Looking Back at 2014

In January, I wrote a post about my stitching goals for 2014.  Let's see how I did . . .

1.  Finish, finish, finish!
This year, I managed to finish the following projects:

Winnie the Pooh Quote

Polar Bear

Drop Cloth feather stitch sampler

Torah mantle

FPS's Mysterious Halloween Town

FPS's Autumn Harvest Festival

Uncle Morrey's WWII Diary

Hopefully joining these will be the Once Upon a Time sampler.  I've got a week left!

Of course, this barely makes a dent in my craft queue.  Some of these projects were really ambitious due to their size and complexity.  I think that I have finished a decent number (thanks to HabitRPG!) and I have reason to be proud of my accomplishments.

2.  Submit another entry into the State Fair.
Succeeded x3!  I got two ribbon winners, and placed higher than last year.

3.  Try a new technique for transferring patterns.
Thanks to the light pad I got for my birthday, I have now transferred several patterns through the tracing method.  It really opens up the possibilities for designing my own patterns.

4.  Learn blackwork.
I bought a kit.  Does that count?

Next week, I will share my goals for 2015.  What did you accomplish this year?

Project Round-Up--8/26/2014

With all of the Fair preparations, it has been a while since I posted my progress on other projects.

The August square of the Once Upon a Time Sampler covered "The Musicians of Bremen," a fairy tale about a group of farm animals that saves the day.  Not very many people I've talked to have heard of this one, but I know there was a Muppet special about it.

I never did post a final picture of my polar bear, so here he is.  By now, I have gotten him framed and he is sitting on a shelf in my living room.  (If you would like to learn this shading technique, Nicole has another class starting in September!)

Mysterious Halloween Town now has a haunted house.

At some point, I felt like I needed a change from backstitch and cross-stitch, so I whipped up Dropcloth Sampler of the Month's feather stitch sampler.

And to top it off, I am making progress on the Torah mantle.  After completing this name plate, all I need to do is one more lion before I stitch the patches onto the cover.

You must be wondering how I find the time to do all of this.  I've been stitching for at least 3 hours a day, barring some other event.  Most of this is just cutting into time that I would have spent noodling around the internet, or watching TV.  (Of course, I still watch TV, but now it's productive!  The Simpsons marathon has been an awesome time to catch up on projects.)  I think it's really helped my peace of mind to keep my hands busy, and the satisfaction of completing a project lifts my spirit.

I have also been thinking about this Cracked list on ways we sabotage our lives without knowing it.  One of the points the author makes is that your life will be better in the future by way of you magically becoming someone else.  We all have ideas about what we want to do or be in the future.  "In 10 years, I want to have higher-paying job in IT."  "In 5 years, I want to be fluent in French."  And yet, we tend to not spend any time during the day actually working towards these goals.  We just think it will happen, somehow.  If a goal is important to you, start working on it TODAY.  I have a vague idea that I want to get better at embroidery and do something significant with it.  Start a business?  Put my work on display?  Teach classes?  Whatever this goal turns out to be, I know it will require me to keep improving my skills, and I'll move closer towards that goal with every stitch I make today.

Fair Highlights

I am working on part 2 of "Don't Fear the Fair" for &Stitches e-zine.  In the meantime, here is a photo gallery of what I saw at the fair on Sunday.

Make your kid the cuddliest shark around.

Best in Show--Hand Knitting, Crochet, Tatting

Best in Show--Counted Thread Techniques, Counted Cross-Stitch 

Knitted child's dress with ram in stranded color work 

Wonder Woman sweater! 

Peacock, cross-stitch on linen

I have a fondness for embroidery of plants with their names.

One of those entries that completely changes my ideas on needlepoint.

A Pokemon character, Chester Cheetah, and a happy turtle

This crocheted owl afghan got our attention

I'd love to do something like this with illustrations from antique Haggadahs

The Drop-Cloth Sequel Sampler, made into a bag!

A village made out of machine embroidered lace panels

I don't care what the ribbon says.  This is a winner in my book.

The T-shirt quilts get . . . interesting.  I never knew there were so many bad Christian T-shirts out there.

Sharks were a popular theme this year.  Influenced by Sharknado?

A dollhouse log cabin, complete with crafting studio.  Can I live here?

Pipe cleaners protesting the poor treatment of their brethren. 

The 4-H organizers might want to think more carefully about how they arrange the entries.

Super Mega Project Update!

I've been productive the last few weeks, and all it took was spending every free moment stitching!

First, I finished the June square for Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Once Upon a Time Sampler.

June 2014--The Princess and the Pea

Six down, six to go!

The mattresses were fun with all of the different patterns.  That princess looks very well rested, all things considered.

Then I completed week 5 of Follow the White Bunny's Furry Nice class.  Now my polar bear has wonderfully textured fur on his face and body.

I love the way the light hits the fur when I hold the fabric at a tilt.  Next up--satin stitch on the scarf.

I have a lot on my plate (including some projects not related to embroidery) and REALLY shouldn't be starting other projects, but Frosted Pumpkin came out with the first part of their Mysterious Halloween Town Sampler.  I have been dealing with some health issues this week and this sounded like the kind of simple, meditative project that would help put my mind at ease.  My husband saw me working on it and said, "Jorie, it's not pumpkin weather!"  This adorable little town doesn't care.

These are my friends:  Russell Crow, Cameron Crow, Crow Diddly, Hugh Crownin, Gregory Peck . . .

Mysterious blank town

There is some method to the madness of working on spooky patterns in June.  The ladies at Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery asked for feedback on how people prefer to receive holiday or seasonal patterns.  People responded with the following answers:

1. More time to work on each section of a multi-part pattern.  Some speedy stitchers can finish a section in one week, but the rest of us are mere mortals.
2. Release patterns far enough in advance that people can finish them before the holiday.  For some reason, people stop wanting to work on Christmas-themed patterns after December 26.

The Frosted Pumpkins listened to the feedback, and have changed the Mysterious Halloween Town pattern release accordingly.  Starting in mid-June, they are releasing one section of the pattern each month.  The final section comes out in mid-September, with several weeks to finish the entire pattern in time for Halloween.  The timetable is perfect for people who are also working on the Once Upon a Time sampler.  This way, I always have some cross-stitch to work on.

Other updates:

• The Torah mantle has been my most difficult project to figure out, but I think I've found a workable solution.  Hopefully, I will have pictures up soon.
• Rebecca Ringquist at Drop Cloth featured my Filling Stitches Sampler on her blog!
• I've been selected to be a summer guest blogger at &Stitches!  I will be writing two blog posts chronicling my and my friends' efforts to infiltrate the State Fair.

Online Embroidery Classes

You've taken an embroidery class, and you are hooked.  You are stitching up all of the samplers that you can, you are telling all of your friends about your fantastic new hobby, and your weekends are starting to resemble a scene in a Jane Austen novel.  (In the Jane Austen Drinking Game, this would count as "Display of Womanly Skill.")

But soon, you develop a tolerance.  You start to crave the harder stuff--complicated stitches . . . other historical and international stitching styles . . . actually turning your embroidered work into an object.  You would gladly keep taking classes until you've drained your textile hobby budget.

And that's when you realize that you have taken the only embroidery class available in your tri-county area.

It's a crushing feeling, and that's if you could find a beginner class at all.  I was able to take a class at my local craft store because the owner happens to be interested in embroidery.  When my mom expressed interest, I looked on Google to see what classes were in her area.  After sifting through the useless "custom embroidered logo" entries, the only classes I could find were in little independent craft stores in the downtown of her nearest large city--a 40-minute drive on a good day, or a train ride.  Though Michaels and Joann Fabrics both carry embroidery supplies (usually languishing in the farthest corner of the store), I have yet to find any that offer embroidery classes.

That is where online classes can fill the void.  These have become more common in recent years, and are especially convenient for embroidery because you can work on your project in front of the computer.  classes can take different forms, depending on who is putting them out.

Large websites like Creativebug and Craftsy publish classes in the form of videos.  Subscribers can either pay a monthly fee to access all the classes they want, or pay individually for each class.  The classes here are a step-up from free video tutorials on YouTube, filmed with high quality equipment, adequate lighting, and higher resolution.  The videos are divided into chapters so that it is easier to go back and find specific parts to watch.  I find that visual lessons are very helpful for beginners, because it helps to see the steps being performed.  With videos, you can also rewind it as many times as it takes to understand a step.  Rebecca Ringquist of Drop-Cloth Samplers has several great classes up on Creativebug, including one that covers the stitches on her original sampler.

Individual teachers can use a different method, releasing each "class" as a PDF document with detailed instructions for completing the lesson.  The teacher makes herself available by e-mail for questions.  Sometimes the teacher will open a private Facebook or Flickr group for all students taking the same class.  In this virtual classroom, students can share pictures of their works in progress and ask each other questions.  While the class might last a few weeks in terms of releasing the PDF lessons, the group is open for several months so that students can progress at their own pace.  This style of online class is good for embroiderers who have mastered the basics and want to learn additional skills.  (If you find it easy to learn stitches from diagrams in books, that will work in your favor.)

For a birthday present, I am treating myself to an online class from one of my favorite embroidery bloggers, Nicole of Follow the White Bunny.  She designs patterns inspired by illustrations in children's books.  Her class, Furry Nice, will cover the techniques necessary to stitch small animal portraits.  I can't wait for class to begin on April 10.  Other students have been introducing themselves in our private group.  Nicole is from the Netherlands, and other students are from the USA, Norway, Australia, and the UK.  Even though we are worlds apart, we are able to introduce ourselves and visit each others blogs.  It really is starting to feel like a class.  I feel so lucky to be a crafter in the Internet age, when I can overcome geography and limited resources by clicking on a link.

Project Round-Up--8/8/2013

I'm working on many mini-samplers, and not all of them really warrant separate posts.  Project Round-Up will be a regular feature where I showcase these small projects.

After finishing my State Fair matzah cover (still waiting for results!), I had to decompress by working with bigger needles.  I have been knitting blankets for all of the upcoming babies that are befalling my friends, and I finally wove in the ends of a finished blanket and mailed it off to a new, happy mother.

Once I felt rested up to go back to embroidery, I finished Drop Cloth's Sampler of the Month for July.  Before I get to that, I realized that I hadn't posted a picture of June's.

These are filling stitches--the kinds of stitches that you use to banish empty space.  Used judiciously, they can really add a nice pop to your pattern.  I was surprised at how nice the simple seed stitch, made of one or two parallel straight stitches, looked when done with different colors.  The battlement couching was the trickiest because it required some exact work, but it produces an effect that looks like 3D plaid.  It also got the most compliments.

July was chain stitches.  These also presented a challenge, because these are based on making intersecting loops.  When I made a mistake, I would end up needing to start all over.  A few of the more complicated stitches, like Cable Chain and Checkered Chain, required looking at instructions from several different sources before I found ones that made sense to me.  Still, this sampler gives me a lot of great ideas for the future.  I liked the way the basic Chain Stitch looks as an outline for the flower stems.  My friend Cassie uses a type of Chain Stitch for lettering on her projects, and I can see that it makes a solid-looking outline for when you want something different from typical backstitch.

According to Instagram, the sampler for August features Satin Stitch.  I'm going to be honest--Satin Stitch is my least favorite stitch to work on.  I trust that Rebecca's innovative samplers will convince me otherwise!

Favorite Shops: Drop Cloth Samplers

After my first embroidery class, we got a list of recommended websites from teacher and Home Ec co-owner Codi.  One of the websites is Drop Cloth by Rebecca Ringquist, who happens to be a long-time friend of Codi.  Rebecca learned how to embroider while taking a feminist art history class in college, and since then she has been both designing samplers she sells and using embroidery in her artistic works.

I checked out her blog (the one that focuses on samplers.  She has a separate one for her art.)  This led me to her Etsy shop, where I bought her famed Original Sampler.

This is still a work in progress (WIP).  That is one of the troubles with embroidery--it is incredibly easy to work on several projects at once, because you can always change the projects in your hoop and unthread your needles, moving on to the next thing.

And Rebecca came out with a really awesome next thing.  In December, she introduced a Stitch Sampler of the Month Club.  Every month on the 15th, she mails out a small sampler that focuses on a different stitch family.  Here are the ones I have completed so far.

January

February

March

April

May

I love the anticipation of waiting for the sampler, wondering what stitches I am going to work on this month.  I take it with me to my Saturday morning crafting at Home Ec, and everybody is curious about what I'm working on.  It has also given me a lot of practice and I've developed ways to refine my techniques.  For example, I realized that I was wrapping my thread around the needle one too many times for French knots, and they look much neater now.

I highly recommend the Stitch Sampler of the Month Club for people who have mastered the basic stitches (Chain, Blanket, Feather, Running, Cross Stitch, Backstitch, Satin, French Knot).  By the end of the year, you will have worked your way through any good stitch encyclopedia and Rebecca will give out instructions on how to make a wall-hanging or stitch-book from all the samplers.  Each sampler is small enough to complete in one month.  It gives the opportunity to try lots of stitches that look wonderful, but might have been too intimidating before.  If a year sounds like a long commitment, she also offers 6-month and 3-month subscriptions.  They also allow complete freedom for deciding what colors to use, or even adding your own unique touches.  The Flickr group shows the different ways that people have stitched Drop Cloth samplers, from the dense detail of the Paisley Sampler to a version of the Original Sampler done entirely in gray monochrome colors.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I treated my mother and mother-in-law to a private embroidery lesson at Home Ec, using Rebecca's Penmanship Sampler.  When they asked where they could go to buy more patterns, printed on the fabric, I realized that all of my answers were based on the Internet.  The embroidery sections of Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics are small to the point of being neglected.  When they do have patterns (mostly cross-stitch patterns), they are extremely old fashioned and occasionally creepy.  (I don't know what the embroidery section is like at Hobby Lobby because I refuse to shop there.)

The future of embroidery is on the internet, where independent business owners can sell patterns in a variety of styles, either printed on fabric or for PDF downloads.  Through their blogs, they can offer tutorials for people who are getting started or want to learn a new technique.  For example, Rebecca offers lessons on Creativebug, a website that offers video craft lessons for individual purchase or a monthly subscription.  (I just bought one for stitching heirloom napkins, and another on techniques for making patterns based on photographs.)

I also like the personal touch of going to the owners directly.  When I first started ordering patterns from Rebecca, she wrapped them in envelopes made of old wrapping paper and, noticing that I'm from Iowa City, included notes asking whether I had met Codi.  Now she has more uniform bags and labels, but the personal touch is still there.  She always takes the time to comment on my Sampler of the Month pictures.  I like knowing that I'm helping her grow her business.  From the looks of her Instagram page, she is working on a sequel to the Original Sampler--and you can bet that I will be one of the first people to buy it.