125 hours of stitching and into my 4th British Cop series on Netflix. I've finished the 1st half of the center medallion on the altar cloth. Lookit -
Now on to the NEXT 125 hours. And the 125 after that. And the 125 after THAT....
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(original post 23 Apr 2013) 125 hours of stitching and into my 4th British Cop series on Netflix. I've finished the 1st half of the center medallion on the altar cloth. Lookit - The ground fabric looks pink because of my work light... I am truly pleased with how this is looking so far.
Now on to the NEXT 125 hours. And the 125 after that. And the 125 after THAT....
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(original post 21 Mar 2013) About 50 hours of stitching into the center panel of the altar cloth (this bit will finish out at 39" x 39", BTW). This photo doesn't show the color well, but it's the best I could manage past midnight with a little yaller kitten trying to grab the camera (she likes the whirring noise it makes). And speaking of little yaller kittens, she posed for us on my new bandana - she must be a Deadhead at heart! And finally, happy 31 years of marriage to us!
(original post 9 Mar 2013) After a few days of staring in terror at nearly $300 in linen, measured a dozen times and MADE...THAT...FIRST...CUT (I suffer from Fear of Shears. Takes me forever to get up the courage to make- that- first- cut!) and got the first piece basted to the scroll rods, and the center and edges of the first section (altarcloth center panel)were counted and marked. The Giant Skeins Of Silk are on the way (a good two weeks sooner than expected! Thank you, Nordic Needle!) and meanwhile, I have a couple of small skeins of each thread. Time to start the fun stuff! First evening, about 3 hours work -with some occasional distractions from "Wire In The Blood"- produced the outline of the altarcloth's center cross - Evening two, four a total of a little more than 8 hours stitching (and another 3 episodes of Wire in the Blood!) and the center is taking shape-No silver added here yet,still thinking about its best use in this section - you can design til your eyeballs fall out, the actual threads and fabric ALWAYS looks a little different than that pattern graph! And now for the required-by-the-internet kitty content! Butterbean and Tortellini have been released into the general population with the rest of the Clowder, and are making themselves right at home-
(original post 19 Feb 2013) Okay, y'all. Nothing exceeds like excess, right? So somehow, when it was mentioned that it would be lovely to have a beautiful new altar cloth for our beautiful old new church for the Feast of Pentecost, Auntie Liadain lost her mind and popped up and said "Oh, I can do that, I have just the idea!" And you know what, I DO. Been wanting to work something from this design for years, and could never grasp the "thread" of translating it to blackwork - until I offered to make it for the church. I began with this - an illustration from the 1896 l'Arte de Crietien de Egypte - Motifs de Broderie Copte", by Therese de Dillmont (DMC). (you can download these books in PDF at Antique Pattern Library - enjoy!). As you can see, this is a pattern for a needleweaving/pattern-darning technique. Took some fiddling and experimentation to see exactly how to translate this into the squares of counted blackwork, but once I got a grip on the center section and one of the leaves, I had it and we were off to the races. My first translation was pretty literal - except the bunny. The bunny didn't quite belong on Orthodox altar vestments. Of course Auntie Liadain can never leave well enough alone, and so we elaborated into a slightly larger version. I enbiggened it to fit the size of the altar (39" square) which translated to 1 stitch on the chart = 3 stitches on fabric. This would call for really REALLY wide evenweave linen. The widest and best I found was25-count round yard linen from Hedgehog Handworks, which is beautiful beautiful touchy-feely sumptuous stuff (and ON SALE through February, y'all!). This made really big empty spaces, of course, which called for fillings,and then I rethought the drape of the shape- Eastern Orthodox churches have lots of candles, and censors full of burning coals, and all sorts of stuff going on. A closer fit would be better,and so I "uncornered" the design- -and BEHOLD, I decided that I had designed this design about as designedly as it could possibly get, and I backed slowly away from the pencils. Until, of course, i remembered that there were more bits needed for a full set. the aer- (never sure exactly how to spell that, but it's a piece used in the Great Entrance/ preparation of the Eucharist) -and a pair of chalice covers.... Okay. NOW I am done designing. Pentecost is also the Festival of First Fruits, and green is the color. I won't bore you with the details of choosing the right threads for this project - let's just say that I now have a HUGE stash of assorted green silks, cottons, and linen threads! - but I finally decided on materials from the Caron Collection - for all outlines, "Impressions" (50/50 silk/wool) in emerald variegated, for fillings "Waterlilies" (stranded silk) also in emerald variegated. There will be silver threads for accent, and most likely some sort of silver trim/ fringe/galloon/something to finish the whole thing off -here's very bad shot of the color test that decided the issue- Hoping my progress pictures will show the color better, but the variegated threads add a great deal of depth without my poor old brain having to choose a shade of green for every single leaf.
And there you have it, the rest of the story of what I've been doing these last few months. Next up will be Getting Brave Enough To Cut The Linen! (original post 12 Feb 2013) Wow, what a summer! Himself ended up with rotator cuff surgery after hand-digging and replacing all the septic lines by himself. Then we found 2!! orphans. One Himself found in the pasture amongst the horses' hooves, squalling.... about 3 weeks old. The second, MAYBE a week old, I found apparently dead in a puddle. When I picked it up to dispose of it, I found it was -barely-alive. brought her in, warmed her up, and filled her belly, expecting her to die at any moment. When she was still with us after a week, Himself took her to the vet, who told us she was "non-viable". Apparently the vet thought no one could be bothered to get up and feed/medicate an orphan every 2 hours. Here we are now, Butterbean (yellow) and Tortellini. Butterbean lost most of the vision in one eye due to corneal scarring , but she is MORE than viable; she and Torts are best buds and think they are Queens of All things. Meanwhile, Himself starts a new job, and I have a gigantic new project... (original post 12 Feb 2013) Wow, been awhile, huh? Was a busy busy year... Got a new priest (brand-spanking new, fresh from seminary!) and bought a new building; Holy Resurrection moved from our old storefront on Gillette Ave... to what is now the oldest continually occupied church in town - was the home of the Episcopal congregation since its building in 1916 (it came in boxes on a train, a "kit" church!) until we purchased it and saved it from becoming a school parking lot. (Wow. "Paved Paradise and put up a parking lot, for real!) The congregation of Holy Resurrection gathered up all our elbow grease and demodelled from THIS - ....to THIS. A loving work-in-progress. In the foreground you can see the analogion cover that i never blogged about when it was finally finished, complete with Godmother's crochetted lace. (original post 18 Jan 2012) Mercy on us do I have a galloping case of the hibernations this winter!The completion of "One Heart", this year's "anniversary sampler", is on hold while I wait for the perfect background fabric; meanwhile, I have been much into the production of summer dresses, gramma sweaters, and hopefully soon baby dresses for That New Girl. Meanwhile, sewing. A new dress for Granny... And knitting a couple of cardis, one white And lavender. The Granddaughter - growing fast! |
AuthorHi. My name is Liadain, and I do blackwork. And stuff. And blackwork. I can stop anytime I want - after I finish just one more thread.... Archives
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