Gathering Threads

Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus

Posted by on Mar 09 2011

It was my birthday last week and sometimes the best gifts are the most unexpected.  So, what do you think I got?

(I know – it’s like one of those Rorscharch tests.  “Tell me, madam, what do you see when you examine this picture?”)

Well, let me tell you what I got myself.  Lots and lots of magazines.  I mean, so many magazines, it took me hours just to sort through ’em.  And all thanks to one of those random coincidences that just happen sometimes.

Out of the blue last week, a lovely woman by the name of Virginia contacted me through my blog, asking if I knew of a local smocking guild who’d be interested in her collection of smocking and heirloom books.   Twenty years ago, she’d sewn for her children but now that they were grown, she’d become an ardent quilter and that took all her creative energies.  I told her there was one guild about 35 minutes south of Hamilton or that I could put her in touch with SAGA guilds south of the border who would certainly be interested.

Alternatively, if she wanted someone who loved smocking and just wanted them to have a good home, would she be interested in selling them to me?

Yes, she would.

So on Sunday I set out after a nasty spring snowstorm to have a look at these magazines.  All I knew was that there were two boxes worth and that there were CN, AS&E and Inspirations. You know us smockers: neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet…

Well, it was the heirloom mecca.   More than 200 magazines, books and patterns.  In like new condition almost to an issue.Do you know how many magazines that is? Well, when we got home, we weighed them. Each bankers box was full to the brim – we stopped at 156 pounds of books and mags – we didn’t want them to fall off the bathroom scale.

In addition to the nearly 200+ back issues, I also picked up five hardcover books…are you ready for this: All three of Martha Pullen’s Heirloom books (including Grandmother’s Hope Chest) and both of Sarah Howard Stone’s FHS books (with pattern supplements).

I spent three hours on Sunday afternoon, gorging myself on magazines.   There are now magazines on my dining room table.  Magazines on the piano bench.  Magazines in numerical order, stacked up knee high on the floor.  I only got up when my butt went numb from sitting on the hardwood for three straight hours.  It’s like an all you can smock buffet!   Creative Needles, Inspirations, Australian Smocking and Embroidery – if I live to be 500, I’m never going to smock it all.  But goodness, it’s going to be fun trying!

Check this out – the first 25 Inspirations, complete, with all their inserts?  It’s like they came off the shelf yesterday!  Beautiful.

And AS&Es.  So many AS&Es I’m giddy.   Bishops and counterchange and bullions and absolute, utter *bliss.*

Look!  Look!  That’s every issue from #2 onwards up to #24!  I didn’t even know there really was a #2 issue!  It’s like a Yeti or a firebreathing dragon.  You hear about them but you don’t actually expect to find one in real life.

So thanks, Virginia, for using Google and finding me. 🙂   Your generosity in sharing this bounty is humbling and very much appreciated.

A Cross Stitch Pillow in Create n Decorate

Posted by on Mar 08 2011

I’ve got a lovely cross-stitch pillow in the current issue of Create n Decorate.

(Isn’t that a fat, cheerful bird?)

Here’s a close-up of the pillow.  Not nearly as nicely styled as they do it in the magazine but then they actually have decorating ability.  I limit any creative abilities I have to the sewing room! 🙂

I was inspired by traditional French monochromatic designs, like these ones at The French Needle, that combine elegance and simplicity so beautifully.

My pillow’s stitched on Weeks Dye Works linen, with their Emma’s Pink floss.  I love this floss – it’s like stitching with candy cotton.  The variations are subtle, from pale, pale pink to almost a bubblegum, and it really works with the deep chocolate of the linen.

I backed it with a coordinating houndstooth print in “Emma’s Pink” – WDW offers a lot of their colours right across their line of perle cottons, stranded cottons and wools, which I must say makes my life as a designer easier.  No hunting and jerrymandering to get a design to coordinate.

So take heart.  Spring is coming.  It won’t be grey and cold forever.

Tutorial: Multi-Coloured Smocking Plates in Illustrator Pt 2

Posted by on Mar 04 2011

This is Part 2 of 3 parts of the tutorial for creating multi-coloured smocking plates in Illustrator.

You’ll find the first part of the tutorial, including the necessary downloads, here.

19. Fit the image in the window (Ctrl+0)
20. In the layers window, make the “picture” layer invisible.

21. Lock the “images” layer and unlock the “cable” row. Click on the cable row to highlight it.

22. Using the lasso tool (Hotkey: Q), draw around the excess cables and delete them. Be sure to leave at boundary of two or three rows of stitches around the motif.

23. Select all Ctrl+A.

24. Click on the Fill box in colour palette. Change the colour to CMYK colour 49/96/1/0.

25. Use the selection tool to eliminate the remainder of the extra cables. You will need to decide if you want the motif to be irregular or symmetrical as you eliminate cables.

Tip: sketches are rarely exactly even or symmetrical (at least, mine aren’t!). If you want a perfectly symmetrical tracing, divide the drawing in half with a ruler before you scan it. Then, simply trace the half drawing. Group the tracing (Ctrl+G) by selecting all the elements with the selection tool (V), then reflect and copy it. (Right click>Transform>Reflect).

26. Using the lasso tool, (Hotkey: Q) trace around the bow. Don’t worry if you miss a few stitches, you can always clean it up with the paint bucket after the fact.

27. Click on the fill box in the colour palette and select a shade of yellow from the colour palette. Be sure to note the colour composition (ie. 42/27/95/11)

28. Deselect the bow Ctrl+Shift+A. Use the lasso tool (Hotkey: Q) to select the remainder of the bow. Switch to the eyedropper tool (Hotkey: I). Click on a yellow stitch to “pick up” the colour. Use the paint bucket (Hotkey: K) and click over the selected cables. The cables will change colour.

29. Repeat the lasso/eyedropper/paintbucket process and colourize the rest of the ribbon. Tip: occasionally, a few cables won’t change colour when you use the lasso tool. If that occurs, simply change their colour by using the paintbucket (Hotkey: K) and manually correcting their colour.

30. Open the Symbols window. Scroll down to the smocking stitch symbols.

31. Zoom in (Hotkey: Z) to 800%.
32. Using the Selection tool (Hotkey: V) begin to replace full stitches that overlap the outline with half stitches from the symbols library. Tip: Navigate around the workspace using the Space Bar. A small hand will appear. Click with the mouse and drag the smocking plate around.

33. When all of the half stitches are in place, zoom in (Hotkey: Z) to 1200%.
34. Change from Preview mode to Outline mode (Ctrl+Y)

35. Using the selection tool (Hotkey: V), align the half stitches with the full stitches. Using the space bar to navigate around the perimeter.

36. Fit in window (Ctrl+0).
37. Return to Preview mode (Ctrl+Y)
38. Select all (Ctrl+A). Click the “Break Link to Symbol” in the Symbols window.

39. Use the lasso tool (Hotkey: Q) to select the half stitches. Colourize using the eyedropper (Hotkey:I). For individual stitches use the eyedropper first and then the paintbucket tool (Hotkey: K). Repeat for the yellow stitches.

The third and final portion of this tutorial is available by clicking here. It will show you how to create new embroidery symbols.

Tutorial: Multi-Coloured Smocking Plates in Illustrator

Posted by on Feb 25 2011

This is the second tutorial in my on-going series on how to create smocking plates in Illustrator. You’ll be creating a picture smocking plate with multiple colours, irregular shapes and learn how to create basic embroidered details and save them in the symbols library.

It builds on the basic skills from the first two-part tutorial, which you’ll find here:

Tutorial: Designing Smocking Plates in Illustrator Pt. 1
Tutorial: Designing Smocking Plates in Illustrator Pt. 2

You’ll need to download the following files from Dropbox to complete this tutorial:

tutorial2.ai
tutorial2final.ai
tutorial2.jpg
tutorial2instructions.pdf

Learning Goals for Tutorial 2

Tutorial 2 builds on the introductory skills acquired in Tutorial 1. In this tutorial, you will continue to build familiarity with the tools and interfaces in Illustrator. You will trace a simple jpg image using the pen tool and complete a two-colour picture smocking plate. You will create a new symbol and apply it in the smocking design.

Tools Used in Tutorial 2

(Hotkey: V) Selection
(Hotkey: A) Direct Selection
(Hotkey: Q) Lasso Tool
(Hotkey: Z) Zoom, (Hotkey: ALT+Z) Zoom Out

(Hotkey: P) Pen

(Hotkey: R) Rotate
(Hotkey: I) Eyedropper

(Hotkey: K) Paint Bucket

(Hotkey: B) Brush

(Hotkey: T) Text
(Hotkey: Spacebar) Hand

Colour Palette

**denotes new tools

1. Open file tutorial2.ai
2. Open the Layers window (Hotkey: F7) and create a new layer, putting it between the “images” and “row” layers. Rename the new layer “picture”

3. Lock the “row”, “cables” and “pleat” layers by clicking the lock symbol box beside each layer.
4. Checking to make sure you are working on the picture layer, place the image file onto the layer File>Place>tutorial2.jpg. A large bitmap image will be placed on the picture layer.

5. Using the selection tool (Hotkey: V), rotate the picture until it is correctly oriented by selecting the image and dragging one of the corner points. Tip: hold down the shift key while rotating to limit the rotation to 45º, 90º etc.
6. Lock all remaining layers but the “images” layer. Click on the images layer to highlight it.

7. Click on the stroke icon to bring up the color picker window.

8. Change the stroke colour to a vibrant, easy to discern colour like red or magenta.

9. Zoom in (hotkey: z) until the present is large enough to work on easily.
10. Select the pen tool (hotkey: P) and begin to trace the shape. Click once at the starting point. Hold down the mouse and drag out the beziers handles until they’re easy to see (2cm/3/4” is appropriate). Release the mouse.

11. Click the corner of the parcel. Hold down the left mouse button and drag out the handles again. While still holding down the mouse button, click alt. The Bezier handles will bend. Drag the front point down until it points in the same direction as the edge of the parcel.

Tip: By clicking Alt while drawing a new Bezier point, you have transformed the point from a curved point to a corner point.
12. Continue working around the parcel in the same manner: Click and drag, then Alt to make each corner of the box. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly aligned with the drawing – you will be refining the tracing in a later step. Getting the corner points in the correct place is enough.

13. Deselect the bottom of the present by clicking Ctrl+Shift+A.
14. Trace the bow using the pen tool.

Tip: Use the same click+drag +alt technique to trace the points of the ribbon. For the ribbon’s curves, think of the Bezier points like a teeter totter and place one wherever the direction of the curve changes, dragging out the handles to deepen or reduce the depth of the curve.
15. Trace the knot by clicking at the top of the knot, dragging out the handles and then clicking again at the bottom of the bow. When you click again at the top of the knot on top of the existing point, the cursor will display a small circle. This means that you are creating a closed shape.

Tip: you can move shapes and lines drawn with the pen tool using the direct selection (Hotkey: V) to reveal its bounding box. Using the selection tool doesn’t change the shape or direction of the lines, just its location or rotation.
16. Refine the shape by using the direct selection tool (Hotkey: A). Click on a line and the Bezier handles will reappear. Manipulate the Bezier handles to make the tracing conform to the sketch. Work point by point around the shape until it matches the sketch.

17. Remove the pins from my effigy.
18. Select all Ctrl+A. Delete the tracing. Repeat steps 10-16 until you feel confident working with the pen tool.

When you are satisfied with the tracing, continue pt 2 of the tutorial, by clicking here.  As always, shout if you have any questions and feel free to share this tutorial with friends.   Just remember to credit my website with a link.

Quick Chenille Quilt Completed

Posted by on Feb 24 2011

I’ve been feeling a bit bogged down lately. What with the weather (cold, grey and snowy), work, writing commitments and a pile of UFOs that never seems to get any tinier, I needed a project that was easy, quick and cheerful.

When a friend posted a link to this nice tutorial on Aesthetic Nest for a faux-chenille afghan, I knew it would be the perfect project for a friend who’s expecting a little girl in the spring.

Now, those who know me, know I’m an interesting admixture of anal and laissez-faire when it comes to my sewing.  I’m quite happy doing tiny, incremental steps and I like my stuff to be well constructed.  Cheap, pointless shortcuts drive me balmy.  But at the same time, to everything there is a season and I don’t fuss about easy-sew projects like this.  I want them nicely done but done without kerfuffle.

So, wanna know how lazy I was?

You really wanna know?

Well, first off you’re supposed to cut the base fabric into a 45″ x 45″ square. Yeah, too much work. I’d bought 1 3/8 yds of all my fabrics, so I just laid ’em on top of each other and figured that was good enough. Then I didn’t even mark the diagonal.  I didn’t wanna go hunt for the yardstick. I just took the peach layer to my ironing board, folded one corner down and pressed it along the 45 degree angle.   I just stitched along the fold for the first row and then every 1/2″ away from there. The only thing I did do that might be construed as “responsible” sewing was pinning the layers with safety pins every 8″ or so.  But even that wasn’t really being anal.  It was just me, knowing that in the long run, it meant I wouldn’t have to rip out my stitching when I sewed two layers together in a big bunch.   So it was a lazy man’s time saver, if that makes sense.

Seriously, I wasn’t sweating the details on this project.   As soon as the quilt was laid out, I sat down at my machine, and started to sew.

And sew.

And sew.

And two full spools of thread later, I was done. 🙂 It was kind of satisfying, just letting the fabric move under the walking foot and inch by inch, cover the whole surface with lines.

It didn’t matter if they were perfectly straight. Wobbles weren’t going to show anyway and even if they did, a baby’s going to drool on it and crawl on it and suck on it.  What’s a wobble in the grand scheme of things?  How’s that for philosophy?

I bought a stacked cutter to handle the chenilling (Is that a word?  Well, it is now!).  I bought a really basic model – I don’t think there’s going to be acres of chenille in my future – but it did a great job.  It only took me about 1/2 hour to slice open all the rows.

I love the fabric. It’s “Mahari” by Rosanna Bowles. I ordered it last week from Hawthorne Fabrics.   Gotta say, their customer service was  beyond excellent.  I ordered some of this great guitar print for a quilt I’m making for my son and somehow, this tangerine paisley just followed me home.  But it’s perfect for the nursery and it incorporates all of the colours that are going to be in the room, so I hope they like it.

I started this yesterday afternoon. Two stitching sessions and one cutting and binding session later, it was done. I popped it in the wash and then the dryer.

BTW holy lint, Batman!

But I really like it.  I imagine it will fluff up even more with subsequent washes.    Couldn’t believe how much the whole thing shrank – a good two inches all around, at least.  But since everything wasn’t pre-shrunk, it all shrunk evenly and the binding didn’t go wonky or ripply.  That was the one thing I couldn’t be lazy with.  I picked out the fabric locally and I chose it for the colours, never thinking to check how it would work cut on the bias.  But when I got it home and laid it out, I realized I couldn’t cut it on the bias, because the pattern would be completely wonky and irregular and it would bug me.

But I wasn’t going back for more binding and when I realized that the crosses were exactly 2″ high, I figured straight-grain binding was easier to sew anyway 🙂  I cut the strips and seamed them together.

Because the print was perfectly symmetrical, it was easy to match the pattern.

You really have to look to find the seams.   The straight-grain binding meant I could even skip a step – can’t do curved corners like the inspiration quilt when your fabric won’t stretch.

Sometimes, it’s OK to make something just because it feels good. And I’m satisfied that I have one project all done up.