Vintage CQ...Flower #20

As promised, the poppy!
Ann Cox's book has been a brilliant guide, although the font is a little small and I find her instructions a bit wordy. But I am sure that every single thing she says is important, so I squint and pay close attention.

This is a "medium" level flower, and it did take quite awhile, but it was fun, and worth it.

There was a lot of multi-needle action going on!

You gather the edge of the ribbon with a fine thread, and then bury the end of the ribbon (13mm, from RiverSilks) with a large needle, being careful not to munch your gathering thread. It is all rather pickier work than I am used to.

The concept is this: you bury both ends of the ribbon, (knotting it off on the back with threaded needle #3), then you pull on the gathering thread, then you tack down the petal at the gathered base, catching the fine thread. This shot shows petal # 3's second end being buried.
I would never have thought of this in a million years.

Painting the ribbon after it is in place is not that hard...especially with a black background! ;-) You do have to be careful not to let the paint run, and I had my blow-dryer handy to zap my ribbon dry as soon as I was done putting the Dye-Na-Flow on it.

I decided not to give my poppy a black center because of that black background, and went with the pale green one that some Shirley poppies have.

This, too, is quite picky work, but there is a reason Ann Cox's flowers look so nice.
Can you see how this is gathered twice, first the circle of silk around the interfacing/stuffing core (oh yes, you don't just use stuffing, you provide a flat surface for the stuffing to rest on), and then around the perimeter? This gives a smooth and even surface for the center.

Ann shows you how to wrap the threads used for the pistols around a large needle so they will be of uniform length when you cut open the loops.

The stem was just some couched yarn, and the leaves some 4mm ribbon in a fly stitch.
It's sweet. I like it.

Here is a reminder of the quilt that inspired all this....

I wish I knew the name of the maker, or even the source of the photograph, but alas, I don't.
It is sublime, isn't it?
I had made some blocks this summer to go around the central section of wheel blocks, but have decided to scrap them. They are too loud and--alright, crass--for these dignified flower blocks. I don't wish to replicate this quilt exactly, but I'm going to have to try again with the outer ring of blocks.
But I still have 10 flower blocks to go....and that's only making 30 of them, not the 40 this quilt has.

For my next one, I plan on borrowing a concept from Thelma Bradshaw. Her work is so amazing....

A Brush with History...

Such occurred this week...and a deep curtsy to fate I offer for it! Two textile treasures found their way to me.

The first is this glorious silk quilt, passed on to me by a lady in California.

The quilt historian Barbara Brackman described it thus, after seeing a jpeg of it:
"Boy it's a pretty quilt. I wouldn't call it a crazy quilt since it seems quite sane to me. I think an embroidered silk medallion, about 1880-1900 would describe it nicely."
In fact, it was made in 1890 by a woman named Eve Ollie in Buffalo, New York, so good call, Barbara!

It does have a few elements of crazy quilting to it though, namely, that there is no quilting or batting. But it isn't tied either! What is unusual is that traditional crazy quilt type stitching along some of the seams holds the front and the back layers of the quilt together.

Not all of the seams are embroidered...(click on the picture to see better). I don't think Eve was into embroidery, but she sure had a lovely collection of silks.

Even the backing fabric is of silk. See the stitching lines on the back?
I get goosebumps, going back in time into another woman's life, via her stitches and fabrics.
I will cherish this...

A very different scenario produced my other historical treasure...try to imagine, at least 60 or 70 years ago, women in Russia hard at work producing handmade bobbin lace for commerical sale...

This collection of bobbin lace was given to me by a very gracious lady named Kay Pauling. Her late mother-in-law left this lace to her in 1981; Kay had kept it all these years but decided to pass it on to me as someone who would use it.
What Kay didn't tell me until we met was that her mother-in-law was Ava Helen Pauling, the wife of the great 20th Century scientist, Linus Pauling.

photo from Oregon State University

Dr. Pauling won two Nobel Prizes - in 1954 for Chemistry and in 1962 for Peace. He was globally admired for his tremendous contributions to chemistry and for advocating peace. Dr. Pauling shared the spotlight in this latter endeavor with Albert Einstein.

Kay told me that Ava had purchased the lace during one of their trips to Russia.
So indeed, the wings of history have brushed me by, leaving the lace in my hands....

I wanted to find out more about it, so I scanned it and sent the image to Betty Pillsbury, the wonderful CQ teacher and friend (who used to make bobbin lace) and also to Lacis, the lace museum and textile supply shop in Berkeley, California.

Jules Kliot of Lacis wrote to say,
"An interesting collection mainly due to the attached labels.
The laces themselves appear to be handmade with the exception of the one on the extreme right.
Designs are generic and could have been made most anywhere. There are examples of torchon, Genoese, Cluny. all considered as "straight" laces.
There are many traditional Russian designs, but not in this collection."

Betty sent me some interesting links about bobbin lace, such as this beginner's guide. We thought this link on torchon lace described my lace, too. This site on English laces has more on the torchon lace.
Kay had told me the lace was of cotton, but Betty suggested it might be linen, and on closer look, I agree with her.

I am so grateful to Kay for entrusting this lace to me. It will be well used.

It's been another busy week, so no stitching of my own do I have to show...next week, hopefully, we will have a silk ribbon poppy!

Vintage CQ...Flower #19

Working with Ann Cox's book, A-Z of Silk Ribbon Flowers, has been a revelation.
Not that I have dived very deeply as yet, but there are some key concepts here that are going to change the way I do floral embellishments from here on out.

In the book, she divides her different floral renditions according to the degree of difficulty: easy, hard, and most complicated! (My words, not hers.)
I chose an easy one for my first attempt, the aster.

We have perennial asters growing all over the place and I have always loved that flower, too.

So I gathered my materials here....A small vase of some asters, the book and block, some ribbon, beeswax, needles, threads, Dye-Na-Flow, brush....and off I went.

I normally do not like to mark patterns on my embellishment surface, especially in non-removable gelpen ink! But I was trying to follow the directions for once, so I marked my pattern. (Any marks that would end up showing could be covered with black permanent marker, anyways. An old trick!)

The main stem had nine strands of floss. Ann suggests running them through beeswax to get them to form a cohesive line.
Great idea, I never thought of that! You can use dry soap for this too, evidently.
The stems are couched with a few stitches.

I did not have the 2mm silk ribbon called for to use as the petals. And it would have been more aster-like. But that's ok...this 4mm is from RiverSilks. It is already hand-dyed, but Ann's method--and the part that is SO great to me--is that you overdye the ribbon once it is in place. She gives lots of technical tips for how to do this, too.
Now I want to overdye every ribbon flower I ever make!

In the aster example, she just called for a slightly darker magenta painted from the center to about halfway out the petals' lengths.

It is subtle, but can you see the difference?

For the flowers' centers, she was very specific about starting with three strands of floss, two green one yellow, in a 3 wrap French knot, then graduate to two yellows and one green strand, in a smaller knot, to a single strand of yellow in a one wrap knot.
It makes for a more believable flower, doesn't it?
This was a great first exercise....

My husband loves Shirley poppies. Ann ranks her version at the medium level of difficulty, but I think I will be brave and try them next week...

Vintage CQ...Flower #18

Greetings!
Those twin babies were straight from heaven. It was so great to meet them last week-end!

I did have time to complete another of the wheel blocks for my Vintage CQ. Here is #18:

The designs for these blocks seem to be either large close-ups of a single flower, or some kind of spray of small ones.
These are made from narrow ombre Mokuba ribbon, 3mm Swarovski crystals, Kreinik Silk Serica thread (one of my all time faves), and some ribbon that dear Rengin sent to me long ago. Oh, and there is some hand-painted fabric from Vicki in there, too! It's the warm yellow...

There are 12 blocks more to go...I'll be done by Christmas!

But along the way, I will have some awesome new inspiration. I have a new book on silk ribbon flowers that is unbelievable.

Would you look at those nasturtium on the cover!

If you click on the photo here, you can get a better look at the flowers on the back of the book.
I've done an initial reading of the book, and found that the brave author paints her ribbon after it is stitched into place. She has many technical tips and great artistry to share...and sets the bar very, very high.
But like Susan with her Charm School (just look how she has recreated the Alstroemeria Lily here after gaining technique from delving into Di van Niekirk's book, Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork, this summer), I plan on studying this book and chosing one of the flowers to replicate.

** EDIT**
This book can be found at www.Abebooks.com here. It has a different cover than the copy I have, but it sure sounds like the exact same book.
Thanks, Judy, for this heads up!

I'll have it next Thursday...see you then!

Baby Clothes!

I have two 3 month old grandnieces and I get to meet them this week-end in San Diego!
My oldest brother's oldest daughter had twins in June...I am so excited to finally be able to hold these babies in my arms.

It is never too early to have a good supply of hoodies (my favorite article of clothing), so I decided to make the girls a matched set of hoodies and booties. I didn't have a lot of time to decorate them, but still, it was fun.

I ordered them from Dharma Trading...nice white cotton, ready to dye.

This is one of the two sets, soaked in a soda ash solution (which will act as the mordent to set the dyes.)

I had some old procion dyes kicking around, so I mixed them up....

...and poured them over my wet baby clothes in these jars. Then I let them sit in the sun for a couple of hours. Next I washed them well with detergent, and let them dry overnight.

"A" is for Anna....

...and "H" is for Halle.
This is cut out fulled wool.

It was fun to applique them onto the hoodies with a little embroidery.

But most fun of all will be to see those precious girls wearing these things...


Given with love from their Aunt Allie.....

Have a great week, you all!

Vintage CQ...Flower #17

Busy, it has been so busy around here!

Multiply this by about 100 and you'll understand what I mean.
This particular harvest did turn into some great eggplant parmigiana last night...(no broccoli in it of course).

I got my Spoonflower swatches back!
Have a look...

The one on the left is from a picture of a detail of "Crazy for Flowers". It is printed on Organic Cotton Sateen. The one on the right is one of my flower mandalas printed on Bamboo/Cotton Rayon...and I much prefer that fabric. Both color-shifted towards yellow...so when ordering a full yard of fabric, care would have to be taken to avoid that.
But the quality of the imagery and color saturation are just great. And the Spoonflower folks are so nice, too.

My Vintage Flower #17 was inspired by some of these "circus dahlias" (my name for them).

Some dahlia breeder just went wonky, I think. But these are cheerful little guys.
And they inspired this...

The outer petals are angelina...the inner ones are silk ribbon..and there is beading in the center.
The leaves are actually cut out sections of some wonderful jacquard ribbon that Susan Elliot generously sent me a few months back. I just appliqued them on...
I wasn't sure what to put in the center and then of course....a spider! This was a black metal one that I had painted gold long ago....and he waited all these years in my bead drawer just for this moment.

Susan had requested a shot of all the flowers together...so here they are, slapped up on the design wall in no certain order....

I left the photo pretty large, so if you click on this you can get a better view.
I am really enjoying taking my time on this quilt, and like what is happening so far....

That's it for this week.
See you next Thursday!