Ibismixed media, beads, applique, and surface work
from the collection of Kathleen Weston
ThermophiliaMixed media, surface work, beads, organic matter, netting,
and acrylic paint on velvet and canvas.
From a private collection.
Christmas Eve, the fourth day of the Winter Solstice, Yuletide. Today is the last day the sun stands still on the horizon at its southern most point. Tomorrow it begins its journey north!
Life can never have too many Christmas Eves--a day of delightful anticipation. The journey is greater than the destination.
Today is a good day to write out an Embroiderers’ Christmas List. What is nearest to my heart, art, and craft that I want Santa to bring me? First of all, I want a book called A Pictorial History of Embroidery by Marie Schuette. A very rare book, but I would love to get my hands on it. It is a book I ran across in my time in England and which I have wanted a copy of ever since. Also, if there is a copy of Medieval Embroidery kicking around the North Pole with no one much interested in it--it would find a permanent home here in Albuquerque.
I would like a complete color wheel of Splendor silks. Splendor is the silk thread that comes in twelve strands and has the most marvelous colors. Carole and I (well, mostly Carole) have come up with the twelve numbers of the colors that best match the twelve-part color wheel in our Individual Correspondence course called Rainbows Bend. The complete set is so sumptuous and stunning that I get a real kick every time I see it.
Rita Curry-Pittman has made one of the best needle books I have ever seen. It contains two or three needles of every kind that a hand-embroiderer might need. She has decorated it with cunning machine stitches and it has pages of labeled needles from the largest to the smallest, both sharp and tapestry. It is a handy tool that every stitcher should have.
I want the old plastic and metal spring hoops back. These were the first generation hoops from the late 70s and early 80s that had plastic rims with springy metal inner hoops to hold the fabric drum tight. I can’t remember what they are called, but I have one left that is repaired with thread and glue. It is the best. I have second-generation hoops that are similar, but are pale imitations of the real thing.
My wool threads are in a series of plastic bags stuffed into a larger plastic bag which in turn is stuffed into a specially made (yes, I can use a sewing machine) tote bag for them. What I want is a system for keeping these wool yarns pristine without plastic, and yet in see-through, protectors so that I can see them as I work. Wool moths are bad here in NM--my forty-five-year-old turquoise rebozo is quite holy now (I do love Christmas puns; well, any kind of pun actually) from the little angel-like moths that visit it every summer.
What would I like to give for Christmas? There are certain women of my acquaintance that I would love to give a full set of DMC six-stranded cotton--Mary Analla, Alice Lucero, Marlo Lucero, Ethel Lucero, Barrett Lucero, and Jerry Stremsterfer to name a few.
I want Ann to have copies of all my blackwork papers so that she can continue her journey into the great realm of blackwork embroidery. (This is one wish I can probably bring about sometime soon.)
To everyone who does cross-stitch exclusively to any other stitching technique. Get a life! Let me show you the beauties of whitework, blackwork, crewel, Hardanger, and most anything else besides the lowly cross-stitch.
To the women of Mrs. Finley’s classes at the Grants Women’s Prison. May embroidery give you inner peace and serenity to continue life’s hard, hard journey.
Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, and may your New Year be bright and bountiful.
Answers
1. Ayrshire
1. Bullion
3. Crewel
4. Deerfield
5. Embellish
6. Farthingale
7. Guilloche
8. Hedebo, Hardanger, Honiton
9. Kelim
10. Jane Bostocke, 1596
11. Hungarian point, Bargello, Florentine
12. A palace, a prison, and then a museum
13. A metal spangle used in blackwork.
14. 1910 or 1920, either year is correct
15. Queen Elizabeth I (Tudor), Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick, Cavendish) and Queen Mary of Scots (Stewart).
Life can never have too many Christmas Eves--a day of delightful anticipation. The journey is greater than the destination.
Today is a good day to write out an Embroiderers’ Christmas List. What is nearest to my heart, art, and craft that I want Santa to bring me? First of all, I want a book called A Pictorial History of Embroidery by Marie Schuette. A very rare book, but I would love to get my hands on it. It is a book I ran across in my time in England and which I have wanted a copy of ever since. Also, if there is a copy of Medieval Embroidery kicking around the North Pole with no one much interested in it--it would find a permanent home here in Albuquerque.
I would like a complete color wheel of Splendor silks. Splendor is the silk thread that comes in twelve strands and has the most marvelous colors. Carole and I (well, mostly Carole) have come up with the twelve numbers of the colors that best match the twelve-part color wheel in our Individual Correspondence course called Rainbows Bend. The complete set is so sumptuous and stunning that I get a real kick every time I see it.
Rita Curry-Pittman has made one of the best needle books I have ever seen. It contains two or three needles of every kind that a hand-embroiderer might need. She has decorated it with cunning machine stitches and it has pages of labeled needles from the largest to the smallest, both sharp and tapestry. It is a handy tool that every stitcher should have.
I want the old plastic and metal spring hoops back. These were the first generation hoops from the late 70s and early 80s that had plastic rims with springy metal inner hoops to hold the fabric drum tight. I can’t remember what they are called, but I have one left that is repaired with thread and glue. It is the best. I have second-generation hoops that are similar, but are pale imitations of the real thing.
My wool threads are in a series of plastic bags stuffed into a larger plastic bag which in turn is stuffed into a specially made (yes, I can use a sewing machine) tote bag for them. What I want is a system for keeping these wool yarns pristine without plastic, and yet in see-through, protectors so that I can see them as I work. Wool moths are bad here in NM--my forty-five-year-old turquoise rebozo is quite holy now (I do love Christmas puns; well, any kind of pun actually) from the little angel-like moths that visit it every summer.
What would I like to give for Christmas? There are certain women of my acquaintance that I would love to give a full set of DMC six-stranded cotton--Mary Analla, Alice Lucero, Marlo Lucero, Ethel Lucero, Barrett Lucero, and Jerry Stremsterfer to name a few.
I want Ann to have copies of all my blackwork papers so that she can continue her journey into the great realm of blackwork embroidery. (This is one wish I can probably bring about sometime soon.)
To everyone who does cross-stitch exclusively to any other stitching technique. Get a life! Let me show you the beauties of whitework, blackwork, crewel, Hardanger, and most anything else besides the lowly cross-stitch.
To the women of Mrs. Finley’s classes at the Grants Women’s Prison. May embroidery give you inner peace and serenity to continue life’s hard, hard journey.
Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, and may your New Year be bright and bountiful.
Answers
1. Ayrshire
1. Bullion
3. Crewel
4. Deerfield
5. Embellish
6. Farthingale
7. Guilloche
8. Hedebo, Hardanger, Honiton
9. Kelim
10. Jane Bostocke, 1596
11. Hungarian point, Bargello, Florentine
12. A palace, a prison, and then a museum
13. A metal spangle used in blackwork.
14. 1910 or 1920, either year is correct
15. Queen Elizabeth I (Tudor), Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick, Cavendish) and Queen Mary of Scots (Stewart).
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