A Very Big Deal Indeed

See this? This is a design by Jane Zimmerman called "Angulation 1" which is the newest class offered in cyberspace through the Shining Needle Society. Angulation 1 is worked on congress cloth using silk or cotton floss and metallic threads. If you are interested in the class, you need to join the Shining Needle Society (it's a Yahoo Group) and look at the class information.

I'll quote the important bits here from Kate Gaunt's posting announcing the class to SNS members--

"This class explores techniques of Far Eastern and Western silk andmetal thread embroidery through the ages in addition to traditionalcanvas work. The model of this 10" by 11" challenging geometric design, inspired by a Danish rug, was executed on gray congress cloth in gray-white and two color families of silk(or cotton) with metallics to coordinate with the silk colors chosen. The techniques include overlaid Florentine, burden stitch, trellis on satin ground, Japanese novelty pattern, fly stitch, web stitch, eyelet stitch and many other canvas stitch variations.

Since the color combinations for this design are endless and such fun to select, Jane decided to offer the project as a chartpak only. Use Soie d'Alger and/or Needlepoint Inc. and/or Vikki Clayton's hand-dyed silk, or cotton floss with Kreinik metallic braid -- supplies that can
be found easily at your local needlework store. You will need 6 values of silk (or cotton) and one of metallic with congress cloth of a color that coordinates with your silk choices. (A supply list is provided upon enrollment in the class.)"

More information, including cost and how to sign up, is at the Shining Needle Society's Yahoo Group. Join the group which costs nothing and hear about this class and others as they are offered.

This is a Big Deal. Jane Zimmerman is retiring from teaching except for virtual classes like this, In other words, classes that were always limited are now expanding into cyberspace without Jane's having to travel. Jane has also started a fabulous website where we'll be able to order her books, see her designs and look at diagrams of stitches.
Have fun exploring.

http://www.janezimmerman.com/

Those of you who are like me and not into geometrics, let me tell you these things are really beautiful in person. If they are well executed, the shine of the silk and metal threads is incredible. They take ordinary geometric patterns into the realm of art.

Jane's books are very popular with really talented stitchers I know. I've not seen any of them in person but here's a review of one.

http://accesscommodities.com/blog.htm#012908

This is a big deal and a great deal for stitchers everywhere. Thanks, Jane!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

The Snowman's Scarf Done (except for fringe)

The photo above shows the scarf finished on the snowman and the background begun. First, the scarf.

With the snowman canvas turned so his scarf was at the bottom (and his stocking cap at the top) I did rows of reverse skip tent in my count/color sequence of 5 pale rose, 3 red, 7 lime green and 1 blue. I started with the knot at the front and did that in mostly lime green because that was the color I wanted in front. Remember, a scarf wrapped around your neck won't have the pattern continue in a regular manner (that's one thing I might have done to the Joan Thomasson wizard's robes, made the pattern irregular to mimic the folds in the long robes). So you are free to play around with your starting point doing Chottie's Plaid. That will make the scarf look more real.

Once I finished I outlined the scarf ends and knots with buttonhole stitch except for the line dividing the two scarf ends which is stem stitch. I turned the canvas so that the stocking cap was on the bottom to stitch that line and discovered buttonhole stitch done upside down is stem stitch. Or something. It isn't buttonhole! But it looks ok, particularly since it is not the bound-off knit sides of the scarf, so I left it alone. Mistakes aren't necessarily disasters, you know.

I've now started the background of the ornament using Caron's Snow, which is a chainette type thread that comes in a ton of colors these days. The white is perfect for Snow, but some of the other colors are very pretty. It's an easy metallic to work with but you need to use short lengths as the chainette will start to unravel after a while, especially since I'm using Interlocking Goblein for the stitch which means the thread goes down between threads which stresses it. I also experimented with switching to tent stitch so that there is a raised border and then a less prominent background but I'm not sure I like it. I'll think about that for a bit and continue the miles of tent stitches around the wizard's perimeter instead.

Eventually I'll create fringe for the scarf's ends but that has to wait until the background is done. Looking at the photo I posted, I see I forgot to outline the second lime green knot on the scarf. Maybe I'll do that next.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow