Oy, My Eyes!

I spent the first part of the week planning out on graph paper a few motifs that I thought might work well on the lace panel.  I realized after the second sketch that I wasn't going to get the soft imagery I was hoping for.  Whether I am too constrained by the stitch requirements or whether I am lacking imagination is up for discussion.  Regardless, all my motifs took on a hard, geometric line.

So, I did what I did best for TAST.  I showed up at the canvas and started stitching, in the hope that my needle would transport me to the desired destination.  I was hoping the destination would be an interesting hand-made lace that looked at first glance like it came off a machine.

All of the lace samples I purchased had a border, so I started with a simple chicken scratch line across the top of the panel.  By the time I got to the end of the row, I thought my eyeballs would fall out.  There were over 200 individual stitches making up the tiny cross stitched stars and it was no picnic trying to stitch with the tulle overlay.  I was beginning to rethink the "delicate lace" concept.

But not being one to throw in the towel quite so soon, I worked a row of one of the motifs I had developed to use in the border.  About half-way through, I decided to split the panel into two sub-panels and altered the motif slightly.  I finished up with some larger stitches on the first sub-panel, and stopped there to consider where to go next.

Here's the panel so far:

I had planned to develop some kind of flower motif, since all of the lace samples I have use flowers (generally roses or primroses) as the principle design element.  But I am beginning to rethink this objective.  Why do I have to use flowers?  If contemporary embroidery incorporates dead leaves, rocks, and ephemera and is done on burlap, paper, and denim, why should I stick with flowers for my lace panel?

So, before next Friday evening, I have to come up with either a justification for continuing with the flower concept or I have to come up with an alternative inspiration.

Depression Lace?

I don't think anyone can argue that Sharon's choice of "Depression lace" for the first Explorer challenge  wasn't appropriate.     We are all, across the globe, economically depressed right now.   Plus cross stitch is so versatile that I think all of the participants will be able to come up with some novel ways to handle the assignment, so I am anxiously awaiting my fellow stitchers' reports.

Sharon was generous with the examples she provided.  Apparently the cross stitch variation got its name because it looked like lace?  I wasn't seeing it.  Tatted and crocheted laces are beautiful but don't have an elegant quality about them, although I am sure there are others out there in Explorer land who would disagree about the elegant part.  Knitted lace is fine for shawls and scarves, but still not really lace in my mind.  No, lace is that ostentatious stuff on wedding gowns.  Lace has flowers and a satiny feel when you rub your fingers across the bumps that outline the flowers.  It can be appliqued onto a fabric to create drama and richness.

So I decided the effect I wanted to create with "chicken scratch" (what a horrible name for a stitch that can be so beautiful) was actual lace.

So I went to the House of Fabrics in Columbia to see if I could get some inspiration.  Now, the House of Fabrics never fails to inspire me somehow.  It caters to the theater folks and to bridal dress designers.  Quilters need not stop here, although I have occasionally found some fabulous cottons at outrageously low prices.  The House of Fabrics is just across the street from where I work, so it's wonderfully convenient.

Anyway, I shopped their huge selection of laces, and I did have to amend a few of my earlier opinions.  Some of the cotton laces were lovely and certainly could have been selected to provide ideas for my own Depression lace.  And they were elegant - okay, I relent.  But I stuck to my original path and chose three traditional bridal laces.

When I got them home and studied them, one thing I noticed, being machine made and all, was that they were embroidered onto a foundation of tulle or netting.  Since I wanted my Depression lace to look as much like bridal lace as possible, I decided to use a foundation of tulle, hoping (dreaming?) that my finished panel would look like commercial lace.

Here is one of the three inspiration laces.

And here are the other two, set against the tulle.

Thankfully, the tulle almost disappears.  This was important because, in order to work the canvas I had prepared, I had to be able to see the weave of the underlying Aida cloth.

And finally, here is the canvas with the tulle laid across it.  I've stitched the tulle down with a basting stitch and I have spent the last three days or so trying to develop a design that looks like lace.  I am not sure how successful this will be, but the problem sure is stretching my puny brain.  I have a few motifs drawn on graph paper, but I fear they all look a bit modern - too geometric.  I am trying to figure out a way to soften them up a bit before I dive in with my needle.  I will use a single strand of DMC embroidery floss for the stitching to give as fine a feel as possible to the work.  If I'm lucky, I'll find an hour or so today to get at least one row completed.

New Year Plans

In looking back on the past year, I feel pretty good about completing 80% of the Take It Further challenges on time.  I had a few personal criteria: the projects couldn't cost a lot and I had to have fun doing them.  I also wanted to try different techniques across a number of different crafts, and I wanted the monthly projects to be useful in some way if possible.

I can definitely attest to the having fun part.   The only two challenges I didn't complete came at the end of the year when I had some family issues to deal with.  As a result, not much of anything was fun, so I just set aside the final two TIFs for a later date.  I plan to do them - just not in the timeframe of the 2008 challenge.

Most of the projects used both stash and new materials, so on average over the year, I didn't spend much more than the $10 I allowed myself at the start of the challenge.  The exception was the fabric and batting I needed for the Elvis quilt.

The best project from someone else's point of view:  the Barbie clothes that resulted from the January TIF and the Elvis quilt (September).  The most personally wrenching:  the Alzheimer's clutch purse and bracelet from the February challenge and "Fear of Pretending" (April).   The most fulfilling from a design and execution point of view:  the fabric book pages I completed for the challenges in March, May, June, and July.

Only one TIF challenge didn't work out the way I had planned.  It was the teapot block in October.  I eventually ripped about half of the block and re-stitched it to coordinate it with another larger project.  I also haven't done anything with the fabric book pages.  I am thinking that I need to get some color cohesion going, so I'm setting them aside until I determine how best to put the book together.  

I've joined the 2009 Explorer project, and it comes as a relief actually.  I can concentrate on embroidery again and I have decided to make a companion piece to the 2007 TAST sampler.  It will be the same size as the 2007 piece, and the plan is to have 12 panels - one for each month of the project.  I've mounted and blocked out the 14-count Aida canvas and gotten my supplies together so I'm ready to go when Sharon gives us the first assignment.  I've even found the remaining Moleskine notebooks, so I'll record the sampler progress the same way I did for TAST.

My personal goal for this challenge is to be less constrained by how a stitch was used in the past.  I want to explore and experiment more.   I am going to use the panel size as a suggestion and see how each assignment develops as I work the stitches.   To help me get my mind ready, I'm reading Constance Howard's "Inspiration for Embroidery" (Anchor Press: Tiptree, Essex, Great Britain, 1976; first published 1966).  There are so many great examples of how to use stitches in designs that it's definitely getting me in the mood to get down to business and play! 

No Progress for TIF

It occurred to me last week that I had not posted my progress on the TIF challenges in almost three weeks.  This has been due to the fact that there has been no progress.  So, there.  Which is not to say that TIF has not been on my mind.

I looked at the December challenge and thought, "Well, I can always buy something for the 'Toys for Tots' campaign."  I could say I addressed generosity and be done with it, leaving me only the November challenge to catch up on before the end of the year.  But I jettisoned any thought of spending money on non-essentials since my husband lost his job two weeks go and probably will not find employment again until well after the presidential inauguration.

Needless to say, it's not been the happiest of holidays around here.  But I've forged ahead on some projects I dragged out of my stash.  With apologies to my Tulsa sister, I have my "hairy" sweater almost done.  My sister hates sweaters that have eyelash fibers, glitter, and other thingies hanging off of them.  I, on the other hand, love them.   So, I started the Concerto sweater I blogged about briefly on November 23, and now it's substantially done.  I just have to sew the sweater pieces together and finish the edges. (Okay, I can hear some of you laughing, given my November posts, but really, I do plan to get it sewn up by the end of next week.)

I've also been busy with other craft-related activities.  This is the time of year I always want to clean my house and change the decor around.  Starting the new year with an orderly living space has always been a sort of tradition with me, and in the last couple of days, I've been occupied with a sort out and throw away.  I actually can see my work tables, I have found some UFOs that got buried under new projects, and I have been reminded of projects not yet undertaken but for which I once held a great desire to do.  The latter was like meeting up unexpectedly with an old friend - we got reacquainted, paused for a few minutes to reminisce, and parted with promises to do it again soon.

Which led me to thinking:  When will I have time to do some of these formerly-buried projects?  How do I see 2009 shaping up for craft projects?  So, I am off to ponder my goals for next year in light of the materials I have on hand, the projects that arose from the dead, Sharon's plans for the 2009 challenge, and the time constraints I face given that I'll be working full-time for the foreseeable future. 

SOX, not TIF

I must now officially confess to the TIF community that I have not done one thing on the November challenge project I developed, other than to plan the design and gather the materials.  Normally, I would feel very guilty about this state of affairs, particularly since I am just two months from on-time delivery of the entire challenge.  Last I heard, though, Sharon is not giving out medals, imaginary or otherwise,  for getting to the finish line, so "winning" is all about my personal victory in this, not some certificate of completion.

However, looking back over the month, I have been more productive in November than in any other during the challenge.  Having several days away from my paying job contributed mightily to this.  But if I have to blame someone for this state of affairs it's Jane.  You see, at the start of the month, Jane had this fabulous idea to draw up a monthly to-do list for projects.  It was such a good idea, I copied it and drew up my own list.  Trouble was, the TIF project never made it to the list.  Oh, all right.  It was totally my fault and not Jane's.

But don't for a minute think I didn't try to get the November challenge out of the starting blocks and down the track.  I carried that foolish quilter's hoop and the rest of the materials between my home and the capitol all month.  This alone should have kept the project on the front burner as they say, since given its size it always needed to be carried in its own bag.  I even placed the bag in my line of sight when I arrived at my destination so it was never out of sight.  I just put it completely out of my mind in favor of other projects for the last two weeks.

One of these projects was a fabric basket.  I took a class on November 16th to learn this technique.  The basket is substantially done, except for embellishments to gussy it up a bit.  I am thinking of making a few more to give as Christmas gifts.  I also made my husband some socks, also for Christmas.  So, see?  It's not like I was just sitting around eating bon-bons.  I just wasn't working on the TIF challenge.  Plus, I started a sweater using fiber I purchased eons ago in keeping with my stash-busting resolution.

So, now I am conflicted.  Do I just give up on the November challenge and start fresh with the December one?  It would sure be a help if Sharon selected a challenge like "warm feet" or "organization" or "pick one on your own" for December.  Then, I'd simply swap out one of the November projects I've already completed for December's and do the November challenge next month.  I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow evening to see what she's got planned for us.  I can't see how I'll get two challenges done in one month, but then stranger things have happened.

Just thoughts

All of the economic news is bad, not just for my own little corner of the world, but for most of the rest of the towns and countries across the map.  So, my thoughts naturally turned to the value of my IRA - my craft IRA that is.  I figured it was time to take stock of what I had in savings, otherwise known as stash.  I suspect that there won't be a lot of unrestricted money in the coming weeks and months to fund purchases of fabric, yarn, and notions so it would be useful to itemize the materials on hand and get down to actually using them.

It's been a useful exercise, this inventory taking.  I found a Concerto kit I purchased at Stitches East when the conventions were still being held in Atlantic City,  some hand-dyed merino I bought to make a kimono jacket, vintage Banlon I picked up at Tuckers (Allentown) to make a retro sweater or two, plus all the wool I still have left from the Harvard sheep (town, not university; enough 100% wool for at least 10 sweaters, from fingering through bulky weights - maybe I was waiting for heather shades to come back into fashion?)...  Well, you get the picture.

All of this taking stock was further spurred by my husband's birthday gift to me - all four volumes of Barbara Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting."  As I sat Friday night paging through volume 1, I realized how many beautiful stitch patterns were available to create one-of-a-kind garments if I just took some time to be creative and write my own patterns.

Now, I am terribly remiss when it comes to actually reading the craft books in my library.  They generally end up being eye candy, good for inspirational viewing.  Sometimes, they serve as a quick reference when I hit a snag on a project.  What would happen if I actually treated these volumes as textbooks?  What if I actually stopped being Plow-ahead Peggy or Little Miss Know It All?  What if I take Jane's idea of a monthly project list and make a year-long list?  A New Year's resolution to read one craft book a month and work up one item from stash related to that craft book?  Heaven knows I have craft projects I'd like to do lined up since 1975.  If not now, when?

This plan will do little to help the economy.  But it certainly makes more sense to use the fibers now  rather than have my family put $250 worth of merino hand-dyed yarn in a yard sale for $10 after I'm gone from this earth.  I can just see that yard sale table now!  The mental image alone is enough to make me seriously consider this de-stashing plan for my New Year's resolution.  And it will be a lot easier to do than giving up chocolate.

I Am Not Cleopatra

My TIF challenge for the month remains undone and this weekend blogging exercise reminds me that I had better get going if I want to get even one letter done on the piece I designed.

What I did spend time on was the layout of the teapot squares for my lap quilt.  It turned out the concept was interesting - teapot, teacups, and dishes of petit fours all from different fabrics, but the result was less than satisfying.  Oh, all right.  The results were horrible.  Each block was just darling all by itself, but together, they fought with each other like mad.  I spent a total of ten hours over the course of a week moving the completed blocks around, trying different fabrics for the blocks still needing completion, and generally trying to get a cohesive whole using the five finished blocks.

At some point in this futile exercise, I remembered something an instructor in a knitting class once said.  The class's topic was correcting knitting mistakes.  The instructor asked us how many times we reached a point in our knitting where we looked at the evolving garment and thought it might be too big/too small/pattern off/etc.  but we keep going thinking things would work themselves out?  We all raised our hands.  Now, this is a hilarious state of affairs.  If you think something isn't working, why forge ahead?

So, since my name is not Cleopatra (Queen of Denial), I ripped out most of the work on the first five blocks and started over after accepting the problems and fixing them.  They were:

• too many fabrics in each block and in the nine blocks together - Each block is more effective if the teacup and saucers are cut from the same fabric and the trim of every item in the block  is the same.   The blocks work together if a least one of the fabrics is repeated in either the teacup or the teapot section;
• two palettes too many - Some rose shades were blue and others brown.  They needed to be in the same color family to tie the blocks together.  And some "pop" colors (purple, for example) were just too strong for the quilt as a whole.
• too many embellishment types - I jettisoned the multicolored beads and funky flosses in favor of gold beads (to echo the gold in the "wallpaper") and floss and tiny ribbon rosebuds in the same color palette as the fabrics.  I have a bit of lace on hand, and will see if that can be incorporated without making the design look junky.
  

Here is one of the blocks waiting to be appliqued.  The only thing remaining from the original block is the petit fours.

And here is another block, with just the teapot remaining.

And finally, here are the nine blocks together.  In this photo, the corner left and top center blocks need to be cut, but I completed that step on Thursday evening before I packed up to head back to Aiken. 

 

I suppose I should accept the need for more do-overs in mid-project because my knitting instructor was right.  Why waste time forging ahead when you have a gut feeling that a project is not working out?  I am much happier with this layout.  The fabric content isn't quite what I wanted, but I don't have enough fabric in my stash to bring my mental vision to fruition.  This is a good compromise because I think the blocks look like they all belong in the same quilt and  the design isn't so busy that your eyes can't settle on a block without being totally annoyed by neighboring blocks.

As to the sashing fabric I purchased for this quilt?  That will be set aside in favor of a solid fabric or one with a very small print.  But I will not make any more purchases until I get all of the blocks assembled.  That will be the time to decide what will go best with the design.  I will be working on this project over the course of the coming six months.  Now that I am done with vacation days, I will have less time to devote to my fiber activities so my output will slow down considerably.  Too bad, too.  I was having so much fun!