Maureenie Makes Things

Embroidery How To: Rosette Stitch (part 2)

When last we left our heroine (which would be me, fearlessly embroidering on knitted goods), we had just finished wrapping the yarn and anchoring the last wrap,

 and we were in the process of pulling the needle through (as promised, a different color this time):

The view without the anchor/thumb makes it clear why the anchor is necessary; if you pull too hard, that nice corner at the top of the stitch will get sucked into the middle of the stitch.  (Since I have the stitch turned sideways in the picture, the top of the stitch is on the right of the photo.)

Now we proceed to secure the wraps in all four directions: top, bottom, side, side / north, south, east, west, as you wish.  According to one of my embroidery references, the "official" version only gets secured in two directions.  (Which is not to suggest that other embroidery references show it being secured in more than two directions; my other embroidery references in fact don't list the stitch.) Since I'm putting this on something that will be worn, I want more security.  So all four directions it is.

Let the yarn cross over the wraps and insert the needle at the bottom of the stitch (the bottom of the stitch is on the left side of the photo).  The needle reemerges at the very top of the stitch, just catching the yarn where your thumb had previously anchored it.  

 Pull the needle through and you will notice that the boy-with-his-finger-in-the-dyke feeling is gone.  The "big turn" is now secure.  

Now to the sides.  (Sides of the stitch, that is, top and bottom of photo.)  Insert the needle at the very top of the stitch and come out just off center.  Aim to come up just at the inside edge of the wraps.

Pull the needle through and let the yarn cross over the wraps as it moves toward the outside of the stitch. The idea is to leave a small space in the center, so if you came up at the inner edge of the "west" wraps, you want to cross the yarn over the west wraps. 

 Insert the yarn at the outer edge of the stitch.

The next move is toward the center.  Once again, aim for the inside edge of the wraps, leaving a small space in the center.

Pull the needle through, let the yarn cross the wraps on the same side and insert the needle at the outside edge of the stitch.

Pull the needle to the back and enjoy your work:

Given where I was using the stitch, I wasn't crazy about the opening in the center, so I put a French knot there.  Next time.

Maureen

She believed she could, so she did.

Thai Temple Scarf - A Start

The embroidery is growing on me, can't decide whether I'm happy with the "roof tiles" section.  

Maureen

don't wait for people to be kind; show them how.

Design journal

For inspiration in the how-to-photograph-your-knits department, a friend suggested that I look at a blog called Man Shops Globe and at the Anthropologie catalogue .  The Sundance page (evidently it's not just a blog but an entire series!) contained a bit about temples in Thailand, and one of them had a lovely bit of trim on the roof that caught my eye.

Wonderful pattern (I am a sucker for pattern) with a nice border on the border (beautiful contrast between the brights and the earth tones) and little dangly things.  Little irresistible dangly things. Surely I can knit this.  It will make a fantastic edge on a sweater or a scarf.  It will take a little engineering to get the right shape to the edge and to get the layers of colors to reveal themselves in the proper order.  Three swatches and many pages of notes later, I think I've got it (I am being so organized!).  But I can't decide on the color. Certain aspects are clear in my mind's eye, but then logic kicks in to fill in the blanks, and that seldom goes well.  And as I narrow in on the pattern for the rest of the scarf, the myriad possibilities must be played with, to say nothing of the question of whether it will it be one all over pattern, suitable for stop light knitting, or an organic mixture of pattern. Sketches for both are required.  Actually that one was resolved fairly readily - one all over pattern with a break in the middle where I can do some grafting, since it will need to be cast on from both ends.  (Yes, it would be possible to graft within the stranded pattern, but what a pain in the neck.  My intution tells me that this is one of those things that actually will end up being a creative opportunity, making the scarf more interesting.)  But as I start actually putting the pattern to graph paper, I realize that it's ending up a different scale than I originally envisioned, so I start playing with a bigger scale, finding that there's interesting possibility to transition from the edge into the larger pattern. (Translation:  even less repetition, hooray!  The irony is not lost on me that seeing pattern makes my heart beat faster but making pattern does not.)  

Anyway, here it is, bedtime, and I haven't done the first thing that I planned on accomplishing today.   

But the thrill of an idea, how can you compete with that?

Maureen

 

I love a good before and after. And an embroidery how to just for kicks.

Some say that you shouldn't reveal your process.  Me, I think it makes for some of the most interesting reading.  Nothing heavy or terribly insightful here today, but I got a kick out of seeing what a big role the flowers centers had in the overall appearance of the hat.  They do, after all, take up less than 1% of the surface area of the hat.

Before:

And After:  

(I know, it's a repeat from the other day.  It's more informative - and convenient for you - to have these pics side by side.) 

The centers are called a rosette stitch.  (Not to be confused with the rosette chain stitch, which sounds the same but looks very different.) Here's the step-by-step:

Come up just below the center:

Next, insert from front to back just above the center.  Come back out to the front in the same spot where you began.  Pretend you're doing a backstitch:

The idea here is to center the rosette right around the knitted stitch in the very center of the flower.  Do this by grabbing the "bars" above and below the stitch.  Don't pull the needle through yet.  A close up of this step:

Now the fun begins.  Working from the end of the yarn that just came through the fabric, i.e., NOT from the end in the eye of the needle, start wrapping it around the base that you've created with the needle.  The thread is coming out of the knitted fabric at the pointy end of the needle, so pull it under the eye end of the needle for your first wrap.  We'll call this half of a wrap actually, since the yarn has only done half a lap around the circle:

and then keep going, wrapping it next under the pointy end of the needle.  We'll count this as one full wrap, having come back to the starting point:

Now snug it in before the next wrap.

Keep wrapping in the same direction, bringing it next under the eye end of the needle, and then under the pointy end, and so on, until you've gone around 3 1/2 times.  Whaaa?  3 1/2??  After you've wrapped under the pointy end for the third time, bring it back up to the top/eye end.

So now, admittedly, it gets a little tricky the first time you do the next step.  You're going to anchor the wrapped yarn with your finger.  Hold it down right where it passes under the top / eye end of the needle.  Keep it right there while you pull the needle out to the front.  The yarn will make a right angle as it heads down toward the center of the circle.

To be continued (probably with a lighter color yarn!)

Maureen

to live a creative life, we must find the courage to be wrong.

Synchronicity (or, how did I get so lucky?)

I've been playing around with embroidering and appliqueing on my knitted goods lately.  
The more I do it, the more ideas I get.  My journal is bursting with ideas and I can't make them fast enough.  And right in the midst of it, under the heading of I-am-just-one-of-the-luckiest-people-I-know, Sue Spargo shows up for a workshop at our quilt guild.  

Okay, a teacher of her status doesn't just show up.  She is highly sought after and teaches around the world, keeping a pace that makes my head spin just thinking of it.  Her work has been on not one but two major magazine covers just this spring.  She is one of quilting's "it" girls.  As our local quilt guild's workshop chair, I had to make reservations years in advance to get her here.  I chose her because I love her folk art style.  It's primitive but not in a country nightmare kind of way; cute without being cutesy; warm, rich, and genuine.  What I didn't know at the time, though, was just how much embroidery she'd be doing by the time she got here.  (Or how warm and gracious she would be.  The general consensus was that two days was just not enough!)

Her work has been evolving to create more and more texture.  It is exquisite.  The colors!  The materials!  The stitching!  Pictures fall short of revealing the richness, but here goes anyway:

Talk about a booster pack for my momentum!  

Maureen

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Maya Angelou

The Flower Power Hat

A friend approaches:  "I have something to ask.  It's okay to say no." Wow, this sounds serious.  I am feeling really pressed for time these days.  Remind myself that she and her husband have been truly good and kind to me.  I am going to look for a way to say yes.  I take a breath.  "Sure," I say, "what is it?"  Her husband's daughter is sick, would I make her hat?  They think it would be nice for her to have something so happy. I almost laughed.  Not at the illness, of course.   I am tickled.  Something I made is seen as uplifting.   And I am relieved.  I can fit this in.   The answer is simple: "Of course!"  Here it is:

Pattern to follow.

Maureen

-to 11-year-old Franz Liszt...Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that! (Ludwig van Beethoven)

Knitting Techniques Worth Passing On

I love the why-didn't-I-think-of-that? feeling.  It kinda tickles.  Two lovely tips crossed my path recently.  

1.  Joining a new yarn with a double knot.   It's simple and quick and works really well when you're continuing with the same color yarn.  If you're doing stripes and need your change to occur at a particular spot, mmm, not so much.  Unless  maybe you're a sailor and have become expert at tying knots and making them land in just the right place?

2.  Joining a zipper to your knitted piece.  Using one of those doodads designed to fix snags on your sweaters, you create a chain or a row of live stitches, as you prefer, right on the zipper tape.  From there, you're all set to attach it to your garment in any number of ways.  I've done the hand sewing thing with zippers, and yes, it works fine, but this method is elegant.  The idea seems to have originated at TECHknitting blog. 

Here's a zipper set in with hand stitching.  It works fine, it's nice and neat and tidy, and I've worn the sweater for years without a problem.  But there's something about thread and yarn that doesn't quite feel right to me.  

Here's a zipper ready to be set in using yarn (from the link above):

Both ideas came by way of my LYS.  One directly, one by following a trail that started there.  Another reason to support your local yarn shop!  

Maureen

Produce as many ideas as possible. Try to produce unlikely ideas. (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

When a quilter knits … or, I love Scrap Knitting

I love scrap quilts.  Different fabrics from different sources collected over time.  When they come together, they're not perfectly matched.  Well chosen, though, the eye averages them and sees colors that might not even make an individual appearance.   Put the right ones next to each other and they sparkle.  The variations from the average, seeming mismatches, create interest and character.  

This delight in picking colors doesn't go away when I step away from my sewing machine and pick up my knitting needles.  I want to pick my own colors.  Yes,  handpainted yarns have lots of pretty colors in them, but why let somebody else have all the fun of choosing the colors for my project?  My yarn stash has mostly solids.  And my projects combine yarns from different lines. Yes, they have slightly different thicknesses and textures.  It's like mixing print fabrics, it just adds interest.   As long as it says worsted (or has a gauge from 4  to 5 stitches per inch), I put them together:

 

An experiment emerging from a pile of color.  Lamb's Pride, Peace Fleece, Cascade 220 and Greenland, Julia (sadly discontinued), Shepard's Wool, Berrocoo Ultra Alpaca, Valley Greenwich, Mirasol, Rowan Lima.  I'm sure I've missed something, but you get the point.  

The yarn world doesn't have a fat quarter equivalent.  One must buy in larger quantities.  I've decided that's okay.   By varying the number and/or proportion of colors in any given project, I can create very different looks out of the same stash.  So rather than buying by project, I buy according to what gets me excited.  A little excited, I buy one skein.  When my heart sings, I might buy three.  Julia yarn being discontinued?  As many as I can find.  Anybody know where I can get my hands on some Deep Blue Sea???

Maureen

Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.  Joseph Campbell

 

Danger, Will Robinson!

Once upon a time I attended a weaving open house.  I watched her dress the loom and decided right then and there that  weaving, with all its glorious potential for combination of colors and generation of pattern,was a creative cold that I wasn't going to catch.  Nope, that was one fiber related activity that I was immune to.   

Or so I thought until today, when I stumbled across the Ashford Knitters Loom.

I don't know if it was the part about using knitting weight yarn for weaving or the part that said I could have a scarf in a couple of hours.  I think it was that second part. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the second part that put me over the edge.  And to hammer the nail in the coffin, there was the part about how it folds up. You know, as in, it will fit into the studio.  And how it's portable. As in, I can work in the park while Maggie gets her outside time.

Here's something made with it:   I love the idea of mixing a woven scarf with a knitted sweater.

puskin3's pygora scarf on ravelry.com

Sigh. It all started so innocently.  I noticed that my vest (a future post) was swallowing up yarn faster than expected. After some quick calculations, I realized that I was going to be about one skein short.  This required immediate emergency shopping, since the yarn I'm using has been discontinued.  It's not easy to find, and one bumps into things while looking…

Have you heard anything about these?  A quick look at the ravelry discussion sounded like a foreign language.  Surely it can't be that hard.  

Is there any point even in trying to resist?

Maureen

What wonders and delights await?

Tis the Season

Project #1:  Neckie and fingerless mitts.  I grabbed a couple skeins of luscious, chunky baby alpaca, color appropriate for a gorgeous friend, and knitted these up in a flash.  Watching them come to life, I realized that I couldn't just give them to her... all ... just ... plain blue.  One color?! It would look like I didn't really care.  (I have the ability to take just about any project and make it bigger.  It's a skill.)  They needed a little something.  Some embroidery perhaps.  I had some left over alpaca from another project and surely that would be just the thing.  I sketched a little and then jumped in and started stitching.  Nope.  Ripped it out and stitched again.  Nope.

This went on all evening (so much for my just-make-one-project-per-day-and-everything-will-be-fine idea).  I woke up the next morning and it struck me:  felting!  Feeling confident (it can't be ripped out like embroidery), I plunged in.   The result:  not bad, and they're growing on me.  In any event, the countdown is on. I remind myself of the line from Wag the Dog:  "A good job today is better than a great job tomorrow."  And one of Mom's favorites:  "It's the thought that counts."  Surely my friend will feel thought of now.  Soooo much more so than if she had received a box full of plain blue... handknit alpaca stuff.   

(I promise, the color of the liner gloves from Target really looks fine in real life.)  

Here's a close up of the embellishment:

Now that I'm committed, wouldn't you know that I bumped into a Norwegian knitting blog (how great is it that I can sit in Florida and bump into a Norwegian knitting blog?! My gratitude for living in the internet age knows no bounds) with a really interesting technique for embellishing knitwear. First you crochet a circle, and then you attach it with embroidery.  So clever.  It looks like satin stitch done in a circle.  She picked it up from a magazine article published in the 70's:

Yeah, it's in Norwegian. But the pictures tell the story.  Here's what she did with it. I love these!

Next time.

 

Maureen

Let the wonder never cease.