Ribbon Applique

 From a practice piece, a rose in multi-colored satin ribbon

My two-day national class, Winding Roads, is finished and ready to pilot.  The pilot class takes place next Saturday and Sunday in Los Alamos, courtesy of Pajarito Chapter and Carole Rinard.

Bailadora, from a photo of a dancer at Las Golandrinas.  The photo was printed onto fabric, applied to upholstery fabric and then ribbon appliqued.

It is a long, hard road to get a class this far.  First coming up with an idea and project unique enough to catch the eye of a national selection committee.  In the case of Winding Roads, I had been working in the area of ribbon appliqué for several years before I got a clue that I should be teaching the stuff.  My first inspiration was an old spool of rayon ribbon in a light blue.  The spool looked like it was from the fifties or sixties.  The ribbon was ½” wide and was a utilitarian ribbon rather than a decorative one.

Ribbon applique in black and white with lace added and a drawn and painted paper background

I was working at that time on upholstery fabrics that I painted and embroidered making them into scrolls that could be unwound and hung on a wall.  I only made three before I started appliquéing the blue rayon ribbon onto an odd piece of upholstery fabric left over from one of the scrolls.  (By the way, I gave one scroll Espiritu away; sold one named Mi Alma; and a third I eventually cut up and used for other projects.)  Hydrangeas were the perfect flower for the rayon ribbon--right color, right texture.  And voila! Hydrangea Garden was born.  Wanda Anderson bought it much before I could show it around to too many people.

But it was in the appliquéing of Hydrangea Garden that the winding roads appliqué technique was invented.  And it was on this technique plus a few others that I based my other ribbon appliqué pieces more than seven years later.

Another experiment in ribbon applique on a painted background with some paper ribbon

Since I struggled and experimented with ribbon appliqué on my own without research into other people’s work, I reference very few sources.  In the late eighties I worked for YLI Corp. while they were still in Provo, UT and I was in Sandy UT, just north on I-15 from them.  I wrote some instructions for silk ribbon embroidery (I am not sure they were ever published), did some teaching/demoing for them, and generally tried out their threads and ribbons.  So I was influenced by that.  The ribbons I use now are much less expensive and much larger than the delicate jewel-toned silk ribbons.  So the same techniques by and large do not work as well if at all.  For instance, French knots in silk ribbon are pretty little things that one can easily sprinkle around the ground fabric.  But just try getting an inch-wide grosgrain to French knot in any meaningful way--torn ground fabric is a very real possibility.

Winding Roads, the national class to be taught at EGA National Seminar in September, 2011

I started out this entry by explaining the trials and tribulations of getting a class ready for its national debut and quickly devolved into writing something else.  Well, maybe sometime I will explain the eighteen month process of a getting national class from the grain of an idea, through the proposal process, through the writing, etc.  Maybe.  Someday.

Intense Pattern--The Opus

Today is a red letter day and that red letter is D. D as in Done. Yes, today I am finished finally with Intense Pattern and I am getting ready to teach it tomorrow for the first time in pilot. This class has been a year and a half in the writing, but a half a lifetime in the making. I have studied and done blackwork from the late 70s. I researched it in museums (notably the Victoria and Albert in London), from books, from pictures from museums, from articles, and from other people’s work. I have about twenty major, framed pieces, about half a dozen blackwork samplers, a 4” binder filled with samples, minor works, and experiments I have done over the years, and I have another 4” binder filled with papers, research, articles, and blackwork miscellany. I have the texts of all the classes I have taught on blackwork (maybe ten?). And, above all, I have this powerful urge to pass on my learning to others.

Marie Campbell who in 2008 was head of ESP classes asked me to write a class for her. She mentioned blackwork. ESP stands for Extended Study Program and is sponsored by the EGA. An ESP delves deeply into a subject, more deeply than even a national class might. ESPs can be held anywhere and anyone, even non EGA members, can take them. I knew I had a rip-roaring class on blackwork in me ready to escape. So I wrote up a proposal a couple of weeks later and sent in to Marie. Intense Pattern was born with national board approval.

A non-original blackwork pattern, octogon and square. This pattern is widely used both in Western embroidery and Eastern embroidery. This is a detail from one of my Mastercraftsman Color works, which were mostly done in modern, colored blackwork.

I like to do original work. More than that, I insist on doing original work. My blackwork compositions are all original and I like my most of my blackwork patterns also to be original, even though there are dozens of books out there that are filled with blackwork patterns. A blackwork pattern is the counted pattern that is used to fill and shade blackwork compositions. There are an infinity of blackwork patterns that can be developed--or if not an infinity, at least a number larger than I could ever count.

Voids, tessellation and bats. All original patterns from my work called Japanese Ribbons. The patterns in this were all adapted from printed kimono patterns.

So with the first step done, the second was to decide how the class would run--what exactly would I teach. Patterning theory, a little-known aspect of design theory, has always fascinated me, so I started there. I have had one class on patterning theory that I took in Denver at its 1995 national seminar by Tom Lundberg called Pattern Design for Teachers. From that class I started keeping a notebook on design theory. An invaluable resource and one of the most important tools I own for artistic compositions and classes.

It was in the Tom Lundberg class that I learned the basic networks of patterning. A little later, through researching books on the subject, I found the basic manipulations of patterning. For Intense Pattern, I squashed the two together and that was the basis for the class. Well, the networks and the basic manipulations were just the skeletons. To that I added other concepts that a blackwork patterner would need to know, things like counterchange, voids, diaper patterns, and tessellation. That was the second step.

Basic manipulations and other concepts from the first

Intense Pattern sampler.

The third step was stitching the sampler for the class--before a word was actually written and with just a rough outline. Ah, that sampler. People got very tired of seeing that sampler. I carried it everywhere and worked on it all the time. When I finally finished it, it was a sight to behold, bold, crazed, and packed with information. I was done with it, but I wasn’t quite satisfied. I needed another to demonstrate color in blackwork. So I started work on a second, smaller sampler that has some splashes of color and a few other concepts I had been toying with. They were like Thing One and Thing Two in my life. All I could do was think about them and wrestle with them.

The fourth step was actually writing the class. An easier step than you might think--I already had it all stitched out there in black and white (and red and purple on the semi-colored sampler.) This step was completed a year and three months after I sent in the proposal. I finished the samplers last year in the late summer and early autumn.

Color in blackwork, the simplest mode--just exchanging the black threads for violet ones.

This motif demonstrates voiding and also emotion in patterns.

Who wants bugs crawling all over their leaves?

And then the fifth step--the hardest step of all--was getting the kits together and writing the lecture notes. Yesterday I finally finished the lecture notes and printed them out. Today I put the linen in the kits and they are ready to go. It has been a long voyage and path of discovery. But I think this is my personal-best class ever.

Thanks to Jane, Ellie, Marie, Mary, Patricia, Bert, Nancy, Ann, Peggy, Jo, and Neenah for being my pilot class and for being the ones to suffer through the tweakings and false starts. You guys are the best.

Intense Pattern, the first sampler.

The vine of leaves at the bottom right section of the sampler gives it

a lively look and gives it a place the eye loves to go.

Stella Grace

Detail of a work that has the darkest values (a series of black French knots),

a lot of middle but differing values (the patterns),

and the lightest value (the background white linen).

This work is owned by Rocky Mountain Region fo the EGA,

designed and stitched by SK Wolfersperger

Blackwork Run 1

It starts on the left with a simple square and in one-step increments it becomes more complex and darker. At its darkest, it begins to lose elements and soon it ends in another simple shape.

Blackwork Run 2

This one is unfortunately pictured upside down. It too started with a simple square, but this is a one-step pattern with double rows. You can see it gets darker towards the middle and then starts losing dark value in a different way than it gained value. And it ends in straight lines.

Blackwork is all about value. In this case value doesn't refer to how much a piece of blackwork costs, but to its shading. Value means the darks and lights of a piece of artwork. One way of accomplishing the darks and lights is to modify a single simple pattern, gradually adding elements to it so that it grows darker and darker. You can see this in the two blackwork runs illustrated. A blackwork artist can create a run and then work a piece of blackwork with the resulting pattern. The work is unified because it consists of one pattern and yet the pattern varies greatly in value.

The patterns in Stella Grace are all related to one another by structure, making a very unified design. Patterns are easy to make up and easy to stitch in blackwork. Beginning blackworks may have a little trouble until their eyes are trained to see the small differences in value between the patterns. Patterns are infinite, or if they are not, then they are too numerous for this mind to graph and stitch them all in a life time.

By the way, the instructions for Stella Grace are available to buy from Rocky Mountain Region.

Leaf with leaf filling from Intense Pattern II sampler;

Post-classic style--a simple shape filled completely with a counted pattern;

this pattern could be done reversibly.

(Ignore the arrow, the word OVERLAYS, and the little two-color pattern--

this is a modern blackwork technique.)

Blackwork was originally done mostly in black silk on white linen, though there is some blue, red and green blackwork also from the Tudor and classic periods. There was also some brown, but I assume that the brown was either originally red or black oxidized over the centuries. Incidentally, the classic period was during the reign of Elizabeth I. Her colors were black and white and so she wore a lot of blackwork. Browsing though Arnold’s Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, the 1600 inventory of the queen’s closet and an exegesis of it, we can see how much blackwork/Spanish work she wore.

The evolution of blackwork I have divided into seven periods: early (before 1494) for which I know of no extant clothing, but there is a reference for in Chaucer; Spanish work, 1494 (circa) through the demise of Queen Katherine of Aragon, around 1530; Tudor, the end of Henry VIII’s reign through the reigns of Mary I and Edward 6; classic or Elizabethan, during the reign of that queen; Stewart, through the reign of James I when the technique dies out. It was revived at the founding of the Embroiderers’ Guild in England from 1910 to 1920 and is called post-classic at that point. In the 1960s, the English started the modern period of blackwork. Modern and post-classic continue together up to this day done around the globe.

Post-classic work is what most people now learn as blackwork. It is certainly the easiest of the various ways to do blackwork. A simple shape is filled completely with one pattern. See the leaf illustration.

Blackwork: Compleat andUnabridged

Sunbonnet Sue in the lower right is post-classic;

this sampler has motifs six of the seven periods of blackwork worked on it.

There is a misapprehension about blackwork and its reversibility. Some national and international teachers are teaching that it has to be done entirely reversibly. This is not true according to classic Elizabethan technique. The various blackwork portraits by Holbein and others are cited as evidence that it was always done reversibly. In point of fact, not every blackwork pattern and especially ones from the Tudor periods and ones seen in Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe cannot be reversed and make any sense. Just because there is an embroidered sleeve fall in a portrait that could have been the same front and back, does not mean that it was a single piece of cloth embroidered reversibly. A sleeve could easily be two pieces sewn together with the same embroidery on each side of it. The Mermaid Napkin in the V & A that I believe in late classic is not reversible. It cannot be. Most classic blackwork patterns were done in short, straight stitches, backstitch, or even tiny chain stitch.

My sampler called Blackwork: Compleat and Unabridged has examples of six of the seven periods of blackwork on it. My sampler Intense Pattern is mostly all modern blackwork with some examples of post-classic.

Intense Pattern I

This sampler is about modern blackwork.

Arnold, Janet. Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd. W.S. Maney: Leeds, England, 1988.

Blackwork Unadulterated

Stella Grace

detail of blackwork that does not have reversible patterns

black cotton on white cotton fabric

7" X 7"

The Wedding Sampler

desinged and stitched by Carole Rinard, Ann Erdmann, and SKW

from the collection of Jake and Barrett Lucero

15" X 10"

black silk on white linen

some of this could have been done reversibly, but it wasn't--too comlex and not needful.

I first learned blackwork when I was a new member of the Creative Needlework Chapter of the EGA out of Collingswood, NJ. That was the first chapter I was ever in. I joined the group shortly after we (PJ, Mike, and myself--Barrett was not even a sparkle at that point) moved to NJ for Mike's work in 1977.

CNC was a great chapter for me who was absorbing embroidery at a mad rate. We were close to the then-national headquarters in NYC and most of the great teachers lived within a couple hundred miles of us, including several within fifty miles. The programs were astonishing with new things every month. We learned Brazilian, Hardanger, Assisi, goldwork, dyeing threads, counted cross-stitch (this soon-to-be world-wide craze was just taking off), needlepoint, crewel, and many more things. We were a chapter of youngsters. I was in my early 30s; most people were under forty--not something we see now much.

My first two blackwork teachers were Jane Zimmerman and Ilsa Altherr, both still active within embroidery circles. Jane is my favorite embroidery teacher of all time. She taught us classic English blackwork. Ilsa taught us reversible blackwork. It was very hard for me that first time I tried Ilsa's way. I liked Jane's a lot better--it was more accessible.

Now there is sort of a schism between people who insist that proper blackwork be reversible and people who insist that it can be either and still be correct. I quickly learned how to do reversible blackwork and can now do it even ungraphed. It is usually done in running stitch "journeys" with up to four journeys needed to finish a complex line of blackwork. But I normally choose not to it, but to stick to the more plastic Elizabethan style of back stitches.

In England there is a tradition of blackwork that goes back to at least 1395 with Chaucer's description (and by inference back even further in time), and this description may indicate reversible blackwork. This is the quote from The Miller's Tale

"Young, comely, was this wife; a lovely girl;
Her body slim and supple as a weasel.
She wore a cross-striped sash, all made of silk;
An apron also, white a morning milk,
She wore about her loins, gored to flare.
White was her smock; its collar front and back,
Embroidered with black silk inside and out,
The ribbons of the white cap that she wore
Were also coal-black silk, to match the collar;
She'd a broad silken headband set back high,
And certainly she had a come-hither look in her eye."

There is a portrait of Queen Isabel of Spain done in 1494 by Bronzino that shows her in "undress" with a cap and smock both decorated in black stitches on white fabric. This most certainly is Spanish Work. In Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe inventory of 1600 there is reference to both Spanish work and blackwork--sometimes both techniques are listed on the same piece of clothing. Obviously there was a difference between the two in the minds of the Elizabethans and the Tudors. But what that difference is, we do not know today. To us it is all black stitches on white fabric.

My theory is that Spanish work was always reversible. We see in Spanish samplers of the 1600s and 1700s the type of running stitch that is familiar to us today as reversible blackwork. I think this is the remnant of the great Spanish Work tradition. I have been to the Victoria and Albert Museum and have seen the backs of English-style blackwork and none of it is reversible by any stretch of the imagination. In the great portraits of the Tudor and Elizabethan eras we see the court dress as having a lot of blackwork on the cuffs, sleeves, and bodice edgings. People point to these and say that obviously it was reversible blackwork because on a sleeve cuff we can see both the front and back which seem reversible. Well, maybe. From a portrait we cannot see how the garment was made. Maybe the cuffs were two pieces sewn with wrong sides to the inside and with two identical lines of stitching on them. Or maybe they were done in Spanish Work. But the items of clothing I saw at the V & A were NOT reversible.

Ilsa Altherr, as far as I know, introduced reversible blackwork to the USA. But this style of blackwork is not the be-all and end-all of blackwork. Not every blackwork pattern can even be stitched reversibly. Some patterns change from the front to back when they are put in reversibly. The Elizabethans and the Tudors were a practical people. There is no sense in taxing brains to do something reversible when there is no need to. As Jane Zimmerman says, the Tudors and Elzabethans did not have graph paper to plan out the journeys of reversibility. A huge stumbling block to most stitchers.

I do not teach reversible blackwork: I teach in the classic Elizabethan model--backstitch with some running and double running stitches for some outlines. Basic blackwork is easy to do--anyone who can cross-stitch can do blackwork at its easiest levels. I urge everyone to try it--it is very satisfying.

Blackwork: A Master Class in Intense Pattern

Study in Scarlet

All the ways of achieving shading in blackwork

I am happy to announce that this morning I signed a contract with EGA in their Extended Study Program. An ESP is a course that goes beyond the scope of most classes and can be a deep study of one particular aspect of a subject. In this case we will be exploring patterning theory. Patterning theory is how patterns are developed, how they build up repetition. How to vary them.

I have broken the study down into four parts from basic construction to the most complex construction. But since we will be studying this one step at a time, it will be an easy progression from the basic to the advanced.

In order to do well in this class which runs in mid-July 2010 in Louisville, KY, a student has to have had at least some experience with blackwork. It is not the function of the class to teach basic blackwork to neophytes. But even a couple of beginning classes with a couple of projects under your belt and an vivid interest in blackwork should put you in good form to take this class. Of course the more experience you bring to the class the more you will get out of it.

Leaf pattern from Heartwood

I have been doing blackwork from the very beginning of my time doing embroidery. My first attempt at it was a kit I bout in Denver in 1976. It was of the three wise men and was fairly large about 14"X 18", done in rayon threads. There must be twenty patterns in that thing. It was wonderful. I was head over heels for it. And I didn't even know what type of embroidery it was. It was just labeled counted work. I joined the EGA a year or so later and found out what it was--blackwork.

A tessellated pattern from The Crazed Sampler

Since then I have studied and stitched my way up to designing and offering my blackwork pieces for sale in galleries and on-line. Check them out at http://embroideredfablesart.weebly.com/. And watch this space for more information on the class and my progress in putting it together.

Four Patterns from a polychrome work.

Notice the shading through use of color.

Aida is a Four-Letter Word

Three Penny Opera

Hardanger on aida 3ft. X 12"

painted with varnish and gold with cotton and gold threads

I have worked on many grounds in my stitching life and have even worked puntos in aria (stitches in air) For doing pure, beautiful embroidery there is nothing like linen. High quality linen has a sheen to it and a hand to it that is unequaled in any other ground. The "count" of evenweave fabric is how many threads per inch. So the higher the number, the smaller the holes. I prefer working on 28 to 32 count, but have happily worked on 48 count. There are tinier counts, however 48 is my personal upper limit. Glenshee is my favorite linen to work on, but I can rarely get my hands on that brand.

Evenweave cotton is pretty good to work on too. Egyptian cotton which is long staple is very soft and luxurious. It is an excellent ground. I like to work on cotton sometimes because the threads are rounds while the linen threads tend to be flatter. I truly like Hardanger done on cotton. The cotton gives it a slightly crisper look. These cottons I am talking about are the tabby weaves and look very much like evenweave linen.

Derwentwater

Hardanger on hand-dyed cotton with cotton threads

14" X 20", I dyed this in an exhaust bath of blue indigo

Hardanger is classically done on hardanger fabric which is a double tabby. Hardanger comes in a couple of sizes, but the most familiar is 22-count. Classic Hardanger done on this looks tremendous, a hand in a custom-made glove. I like the highest quality of the hardanger fabrics. In this case price is an indication of quality. Hardanger weave and count is also available in linen for a wonderful look. But unless I am going to actually use the item I stitch, the cotton is just fine with me. You might have noticed that I use Hardanger/hardanger in two ways. The name of the embroidery from Norway is capitalized (according to EGA) while the name of the fabric it is done on is in small case.

Coleus 1

Hardanger on hardanger cloth, 16" X 20"

This was painted with Dye-Na-Flow before the stitching was done.

Aida is another type of fabric to do embroidery on and it is also the cheapest of the fabrics. It is a complex evenweave that looks like a waffle. I do not like this fabric at all. Using linen or cotton, an embroiderer generally does stitch over two threads. So a cross-stitch would be done over two threads diagonally in one direction and over two threads diagonally across in the other. With aida, a stitcher stitches over the waffle. One cannot make half stitches or quarter stitches. Aida cannot be cut nicely for Hardanger. In Hardanger embroidery, after stabilizing the ground with the kloster units, the fabric is cut away in a pattern to reveal a grid to stitch upon further. There is no possibility of this with aida. However, having said this, one of my best pieces of American-style, non-traditional Hardanger is done on aida. It was one of those things where I was greatly inspired to do a piece of Hardanger and I needed to start Right Then. The only piece of fabric in my stash that was the right color was a large block of aida that someone had given me to do some demonstrating on. So I used it. It turned out very nicely. This piece of Hardanger and one piece of cross-stitch are the only things I have done in aida. I do not like it and do not recommend it to any one but very beginning stitchers.

Another ground I have used very often and with which I am very pleased is perforated paper. This is archival stuff that normally comes in 9" X 12" pieces (though I have seen larger and smaller). It is fourteen count and comes in various colors. I like to get the white or off-white and then color it as I please. It is easy to do and the customizing can be extraordinarily beautiful. Perforated paper has been around at least a hundred and fifty years, so we know it lasts. The museums in Salt Lake City are full of paper samplers done in the late 1860s and later. Many pieces of mine can be seen in other posts in this blog.


I have worked on exotic grounds too, like window screening, paper I have perforated myself, ribbons, a steel grid. And with all of the above, from linen to cotton to paper to the exotics, I am just talking about counted work. Surface work or free surface design work can be done on these things, plus a wide variety of other things.


And the "stitches in air"--that is lace. When needlelace is done, it is done over threads. The threads are covered by more threads in buttonhole stitch, It just looks like stitches in air. Again it is the strong thread that binds us.

Samplers

In the judging class at the recent EGA national seminar in Louisville, one of the things discussed was whether a sampler could be original. Interesting question. Many of the samplers we see are definitely derivative. Given the structure of a sampler, it might be hard to break out with a new look. A lot of the problems with samplers is that they do not look fresh or interesting. It's just the same old stuff.

I personally think that a sampler can be original and fresh with delights for the eye. I have uploaded two of my personal samplers (i.e. non-teaching samplers) to demonstrate this. This first one I finished just the day before yesterday--it barely has had time to cool off from the hot needle. Recently I have been working in a small series of bees pictures with a drawing, PJ's Bees, an embroidery, and now a sampler, PJ's Bees Sampler. This series will continue on into a star book which will be a sampler unto itself. And as a matter of fact, PJ's Bees Sampler is a study for the coming star book bee sampler.

PJ's Bees Sampler

thirteen flower stitches on perforated paper with Impressions silk/wool

A sampler has usually bands or spots. This sampler has both bands of flowers and spots of flowers, but also the bee and honeycomb motif to unify it further. Though the scan has cut off the very top of the sampler, I am sure you can see that with the bright colors and the buzzing bees, it is fun to look at.

A Personal Sampler in Blackwork

sewing thread and metallic on linen

The second sampler I did sometime in later 1990s and so far it is unnamed. It is a blackwork sampler with the lower part done in compartments. The upper part I sewed on some Battemberg tape which I allowed to gently curl. Then I did simple patterns inside the curls. Like a lot of sampler it also has words on, this time a quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The threads I used were mostly machine sewing cotton in three or four colors with some gold metallic. Not all the patterns are original with me, but the majority of them are. When I show this personal sampler, people invariably stop to examine it closely. it is the type of needlework that requires a closer look.

I like samplers and I love working samplers. They are most satisfying type of embroidery that I do. And I believe that I do original work within the genre of sampler, even using the old band and spot format.

PJ's Bees

In a previous post I talked about having to know how to draw to be a good artist in any medium. Learning to draw teaches us to see. A lot of good design is in the detail. And drawing helps us see and record that detail.

PJ, my son of many years!, has a birthday every year on September 3rd. It is always hard to find a little something to give him. This year about ten days before his birthday he called to tell me about the bees in his attic. He and his wife Lavona bought the house that Mike and I owned almost eight years ago. It is a pretty house with lots of space for a growing family. So PJ, his name is Peter Justin by the way, called me to let me know what was going on with the house. It seems that a woodpecker had been bothering them by pecking on the northeast corner of the house quite assiduously in the mornings. He had done several things to keep the bird away with no luck. The northeast corner of the house is the highest corner of the house being two stories up. He climbed up there to take a lock and found a nest of bees had moved in. So he crawled down and called a pest control company. The pest control people came out and found a huge hive with many honeycombs in the attic. The poor woodpecker just wanted his breakfast.

So PJ sent me several photos of the removal of the honeycombs and the queen.

I was inspired to draw him a picture of bees for his birthday. that you can see below. The picture is about 8" X 10" done in colored pencil.

PJ's Bees

the drawing

I showed the picture to my friend Rita Curry-Pittman who among other things is an applique quilter. She really liked the picture and wanted to do an applique quilt of it. So I scanned the picture and sent her a copy. Then I thought that I could do an embroidery of the same subject. So I started a perforated paper design loosely based on the original drawing. It was this embroidery I took to national seminar to work on because my classes were not actual embroidery classes. This is the finished embroidery.

PJ's Bees

the embroidery, 8" X 8",perforated paper, silk/wool threads

Then I decided to do a sampler on perforated paper with bees and honeycomb in it. I started it yesterday. This is a scan of it this morning.

PJ's Bees Sampler (in progress)

9" X 6", on painted perforated paper, silk/wool threads

In an earlier blog I also talked about artist's doing bodies of work. The perforated paper embroidery, PJ's Bees, is the fourth in my B.o.W. of perforated paper flowers. The bee sampler is part of that body of work, but is also part of a body I have of perforated paper samplers. It is very satisfying for me to have all these interconnections between my works.

Learning to draw has helped me very much is being able to do this kind of thing. I highly recommend it.

C-CS, Poppy and Rose

Embroidery is the overarching name for a ground decorated with an eyed and threaded needle. How that decoration is done, what it turns out looking like, and what the ground is determines which category of embroidery the work is being done in. For instance, both needlepoint and counted-cross stitch are types of embroidery, as are needle lace, white work, and needle tatting.

The type of embroidery that most commonly draws people to doing the stuff is counted-cross stitch. I think it is fair to say that counted-cross stitch is a world-wide phenomenon in the grand tradition of Berlin work, another world-wide phenomenon that swept out of Germany and England in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

Counted-cross stitch is easy to do, fun to do, fairly inexpensive in its beginning stages, and there are I would guess millions of designs available to the stitcher. Counted cross-stitch to you uninitiated out there is done on fabric that is woven evenly with large spaces between the threads. Patterns are drawn up on grids which enable the embroiderer to stitch one grid at a time on the fabric. The results can be very simplistic or wonderfully complex. depending on the complexity of the gridded or graphed pattern.

As silly as it seems, I find it very difficult to stitch following such a graphed pattern. I am dyslexic and the dyslexia seems to worsen as I gain birthdays. But with the aid of a camera and a computer program, I can make the graphed patterns for counted-cross stitch for other people to do. A friend of mine, July Rose, has stitched some of my counted-cross stitch patterns with beautiful results.

The first of the cross-stitch embroideries shown here is called Pueblo. It was originally a picture I took in Santa Fe. I digitized the raw photo, cropped it, removed some elements that were extraneous to the theme, and then recolored it. I put it though one of my software programs that graph out the results. I think this makes a very handsome cross-stitch, very complex and interesting to the eye and brain.

Blue Pool was taken at a famous spring in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The waters are deep, cold, very clear, so very blue. There are large fish in it, as well as divers in scuba gear.

The last cross stitch shown is Golden Poppies from a photograph I took here at the house one late spring day. It is by far the simplest of the cross-stitches. it took many hours of manipulations to simplify so much and get the colors just as I wanted them. Those of you who are cross-stitchers will see that Golden Poppies is more nearly like commercial patterns available everywhere, while the other two are are not at all in that vein.

Pueblo

designed by SKW and stitched by July Rose

Blue Pool

designed by SKW and stitched by Judy Rose.

Golden Poppies

designed by SKW and stitched by Judy Rose

Perforated Paper and Photographs

Bouquet Salpicon

counted work (in this case essentially blackwork patterns)

on perforated paper with a photographic transfer

The photograph that is the transfer beneath

Cattleya Maxima

Cattleya Maxima




The photograph that is the base of Bouquet Salpicon.

Originally this was a pile of autumn leaves I photographed one November outside our local library branch.

My newest body of work within mixed media embroidery is non-traditional counted work on photo-transferred perforated paper. It is not as difficult as it sounds. I take one of my original photographs and either print it directly on perforated paper or print it on transfer paper and then iron it onto perforated paper.

I know that some people shy away from stitching on paper because they consider it only a temporary surface, but I have seen perforated samplers in the LDS Church Museum in Salt Lake City that were done around 1870. Good enough for me.

I rarely make a graph or even much of a sketch when I work on an original piece. Because of my dyslexia which is getting stronger as I age, I have a hard time following intricate patterns. So what I do is get a firm idea of what I want the finished piece to look like and then start stitching until that piece is done. Sometimes it looks like my original idea and sometimes it looks better.


I use Impressions, a silk/wool blend of light yarn on perforated paper. Rarely I will use #12 perle coton; and in one recent piece I used Laura Perin's hand-dyed threads to great effect.


The pieces so far have all had flower subjects, a poinsettia-looking flower (Bouquet Salpicon which is now at the sales gallery at EGA national headquarters); an orchid (Cattleya Maxima from the collection of Ron and Sue Cosner). An unnamed and unphotographed third piece. The fourth piece I will start later this morning, having printed the transfer paper, but not yet pressed the transfer onto the perforated paper.

Blackwork First

"Stonehenge"

Blackwork with some counted patterns and some freely worked patterns

"Blackwork: Complete and Unabridged"

A teaching sampler with historic patterns and modern shading techniques.

This sampler was taught at he Embroiderers' Guild of America National Seminar

in Louisville, Ky in 1998.

People ask me what my favorite kind of embroidery is. I do and have done a lot of different techniques. But there is no doubt what my favorite is: blackwork.

When I first started doing embroidery that fateful September in 1976, I began with needlepoint. After I had done a couple pieces of needlepoint I started looking around at other types of needlework. I bought an interesting kit for $12 of The Three Kings. It said it was counted work. The threads were brightly-colored rayons. The outline of the kings were stamped on the evenweave cotton. The robes were done in pattern after counted pattern in complex shapes. I loved it. I didn't know for almost two years that I had been doing blackwork. I still have those three kings tucked in a fat notebook dedicated to blackwork past.

Blackwork is an old technique. No one knows how old. It seems to have origins in Spain and North Africa, but that may not be the only place of origin. Chaucer in The Miller's Tale in 1395 mentions blackwork when he describes Alisoun and what she wears.

There is a portrait of Queen Isabel of Spain done in 1494. She is wearing what to our modern eyes is blackwork on her cap and placket. Certainly when her daughter Princess Katherine of Aragon came to England to marry the crown prince of England, Prince Arthur, in 1501 she brought with her Spanish work embroidery, the same sort of embroidery we see on Queen Isabel's portrait.

A century later an inventory was done of Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe, (see Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd by Janet Arnold) and in it are described clothes done in blackwork and clothes done in Spanish work. Now we have little idea as to the differences. Now we call it all blackwork.

So what is Blackwork? My definition, which may not be the classic definition, is counted patterns that create shading and definition in a composition. That's it. How does an embroiderer create those defining patterns, what we also may call value in blackwork? Well, there are at least eight ways. That is a long explanation that will wait for another entry.

Blackwork is now considered a counted work because of the patterns, but classically, during the time of Elizabeth the First, patterning was only a part of blackwork. And it was not always counted. It was called blackwork because it was black silk threads stitched onto white linen., the same as Spanish work. Even then it was not always black, but also red, green, and blue. It was done with goldwork within it. Take a look at the inventories at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to see it.

Why is this embroidery my favorite? Because of its complexity, because of its versatility. Because of its elegance. And because, of all the embroidery techniques, it is the closest to graphic art. With blackwork I can draw on the fabric.

Stella Grace's Legacy

I heard it again yesterday. A woman was looking at some of my embroideries just in passing. She glanced at me, smiled, and said, "Just like my grandmother used to make." I beg your pardon; I cannot help but be a little insulted. I grit my teeth, show my canines in a smiling grimace, and for once keep my mouth shut.

I keep in mind that my work reminds other people of work they have seen in their dim pasts. My own grandmother, her sisters, and my great-grandmother were all stitchers. As far as I know none of them had the passion for embroidery that I do, but I have examples of work from all of them. It is this passing down of work and traditions that keeps the art of embroidery alive.

But embroidery has gone on from the time of my great grandmother. She was born just after the Civil War and she lived to hear Sputnik beeping across the heavens. She loved quilting, especially crazy patch. And, of course, a crazy quilt with stitching on it is considered an embroidery. My Great-Aunt Leona loved tatting. I have a few bits and pieces left from her shuttles. I even have a couple of her shuttles. Leona taught school in Ault, Colorado before she was married. This was at a time where only two years of college were needed for teaching. Tatting with a shuttle is not embroidery but knotting. However, tatting on a needle is an embroidery. I can show you how to do that.

My own grandmother, Stella Grace, did some needlepoint, some quilting, and some pillowcases. In fact it was when I spent summers with her in Holyoke, Colorado that I first did embroidery. I learned the stem stitch, the lazy daisy, and the French knot. It didn't stick at first. When I was twenty-nine and was accidentally shuttled into a needlepoint class, I had done very little thread and needle since those summers.

My own mother, a black sheep and a termagant from the word go, also did a bit of needlework as a child. I have two pieces that she did. One is a pillow top in orange and black. It was a kit in rayon or acetate from the early 30s. A house was printed on it and all she had to do was follow the outlines in stem stitch. The other is a small bag marked laundry, surely for small stuff like underwear. It is cotton with blue bias tape around the edges. It also was a kit, but a stamped cross-stitch one. I keep the treasures of my female line with my own embroideries with the idea of passing them down to my own grandchildren.

As for my own embroidery--some of it I will keep for the passing down, but I have way too much to expect children and grandchildren to store it peacefully all of their lives. So I like to sell it. Oh my embroidery is not like my mother's and grandmother's and my et cetera's. My embroideries sometimes hang in galleries and museums, not as old work or classic work, but as modern art. So you see, your grandmother's embroideries are not like my embroideries at all.

Mixed Media, Mixed Bag

When I stumbled over embroidery as an art medium over thirty years ago, I was a dabbler. A neophyte dabbler. In one instant of clarity I could see myself doing embroidery for the rest of my life. For twenty years after that I studied pure embroidery. I studied the great classic techniques of blackwork, Hardanger, canvas work, needle lace, whitework, and others. To my good fortune I was very good at it. But then a lot of people were very good at it. And then, just doing the embroidery over and over again wasn't quite as satisfying, so I started looking for something beyond.

The things beyond were painted backgrounds, painted threads, dyeing in odd colors. And then layering came into my life. Layered fabrics, cut away fabrics. Embroidery on top of cut away, layered fabrics.

In the mid-90s I started doing mixed media Hardanger. The Hardanger itself I changed from symmetric, formal, and white to curvilinear, asymmetric, and glorious. My first mixed media body of work was done in Hardanger.

Coleus, Non-Traditional Hardanger

And then I met heat and destruction at an Embroiderers' Guild of America national seminar taught by Jean Littlejohn. Heat and destruction were perfect things to do battle with the old ideas about embroidery. No longer was the stitch sacred. No longer was the fabric sacred. The first body of my work to come out of heat and destruction was called Burnt Offerings. I did about twenty major and minor works within it.

The Paths Are Overgrown, From the Burnt Offerings Series

I moved to Albuquerque in 2001 and there joined other like-minded mixed media embroiderers and was inspired to work on another body called Star Fields which also had about twenty pieces in it. In Star Fields, I started adding beads to the mix.

Mizpah, From the Starfields Series

What I was after in all of this was quality of surface. Texture and contrast. Subtle color gradations.

And now I am working in my current body called the Holyoke Series, still heat and destruction, still embroidery and fiber, but with lighter, less cosmic motifs.

Palimpsest with Ribbons, from the Holyoke Series

Star Books

Fully Opened Star Book 

I teach classes for the Embroiderers' Guild of America and consequently am always devising new ones. This new teaching project combines a star book with embroidered covers. I call it the Stitched Star.

It takes approximately five hours to make a plain star book with no frills and a plain cover. Each star has fourteen page pockets in it to hold small photos, poems, keepsakes, etc. This means taking about eighteen sheets of cardstock, cutting them to the correct size, folding, pasting and stitching up the binding.

What takes the time is the decoration of the binding--in this case beads, the decoration of the covers--perforated paper stitched with Impressions and Laura Perin threads, and the decoration of the innermost layer, the pockets. In these photos the inner layer is missing. I am just finishing those up and will photograph them and upload the photos in a day or two.

A double page with pockets

The back cover, an embroidery with perforated paper

The front cover of embroidered perforate paper