A Bluestocking Knits

Bands Nine and Ten; and, Changing Tack

This band was adapted from a larger motif -- both transcribed by Louisa Pesel -- from a German sampler dated 1661, now in the V&A (accession no. 368-1907).

While I was working it, I noticed a flaw in my fabric a little way down, where one of the horizontal threads had broken somehow --

Luckily for me, it was only one thread, and so I winkled the two broken ends out of the weave a bit and pulled them to the back, then with a length of thread that I pulled out from my zigzag at one side, long enough to comfortably hold in the needle, I wove that new thread back in along where the broken one had been.  It looks ever-so-slightly obvious at this point because the new thread of course has those tiny creases from the over/under weave and so doesn't sit quite comfortably, but it's subtle enough --

I left the long ends of the replacement thread at the back, in hopes that the blackwork stitching would have plenty of opportunity to catch them down securely!

As for the change of tack, I've been alternately thinking, "There's no way that this is enough thread," and "we-ell, it might make it ...."  At exactly halfway along, I had used up two of the four skeins I bought at The Attic plus the partial skein left over from "Philadelphia Vine"  Of course, each band is going to use a different amount of thread depending on its denseness and the efficiency of my stitching, but even so getting halfway and using more than half of my four skeins of thread means pretty obviously that two skeins likely wouldn't be enough to finish.  I have already snuck in a number of strands of the "Cranberry" skein I had on hand, which is a slightly more scarlet red than the "Rosewood" -- I've used one strand of each, hoping that the variations would be subtle enough, and I think this is working pretty well.

But at halfway through the ninth band, I thought, "Right, I've got one full skein of 'Rosewood' left," and I'd rather use all of it, if I can, instead of a blend of the two colors, and so I've decided to jump down to the bottom of the chart and work my way up instead, so that any more blends that I need to incorporate will be both minimal and interspersed with the "Rosewood".  It seems a bit absurd, looking at how little is actually left to stitch, that a whole skein of silk might not be enough, and maybe I'll laugh at myself when it's finished and I do have "too much" ... but getting exactly halfway along and having used up more than half of my thread has made me very skittish indeed!

It was quite a bit of luck, by the way, that the little "ribbon" band landed exactly over my mend, catching those long ends I left.  Whew!  I'm going to thread that last end under as well --

Motto, and Bands Seven and Eight

This quote is from Mary Shelley from one of her lesser-known novels -- The Last Man (1826) -- and I admit that I have not read it, but I think the quote itself is a good philosophy of life, and I appreciated that the "intricate" part plays very well with all of this blackwork!

I have had a nasty chest cold for the past week, so it also feels good to pick this up again after only being able to gaze weakly at it beside me for two whole days!  The little band was adapted by Carol Hanson from a repeated motif on the Jane Bostocke sampler.  (For Jane Bostocke, see here at the V&A.)  Unfortunately, I don't know the source of the delightfully frivolous band below that except the so-often vexingly unhelpful Pinterest, which band I adapted to make a proper up/down/up "arcade," and also consolidated a bit to fit the space here.

It's all going fairly quickly, which pleases and worries me both, as I don't think PCStitch estimated the amount of silk floss correctly -- my supply is looking dangerously low, and I've already worked in the partial skein left over from "Philadelphia Vine".  (On the bright side, all of these pictures have loaded properly the very first time as I write this post, huzzah!  Simple pleasures.)

Bands Four and Five

My blackwork sampler as of today.  I really like this large band -- so much 17th-century wackiness going on here!

I debated a long time about whether to use one strand of silk or two, and went with two after mulling over a post on that topic at String or Nothing.  Some of the irregularities can certainly be laid at my door, as it were, though sometimes it is that the silk thread is ever-so-slightly heavier in one place than in another, and other times the irregularities in the linen ground push the thread a bit to one side.  Still, I'm happy with the two-strands, especially as I can use the loop start, easy and quite secure!

I wasn't sure if these little leaves would read much, as they're so small, but I'm glad they do --

Beginning

I had a hankering for some blackwork, so here is the beginning of an original sampler, in that beautiful Gloriana silk in "Rosewood".  I bought an antique frame on Ebay a few years ago that turned out not to fit my "Virtue Outshines the Stars," so am suiting this one to the frame!

This band went surprisingly quickly, once I realized that breaking it down into vertical components, not horizontal ones, was key to working out the stitching line.  It looks surprisingly modern to my eye, but is in fact from Louisa Pesel's book of historical sampler motifs.

Tucson PS; or, Fibery Fun

Actually, it's Mesa, a two-hour or so drive north of Tucson, but there it is.  When David proposed the idea of a trip to visit our friends, I said, "Oh, and maybe we could stop by The Attic in Mesa ...?"

(We can also recommend The Cornish Pasty Co. a few doors down, where we lunched afterwards.  It's a bit like a slightly down-market pub inside, but don't let that put you off, as the food was delicious.  I had bangers and mash in a pasty, a kind of British-food double-whammy!)

But The Attic, oh, The Attic!

Regular visitors here might recognize the piece above, the "Quaker Virtues" by Bygone Stitches, my version of which I finished almost exactly a year ago, but for a moment, I did not.  It isn't so obvious in the photo above -- I should have put my hand next to it for scale! -- but it is tiny, tiny, worked at some astonishingly small scale, I hesitate saying 70-something but it may very well have been 70-something.  An amazing accomplishment, and I salute the stitcher!

A treasure trove.  Oh, I had thought my eyes lit up at the sight of the wall of framed samplers, but this is like Aladdin's cave -- and there is more on revolving racks nearby.

Since I didn't have a list in hand for charts -- only for threads and fabrics -- and the whole shop leaves one in a bit of a daze (of delight, mind you!), I decided to focus my attention on smaller designers that I don't already know about.  A model for "Ann L. Burton" was on the wall, and stayed in my mind as I walked around the shop.  I enjoyed the perforated-paper embroidery piece I did last spring so much that when I saw packages of papers I chose the ecru to take home with me.  Another stitched model on the wall was "Sarah Welch, 1764," which is a new release from Cross Stitch Antiques, not a "small designer new to me" but I was charmed enough to pick up a copy.  And for the other, I have seen images and details of other stitchers' versions of this Mexican band sampler every so often for a few years now, which kept growing on me, as it were, but I could never find it for sale, and so just as I was saying to myself, "I should stop now," I asked one of the salesladies about this and without much trouble at all, she said, "This one? or this one?" and I said, "Yes!"  I don't know why it is so difficult to find -- I searched "Mexican Band Sampler" and "W: A Mexican Band Sampler" and Needle Work Press's website with no joy -- but now I've got my own copy.

Quite absent-mindedly, I had forgotten to write down the thread count of the linen I wanted for an upcoming project, so I made a lucky guess, really, and somehow got the correct one to use with the "Rosewood" Gloriana, at left below.  I like it best on the "Summer Khaki" that it's on in the photo, and so the "Mushroom/Light Mocha" [sic] will wait for something else.  The other silks are for another chart I hope to start this year as well.

I had taken a small workbox with me for our visit, and so sitting around in the evenings, I basted and sewed up some more diamonds and stars for my patchwork --

And as a thank-you to our friends, I worked a little cross-stitch piece when we got home -- I had come across it quite accidentally, but it fit the bill very well.  It is "Arranging Cacti" by Ink Circles, and is conveniently -- part of what sold me on it -- designed to fit into a 5x7" frame.  I had a suitable piece of 30-count linen (in "Mariner's Map" Legacy Linen), but not a single one of the recommended Gentle Arts flosses, so I rummaged through my box(es) of threads and came up with some fairly-logical alternatives --

• for Hibiscus, I used Cranberry (except for the prickly pear blossoms, which I did in Classic Colorworks' Gingersnap, just because)
• for Shutter Green, I used Jolly Holly
• for Mountain Mist, I used Dried Thyme
• for Endive, I used Weeks Dye Works' Kudzu
• for Pecan Pie, I used Piney Woods, though I ended up eking it out with Walnut, a very similar shade but with more variation)

I think it looks perfect in this frame, which is a basic-but-stylish one from Michael's -- Laura cut the mat opening a little larger for me, a risky proposition but she did well.

Tucson, 2025

David and I drove to Tucson last month to visit friends.  The weather was perfect, balmy in the daytime and cool at night, blue, blue skies with beautiful clouds.  J and I share a mutual interest in miniatures, and so one of the first things on our list was The Mini Time Machine museum, which was great fun, and I even spotted a couple of our other interests, petit point and bobbin lace --

And of course because a souvenir from the shop would be a pleasant reminder of our trip, I bought this lovely little hand-blown glass vase, one of a display by Emilio Santini (who apparently does not have a website, even in Italian, but contributed a very long and esoteric post to a blog about the life and times of 17th-century glassmaker Antonio Neri) --

After that it was all saguaros, all the time.  (Just kidding, of course ... but there are lots of saguaros.  Everywhere.)  We first visited the Tohono Chul botanical gardens (including the bistro for a rather amazing lunch), and the next day Saguaro National Park, which has a bit of a self-guided walking tour but for the most part was driving ourselves to various look-out points along the 8-mile/12km scenic loop.

I learned two interesting things about saguaros, one because I was curious and just happened to be browsing a children's book about them in the national park's shop, that the "ring" around some, that looks like it has been tied at one or more times in its life, is caused by extremely cold weather, and the other from our friends, when we remarked on the number of times we saw a young saguaro under a palo verde tree, which is a "nursery" of sorts -- the palo verde is the nurse tree -- because the tree provides shade and shelter for the young saguaro.  As the saguaro grows, it takes more and more of the water and nutrients from the soil, which eventually causes the tree to die, although with the very slow growth rate of the saguaro, this is presumably some years later.

It was a good trip, although very dry, but it was good to hang out with our friends, seeing their new-to-us house and their favorite saguaro sights, but also just to hang out.  J and I had another adventure on the last day, which I will write about in another post ....

New Year News

A New Year mish-mash today, some of the little things I've been working on.  Above, my progress on the 1:12 carpet for my third shop.  The "light topaz" pops more in the photo than it does in real life.

During our New Year's Eve stroll downtown, Julia and I happened into a new used-clothing boutique and scored these woolly beauties --

Shetland wools!

Last month, I read two D.E. Stevenson novels, one to my astonishment and great anticipation that I had never read, and one a favorite.  For some unknown reason, I had never even seen a copy of The Tall Stranger, so was delighted to find it under the Christmas tree with my name on it.  Needless to say, I started reading it that very morning, and enjoyed it very much.  It is assumed by everyone that Barbie France will marry the cousin with whom she has grown up, including Edward himself, but when the time comes, Barbie finds herself unsettled by the idea, and must discover the truth about Edward's behavior.  This novel was published in 1957, and Barbie is, rather unusually for Stevenson, a career woman who realizes that she does not want to give up her job after she marries.  This tidy Sirdar twinset looks quite appropriate for both town wear in general, and for making a smart impression on her interior-design clients --

(I'm greatly impressed that there are four sizes for this pattern!  Like Barbie herself, very modern for the late 1950s!)

The other title was Green Money, wh. I had read only once before but was already a favorite.  (Like The Tall Stranger, this has been recently re-issued by Dean Street Press.)  George Ferrier, who even himself admits that he is not very bright but is nevertheless an honest and decent young man, finds himself one of the trustees for the naïve and sheltered daughter of a wealthy businessman.  Being George, he is a bit floored by the suddenness of it all, but takes this responsibility seriously.  Elma, however, finds her inexperience something to be discarded as quickly and smoothly as possible.  "Chaos obviously ensues," as Bertie Wooster would say, and this story is actually quite Wodehouseian both in tone and screwball-comedy plot, yet with Stevenson's own touches, of course, and I enjoyed it immensely.  When Green Money was published in 1939, men were still wearing lots of Fair Isle jumpers, thanks to the former Prince of Wales (by then the former Edward VIII, as it happens), and so it seems quite appropriate for George to have a pullover something like this one --

(I don't think these are even close to traditional Fair Isle patterns, and even without seeing the directions I rather suspect that this is knitted flat, awkward as that might seem to us now!)

Next in my mish-mash, a selection of fabrics for patchwork stars, on sale from Reproduction Fabrics --

It's a coincidence that they are all pink! but a happy one.

And yesterday afternoon I glued up another pair of those delightful mid-century chairs from Arjen Spinhoven for my 1:12 tea rooms --

Not Singly But in Battalions

Projects, I mean, not sorrows, though there are a great many of those in the world these days.  And it is not impossible that this jitteriness is my way of trying to cope with that.

At the top is the Fereghan carpet designed by the amazing Frances Peterson, on 48-count silk gauze wh. I told myself after working a 1:12 cushion at that scale I would never do again and here is a carpet, for heaven's sake.  But it will look exceptionally beautiful in my third shop --

which is still not glued together.

(Am having some issues with TypePad, by the way, not displaying images correctly, but I've already held this post up for over a week.  If something looks strangely truncated on the right margin, it probably is.  Click to view the whole image. [EDITED: I think I've fixed that ...])

Two more sets of stars in English patchwork for that quilt-to-be.  It now takes me about 30-35 minutes to sew the six diamonds together, assuming that all goes well (...).  I take great pleasure in finding ways to incorporate French General's selvage border into my projects!  The brown striped one is a bit rough-hewn compared to the others, but maybe it will work, we'll see.

Finished the "Quaker Samplings III"!  Very pleased with this!

The thread color doesn't quite ring true in this photo -- it's Gentle Arts' "Blueberry," which isn't the steely-blue that it looks here, but mostly blue with some purply tinges here and there, like blueberries.

And I had a fancy to knit a little cardigan thing to go over my old choir dress, now that we are wearing "whatever we want as long as it's black, floor-length, and has at least three-quarter sleeves".  This would solve that last issue.  I'm not even close to the lacy part yet, but I thought I might try a slip-stitch edge on the increase section of the points to go with the bind-off on the decrease part, and so I knitted up a swatch -- this works in theory, but I'm not sure if the second two points, which are knitted with my tweaks, aren't a little too vague-looking compared to the first two.

"One of These Things is Not Like the Other Ones ..."

Yes, I am re-reading the canon -- as the Gunroom calls it, doubtless enjoying the man-of-war pun all the while.  I think this is my third or fourth run-through, but I still marvel at O'Brian's writing, now spare, now elegantly discursive -- this is from The Mauritius Command, listening to the speeches celebrating a naval triumph of the previous day --

Something, reflected Jack, something came over officers who reached flag-rank or the equivalent, something that made them love to get up on their hind legs and produce long measured periods with even longer pauses between them. Several gentlemen had already risen to utter slow compliments to themselves, their fellows, and their nation, and now General Abercrombie was struggling to his feet, with a sheaf of notes in his hand. 'Your Excellency, my lords, Admiral Bertie, and gentlemen. We are met here together,' two bars of silence, 'on this happy, eh, occasion,' two more bars, 'to celebrate what I may perhaps be permitted to call, an unparalleled feat, of combined operations, of combination, valour, organization, and I may say, of indomitable will.' Pause. 'I take no credit to myself.' Cries of No, no; and cheers. 'No. It is all due,' pause, 'to a young lady in Madras.'

'Sir, sir,' hissed his aide-de-camp, 'you have turned over two pages. You have come to the joke.'

And the D.E. Stevenson list is reading Miss Buncle's Book, which I have begun, but already I am woefully behind on the discussions, though to be sure the book is as charming as ever!

Sewing Stars

For a long time, I've had a hankering for a quilt like the one called "Kate's Stars" in Diana Boston's book about Lucy Boston's quilts -- she of the "Green Knowe" series of children's novels set in and around a house much like her own ancient one at Hemingford Grey. All of Mrs. Boston's quilts -- and she was famous for them, not only their number and her skill in designing and stitching them, but in her frequent use of them not only on beds but as sofa covers and curtains in her exceedingly drafty house with its origins in the 12th century -- were stitched in the English patchwork manner, basting fabric around paper shapes, then stitching those basted shapes together along the edges by hand. 

Source: Wikimedia Commons

(This photo is the "newer" side of the house -- for more photos of the house and of Mrs. Boston's patchworks, see the Green Knowe website here. Tales of Cloth has a post about Mrs. Boston's quilts and their inspiration for other quilters.)

I know I need another project like I need a hole in the head, as they say, but there it is -- I've had the quilt papers for some years now, and piles of fabric scraps even longer.  I had some semi-inactivity last week, staying with my mother-in-law after her hip surgery, so it felt like the time was right!  I got most of these stars basted and sewn then -- the method has long struck me as rather tedious and inefficient, having to baste the paper shapes to the fabric then go over the whole thing again to sew it together, and this is certainly true -- but if you consider the exceptional tidiness of the finished block, especially in places where numerous points come together, and the fact that you almost never need to re-sew a block that got off-kilter (ahem ...), the "tedium" of the prep loses much of its sting.

After making up a few more stars, I will decide on a solid color -- some shade of off-white, I suspect -- for the diamonds that will go between the arms of the stars to connect them to each other.