Spring is finally here! The endless cold is gone (both the season and the virus). We have crocuses and rhubarb coming up in the garden. I took a long weekend to do all sorts of spring cleaning. I brought home a snarl of papers from work to sort (it took ages yesterday but it's sorted and papered with post-it notes of what needs to be done). I spent most of Friday scrubbing and washing--much of it clearing out the piles up from when we felt puny. We dusted the cobwebs from our brains at the Dunes. I feel so much more in balance.I also finally finished the Plumeria Scissors Fob. Once I had the endless teeny stitching done, the rest went quickly. I found just the right beads in my baggie from Bluestem beads. I used a skein of DMC variegated perle cotton for the twisted cord and solid floss for the tassels. Done!
I got in some stitching on the crewel. Now that the wools are sorted, I find the going much easier. I seem to be working from the outer edges in. One stitch called for is a half feather which I haven't yet been able to find out anything about. I have no idea what it would be. My inclination is to leave it off. (It should go around the darker upside-down spider-web stitch in the top right.)
I also finished the first birdie from my new yarn to send off to Cooper's Flock. He sure is bright! I have birdie #2 about half-way done. This Blue Sky cotton yarn is nice to work with. It's lightly twisted so I thought it might split easily but I didn't have any problems. (It also rips out nicely.)
He's so cute!
3 comments:
Judy Jeroy includes the half feather in her book, Creative Crewel Embroidery (p37). I also found the same stitch by a different name in Mildred Davis's book, The Art of Crewel Embroidery (p77). She calls it Single Feather. She also illustrates some other variations on the feather: Closed Feather and Long-Armed Feather.
The half feather looks like it is used to make a straight line stitch, so instead of zigzagging back and forth like a normal feather with alternate sides open, you work the stitch all to one side creating a solid straight line on one side and the open leg on the other. It looks rather like a string of L's or shallow V's depending on the angle.
I googled it and this blog link came up with a photo that shows it in use:
http://floristic.blogspot.com/2008/10/august-fft-sampler-block.html
Looks like a site you might enjoy anyway. She appears to be a quilter.
Another site that showed up has an even better picture of the stitch and diagrams to show how to work it--plus it looks like there is a complete book of stitches suitable for crazy quilting. The link is below (it is rather long, so just in case the link doesn't work, look for The Quilter's Stitch Bible by Nikki Tinkler):
http://books.google.com/books?id=gCMad0bgHCkC&pg=PT85&lpg=PT85&dq=%22half+feather+stitch%22&source=bl&ots=SHlJnBCF8e&sig=1LsGCRSrQhcDhVizszYWme9ZllQ#PPT86,M1
I'll be bookmarking this one to go back and check more thoroughly.
Sorry, this got rather long.
Your scissors fob turned out beautiful. I have been wanting to make one myself as my embroidery scissors are always running away from me. I'll have to think up a design for one. Surely a moon or stars ^^ I went to research your half feather stitch but looks like the poster before me did a far better job. Good luck!
the scissor fob is lovely. i am wondering if plumeria is a frangipani. i will have to google.
the crewel looks good too.
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