that stitch. It isn't hard at all and it has nice texture for a tree. I tried something different with the sun. I used a trellis type of stitch for the circle. I worked that over satin stitching. I don't know if suns should be textured like that, but it at least adds interest. ;) The bug will be a ladybug when it gets its wings. The left flower will be a daffodil. I will make the eggs from polymer clay.

I've also made a whole bunch of leaves. These are done with needlelace on wire. I just did it a bit simply. I formed the wire into leaves and did the outside edge with button hole, then just continued around the leaf. They will be wrapped with thread before being attached. The two little pink bits are the flower buds. They are felt shapes stitched over with long and short.

I hope to have more soon! But there is still quite a bit left to do.

Needlefelting

2011-05-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

I made 2 nests and 1 mushroom. These are my first little projects with needle felting, but likely not my last! I glued them on to pieces of cherry wood. For the nests I made little branches of wire sticking out from the sides. They look a bit odd in the pictures, but much better in person! The eggs are polymer clay. The mushroom is best in my opinion, and so I think I will make more of them. It was fun to play around a bit!

Small Finish

2011-05-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

I stitched this yesterday. It only took a few hours! I chose some rainbow pastels to stitch it with. It can be a bit tricky with so many different colors. But I think I am satisfied. This project is 4 x 4 so it will join my small, but growing collection of embroidery journal pages. Or whatever they are turned into. This pattern is from Mandala Collection 5.

Projects!

2011-05-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

Frog biscornu done! I finished it into a flat ornament. The trim is yarn couched down around the edge. I have to tell you, I know I have seen plenty of people using yarn, but the light finally went on. Knitting yarn is fine to use in embroidery. Maybe you can't use it like normal embroidery threads, but it's perfect for couching. So I am stocking up a bit on some pretty yarns.

My two frog projects together. The framed frog I stitched when I was around 12.

In the works
I started a new embroidery project this week. My picture of the whole thing was so-so, but here is the closeup of the nest

There are a lot of bullion knots in there! I used two strands of thread so it was a bit tricky. These aren't the actual eggs I will use for the project, but they are good stand-ins to get an idea of how it will turn out.

More Journal Pages Added

2011-05-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

I just thought this week, as I was thinking about my stitching, that I need some more "general" types of pages included in the printable journal page collections. So I thought up 5 new types: ideas, inspirations, project lists, goals and notes. Go to this link: Stitching journal pages.

If you aren't keeping a stitching journal, you should consider it! You can make it as simple or as elaborate as you like. It just feels like a really good idea to write down the technical details, as well as your thoughts and feelings about the project, what you learned, and what you might like to do next. It's a great record to have. I wish I had started doing this ages ago, but it's never too late!

Every project has a story, make sure it gets told!

I have to get some photos taken today of my projects, back very soon!

Quilt update

2011-05-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

This is just the first update of many. I haven't come so far. I ran out of hexagon papers. But I printed some and cut my own. Most of what I did this week was done yesterday. But this week should be better. Needless to say I have a looong way to go. :)

I started a new embroidery project and finished a little cross stitch project. No pictures yet, but soon. I am making the cross stitch into an ornament first.

It's been beautiful weather this week. The tulips are about to open. It seems the deer at least don't like this variety.

We were out biking and found some house where people keep some llamas!

We've been cleaning away old stuff in the yard. When an old tarp was lifted 3 snakes were found! These guys are actually not snakes but lizards without feet. When they are threatened they can lose their tail to distract their predators and make an escape.

The Common Blackbird

2011-04-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

The common blackbird is Sweden's national bird. Why would they pick such a seemingly ordinary bird to represent the country you might wonder. Because this litttle bird has an extraordinarily beautiful song. Often on quiet spring mornings it's the first bird you hear when you wake up and the last in the evening. They sing throughout the day too. They are quite sweet the way they hop around pecking for food with their orange-ringed eyes and fluffy breasts. Attracting a mate is one of the main reasons for singing too!

This little project is another 4 x 4 project. I will call it semi-planned. I did draw out the shape of the bird, then plan where the tree limb would go. After that, there was no plan. I added the notes in pink to represent the song, then added the little bead flowers. I felt the project needed more, but I couldn't quite come up with the right thing to add, so it became the word 'love' in script. I would have preferred no writing, but it seemed to fit the message. I didn't really use any fabulous new stitches. The only thing that was an experiment was the tree branch. I couched down crewel wool with linen thread. I used those stitches that are straight stitches that loop into a french knot at the end. (I am not coming up with the correct name at the moment!) Basically elongated french knots. I thought they could add a bit of texture.

So this little project will go along with the little spring design I made last week. They will become something, I'm not quite sure what yet. A book or a quilt of some sort. Hard to say. I'll make a few more and see what feels right.

One of my goals for the year was to start a quilt. Yes, I said start not finish! So I am happy to say that I have made that goal.

All these are already sewn together. I need more little hexagon templates to continue! Actually I don't know how big this will be. I don't have enough fabric for anything large with those that are shown. I am going to try buying coordinating fabrics so I can actually choose the size.

I hope you all had a happy Easter. I took a lot of good, naturey pictures while I was away. I will sift out some of the better ones to share. For now I'll leave you with this old-fashioned daffodil. Daffodils in Swedish are called Easter lillies, and this year, they were right on time.

Spring!

2011-04-14T01:37:00.000-07:00

I have tried more than once, and I felt like I just wasn't "cut out" for doing improvisational or free-hand embroidery. I always like patterns to guide me. In fact, I started this little project and immediately felt restless. It didn't look like anything, but I didn't give up, I continued the stitching. And you know, last night, I had come far, I didn't even want to put it down. I picked it up again this morning before breakfast! I had to pull myself away from it to eat, but then I picked it back up until I was satisfied with the result.

Don't ask me if I think it's perfect because it isn't, but that maybe what is best about it. I would do some things differently for sure. But this result is from inside me, and I most definitely am not perfect. ;) I can't wait to make another one of these.

Anyways, this little project is 4 x 4". I tried a little bead embroidery - something I have been thinking to do for some time now. I used a skein of Caron Wildflowers to guide my color choices - although that wasn't planned from the beginning - thus the tulips are a bit dark. The color guide really helped. I have used Wildflowers before, and really, I can't rave about them enough. I think they are great. And if you have trouble with bullions - this type of thread makes them much easier. Anyways, I will buy more of them in the near future for future little projects.

And finally, this is unfinished as it is. But I will finish into something. A frame, a pillow, a page in a little book. I am not sure. It depends if there are many more coming. But I will make it into something!

We received some lovely gifts from Mr Floss Box's dad and neighbor. A set of 4 handmade bird houses to hang in the tress around here. I wasn't so clever enough to take a picture before they got hung, but I did have my camera out while Mr Floss Box was running around hanging them.

If I zoom in on the bird house, you can see some writing on it! These were just great, and really well built. The birds are already making use of them.

Two Finishes

2011-04-09T02:53:00.000-07:00

A bad case of influenza and a broadband outage has slowed me down this week. But not totally. I at least have two little finishes!

I haven't time to make a nice post as Mr Floss Box is waiting, but here they are. It can only get better next week!

WIPS

2011-04-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

I have four projects at various stages. The two I am working on most are a simple stumpwork design which will I plan to sew into a biscornu.

I am working away on this little cross stitch design. I thought the colors and design were fun, so I started working away on it. It will be done soon I hope! There is much more to be done.

I have two slow projects. I just work on these a bit here and there. In a way they are experiments. This first one is hopefully going to be part of a fabric book. This page is spring. So I have about till the end of May to finish and start a summer page. I have been playing with thread covered washers in this. More about that later.

And finally the crazy quilt block which I ahve already shown a couple times. It's going along. I admit I am no master of cq design, but it's a good technique for experimenting with fabrics and different stitches. I do believe I have a long ways before I am really "good" at this, but it's fun anyways.

New book, new freebie

2011-03-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

First the free pattern. It's a "wreath" in the style I have been making for you to try out. I think it could be quite nice stitched up.

I got a new embroidery book last week!

I really like this book. It has all sorts of great ideas for adding different textures to your projects both with stitches and different fiber types. I'm looking forward to trying some different things. I highly recommend this book if you want to add some interest to your projects. The photos and project ideas are beautiful!

A little slow on the stitching front this week, but the projects are coming along and there will be photos in the near future. Also, I have a couple ideas for regular features for this blog, I have just been so slow getting around to starting them. I am hoping down that I want to do them will help get me focused and started on them!

Winter Wreath Finish

2011-03-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Finished! I like how it turned out, but the photo isn't so kind. The colors are much softer, but that's usually the case.

A close up of the rabbit. I stitched it in a strange way. I mixed wool and cotton threads. I think it's ok how it turned out. I wanted the fuzziness of the wool, and the shine of the cotton floss. Perhaps I managed a little of both. Very pleasant project in any case! :)

I also took an old project out and made a finish of it. I just added a fabric border, then a lace border. I want to put all my food embroideries on the wall in the kitchen, and the cookies can't be left out!

I have to confess that I rarely seem do a nice finish for any of my projects. This one looks so much nicer made into something. I definitely ought to make more of an effort.

What's next? I have a little cross stitch project picked out and another embroidery. I have two side stitching projects going at a slow rate. Hopefully those will become something interesting, but there is much to do on them!

What I've been up to

2011-03-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

I finished the leaves for the Winter Wreath project. Now all is left is the rabbit, then attaching all the pieces. I hope to be done by the end of the week.

In between the stitching there has been the usual trips to fleamarkets around town.

Always on the hunt for a unique item.

Or maybe a few lovely things that inspire.

Also, there has been more than one trip to Ikea. I picked up the new Ikea book on sewing and textiles. It's largely a big promotion for their fabrics, but it does have a few project ideas with simple instructions, and lots and lots of lovely photos.

You know Ikea is always on the edge of trendiness.

So it's not a small thing that they have a sewing book. I love to look at the photos in it, there is a lot of nature-inspired calmness.

I suppose I am inclined to like the book in any case, as I've already added more than one piece of Ikea fabric to my pile.

They have some really fun children's fabric.

I think it will become some tote bags for two nieces.

I hope you enjoyed the photos, because it was fun to take them. I will be back soooon with more! ;)

Oops

2011-03-18T00:17:00.001-07:00

I didn't have the correct permissions for the journal page files, but now that should be sorted out. Enjoy them! :)

Project Journal Pages available

2011-03-17T02:07:00.000-07:00

Now they are finally finished and posted. I wrote and article why you should a project journal, so I won't repeat it, just go read it. Click to go the the freebie site where the journal pages in pdf format is available. I've already said it a few times so far, but you can download the pages, and print just the ones that suit any particular project. You can gather the pages in a notebook, a file folder or bind them yourself. Or there are plenty of other ways to keep them together, just use your imagination!

I'm just getting started on mine even after all the projects I have done, so it's never to late to just get going!!

Berries

2011-03-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have to say I always like the way this type of berries turn out. They really aren't hard at all, and they are even fun.

I always use two layers of felt underneath. One smaller and one the same size as the berry. I like to pick about 3 floss shades. I fill in the berry with french knots with 3-4 strands of floss. Then put a few beads in the cracks. Or you can just pick a few shades of beads and skip the french knots. If you like them half as much as I do, you will be pleased with the results.

I didn't quite have enough time today, but I've been creating something for people interested in making project journals. I wrote up a little post about journaling, but I haven't had a chance to scan a few pictures to go with it. I will soon though! Hopefully tomorrow I will finish the files and post them.

Squirrels are common in a lot of places in the US, but they really aren't all that common in Sweden, although they are by no means rare. So we don't mind that there are 2-3 of them that come munch sunflower seeds in the bird feeder. They are so cute, aren't they?

Winter Wreath Progress

2011-03-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

Progress feels fast so far. I haven't had so much time for it, but I try to make some time every evening. Makes for steady progress, and that's important.

I like the color choices so far too. You can see the colors I am using for the berries in the picture. Those I am working on tonight. Anyways, it feels like I am getting the hang of making these "wreaths". I have the next one in the works, although it may be less wreath-like. I've got to hurry along on this winter project, so I can move onto the next! ;)

Picking floss colors

2011-03-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

I started a new project, yay! This is the winter wreath project with my chosen floss -except for the rabbit. I will pick those when I work on it. I am being careful this time to write down which colors I use and where. I mentioned I have been getting a few questions about color keys. So I thought I would say a bit about how I pick colors for my projects. Perhaps it will help someone.

I usually choose the colors based first on how bright I want the picture to be, and quite often I start with the greens since there is often a bunch of leaves. In this case, I don't the colors to be so bright, but a bit softer and greyer. And since this is a winter theme, I want blue-ish colors. For the bigger leaves I am going with greens from the 500 family. They have so much blue so I thought it would look good with the blues and purples I am using for the smaller leaves. I also always work first from elements that I know will be a certain color, like the flower at the top, I wanted to be white, but not bright white, so you can see it on the fabric, which is white. Then I knew I wanted red berries, so I found a red I thought matched the other colors. It will stand out a bit, but there aren't so many of them, so somewhat bright is good.

I like doing the big circle in two colors on these wreaths. I always do stem stitch with 1 strand. I usually chose a lighter and a darker color. It adds a lot of depth and interest to the whole project.

The larger berries are going to be peach/cream colored. I picked shades that matched the other colors, but mostly, I just had in my head before I started to make light-colored berries.

I usually do one element at a time and do all of them before I move on, and I always re-evaluate the colors a bit as I go just to make sure I like them.

I wouldn't at all say I am a color expert and I still feel I make choices that aren't ideal. But I try to learn what doesn't work and avoid doing that again. I'm going to come back to this topic, I think in the future. Perhaps I can pull out some projects and point out some things I feel I have done wrong and some I thought worked well.

That's a lot of text! So I will just finish with a special visitor to the bird feeder in the yard. This woodpecker comes around quite often.

We are keeping track of the different birds we see. Perhaps as spring comes we will get new sorts visiting. I check many times in a day when I am home to see who is out there. I have a feeling the birds are going to be creeping into my projects in some form or another!