Casalguidi & Lavender: Background completed

With the completion of the background, I have more or less completed lesson 1 of this EGA group correspondence course.

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Barbara M. Kershaw says that Casalguidi is a peasant embroidery. Apparently the peasants and villagers of Casalguidi,which is a village in North Central Italy, created this form of embroidery in order to imitate the laces that the rich people used, which they admired very much but just could not afford themselves.

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Fascinating to learn some of the reasons why some new techniques have been created by people. This was also a nice way for the women to increase their family's income.

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There is a very interesting book that I own which talks a little bit more about the history of Casalguidi. The book shows some wonderful pieces that have been done through the years and it also has some beautiful projects in it as well as how to make the different stitches. It is called Casalguidi Style Linen Embroidery by Effie Mitrofanis. You can find this book at many needlepoint stores and also at Amazon.

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Lesson 2 will be about adding a padded raised stem band. That should be interesting learning :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Patches of Snow: Middle section completed

Done a little more beading on Patches of Snow. I like beading, but I wish there would be a little more stitching and a little less beading on this one, a bit like the little Emerald one I made some time ago.

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On another note, I have found a new series of adventure books recently, quite by chance as I was investigating something else. They are called the Amelia Peabody Mystery series written by Elizabeth Peters. The first one of the series and the only one I have read so far is called Crocodile on the Sandbank and it did not take too long before I found myself hooked by that new series.

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I was lucky enough to be able to visit Egypt a few times in the past and I have always been fascinated with archeology, so this newly discovered adventure/mystery series is absolutely perfect for me. I thought I would share in the event that some of you might like to investigate this series a bit further.

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Whenever I need to relax a bit, there is nothing better for me than a good book to do the trick. I read a bit and then I can go back to my stitching a bit refreshed.

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Pierrette =^..^=

She Stoops to Conquer: All stitched

Just put the last stitch on "She Stoops to Conquer", an Anne Stradal design. I had started this little project many months ago, then got distracted by something else and just came back to it. Originally I was thinking of putting it on one of my bathroom wall, but changed my mind and will instead finish it as a flat-fold finish and keep in my stitching room so that I can keep a vigilant eye on her.
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My friends were kidding me when they saw the towel I made for her, quite thick and fluffy :-)
There is one positive thing about that towel in addition of drying her perfectly, it is the fact that when she drops it, she will probably loose an instant 5 lbs, which should be a big booster in her fight to loose a few extra pounds (grinning).
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I really like Judy Odell's little finishing instruction booklet called The Flat-Fold as it makes a really neat finish and is not expensive either to do. The instructions are well made with good photos and is easy enough for anyone to use. I have used it once before when I finished my little Halloween Friendly Ghost All you need is some decorative fabric, batting, cardboard or mat board and threads. It has been a long time since I made the first one so will have to reread it before starting, but I remember it going very well.
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This is a photo of little cabochons with rim sets that I have been looking for to use on a Susan Portra ornament. These two came with another project so can't use them for Susan's ornament. They are the perfect size, about 10mm or a little less than 1/2 inch (approximately 7/16"). I am looking for 5 red cabochons with golden rim sets. If someone knows where to find some online, please contact me at LovetoStitch99@comcast.net I think that I will buy a whole truck load of them, if I ever find some (grinning).

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Terry and Pat have been helping me to look for some, but we have not been able to find some exactly the same style as the ones on the photos. There are probably other stitchers that would also love to know where to find some and if I find the same exact thing, I will post the information on my blog.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Patches of Snow: Top section completed

I have been thinking as to the reason(s) why I decided to do a Christmas project and I think I know why. It is a very simple reason, actually. We are having a heat wave and it has been rather uncomfortable for me to stitch in my stitching/computer room, which as luck would have it seems to be the warmest room in the whole house and unfortunately I can't move it :-(

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Stitching some Christmas project brings me back to a place with much cooler temperatures, even if it is only in my mind.

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This new photo shows how much I have been able to accomplish under these warmer/hotter conditions. It has been around 93-95 degrees outside and the air conditioning in the afternoon just can't keep up with it and this is only the beginning of June. What will happen in July and August, and even September? I don't even want to think about it. Last year our air conditioning decided to quit us when the temperatures were over 100 degrees. We have an air conditioning unit for upstairs and a different one for downstairs. Now, my stitching room is upstairs as well as the bedrooms and of course that is the one that broke. Since we were not the only ones that had such bad luck as it puts quite a strain on air conditioning units when temperatures go that high, I think that it took approximately 4 to 5 days before they installed a new unit. Not happy memories, I can tell you that :-(

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A few days ago, I have received a book that I had been wanting for quite some time. The title is Embroidered Knot Gardens (using three-dimensional stumpwork, canvas work & ribbonwork) and the author is Owen Davies from Britain. I really did not know what to expect from the book as I had heard good and not so good comments about it, so it was with a bit of apprehension that I opened it, wondering if I was going to be disappointed or not (again). To my immense relief, I can report that it is a wonderful book and it has already given me some great ideas as to where I will apply some of the information found in the book. I need to say here, that if someone is looking for a very specific project that would be described from start to finish, this is not the right book, but that being said, all necessary information is right there in the book to make it possible to create something wonderful. All stitches are very well explained with charts, lots and lots of beautiful photos with close-ups of some of the stitches. One that has stood out for me is on page 63 where he explains how to make needlelace leaves that are extremely pretty. He even has a photo that shows a small matchbox container that had been adapted to create a courtyard garden inside it, which gave me the idea of finding a box the size I would like to have my little garden and use that instead of having to build some container from scratch. And you should see the brick walls that he has made with threads. I could go on and on as I really love the book. I purchased mine at Amazon as I always want to take advantage of the free shipping, so I added another book to it to cover the minimum $25.00 purchase required to get free shipping.

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I have received my threads and canvas yesterday from Pam for Mystery in a Corner by Gay Ann Rogers, so will be starting to work on that as I have a little bit of catching up to do. Will put some photos a bit later.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Virtual Book Tour: Janet M. Perry, Guest blogger (An Article about Janet's life in Bargello

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR - JANET M. PERRY AS MY GUEST telling us about her latest book called BARGELLO REVISITED

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For some of you who may be wondering what exactly is a Virtual Book Tour, it is simply the equivalent of an author visiting book stores to promote her or his latest book, but instead of visiting book stores the author is visiting websites or blogs. No planes to catch, no driving, we all stay in the comfort of our own home :-)
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Janet has just recently published her latest book entitled Bargello Revisited and she is making her first stop of her Virtual Book Tour today on this blog and for this occasion Janet will be sharing with us her love of Bargello. During the coming month(s) she will be visiting other blogs and doing some fun activities there. You can read more about all this by visiting her blog and her website, links well indicated at the end of Janet's article.
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Without any further delays, here is the article written by Janet M. Perry about her life in Bargello.
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Enjoy :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

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MY LIFE IN BARGELLO (written by Janet M. Perry)
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Janet says:
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My love affair with Bargello probably started in about 1971 with a book. The book was Elsa Williams' Bargello. I found it at my local needlepoint store. I was entranced by the lovely shading and the wonderful patterns. I bought it and immediately started to study.
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Back in those days, I hadn't really done much needlepoint, so this was completely new. The book had pictures of the finished needlepoint, but no charts, and the yarn colors didn't match the Paternayan my shop carried. But I loved it, so I bought several shades in the same color family, some canvas and I started to decipher the patterns.
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It only took one and I became hooked. Almost immediately I decided to make covers for our dining room chairs (I was 14). My dad made a frame, my mom and I picked out thread colors (rust, dark green, and ivory) and I picked patterns from the book. I didn't get very far as chair covers are big, really big. It's a dream project to this day.
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The next Bargello pieces I remember were a pair of evening purses in shades of turquoise I made while I was in college. Doing needlepoint kept me sane in the intense environment of St John's College. I was about the only student who needlepointed, endearing me to the older women there.
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This pillow, a not very well counted version of an Elsa Williams pattern, was made around that time. If you look closely, you will see the count is off and not all the diamonds are even, but 30 years later, I still love the colors.

I also became fascinated by the idea of a solid color Bargello as a background. Being self-taught is not always a good thing as you don't know when something is hard. So my first attempt at this was a Hungarianpoint pattern and I didn't know how to count it properly. I still have the piece and it pains me to look at it.

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Shortly after I got married, I started to branch out in my Bargello, making the pillow you see here. I became fascinated to use different threads, which was revolutionary in needlepoint in the early 80's. This one is of another classic pattern.

I explored the idea of making what I call Op Art Bargello (there's a pattern like this in the book) where there are only a few lines of color against a solid background. I still love the graphic impact of these designs. This project from Bargello Revisited is my latest Op Art Bargello.

I kept exploring ideas like single color Bargello using different threads, making a lovely Bargello scallop shell (my Mom and DD have my versions of this one) and an all-white pillow. I also kept reading every book on Bargello I could find, getting them from the library over and over again.

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In the 90's my life got extremely busy with kids, big house, nanny and a high-pressure job, so my needlepoint changed too. I started to look for small projects, which were easily portable and fast to make. That's when I started doing the Bargello mini-socks. By my estimate I've made close to 40, every one different. I would find a pattern I liked in a book or magazine and I would buy some threads or raid the stash and make a mini-sock. The first ones I finished myself. Now I have them finished or they languish in my stash. Some of my favorites are in the book. Others I've given to friends.

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Here are pictures of some I've done recently. The first one, still unfinished, is a Hungarianpoint medallion design. I haven't done this before and I made sort of a random outline and started to fill in. I'm not happy with it becauce the center doesn't look good. I think I'm going to try it again working from the center out.

This one, which has the charted line below it, is a scallop pattern I call swag because it looks like swags in drapes. With this I'm also trying to break out of my color rut. Orchids are not my favorite colors, but I do like this. That's a good thing about mini-socks, you can try colors here with no risk. You might not make an orchid pillow, but an orchid ornament is OK.

As a gift to you, here's the line for this pattern.

So what's next? I like the idea of trying out color schemes in mini-socks, so I think I'm going to do a series based on the colors paint companies come up with for painting a room. I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of proportions in Bargello design, so I'm going to explore changing the proportions of the colors and see what happens. I'm going off to the paint store tomorrow to get some inspiration (I also need to find paint for several rooms in my house).

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Keep Stitching

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Janet M. Perry

napaneedlepoint@gmail.com

http://www.napaneedlepoint.com/

http://www.nuts-about-needlepoint.com/ - blog

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Like Janet, I have always loved Bargello too as it has always had an hypnotic effect on me with all these ups and downs, making me stitch for far longer periods of time that I would normally have done.

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I am presently working on Desire which is a Susan Portra Design, have completed Bargello Symphony designed by Loretta Spears, design that I absolutely love, Gem Storm, a Marianne Frost design (had so much fun with this one) and my very first Bargello project which was a little scissor case.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Shalimar: Second corner completed

Slowly moving along with this project. So far, the 4 middle sections and 2 corners done, remains 2 more corners and the lovely middle section, which I keep for last to motivate me to keep going whenever I ran out of steam :-)
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Pat is now working on Gail Hendrix' blue jay on her blog and perhaps after that she will start working on the cardinal, which is the one I have. -
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Yesterday, I was having a slow day, feeling a bit tired, and went to sit comfortably on my lazy chair with a book called French Knot Pictures by Christine Harris. I have always loved doing French Knots and Christine has some lovely miniature scenes in her book. Most of them are about 2" by 3" in size or 5 cm by 7 cm and I was thinking of stitching one, working on that particular project only during the evenings. She says it takes approximately 15 hours to complete a project of that size, so not that bad compared to some of the big projects I am currently working on.
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There was some discussion about some fun painted canvas made by Maggie & Company on the Needlepoint group. I was tempted by some of them myself but not sure that I want to tackle another big project right this minute.
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Going back for more stitching now :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

Old Country: What a wonderful exciting stitching trip I just had :-)

I am doing a Happy Dance as I am typing this as I have just finished stitching Old Country and what a wonderful stitching adventure it was with all those fun stitches that I rarely ever have the opportunity to use.
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I made a few close-ups for some of the fun stitches that Jim included in this project. This one here is called a Walneto motif. Isn't it just beautiful. If you have Jean Hilton's book called "Stimulating Stitches", you will find some good explanations with little charts, which may help you along if you are having problems grasping how it is done.


This one below includes some large crescent motifs and inside you find big and small Jessicas, which we all know by now that Jim is very found of them and no wonder as they do make a statement. At first I was not all that crazy about them, but since I had to do some in all 10 ornaments completed so far, Jessicas and I have become quite good friends now :-)



I now need to clean up a bit after myself as there are threads all over the place and decide what I will tackle next. Will it be Windows into my Heart or More Options in Hardanger or Terra Rosa or Shalimar or doing the finishing for Tara or the brazilian rose or .................... (big grin)
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You will all find out on my next post, including myself (ROFL).
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Pierrette =^..^=

Old Country: Slow progress

I have managed to do a little more on Old Country while doing a million other things. Well maybe not, a million thing, but you get the idea (big grin). I am still having fun with it as it is such an interesting design with so many fun stitches that I normally don't use.

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The other day I came across a very interesting website called Vetty Creations . I guess that by now everybody knows that I like to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, so I was very happy when I came across that site.

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While spending time on Yvette Stanton's site I discovered many wonderful projects as well as books about Ukrainian drawn thread embroidery, Mountmellick embroidery and Hardanger. After reading a bit about her books, I decided to go hunting for them here in the USA and found them at Stitching Bits and Bobs. There are only two out of the three books listed on their website but they did have the Hardanger one also. I was happily surprised by their fast service.

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What attracted me to these books is the fact that there are lots and lots of photos showing step-by-step instructions to help me along as I try those new techniques. I have done some hardanger embroidery, but have not yet done anything using the other two techniques, so these books will become very handy.

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Yvette also has a blog called White Threads and a few Yahoo groups to help those interested to learn more.

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Going back to my stitching now as I still have a bit more to do before I can call this one finished :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Windows into My Heart: A little more done after a 4-year hiatus

A little progress has been made on Windows into my Heart, a design by Ruthmarie Hofmann. The first thing I had to do, as you can easily imagine after a 4-year hiatus, was to reread the entire project instructions and also all the notes that Ruthmarie gave us during that cyberclass and she was quite generous about them too. So, somewhere between reading most of it, but not quite all of them, my little fingers started itching for stitching, so stopped reading and started working on the right side of the heart. The last little section is filled with basketweave stitches. I do love stitching basketweave so much more than tent stitch. I had to refresh my memory about it as I do not work that stitch all that often. One thing that I always need to remember is that when I am going UP, I need to cover the HORIZONTAL mesh of canvas and when I am going DOWN, I am covering the VERTICAL mesh. The rest is a piece of cake, as they say.

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Next to that basketweave section, I did a vertical row of French Knots, which is another stitch that I love to do. I have a book called French Knot Pictures by Christine Harris and each time I look at it, I say to myself, I need to make one of these projects made entirely in French Knots. At first I was thinking of making those French knots using my red thread, but after I finished stitching the basketweave, I decided against it. I thought that the overdyed thread would do a better job. I used 4 strands of the overdyed and only one wrap. That makes a much better looking knot then when making two wraps. To make things more interesting, I also put together the threads in opposite direction in my needle, two on one side and the two other on the other side, which mixed the colors even more in my needle. My thinking for doing that was that it really does not take much thread to make one wrap and I was concerned that I would not get enough color change in my row. I like the end result.

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What now remains to do on this piece is the large section on the left which will be covered with free-form eyelets using the same overdyed thread that I have used for the other square eyelets and French knots. I will be adding lots of beads and French knots in that section.

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After that is completed, the only other section left to stitch will be the narrower vertical section close to the middle of the heart. There I will need to make some serious decisions. I will still be using the same overdyed thread, but not sure what stitch I will use. I will leave that decision until I get there. By then it will be much easier to see what will look nice and what will be a no-no.

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There is a little bit of news about all of you who loves Tanja Berlin of the Berlin Embroidery website in Canada. Tanja has decided to start a Gallery to showcase her customer's completed designs of hers. She contacted me not long ago to ask if I wanted to participate. She knew about my completed work because I had taken advantage of her Free on-going critique. I sent her photos of the two projects that I had completed and they are now there with many from other stitchers around the world. I thought that was such a neat idea in more ways than one. Anne Stradal does the same thing on her website where she has a special Guest Gallery. No doubt that there are others out there. I just don't know about them.

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Better go back to my stitching as my list of projects to do is not getting smaller, but bigger all the time.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Elizabethan Pencil Box: Crewel

About a month or so ago, I saw this lovely pencil box from Tristan Brooks and I remember thinking at the time that it would be fun to have it so I could put my pens/pencils into and moreover I just love crewel designs and it was something that I had been wanting to stitch so I plurged and purchased it.

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My goal is to rotate lots of projects using different techniques and each morning as I wake up decide which one I would select on that particular day.

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As I was stitching a bit earlier today and I suddenly remembered that I had purchased a few Monica Ferris' mystery books a while back, but for some reason had not yet started reading them. I went to check which ones I had and I found that I had "Crewel World" amongst them, which seems to me very appropriate just now, so you all know now which book I will be reading (big grin).

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Happy stitching and happy reading everyone!

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Pierrette =^..^=

Portuguese Needlework Pillow

Someone at my LNS thought me how to stitch that lovely Portuguese pillow.

The design came directly from the book called "Portuguese Needlework Rugs: the Time-Honored Art of Arraiolos Rugs Adapted for Modern Handcrafters" written by Patricia Stone. If you have the book, the photo of the pillow I have stitched is on page 104.

Stitching this Portuguese pillow was a wonderful experience.

Pierrette =^..^=
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