Embroidery March: Freestyle

Happy March, everyone! February is over, but I'm still plugging away at the quilt and I have a spinning FO that I haven't done a post for yet, but will when I get a couple pictures. I wanted to start March off with my go-to embroidery. Freestyle is pretty much how it sounds. There are no rules really, except you might want to have a needle, some thread, and some fabric. Embroidery is about as old as civilization and the oldest examples are done in the same stitches that I use. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London has a collection that includes silk fragments from China that may be as old as the 3rd century C.E. to a pink machine-embroidered tracksuit from 2004.

Most of my work is done by hand and I use lots of different kinds of stitches, depending on what strikes my fancy at the time. I could probably spend a whole month on freestyle, explaining my process and the different kinds of stitches I use, but I'd rather show you some of what I've done. The one on the right is mainly in chain stitch. which is quick and easy and can cover a large area in a short amount of time.

The one above uses satin stitch. I was going for a Hungarian sort of design, which makes use of satin stitch quite a bit. The hardest part is making the edges of satin stitch look nice and if you do some sort of outline, that neatens things up pretty well. 

This sashiko-inspired design is nothing more than running stitch with a few little French knots. The stitching itself is as easy as it gets, though the design can get pretty complicated.

This one uses a combination of several different kinds of stitches, including a double herringbone that was done so small that I realized that I either needed to either make bigger stitches or get some reading glasses. It makes my eyes hurt just thinking about it. To get the feathered effect, I mainly did feather stitches and cross stitches. 

There are lots more, but those are enough to get you started. My go-to reference has always been The Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework and if you don't have one, I highly recommend this one as essential to your needlework library.

Using a marking pen or pencil that washes out, you can free-draw whatever design pleases you and it doesn't have to be super complicated. Sometimes a simple design is all you need. Barring that, there are patterns that can be traced or ironed-on. Lately, I've taken to perusing the British Library's Flickr account. Those images are in the public domain and there are lots of interesting things that can be found there.

I found this one while looking for floral designs. My newest freestyle design will be based on this illustration, done in silver on blue silk (the same as the blue hanky above).

I've done a little in chain stitch and running stitch so far.

I could go on, but we'd be here forever. This is probably my favorite of the needle arts and one that's pretty easy to do if you start with a simple design and one or two basic stitches.  

There's a lot going on here

Last night, Bubby and I went to a show on campus for an evening of free entertainment. We were up a little later than usual, so she's still sacked out in bed, but we had a grand time. She has had a deep fascination with China for some time now, so when I dropped her off for Chinese lessons last time, they gave us tickets to Song of Silk. The show was a mix of dance, music, and theater from many different regions of China, including a yak dance from Tibet. Her favorite part was the fan dance, but they had a demonstration of several instruments that was also very cool. There's one called the suona that can, apparently, hold its own with a set of bagpipes.

No lie. They didn't need a microphone for it. There were, sadly, no bagpipes or men in kilts last night, but we did see a dude in a fabulous hat.

We also saw a lady play the pipa, which I have dubbed the Chinese banjo. This video is of the lady we saw playing the same song we heard last night.

I would love to hear the pipa and the banjo together. That would make my day.

In other news, I haven't been doing much knitting lately. My knitting mojo has wandered off to Bermuda and is probably sipping mojitos and making a lovely scarf. If you see it, send it home, willya?

I did manage to finish a pair of circle socks (Ravelry link) and have been doing a fair bit of embroidery as well. I finished a couple of for-sale hankies and have lately been working on gift hankies for the menfolk I know and am related to. This is in preparation for the winter holiday season and I fear that I'm just not going to be able to finish all my making this year. I'm not sure I ever do, but I've been quite busy lately and having difficulty finding time that isn't occupied by something - mostly somethings that are not conducive to knitting. I've also lost my needle gauge, which makes the whole process a little more frustrating.

I'm sure that my knitting mojo will eventually miss me and come back home, hopefully with my needle gauge, and I can commence to knitting again. In the mean time, here are some pictures of recently embroidered hankies.

This one is just some freehand vines and leaves. I'd planned some kind of trumpet flower to go with, but decided to leave it as-is.

 

To the left we see poppies, a fairly common theme in embroidery. To the right and on the opposite corner of the same hanky is the chemical structure for morphine.

The biggest trick lately is balancing all of the things and doing them as well as is reasonably expected. I think I'm doing okay at it, actually, but I do miss knitting. I am deciding to take comfort in the fact that I'm not unproductive, I'm just productive in different areas of my life.