A Bluestocking Knits

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

"Up Good Christen Folk and Listen", sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge.  I included this song the last time but the video has disappeared, so I'll post another one, as this isn't a particularly well-known carol, especially in the US, but I think it deserves to be.  It's a bonus, therefore, that this one has the sheet music on it!

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

"A Spotless Rose" by Herbert Howells, performed by the Washington (DC) Master Chorale.  A lovely rendition of a lovely, intimate carol.  I didn't really get this song at first, but it has really grown on me.  I love the way the harmonies move so gently but continually, like a candle flame.

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

"The Wexford Carol" performed by Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma.  I just wish I could sing this at home with Yo-Yo Ma!

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

"Gaudete" performed live by Steeleye Span.  Again, the version I know best is the one performed by the Boston Camerata, but this has a great folksy feel to it, like singing at home.

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

The "Echo Carol", performed by the Clifton Cathedral Choir, Bristol.  This song, sometimes also known as "While By My Sheep I Watched at Night" is one of my favorites because I love the echo, especially when it is done, as here, by a little quartet off in the distance!  This one has different words from the one I know, but the tune is the same.

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

Well, I was all set to post a version of this song by The Boston Camerata, really one of my all-time favorites, but how could I resist The Monkees?!  It's like, "hey, guys, let's get together and sing Christmas carols!"

Twelve Days of Christmas Carols

I had a lot of fun doing a Twelve Days of Christmas Carols a few years ago, so thought I'd do it again this year.  First is "The King" performed by Wench Work (!) which is Betsy Smith and Judy Thorn.

This song is also known as "Joy, Health, Love, and Peace" from the first line, and "The Wren", because it is an old wren-boys carol, from the British tradition of capturing a wren, which is the symbol of winter, and carrying it from door to door asking for gifts.

This is a great carol for singing at home, since the harmonies are fun and you can add some simple percussion or cymbals in as you like!  Loreena McKennit sings a version which adds a third part, a descant -- this is on her album "To Drive the Cold Winter Away".

A William Morris Miniature Carpet

I was holding out on you yesterday, actually -- I had only a few stitches left on this carpet before it was finished!  This project is from Dollhouse Decor by Nick and Esther Forder, and is designed by Sue Bakker, based -- pretty successfully, I suspect -- on a William Morris design.  I can't find an image of an original anywhere, but Bakker's certainly looks very Morris-like, so I'm sure it's accurate in spirit.

As a project, this wasn't quite first-rate -- there are quite a lot of ... well, not mistakes but inconsistencies in the chart, though luckily I noticed most of these before they were past.  The photos in the book clearly show different colors of floss on some of the swirls in the outer border, as well as some revisions in the stems in the main border, and the general effect of the colors in the photo is quite different from the chart, which is more like the actual colors.  I also found that the recommended thread coverage (2 strands on 18-, 22-, or 30-count canvas) was quite skimpy for the 22-count I was using, so I would advise either experimenting with more threads, or using cross-stitch as I did, for better coverage.

There is also very little finishing instruction given in the book -- you have to look hard to find it, as it's a few pages past the carpet section in the "finishing workshop" at the back of the book -- and the photo of the carpet in a room setting clearly shows that it has no edge stitching, so presumably the Forders mean you to simply turn the edges of the canvas under and sew a lining to the wrong side.

But as a finished piece, I'm very pleased with this carpet -- I really like the strong colors, and the design itself is very pretty.  Interestingly, Janet Granger's "Carole" carpet is obviously based on the same Morris design of peonies and stylized tulips, to interestingly different effect with her own interpretation of the design and her (two!) different colorways.  (Here is another interpretation in miniature presumably of the same carpet, wh. dates it to ca.1865.)

I suppose quite a lot of Morris carpets do have this formal symmetry -- the Forders' chart is only one-quarter of the design, so that you repeat it in mirror image for the other quarters -- but I felt that the center section at least wanted a little less formality, so I worked the green stems and leaves and the peonies slightly differently each time.  The border being much more stylized, I worked it with the chart's strict symmetry.

I edged my carpet using Janet Granger's overcast edging technique, but I mitered the corners instead of just folding them squarely as she does.  I also tried something different with this carpet -- I'd heard somewhere that you can leave the third row of stitching for last, then stitch it together with the hem of canvas, thereby catching down the hem quite neatly.  (I did the fourth row, actually, since the third row was white, and you are supposed to work the lighter colors before the darker ones, to prevent stray fibers muddying the colors.)  I found it pretty tedious, but then I was determined to match up the two sets of holes one-by-one as I went, and so I had to flip the piece over for every single stitch.  I don't find that the finished hem is that much better than simply tacking down a turned one, so I don't think I'll do it again very often.  It would be excellent if you are not using an edging stitch, though, because it does make a very tidy and firm hem in itself. 

I did try pinking the raw edges of the canvas this time, to help avoid that cut edge showing from the front -- this is on the same principle as grading a seam in sewing.

My overcast edging wasn't terribly successful, as it happened, which rather shook me since it's Janet Granger, after all!  But I suspect now that this stitch would work better in wool, which is what Granger generally uses, whereas the long-legged cross-stitch may be better for floss.  By the way, at one skein of each required color, there was just not enough of the two reds (which are blended in the needle) to work an edging stitch, so stitcher beware.

Mishmash

Well -- I totally get that.

So I was tidying up my pictures folder on my computer, and saw all this stuff that I've been saving, and it's really a bunch of odds and ends, but here it is.

My new Daguerrotype Boyfriend --

Okay, two --

who happens to be Fritjof Nansen, actually....

Speaking of polar explorers, here's a blog button, just for fun --

One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite films, the 1995 "Persuasion" with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds.  This scene is just after Fredrick has written that heart-stoppingly romantic letter, and Anne's brother-in-law asks him "Which way are you going?" and he replies, looking at Anne, "I hardly know."  Oh!  Plus I crave a spencer like hers.

Just because we're all so used to seeing her as quite old in her dust-jacket photo, here is Edith Pargeter, also known as Ellis Peters of the "Cadfael" books, young and with a drolly quizzical smile --

Why I love the British (I):

Why I love the British (II):

 

Well, I don't think I'm going to get my last two projects done for my self-imposed WIPapalooza -- I admit I got distracted by FutureLearn courses, then David said he needed something to keep his hands warm on his Shanghai trip, and could I make fingerless gloves instead of just mitts? and then there was this pretty little thing,

which is a miniature William Morris carpet in cross-stitch.  I can probably finish the Norwegian mittens this winter, but the scarf is still a really long-term, a-few-more-rows-a-week kind of project.  Such is life.

Happy Violin Day!