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.  

Woo!

I have or had a cold. I'm not sure where we are with that right now, because some of what I'm feeling is a bit "frazzled mom syndrome" and some of it might actually be some rhinovirus shenanigans happening in my face. I spent much of yesterday trying to both take it easy and wrangle a certain little monkey. It was an exercise in patience.

As you can see, I've been doodling and sketching, though nothing spectacular. I'd love to brush up on my more basic drawing skills, but really what I need is to just draw more. I can, I just need to practice. 

 I finished the hexagons, though. Here they are blocking. I do still need to get a good FO pic of these, but I do rather like it and I think it'll be nice on our holiday table.

That's about 200 yards of deep stash handspun from approximately 2009 and 2011-ish. I can tell I'm a better spinner now than I was then.

And speaking of spinning, I finished the silk singles. They just need to be plied and washed and they're done, but I kind of want to finish the singles for the merino that's next in the queue, so I can ply it all at once. 

I'm strongly considering investing in a bobbin winder.

 And here's the merino. It's a gradient that fades from black to blue to orange and it's got some sparkle in there, too. I did a good chunk of the blue while I listened to the Cubs play the Pirates in extra innings last night.

You may be able to see some of it there at the top that was spun a little more tightly. It was a bit of a nailbiter of a game, but they did end up winning. Hooray!

The playoffs are a real possibility this season, so I may randomly say things like "...games behind" and "Wild Card standings" and "GO BLUE GUYS!" Just go "Woo!" when I seem happy and pray to your deity or deities of choice (if any) that I'm not back to normal about baseball until November.




I also finished a wee little bear sweater because Ballet Bear needed something to wear when it's not time for his dance class. I'm already working on bear sweater #2, which is a long sleeved fall sweater with an intarsia butterfly on the back. I figure a teeny bear sweater is a good opportunity to practice technique and I'm already contemplating a steeked fair isle cardi.

This one is about 30 yards of Plymouth Yarn Fantasy Naturale Multi in a pattern of my own devising, which is conveniently spelled out on the project page, should I or anyone else so desire to make another wee aran weight bear sweater. The second one is basically the same, but in worsted weight acrylic with about ten or so more stitches at the cast on. I'll tell you more about the second sweater later.

I tried to get a better picture of Iris, but this is the best I could do this week. She's been doing very well en pointe and I'm super proud of her. Bu, on the other hand, could do well, but she's got some work to do on listening skills first. 

Only a Half Dozen Different Things

First, an arctiid moth, because they're cool.

Second, an FO. This is Meditations on the Holy Mother, Leto by Diana Rozenshteyn. I used size 3's and lace weight, so it ended up being more scarf-sized than stole-sized, but it drapes beautifully. The brown is Misti Alpaca Lace in NT-304 and the green is Knit Picks Shadow in Lost Lake. The Shadow was deep stash from 2009 and the Misti Alpaca was from 2013. That's 819 yards out of stash, bringing my annual totals up to 6,287 yards in 14 projects. The sizing and yarn choices were the only modifications, but if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have done the provisional cast-on since the ends of the scarf/stole aren't particularly directional.

 Third, a cake! The eldest wanted a Steven Universe-themed birthday party, so of course I made an appropriately themed cake. This is a show that I would recommend to just about anyone. It's goofy and silly in a lot of places, but there's also a complexity to the characterization that's slowly revealed over the course of the show. You can watch this one with littles, but some of the more emotional parts might even make the grownups cry (ONLY A LITTLE! ::sobsobsob::).

Fourth, some crochet. This is from the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework and if you clicky that link, you'll find that there's a familiar photo under this particular pattern. Turns out that one wasn't in Ravelry's database yet.

This is going to be something for the holiday table and I'm using some ancient and venerable handspun stash that was too skritchy for pretty much anything else.

I also finished the drawing of Princess Luna I'd been working on. The app has been updated since I finished, which I hope means more versatility. I'm still learning how to get the most out of it and I hope to be drawing more-- not just fan art, but just more in general. 

Lastly, something for Mom. She's pretending to crochet here and wrapping the yarn around the hook several times, but she kind of has the idea.

Season of Cake

Last week was my birthday and, of course, there had to be cake. Cake season has officially begun at our house. Between late August and early November, there's a pretty good chance there's going to be cake in the house of some kind or another. I spend a lot of time trying new recipes or decorating so that each person gets a really special cake. This year, I made Hershey's especially dark chocolate cake and some jam-based frosting as follows:

Jess's Jam-based Frosting

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (4 oz), at room temperature

1 brick cream cheese (8oz), at room temperature

1 lb. confectioner's sugar

1/3 cup jam 

Combine all ingredients and mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until thoroughly combined. Try not to eat it out of the bowl. 

Have a taste anyway. 

Frost when cake is cool. Share cake with friends and family.

This year, mom gave me a jar of black raspberry jam that she made out of berries from her garden and it made amazing frosting. The pink is strawberry from my own stash. I think this counts as this week's technique. I'm gonna count it. 

I also finished a couple of those dish towels and used up some kitchen cotton stash. This is Lemon, Tan, and Green, which includes the Ballband Dishcloth by Peaches and Cream via Mason Dixon Knitting and a simple towel of my own design. All that is is linen stitch with a moss stitch border, which I didn't have to think about too much.

I've also been working on Leto, which looks about the same as it did last week, but with a little bit more brown on it.

Amazingly, I've even been spinning! I think the back to school blahs are about done. This is a 100% silk top dyed by Rain's Obsessive Stitchery in a beautiful coppery color. I'm spinning woolen, which makes for a smooth, shiny single and I'm very excited to see how it turns out. 

It's a shame I don't get to keep this one.

And here's a little something in Crayola crayon based on a pysanka design that I did this week. It's a little wobbly and squeewonked in places, but I wasn't aiming for precision. Crayon is a highly under-appreciated medium, I feel. Just because we've been using them since Kindergarten doesn't mean it's an inferior medium at all. This guy "paints" with plastic bags and his work is amazing. 

And here's a picture for mom. Here, Bu is coloring with a little friend at dance school while she waits on Big Sister to finish her class. Bu started her first class this week and loves it so far. I keep trying to get pictures of Iris, but she's about as easy to photograph as Bigfoot. I'll keep trying.

The beginning is understanding

Knitting is not all that exciting this week. I'm plugging away at the BFF cowl and Leto gets some attention while I'm out, but other than that, there's nothing to write home about. The BFF should be done by next week, if I continue at this pace, so that'll be another 400 or so yards toward Stash Amble.

I've made a little bit of progress on the sewing queue, having moved the project bags on a little bit, but I haven't got all the way to cutting out my t-shirt yet. It's harder to find time to sew than anything else because the sewing machine is in the room where the Husband sleeps before going to his job in the afternoon and a certain toddler person likes to hug my elbows and will sometimes refuse a nap.

 And Iris got her pointe shoes. This is my favorite picture because there's Iris en pointe like a brand new fawn trying out her legs and there's her teacher holding her arm and the lady from the store holding her foot and leg all together in a way that expresses the idea of "support" both literally and figuratively. The knee brace is for a kind of tendonitis common in young athletes (it's a minor thing she'll probably grow out of) and shows another, more behind-the-scenes kind of support.

Little Bit got new dance shoes, too. She starts in just a couple of weeks, though she's been informally joining other kids' classes and practicing with her big sister for a year already. She knew the dance they did at Disney as well as some of the kids that were in the show because she'd practiced with them almost every time.

In other creative news, I did a short series of drawings with quotes from Captain America, Spiderman, and Thor using Paper by 53. I think I could be a little more precise if I had a stylus or pencil, but it's not bad for what amounts to digital fingerpainting.

I'm also spinning a few minutes before bedtime and even ::gasp:: reading fiction books (aside from comics). It turns out that a romance story appeals to me more when the protagonists are two ladies in the South who also happen to be biologists. One is an entomologist who studied moths. This is not a book I deliberately looked for. I just picked it up at our very tiny library and it happened to have a lady entomologist in it. Coincidence? I think not. I've been writing some, too, and working on theological ideas.

Between all of those things, I'm still studying on Khan Academy for the GRE on Sunday. I was going to sit here and complain about how I didn't finish all my July goals, but really I'm doing quite a lot. I've just not finished anything this week, which is fine. Some weeks are like that.

For August, I'd like to:

1. Post a new technique here on the blog
2. Make that t-shirt! Really!
3. Move the spinning queue
4. Do the carrot dye test
5. Start an embroidery project

So far, my Project Make goals seem to be all over the map. I don't really have a schedule or even an understanding of what creative projects I tend to work on when. It's partly seasonal, mostly because quilting in July is just not going to happen, but things like Tour de Fleece and the Outfit-a-long are contributing factors, too. One thing that regular blogging has taught me is that there is an ebb and flow to my creative projects, even though I'm not certain of what its whole shape of it is. Perhaps next year, I'll have a better understanding of it so that I can use that to my advantage. 

For of all virtue, I say, and I repeat it, the beginning is understanding and the fulfillment is courage; by the one it is judged what ought to be done and by the other this is carried to success
-Demosthenes, Funeral Speech 60.17