Latvian Charted Designs Giveaway

I have five sets of these design chartss to give away. The two photos above are a minisampler taken from the charts. Here are notes from the introduction:

LATVIAN CROSS-STITCH DESIGNS
lin vandenberg

The designs seen here were graphed in 2009-2010 by lin vandenberg (currently living in Cairo, Egypt) from a book entitled Latviesu Tautas Terpi: Raksti: Izsusana (Latvian National Costumes: Designs: Embroidery) by Maruta Grasmane (Apgads Rasa ABC, SIA, 2000, ISBN 9984-653-25-0). Only the preface is written in English and I have but a very limited vocabulary in Latvian to draw upon, so please forgive any of the undoubtedly many errors that appear due to my own linguistic limitations. Unfortunately, my computer is unable to write the diacritical markings common in Latvian and for this, I also apologize.

A study of this exquisitely well-written and photographed tome is an adventure in the exploration of a unique and diverse heritage. Latvian national costumes employ many different embroidery stitches and techniques on shawls, bonnets, shirts (sleeves, cuffs, collars and front openings), headbands and scarves. The beautiful weaving of patterned belts, striped or plaid skirts, and the woven and then embroidered shawls are shown in the book with their accompanying traditional jewelry. Unfortunately, the embroidery of household items and other textiles lies outside the scope of this book, thereby limiting our exposure to what is surely a broader embroidery tradition.

The most fascinating aspect of Latvian embroidery as seen in the national costumes is the uniqueness of its designs. Undoubtedly, the elements in use in both weaving and embroidery derive from ancient sources. That they are untraceable (in all but a very few cases) to outside sources makes them a truly unique feature of this nation’s traditions. As you examine or stitch the graphs included here, you will be as intrigued as I was at the complexity and beauty of these designs. Unified by their generally diamond-shaped format, the details vary significantly from one pattern to the next. There is interplay in each between foreground and background, stitched and voided areas, that captivates the attention and gives endless pleasure to both embroiderer and viewer.

Counted cross-stitch has been selected for this initial study only because of the widespread familiarity the technique currently enjoys in the U.S. and Europe. Other stitching techniques and some of the more complex designs that use many stitches in a single piece may be examined in future studies.

The exclusive usage of cross-stitch does not appear (from the information contained in the book, at least) to be widespread, but is to be found mostly in the two westernmost regions of Kuldiga and Barta. The designs shown here come from the front opening (#8), stand-up collars (#1-6) and cuffs (#7, 10 and 12) of the traditional linen blouses and shirts. Abrene is a town close to the eastern border of Latvia; the cuff decoration (#11) comes from there.

It may well be that the thread used traditionally for counted cross stitch embroidery on an approximately 42-count white linen ground (each stitch taken over 2 threads) may have also been linen and that this may possibly have been produced locally. Today, it appears that cotton floss is more commonly used. Because 6-strand DMC embroidery floss is the thread preferred by embroiderers worldwide, I have tried, as closely as possible, to denote the colors of the included embroideries using standard DMC numbers.

If you would like to be entered in this giveaway, please comment on this post. The end date will be April 4, 2011 b-- I'll be back by then to mail out the sets of charts to the winners. Please make sure your comment includes a way to get in touch with you. I will mail anywhere in the world.

Vacation!

My vacation began in the usual way for us--running to the grocery store, the gas station, cleaning, packing, etc. But we did get out last Sunday to see Ellen Anne Eddy's show at the Chesterton Art Center. It's there through the 31st and is well worth a visit. (11-4 weekdays, 1-4 weekends) While there I splurged and got this lovely piece of hand-dyed fabric.I spent Monday unpacking and repacking my suitcase. But in the end I got off. I whisked through security just fine. My flight wasn't cancelled. It was on time. I had a lovely seat mate (a teacher). And they didn't lose my luggage. (all the above are issues I've had before that have put me off flying.) I arrived tired but was very happy to meet my friends at the door and head into London.This is the view out of the window of the room I'm sleeping in. Look how green the bushes are (much greener than Chicago).
Another view. It's a busy street but the room is quiet.These streets are all called "gardens" because the buildings back onto large shared garden areas. We toured Canfield Gardens the day I arrived (to help me stay awake and to pick some carrots). It was full of daffodils and flowering trees. Most of my flower pictures didn't come out--the flowers were too white to show.This is a view of my friend's porch from her dining room window, overlooking the garden area. Just look at those flowers! I'm reveling in the color.

Interview: lin v.

This is my first interview. Over the years, embroidery has brought me many wonderful friends. Lin is one. I can't remember exactly how we met. One of my first memories of her is of being Wowed! by a lecture she gave on how embroidery patterns traveled from one part of the world to others, very early in history. Later I took several ethnic embroidery classes with her.

Lin's moved away from Chicago but we've kept in touch by e-mail. In addition to sharing with me photos of her projects, a short while ago she sent me charts for her Latvian sampler designs. I decided to interview her and post it while I'm on vacation as a treat for everyone. The sampler charts will be a giveaway to be announced later this week.

Lin's words: I began my embroidery sojourn in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1978 when I returned from having lived for 3 years in Freiburg, in the most beautiful part of Germany, the Black Forest. I still consider the Black Forest my home.

I started with cross stitch, in a class in a newly opened store called “Points and Particulars.” That was it for me. I took every class they offered--needlepoint, tatting, pulled thread and other techniques. At that time I joined some embroidery groups--EGA, of course, and one called “Friends of Counted Embroidery,” a very large group of eventually 175 members from 4 cities in the Denver metropolitan area. I learned everything I could there, took classes and workshops and then began studying other techniques from books that became available from mail order used book dealers specializing in textiles. In about 1980, I started teaching.In 1983, my husband got his Ph.D. and we left Colorado, first for Hershey, Pennsylvania (we stayed only 4 months during which time I studied the Amish and read every book in the little public library in Hershey) and then for Chicago where we lived from 1984 to 1990.

Chicago was a goldmine for embroidery research. I went once a week for 2 years to the Art Institute of Chicago Textile Dept. (and twice to the Oriental Dept. to see Turkish towels) and graphed virtually every counted thread textile there. I published some of my findings in Fancywork, Counted Thread Society of America and Creative Needle magazines. From AIC, I was able to examine embroideries from countries as diverse as Mexico, Italy, Spain, England and even 13th century Egypt.

The Chicago metropolitan area is replete with ethnic communities and there I was able to visit museums and individuals from many more countries—Poland, Lithuania, the then Czechoslovakia, Romania and Ukraine, not to mention the excellent collection of North American Indian clothing at the Field Museum of Natural History. I was allowed to study weekly, also for 2 years, with an expert in Ukrainian embroidery, and to be exposed to their rich tradition of close to 100 different counted thread stitches and regional styles. During that time, besides writing for Creative Needle, I taught at many EGA chapters in the area as well as at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture and to children aged 4-6 at a regional Montessori School.

Additionally, I journeyed from Chicago to surrounding states to study at museums there, such as at the Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. The Cleveland Museum of Art has an excellent collection of Greek Island pattern-darned embroideries that I graphed. While there, I showed a women’s museum auxiliary group one of my many slide shows on ethnic embroideries as I had done to many groups previously.

In 1990 we moved east and I was able to study more Greek Island embroideries in the library of the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. I also lectured at the World Bank, studied Palestinian embroidered dresses and scarves (each 2 meters in length!) and participated in a fundraising campaign for victims of a large earthquake in Egypt. To raise money, I created a set of 4 kits of bookmarks, each of a different Mamluk Egyptian (13-14th century) design and each with a different finishing technique.

In 2006 we were forced to leave the U.S. under George Bush. It was unacceptable to him that any Muslim should hold a security clearance in the federal government and so my husband’s career (and that of many others) came to a sudden end and America lost its foremost scientific authority on aviation security and non-intrusive detection of explosives. We moved to Egypt, my husband’s birthplace, and have been here ever since.

I was fortunate to have been able to travel a lot during my lifetime. My grandmother advised me while still a child not to wait to travel (she herself was Scottish), but to do so while young. And this is what I did. How did it influence my interest in embroidery? It opened my eyes to other cultures and to a realization that no one country “has it all” or is better than any other. All taken together, the world is a beautiful place.

Regarding languages, I began with French in eighth grade, added Spanish in eleventh, skipped a year and continued with both languages in college. Moving to Germany brought German into my life, trips to Italy brought Italian and now living in Egypt, I can get by somewhat in Arabic.

While living and attending college in Freiburg, Germany, I had my first encounter with serious learning. My field at the University of Colorado had been Medieval History and this I continued studying in Germany. Seeing the actual medieval cloisters, churches and other historical sites made history come alive for me; history has been a lifelong passion since I can’t remember when. The strenuous studies in Germany taught me how to research, a skill that became indispensable later when working with textiles in various museums. It also gave me the necessary background to be able to follow the development and transferal of stitches and techniques from one country to another.

Your question regarding what other things I’ve done would take a week to answer. In short, learning and studying is an integral part of my life and wherever I am, I seek out an opportunity to learn, whether it be gardening at major arboreta and public gardens (I hold 2 Certificates of Merit in Ornamental Horticulture from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania) or Italian at a private university in Egypt. And so, my major interests might be said to be: languages, history (especially European Medieval and Islamic History), textile art (mostly counted thread embroidery, but also art quilting), gardening and landscaping, architecture (I am purely an amateur in this field, but did manage to design my own house in Egypt), Norwegian folk painting, called Rosemaling (which I learned in Chicago, but haven’t done for years), ethnic cooking (I have a library of 200 cookbooks from all over the world), art in general as an inspiration for needlework, quilting and faux painting (I do all the faux painting in our home, the gallery walls, the cloudy sky in the bedroom, the night sky in the reception) and, almost forgot, writing.

Although unpublished, I have written one charming book for young adults about a gardener cut off from his/her (written in the first person, the gardener could be any age or gender) home by a sudden thunderstorm. Daily rains keep him stranded on 2 wooded islands and his former garden and he must learn to live with the plants and animals he finds there (all of whom speak, of course.) Two other novels, these for adults, are in the writing stage—one is a mystery staged in Scotland. A sewing group receives a large donation of embroideries and books from a deceased lady they think is Dutch. Going through her donation, they piece together her life—and eventually, her surprising death.

The second book is about a young English boy unable to speak. He meets an old artist who befriends him and leads him through his own artwork and experiences out into a larger world. It is called “Corrie’s World.” Of course, all the novels contain little twists and turns, but it is probably the writing of them that brings me the most pleasure.

Books: Gladys Windsor Fry, Embroidery and Needlework

This is another of my "classic" tomes. I can spend hours just browsing in these books.This is a teacozy and placemat set. It's just so 1920s!This book is in color, with color stitch illustrations and numerous tipped-in color plates. I think the stitch illustrations are especially clear. I don't have the history with this book that I do with Samplers and Stitches, but this one just makes me happy. It's very colorful and lively. I love the samples with the needle still there, in progress. I have a more from this era but these two are the only ones I got pix of this weekend. The rest will have to wait until after I return.

Crewel Friday

I felt from the start that wallowing so happily in my books was a bit of an indulgence, and it was one I've totally enjoyed, but now I'm itchin' to be stitchin'. I've been busy this week, getting ready. I sized and refined my two pocket designs. The first sampler is to be buttonhole stitches and long and short stitch. I found a piece of twill that will hold my two designs. I need to get it ironed and transfer the designs. I'm not sure if I'll try to complete all of both designs with those two stitches or if I'll save some areas for stitches yet to come.I dug out my box of wools. This box of color sample cards from Appleton is one of my more useful extravagances. I use it all the time. I pulled out the cards with the color families for the main project design and I compared them with printouts and other things I have on colors in natural dyes and decided they were correct. My inclination is to always want to change something like the color but I couldn't find any justification for it this time (and part of the class is to justify any color changes based on research into natural dyes available in England in the 16th and 17th Centuries).Then I pulled out my stash and pulled the colors I have that are called for in the design. I have a large stash and it's going to get larger--I don't have several of the called-for color families. I do have several skeins of every color of a large family of very bright "Kelly" greens. I've decided to use them for my samplers. They are not period correct but I think they'll be pretty in the samplers. I've teamed them with a couple of bright reds and yellows and also a very pale yellow and ivory for shading.

If I have room in the suitcase, I may pack the sampler and a stitch book to take with me next week. If not, I have my paper-piecing project all packed and ready to travel.

I have a post and a giveaway scheduled for next week. I don't know yet exactly what my plans are (beyond London) or what my Internet access will be. I hope to be able to pop in with some pix.

Books: Mrs Christie's Samplers and Stitches

I got into a back room and a buried book shelf last weekend and pulled out some of my "treasures."

Years ago Chicago had some great used books stores and we spent our weekends browsing in them. I ended up with some great books. But this is one I went hunting for--and it took quite a while to find.
I first saw this book in a local library and I was just blown away. I completely fell in love with the samplers. This was probably in the early 90s and the book was reprinted around then--a huge disappointment, all the charm was gone. I hunted until I found a copy for myself. Mine is a newer edition than the library's copy and not quite as nice, but it's mine!
My edition is from the late 30s; the library book I had found was from the 20s (I'm sure it's been pulled from the shelves by now--I wonder what happened to it). Mrs Christie described stitches I'd never heard of, like the braid above. There are sweet little illustrations and great descriptions.
I'm not sure why, but I just loved her samplers, especially all of the raised and braided stitches.
This is before I learned about stumpwork or casalguidi and I was in awe. I have found several books from this era with designs I find very appealing. The front piece is a sampler that I saw "in person" at the V&A museum in London in the 1997. Here's a spread. Mary over at Needle 'n Thread recently pointed out that it's available online here.

One FO and Two UFOs

I've posted this little bag before but I finally figured out a closure for it and now it's done, done, done! I had planned to add a handle, perhaps bamboo. While the flower is pretty well centered, it seemed to me that the bag needed to be taller to be balanced. But I didn't like it when I experimented with handles in the store.

I took it to the Homewood Guild and the suggestions I got there were all for soft handles--cords and drawstrings. But I felt they would take too much off the top, so it sat another month until I was cleaning this weekend, putting away some beading supplies. What I ended up doing was sewing large gold-colored jump rings all around the top edge and stringing the cord through them. A soft closure but in better visual balance, I think.I'm working on a project that's a gift so I can't show it here. I'm also getting back to some ufos. I began the washcloth above after the other two I did for holiday gifts. This one, though... I ripped that third section out at least four times. The washcloths are a series of eight short-row sections and I put a life-line at the end of each section--and I'm glad I did. I ended up ripping back to the lifeline twice! I finally just put the thing away. This time when I picked it up I was back on track and completed two sections this weekend.This little tree is another random project. A few years back I made a bunch of stuffed shapes from printed and tone-on-tone fabrics. Trees and pumpkins. Some I beaded and most of those are done and gone--I have a paisley tree with a bit of beading on it but I'm not sure it's done yet. I found the beading tedious so I stopped.

This year I found the stuffies and I picked this one up and just began stitching it with random chain-stitch tendrils in the two colors. It's also tedious and surprisingly time consuming but I like it so I keep going. I'm finding this color combination pleasing.