Angels

A dear friend, even after a year, was having a very difficult time accepting the unexpected loss of her mother. I decided to needlepoint for her a guardian angel...More......

From my art history studies, I remembered a tender angel helping a soul successfully undergo its weighing, as depicted on a tympanum of the Romanesque church in Autun, France, and thought that it could be just perfect for her.

I isolated the little angel with the souls in its care, and set it all against a heavenly gold-toned background, achieved through the use of color, not specialty threads.

The (fuzzy, sorry!, but it's the only one I have) picture shows the unfinished, unblocked needlepoint (hence its skew).

(To see the original, go to: http://www.aug.edu/augusta/iconography/iconographySupplementalImages/autunTympanum.psychostasy.html)

Library mouse (03): Beth Russell's "Traditional Needlepoint"

Just arrived, and already gobbled up: that's the fate of Beth Russell's Traditional Needlepoint (David & Charles, 1992)...More......Most of the inspiration for her designs comes directly from the work of William Morris and collaborators (don't know who William Morris was? See my: http://arsacupicturaestellae.blogspot.com/2010/07/library-mouse-02.html). This means that the charted designs are not only gorgeous, but also complicated...too much so for a beginner, I'd say, but for someone with a bit of needlepoint experience and a lot of patience, the results will be gorgeous.

She gives a lot of practical advice, too, as found in my own previous messages, but what I like best for you about this book is that Ms. Russell and her collaborators have not only chosen images and produced charted designs, but they also have devoted serious thought to how you can adapt each of the charted designs for different projects and with different colors, in order to encourage you to express your creativity.

The call of the Siren (Milan Monday 02)

I love it when my current interests synchronize over the miles with the writers of my favorite blogs, and it happened, again, these last few days.

A recent post on the "Italian Needlework" blog talks about sirens in, well, Italian needlework: http://italian-needlework.blogspot.com/2010/08/la-sirena-siren.html.

Mid July I took photos of the little historic bridge with sirens in the park behind the Sforza castle. In honor of that post and my recent trip to the bridge, I posted one of the photos on my Milan blog, today: http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.com/2010/08/siren-call-in-sempione-park.html.

Such fun! (Though, when hearing about my blogs, my husband burst out, yesterday, with something politely translated from Italian as "How incredibly dull!")

The needlework patterns can be adapted for needlepoint, but keep in mind those tricky diagonals.

How long does it take you?

How long does it take you to do the actual needlepointing?...More......I did a one-inch long sample on my 18-hole canvas with one single Paternayan yarn (that is, one single yarn pulled away from the three-ply in which it comes, and in length one eighth of the small 8 oz. yarn packs). It turned out less than one inch in height.

I then took note of how many threads I could needlepoint in an evening of simple background filling (hence, no need to slow down to count stitches). In a typical evening of watching a bit of TV news and a film, that is, perhaps 3 1/2 hours, or so, I can needlepoint from three to four of those single yarns, and so the area I can cover in one whole evening of needlepointing turns out to be about the imprint size of a finger.

That's not much.

All this to say...please be patient!

I'm about 3-4 needlepoint sessions shy of finishing that surprise gift needlepoint project I mentioned a number of sessions ago, and then I will be able to share it with you. (And I've already got some other long projects in the works to be shared with you.)

Milan Monday (01)

I promised a surprise for Monday: Milan Monday.

Each Monday, I'll be posting my photos of Milan, Italy, that are inspiring for a needlepoint project. If at all possible (life too often does get in the way of needlepointing), I'll use StitchPainter to turn it into a needlepoint design, too.

While walking in Corso XXII Marzo-Viale Corsico, this air vent grill caught my eye:





And it seemed just perfect for a repeating border design:





Substitute your desired colors for the grays, and enjoy!

If you'd like to follow my blog on Milan, Italy, too, please go to: http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.com, thanks!

StitchPainter

A recent comment on one of my posts expressed happy wonder at the existence of a program assisting the creation of needlepoint designs. Quite a few years ago,...More......I researched the then available programs, and chose StitchPainter because it sounded like the one most suited for what I wanted to do: draw, save, print and adapt my own designs, and import photographs.

As discussed in a previous post (July 16, 2010: http://arsacupicturaestellae.blogspot.com/2010/07/designing-importing-digital-images-into.html), the last option turned out to be more complicated than it sounds, not because of the program, itself, but because of the "clean up" process I personally find necessary.

There are, of course, things that could be improved in the program, and the company asked its users to forward suggestions. On the other hand, the program lets me do lots of things that I had never dreamed of, before. Since I find the program so inspiring, one of my plans for this blog is to take us step-by-step through at least some of its basic features, as it will be of interest not only to those already with StitchPainter (or with similar programs), but also will show those without such a program how handy a new "pencil" it is. It also is suitable for use by cross-stitchers and knitters.

(Just to be clear: I get no kickbacks of any kind from StitchPainter. I'm talking about the program because I like it and use it, and want to share my enthusiasm for this aspect of my needlepointing with you.)

Monday, Monday, so good to me

Monday there will be a good surprise for you, so I hope you will come back to visit. Come to think of it, why not click on "Follow," and get my notes more easily?

Hurry up, and wait

It's so hard to be patient while designing and stitching before getting to the finished needlepoint. The sense of anticipation builds, the closer I get to the end of stitching. It's bittersweet because I know that, when I do finally finish the stitching, together with the contented satisfaction comes a sense of sad loss, and so I find that I tend to slow down my stitching to savor the last few moments. The companionship of the piece through many (many) happy evenings is almost over, and the search for a new project has to begin.

With maybe 7, or 8, sessions (of a few hours, each) of handwork left, my current project is nearing completion. The happy anticipation of sharing it with the recipient and you is tempered by these tender feelings.

Library mouse (02) (again)

I feel much richer as a person for having learned more about William Morris (1834-1896). I knew of him as a...More......multi-talented artist and craftsman, but never realized that his aspirations to improve and uplift our daily lives by insisting on beauty in the making and using of everyday things also had extended into poetry, narrative and political activism. (For more on Morris, click on the title of this post, or go directly to http://www.morrissociety.org.)

Arthur Clutton-Brock’s William Morris (New York: Parkstone Press International, 2007) is largely concerned with exploring Morris’ interests and beliefs, with particular attention to Morris’ own writings. The book is not dedicated to translating his art into needlepoint, or cross stitch, designs, though the ample and beautiful illustrations will be an inspiration for your work.

The book spends less time than I had hoped on analyzing Morris’ approach to art, in order to be able to apply it to our own work. Even if the style of his art may not please you, after learning about his goals, you may find that you like his art better, even if you already adored it before learning more about him, as I did.

The text, despite its in-depth attention to Morris’ writings, is not for scholars, who will lament the rambling text without footnotes and the too short bibliography, but it is suited for interested fans wishing to better understand Morris’ works, and is a good source of some beautiful images full of inspiration for your needlepoints.

Better understanding his goals helps us to better translate his art into designs. Unexpectedly, but more importantly, it helps us, like Morris, to be uplifted by making beautiful things and to insist on living surrounded by beauty, even in all our everyday objects, not just because it gives aesthetic pleasure, but also because it refines our spirits.

(Originally posted July 25, 2010, this message was skipped during Google’s retroactive indexing phase, which means that not only was it not available in internet, but also that the page was not available for the in-site search feature, so the message is being reposted to remedy these two problems. Thank you for your understanding.)

Garland of roses (9 of 9) (again)

The last of the small "insets" for the "composite" image is this beautiful garland of roses. As smaller designs,...More......they also can be stitched on leftover pieces of canvas, and can function as insets, even in other projects. Two of the little designs worked side-by-side into a single work could become a case for glasses, or a cell phone. As usual for this "composite" image, I drew the design freehand on my StitchPainter program, and was inspired by the Victorian needlepoint book (see bibliography and link list).

As for all my designs, it was planned for 18-count canvas. If stitched on lower-count canvas it will be bigger, and so could be made into a little purse, for example.

(Originally posted July 15, 2010, this message was skipped during Google’s retroactive indexing phase, which means that not only was it not available in internet, but also that the page was not available for the in-site search feature, so the message is being reposted to remedy these two problems. Thank you for your understanding.)