Patterns

More Native American-inspired Needlepoint – Medicine Bear

August 18, 2009 by NutsAboutNeedlepoint · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I started work on the second Native American-inspired needlepoint designs. This one I’m calling my health needlepoint. It’s focal point is the Zuni fetish of a Medicine Bear (pictured above), my favorite.

The Medicine Bear represents powerful healing to the Zuni. It’s always in this rounded form, and usually has the arrow and often has a small offering of feathers or stones attached at the top. While this is a popular fetish, my favorite carver of medicine bears is Stuart Quandalacy, I think his stuff is stunning.

Anyway back to the needlepoint. The design is going to fit into a Stirling leather tool tote which is in my stash. A medicine bear in a shade of Impressions that reminds my of a type of Agate with a turquoise arrow will be in the lower right corner. I’m thinking of stitching it in an Offset Scotch to mimic the striations in many stones.

The remainder of the needlepoint is going to be a patchwork of patterns from Native American baskets, mostly from Alaska and British Columbia, although they are pretty universal. They will be stitched in black Vineyard Merino and straw colored Lorikeet and are Bargello adaptations of the patterns found on the baskets, which are made by coiling.

My plan, which is a big jump for me in designing, is not to plan to size of each patch in advance. I’m going to work on them as I go along, fitting each one into place around the bear. I’ve got several pages of drawings of basket patterns from a Dover book as well as some others for picking the designs.

With the strong focal point and unity of thread, it should look good.

So why is this a health needlepoint? Largely it’s because over the next couple of months, I’m hoping to be doing lots of healing myself. I’ve suffered from mild to moderate fibromyalgia virtually all my life and I’m be starting a treatment program for it today. Since I’ll be spending plenty of time in the car and waiting around, I’m figuring I’ll need needlepoint and it would be good to be stitching on things which would keep me mindful of relaxing and getting better.

Besides the fact that I just love the idea behind this. It will be an ebook later in the year, with this project along with additional Bargello patterns based on baskets.

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Filed Under: Design, Nuts About Needlepoint, Patterns Tagged With: british, Design, health, indian basket, indian needlepoint, inspiration, medicine, medicine bear, needlepoint, Patterns, project, vineyard-merino, zuni

Translating Bargello Needlepoint Patterns

August 9, 2009 by NutsAboutNeedlepoint · Leave a Comment

Recently I got an email from Karen, who asked about the Madiera canvas listed for the projects in Beautiful Bargello. The book was written in England and many of the materials are challenging to find in the US.

For us, Madiera is a thread company, not a canvas company, so what is this stuff?

My suspicion is that “Madeira” in this context is a brand name, used the way we’d use “Zweigart.”

If you look at the instructions it will say”18 holes” or “13 holes” — that’s the mesh size.

Now to the color. She is calling for “antique” canvas, which we would call “ercu.” This tan canvas works better for Bargello because the darker color melds in better with the thread colors, so that needlepoint dandruff (flecks of white canvas showing) is not as apparent. What you want to do is pick your canvas color in this order of preference:

1. color similar to the main color of the canvas, so pink for a mainly pink or red canvas, sage green for green and so on
2. non-white neutral color, either ecru, tan or ivory
3. white

If you can only find white, don’t despair. You can lightly color the canvas so that the dandruff is less apparent or you can stitch it in such a way that dandruff is minimized

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Originally posted here:
Translating Bargello Needlepoint Patterns

Filed Under: Nuts About Needlepoint, Patterns Tagged With: bargello, bargello needlepoint, beautiful bargello, color, dandruff, instructions, madiera, materials, Patterns, projects, social-bookmarking, used-the-way

Roman Mosaics in Britain

August 6, 2009 by NutsAboutNeedlepoint · Leave a Comment

roman mosaic from bath reproduced in blackwork and needlepoint

Wherever the Roman legions went, they left their mark on the area one way or another. You find Roman aqueducts in Spain, a Romance (i.e. Roman) language in Eastern Europe, and, in England, floor mosaics from the time Rome ruled the island. When I was in England about 10 years ago, I fell in love with this mosaic that hangs in the Bath Museum. I thought it would make a great needlepoint piece and it did. The picture is of the finished piece.

It’s one of my favorite projects ever with the strong curvy center of the design is surrounded by seven different borders, each with a different pattern in them. In addition to being a very nice design on its own, the Mosaic has lots of ideas for border designs for other work. I did it as a free project in 1998 for About.com with hand-drawn charts. But it’s too good to sit in my archives. So, beginning with this post, I will be sharing it with you as a free project. Weekly I will be doing another chuck of it with new charts and instructions.

Today’s post will give you some background about the mosaics, including on-line resources for further exploration. It will also provide you with the original material list and how to reproduce it in materials available today, since both the fabric is no longer made.

The Romans often decorated the floors of public places and villas with elaborate stone mosaics. Most of these either depicted the gods or were entirely geometric. In almost all of them you find complex geometric borders and fill patterns. In England, which stayed Roman until the Fourth Century and didn’t reach the same level again until the Eighteenth Century or so, many partial mosaics remain and have been recorded and studied. One listing of Roman Mosaics in Britain has seven pages with excellent pictures of new and reproduction Romano-British mosaics.

There is also an organization, ASPROM, devoted to the study and preservation of these mosaics. Their site has a list, with links, of many places to see Roman mosaics, a resources list, and information about news and events.

There are also books you can get on the subject, including Geometric Patterns from Roman Mosiacs, an excellent introduction, available from Amazon. This book concentrates on the British mosaics. Another is Roman Mosaics in Britain. There are many other affordable (and expensive) ones on Roman mosaics in general.

The overall design uses a deep greenish blue and a pale terra cotta color to make the design. Small bits of gray (which matches the canvas) and darker blue (in the outermost corners) add depth to the design. Two strands of silk were used throughout.

To make the design you will need: 12 x 12 inch square piece of gray Congress cloth (This will give you a wide border) Silk floss in the following colors: 2 skeins Needlepoint Inc 325 Dull Marine Blue (blue x’s on chart), 1 skein Needlepoint Inc 928 Dull China Blue (blue solid dots on chart), 1 skein Rainbow Gallery Splendor S925 (red slashes on chart), 1 skein Rainbow Gallery Splendor S920 (green dashes on chart)

You can substitute any brand of stranded silk or cotton floss for these colors. Hand-dyed threads will also work, as long as they are shades of the same color, close in value, such as those from The Thread Gatherer.

The material is more of a problem. The original used gray Congress Cloth, which is no longer available. Needle in a Haystack does have it listed on their website. You can use white Congress Cloth and color it light gray with paint or COPIC markers in a very, very pale gray. (The gray background is an important part of the design and reproduces the look of the original.) You can also switch to fabric. Looking at the fabric list at Needle in a Haystack, Dublin Linen, Legacy Linen, Lorna Linen, Soft Congress Cloth, Floba, and Jobelan come in counts of 24 or 25. In terms of color, the closest match I found was Dublin Linen in Platinum.

The design uses Tent Stitch and Blackwork only. Since the Tent Stitches are only single or in straight lines, Continental Stitch will be the best choice. This will give the most coverage on the back and will prevent the stitches from disappearing on the canvas. If you are stitching the piece on an even weave fabric, use Cross Stitch instead of Continental.

The Blackwork on the model was done continental style, always moving the needle up in a clean hole and down in a dirty hole. You could also do this as double running stitch or backstitch. I like the thicker look this method gives Blackwork because of the greater coverage on the back.

Assemble your materials, while I try to rechart the center, and next week we’ll start stitching.

Follow the entire series on-line: Introduction and materials, central medallion and borders 1, borders 2, borders 3 & finishing ideas

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Roman Mosaics in Britain

Filed Under: Arts, Books, Design, Events, Fabric, General, Nuts About Needlepoint, Patterns Tagged With: archives, bath, bath mosaic, british, cross stitch, Design, Events, free projects, mosaic, rainbow-gallery, roman, study, time, work

Needlepoint Rugs – Stitches

August 5, 2009 by NutsAboutNeedlepoint · Leave a Comment

When you are making a needlepoint rug, such as this one (a current project). You need to think before you stitch. Will it be hanging on the wall or be underfoot. This has implications not only for the thread (yesterday’s post), but also for the stitches you use.

If your rug will hang on the wall you have no worries about stitches. But if it will live on the floor, your stitches need to hold up to heavy use. This means NO stitches going over more than three threads. Longer stitches will snag.

Any stitch in the Mosaic family, such as Offset Mosaic, above, will work. So will shorter versions of Scotch and Cashmere. Cross stithes aren’t great choices unless they are quite small because they are layered and can snag more easily. Stick to cross stitches over 2 threads at most.

But what do you do when the stitch is longer than three threads, like this Diagonal Gobelin?

You split up the longer stitches into shorter one. This version of Cocktail Stitch, divides every other stitch, but since there are two types of divisions in this over four stitch, you could alternate between the two.

You can do this division with most stitches. When you do, you will find that sometimes internal stitch patterns occur, so test out a small block on a scrap of canvas before committing.

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Needlepoint Rugs – Stitches