Stitching vistas

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Through the Sew-Op, I had the chance to take a two-part course from one of my fellow teachers, Sally Munro, on landscape quilting. We used the method in the book Accidental Landscapes, by Karen Eckmeier. I chose a photo of sunset as seen from my grandparent’s backyard when I was growing up (appearing in speckly scan form below). See what you think of the interpretation:

I took a few progress photos to give you a sense of how it went together.

The sky and water were made from pieced fabric, through a technique called texturing where you cut a slightly wavy edge, press it down a quarter inch, and topstitch it to the layer above. After trimming the lower layer to a quarter inch below the stitching, you can add the next one. Cutting a wavy edge rather than a straight one gives a more organic feeling to the piece. The perfect colors miraculously came out of Sally’s fabric stash.

The tree was black fabric on Steam-A-Seam cut out by hand with a previous copy of the photo on top of the fabric. It is on top of the sky but extends below the top edge of the water, for extra security.

The binding is one continuous strip, joined into a loop after being sewn on three sides and a couple of inches into the fourth on each side. It is turned to the back and hand-sewn down. I used corner pockets for a hanging rod; the binding is what’s called a French twist and is supposed to create its own rod casing, but the fabric I used was too narrow to accommodate anything but the tiniest of dowels, with virtually no overhang at the ends.

Unfortunately I basted by machine, which was not Sally’s intent, and couldn’t get the needle marks out. It’s a good thing I had basted with the direction of the design! I will know better next time. It was a wonderful learning experience, though, and I am more than happy with the way it came out.

Boifday

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Tomorrow is my birthday, and although last year I didn’t even mention it, the year before I took a post to explore projects that went better than I could have hoped. This year I’m just going to have a little chitty-chat about hopes, dreams, plans, and gratitudes (though I also updated the showcase (showoff) category).

The past year has been major. I alluded to big changes to come at the beginning of last year, and while things have moved more slowly than I originally planned, the changes have indeed come. Along with some I did not plan! It wasn’t until after writing that post that I started dating my husband, with all his varied interests and collaborations. The day after tomorrow is our first anniversary of becoming engaged (he would have proposed on my birthday, but the ring wasn’t ready yet). His support has been inexpressibly valuable to me.

The change I had planned on was leaving my job as a math professor at the end of the 2011-2012 school year and striking out on my own as a craft teacher and designer. This blog chronicles most of that: constructing and teaching classes, designing crochet patterns, my other crafts done out of personal interest or need and perhaps with the goal of learning something along the way. I’ve been doing some mathematical work on the side, and won’t let that slip entirely, but I hope to make craft the central focus of my career. The opening of my crochet pattern store less than two months ago was just the latest step in this path. I have big plans for future design and branching out from amigurumi, and I have to remind myself that trying to do everything all at once is just going to lead to a big bottleneck with zero income meanwhile.

There are ups and downs. The store opened much later than I originally hoped – but allowed me time to make a major revision to pattern layout that I think much improves usability, and to find WooCommerce, an open source WordPress plugin for online sales. My first pattern sale to someone I didn’t know personally turned out to have been a misunderstanding that ended in a refund – but brought to my attention a technical problem I’m glad came up when it still didn’t have much of an impact.

So it is one step at a time, one pattern at a time, one class at a time. My wonderful sister has been my other biggest cheerleader, and I can’t close this post without thanking her as well!

So happy birthday to me, and break a leg to my fourth-grade sister-in-law, who features in a school production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin tonight.

Crochet class, revised

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Tonight begins another two-part crochet class, my third at the Sew-Op. In light of my experience and the fact that I’ve put most of the previous curriculum on the Learn Crochet pages (which, by the way, got several hours of revision over the weekend, and will get more next weekend in advance of part 2 of the class), I’ve switched things up. Tonight we’ll begin making this little poorly-photographed bag:

We’ll start with the tassels; one is a plain chain, one a chain adorned with a slip-stitched faux good luck knot, and one a chain with a flag of solid single crochet at the end. The drawstring will be homework lest we spend all our time chaining. The bag is worked bottom up and you can get through more than half of it knowing only chain, slip stitch, single crochet and sc increase. Once you get near the top there is some decreasing and double crochet, which we will cover in the second class. There should be plenty of time for some special topics according to student interest at the end of the second class. I’m excited to try this new approach!

Ghosties

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BOO!

Ghosties Pattern

This newest store pattern began to take shape on a very long car trip, at the suggestion of my husband. They are done in two pieces in the round and are quick to put together. I’ve even done one in embroidery floss with glow in the dark features.

Trying to love mends

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I’ve mended a couple of pairs of jeans over the last few weeks. Unfortunately my jeans tend to wear thin spots and holes in the inner thighs, where the inseams rub. If they sprang holes in the knees, I would happily make some decorative mend, but in a spot where I don’t want to call attention, I really want an invisible mend. That, as you know, takes a lot of time.

Pair 1 was caught early and got a reasonable mend easily. Pair 2, however, was caught late, and decisions had to be made.

I am getting a lesson in “A stitch in time saves nine.”

I stitched along the seams to attach a piece of white muslin to the inside, but then had to decide whether to suck it up and machine-stitch over the worn spot, or spend a huge amount of time and effort darning by hand for a more invisible repair. I don’t like the look of lots of machine sewing over a worn spot. It doesn’t bother me on other people, but I have always resisted such things for myself, probably with some amount of snobbery.

In former years I would have dumped these jeans and gotten new ones, but tightness of cash flow plus a newly expanded conscience about consumption and sustainability told me to make do and mend. Ultimately I took a middle road: mending by hand, but less careful and thorough than the ideal. I figure I will see how they wear and make decisions about further mends later on.

There will be no fancy “photo color matching” under my roof.

That is something I’ve learned in this mending adventure: a mend is not a lifetime contract. The first sock darn I made frizzed apart in the wash, so I did it again. As long as this mend holds I’m happy. Once it no longer holds (as is inevitable), I’ll decide where to go next.

I wore these jeans over the weekend, and checked that the mend was not visible in typical views. The fabric is rough to the touch but my legs don’t notice. Perhaps the thread sticking out a bit will save the fabric more by taking the rubbing for it.

A note on material: For the first pair of jeans I used a dark blue thread from a tiny spool, one of a set sold with notions or in drugstores. I’ve since purchased the same color in Coats & Clark for future mends, since those are my favorite jeans and actually what I wore to get married. The second pair of jeans, quite a bit lighter and less true blue (photos notwithstanding), were mended with Coats & Clark denim thread, which color-wise blended amazingly well. It is, however, quite shiny, more so than most sewing thread, and I hope it dulls down because jeans are really not at all shiny.

First Friday

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Hey! I remembered First Friday!

I have a few things to share that don’t fit in other places. First, a wonderful essay on learning in adulthood from indietutes, worth clicking now even if you don’t have time to read it because she includes wonderful photos of mangled and broken pins and needles from her early sewing experiences.

A few little tutorialish items: tips on using freezer paper for stenciling, a gradually growing visual dictionary of embroidery stitches, and a way to use a fork to tie pretty bows. That last doesn’t seem to be the origin of the graphic, but I wasn’t able to track down anything that seemed like an original source.

I’d like to close with some proverbs according to spam comments. Read and become wise.

Have some understanding of other nutritional foods and everything involving one thing.
Experience is the father of perception and also storage the mother.
Common routes and outdated close friends work best.
A guy cannot serve 2 pros. [I'm assuming this one is about caddies.]
Your tortosis benefits the actual ethnic background even though the hare will be sleeping.
Adjust sits not the woman’s hands after fact.
The actual friar preached against stealing coupled with any goose as part of his sleeve.
Dept of transportation the actual i’s and also corner the particular t’s.
It’s my individual mistake if I am duped with the identical guy double.

Reviving

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I live in t-shirts all year round, the nicer kind, typically with v-necks or scoop necks. They last me a long time, but sometimes I lose the desire to wear them well before they are actually worn out. When that happens I have two choices: give them away, or try to alter them somehow. After talking to an alterations student who happened also to be a Sew-Op teacher, I decided to remake the most recent batch: two shirts that were faded and floppy, and one that was too high in the neck and hem and had a tiny bleach spot. Here’s the first result.

I combined the high-necked shirt with one of the floppy ones to try out reverse applique a la Hope Studios, though I did not plan to retain both full t-shirts. First I put them both on and lined them up so any parts that have stretched with time to accommodate my shape matched. Then I freehanded some leaf shapes at the neckline and pinned there. I used a narrow zigzag to sew around the outside of the leaves, with the thread tension turned up and the presser foot tension turned down in an effort to avoid stretching out the fabric. I cut away the excess fabric of the inner t-shirt, leaving the leaves connected and a decent amount at the bottom so I could smooth it out and avoid it being obvious from the outside that there was an extra layer ending at a random spot. Only after that did I clip out the insides of the leaves on the top layer, using small pointed-tip scissors. My advice to anyone who wants to do this is: go slowly. If you nick the bottom layer there’s not much you can do about it.

The top layer had a pinhole just above the hem stitching at center front, and to secure that as well as help with some of the floppy feeling, I turned the hem to the inside and stitched it up with a wider zigzag. All the stitching was in a thread that approximately matched the inner layer, though far from exact. I knew it didn’t matter too much because of the next step: overdying the whole shebang to harmonize the colors (which does not affect the thread). I gave them a 15 minute bath in a somewhat weak solution of royal blue RIT. I think that step might have been enough by itself to save the green shirt, because I love the finished color (which is richer than the photo at top makes it look).

Before I began the blog, referenced in my post about stitching with a twin needle but with mysteriously disappeared photos, I shortened several shirts, and bleached and re-dyed some others. I was using benzoyl peroxide on my face at the time and it was seemingly never possible to avoid damage to my clothing. I was pleased to realize that was almost three years ago and three of the four shortened shirts are still in rotation; the redyed shirts, however, are all retired. I don’t think I would bleach if I were doing that again. It is too hard on the fabric.

I’ll show you the results of the second project soon – it took a lot longer than anticipated!

Education

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I spent a fair while this weekend making a complete overhaul of the Learn Crochet page. In fact, it blossomed into a series of pages dedicated to a succession of crochet topics. Substantially more of my own description and illustration appears, and the outside links are slightly more incorporated into the flow. I plan to continue improving it, with better inter-linking and incorporation of external links, among other things. There are many more patterns already than there were, and I plan to add more links as I come across them. Please give me feedback if you find the pages useful, or don’t but wish you did!

Koala vault

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I’ve been designing my own cross-stitch patterns almost as long as I’ve been cross-stitching. The oldest one that still exists is of a koala on a tree.

I stitched it up again this week, though I made a counting mistake (per usual) and used three strands for everything including backstitch, which was also a mistake.

What a difference a face makes! I wasn’t sure whether the eyes and nose were to be outlined in tan or black, nor whether the box around the pattern was backstitched or not, since it was not explicitly addressed in the backstitch color instructions and I didn’t see a clear inference to be made. The non-mouth facial features were probably intended to be outlined in tan, upon reflection, although that would make the mouth stand out a lot. As it is, though, he kind of looks like he’s wearing thick-rimmed glasses with an attached nose and mustache.

Why I thought a koala should be tan, however, is one question that cannot be answered.

Another link in the chain

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At least five years ago, I took a one-off course in wire wrapping. This is a technique used in jewelry making to make wire loops that are finished in a secure and decorative way: by wrapping one end of the wire around the other. I began a necklace with copper-colored wire and some metallic beads.

I decided to finish the necklace after all this time to discover that not only did I not remember how to make the wrapped loops, I didn’t remember what the technique was even called. I tried a few practice loops and they really didn’t come out. Fortunately for me, its name is straightforward. I found wonderful instructions on Fusion Beads, from a whole index of wire beading techniques. I had been doing it almost right, with two exceptions: I hadn’t been leaving a long enough “tail” of wire to wrap with, and I had missed the movement of the pliers from under the loop to inside it (step 3 in the instructions linked above). Not long after reading those instructions, I had this:

I made up the hook and eye closure since I didn’t have any copper-colored findings. My motivation to start was really just to check it off the list, but I rather like it. I’ll put it with the rest of my underused necklaces!

Fruity decor

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I’m pleased to announce another pattern addition to the store! One of the first patterns I ever worked out was for a small apple ornament, and as soon as I started really thinking about pattern design I wrote down “fruit ornaments” in my idea list. Here they are!

There are seven fruits represented, both whole and sliced, each with a matching leaf: apple, pear, orange, grapefruit (shown only in sliced form above), lemon, lime, and peach. Of course there is some overlap of patterns there, but also a good bit of variety, such as a kaffir lime leaf pattern and a mandarin orange segment. Instructions are included for the stems, with knot diagrams and suggested yarn lengths. There are three options available for purchase: everything, whole fruits only (with leaves and stems), or sliced fruits only (instructions for hanging loops, but no leaves or stems).

These were originally intended as ornaments, but they would also make lovely appliques on a market bag, or, made in embroidery floss and stiffened, would be fun earrings or pins. In fact I will be adding product photos to the catalog pages of just such uses in the near future!

Comic gifts

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Late last fall I got the idea to stitch up some of my husband’s drawings and make him a zippered pencil/hook case for Christmas. Well, here we are now and the stitching is done but not the case.

Oh You! A Periodical is the hubby’s zine, and the first picture is the banner for the accompanying blog. The other is from an individual blog entry. Click the pictures to go to the blog and the entry, respectively.

He made both originals on the computer, the unicorn with a program that allowed pixel-by-pixel control (so the pattern is a literal representation, though I made a minor error in the stitching), and the man by drawing with the trackpad on his laptop (!!!). I printed a large version of the man and went over it with graph paper to turn it into a cross-stitch pattern.

The stitching is all half stitches on 28-count evenweave with two strands of floss. Full cross stitches were too difficult at that scale.

His birthday was yesterday and I gave him the finished embroideries with a request that he tell me whether he would actually like them made into a pencil case, or into something else. He chose the pencil case, and we’ll be designing it to suit his use. I’ll show you when it’s done!