Mini Mary Anning

Miss L loves her dinosaurs.  She also loves her dolls.  And she very, very much loves to have her dolls play paleontologist. 

So, bright idea...outfit her dolls as her favorite lady paleontologists!  Sadly, American Girl does not yet have a line of famous historical scientists.   (But get on that, AG, seriously.) The remedy?  My sewing machine! 

Meet Mary Anning:

 



 

To refresh your memory, Mary Anning was a 19th-century woman who lived on the coast of England.  As a girl, she would explore the cliffs with her fossil-collecting father.  She went on to discover the ichthyosaur and become an influential early paleontologist, despite the boy's club of the time. There are many good books about Anning, including the novel Beautiful Creatures by Tracy Chevalier, one of our favorite children's storybooks, Rare Treasure by Don Brown, and an early-reader book Miss L has attacked many times, The Dog That Dug For Dinosaurs by Shirley Raye Redmond.

 

I used the illustrations in Don Brown's book and a famous portrait of Anning as my inspiration for our doll outfit. 

 



The cape pattern was from McCall's M6526, with the overskirt from McCall's 2609.  These were my very first doll garments!  Encouraged by how the cape and overskirt turned out, I turned to the dress itself, another 2609 pattern, modified a little to be more like the simple dress a poor woodworker's daughter would be likely to have, and more like the girl's dress shown in Don Brown's illustrations. 

 

 

OK, WAY harder, all those little curves and gathers.  I'm glad our model Saige here doesn't complain much about seam puckers and fraying.  Good sport, that one. You can't see her books or petticoats here, but we just borrowed some from another AG historical doll outfit (Caroline's winter boots and her underthings).  The bonnet was found cheap on etsy, I added the red ribbon. 

 

 

And the crowning touch, of course, is the little doll-size hammer!  An inexpensive little jeweler's hammer. 

 

This was a challenge but I learned some new sewing skills...and Miss L loves it, so we will probably need more paleontologist and science-lady outfits!  For all my googling, I don't see any to purchase available, so looks like it is on me to fill the void.  Next on the docket are Sue Hendrickson and maybe Marie Curie.  Who else would be on your must-list?

Rings and Things

A finish!  They DO exist!

Hot off the needles and not even fully ironed, it's my 3-years-in-the-making version of Ink Circles' Growth Rings!

Threads are HDF BeSeeded and BeFuddled on 40ct off-white linen. 

This blog, it's not dead yet!  (It's feeling much better!)

They Leave a Mark on You

Not too long ago, a friend forwarded me an article about cave paintings.  Not just any cave paintings, but 13,000-year-old cave paintings in France.  Not just any 13,000-year-old French cave paintings, but a cave chamber full of 13,000-year-old French cave paintings that appear to have been made by children. 

Whoa. 

And people have been leaving their mark on the world ever since.  Most of our marks will be lost to time, are mere chicken scratches in the dirt.  I suspect our modern impulse to blog and facebook comes from a similar instinct as the one that drove the ancients to draw pictures of animals on rock walls. 

I started these negative outlines of my kids' hands after stewing on similar ideas and Aboriginal hand stencils.  Dang, these kids grow fast.  Their hands are already much bigger than the outlines.

So these photos now join my other scratchings on the walls of the internet.   Positive and negative effects on the world and those closest to us, dark and light.

Or maybe I should leave the philosophizing for the philosophers and just enjoy the pretty blue beads.  Oooo, shiny!

Lead into Gold (A Finish)

It's been months since I had the satisfaction of a finish, but yesterday I finally put the last stitches into my version of Ink Circles' "Alchemical Romance"!  You can click the photos for larger versions...

 It's a sampler of alchemical symbols--what scientists used in the medieval times, before the periodic table and the foundations of chemistry were worked out.  With my background in geochemistry and history, I had to stitch this.

I used HDF silk in Primitive Black, Examplar Lark's Tounge, and a mystery gold color on 36 ct Picture This Plus "Ancient".  See those old books in the background?  Maybe not so well, here's a closer look:

Those gorgeous covers were my inspiration for the color palette I used.  The books-- "Die Opale"-- were published in 1907 by a great great uncle of mine or somesuch.  Or so I'm told.  I can't read them because they are written in old German.   

Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that I changed the pattern a little bit, in addition to the charted colors.  The original pattern has another symbol for gold in the center-- but I noticed after going over the pattern that there was no symbol for "lead" included.  So, because it's always the old story that the alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold (and would not succeed, of course), I tracked down the old symbol for lead and plunked it in the center instead.  In my opinion I think it gives the overall sampler more of a focus point this way as well. 

But this was a fun stitch.  Something like this that has a lot of small "finishes" packed into it was great for the busy last few months; even though not much stitching was actually getting done I got to feel somewhat accomplished fairly regularly.  :) 

And as reward I get to start something else, hee hee!  You saw it at the end of the last post--another Ink Circles, this time "Mother Maya".  Yay!

Mirage

For a "fantasy" themed landscape quilt challenge over on Valerie Hearder's yahoo group. 

Why yes, I am getting a little tired of the eternal winter around here-- gray, dark green, shadows, and rain-- so this is where I went to in my own personal fantasy.  The exact opposite, hot and parched.  Is that an oasis in the distance, or am I hallucinating from the heat?

This is a small quilt, about 10-11 inches by 11-12 inches, and uses a variety of hand-painted fabrics and commercial quilting cottons.  The shading on the dunes was painted by yours truly using Shiva paintstiks, and the dunes were appliqued down using a fusible web.  I hand embroidered some tiny french knots to add texture to the "desert floor" and machine top-stitched the distant mountains and water of the mirage using metallic machine threads.  Then I added beads because I can't help it, it's gotta have bling. 

It must not be a rolling stone...

Because look at all the moss it gathered!

Next time I do this I will use a darker gray ground linen, to be more like real stones.

Lots of fun though and totally "organic" in feel.  It's not "organic" in materials though, I love the effect of the varied texture synthetic fibers. 

I used Rainbow Gallery "Fuzzy Stuff" in a buttonhole wheel stitch to make the fuzziest parts, you can see one pretty well in the center of the above photo. 

Wouldn't it be cool to mass a bunch of these together in a "rock garden"?

Sprout!

This little green adventure is done. 

Cute, I think.  It's not exactly what I was going for, but I can always try again.

And I do really like the way the tiny little green flowers (or bugs) turned out.

OK, back to work!  There are not enough hours in the day, I fear...

Forest, Finished!

The Grand Unveiling:

Done!  Yay!  This is one of those rare stitched pieces that really can't be considered complete until the framing is complete, too.

This forest is DK Designs' "Enchanted Forest" brazilian embroidery design, using the recommended EdMar threads.  But what I liked best about it was the freedom, she lists the stitches used and the approximate placement, but it is really up to your own eye where you put them precisely.  My version is really pretty different from the photo of the model included with the instructions.

EdMar threads are rayon, with a "z-twist", which is backwards to the twist of most other threads, so they can be slippery and tricky to work with.  However, they are really tough and you don't need to be afraid to use a lot of force on the bullions and other tough stitches.

A few really fun things I hadn't tried before were what attracted me to this design.  The first was the use of Shiva Paintsticks to create the background image on which to stitch.  The other is the use of actual rocks attached to the work.  How was that done?  Look closely at the rocks below and see if you can figure it out.

Fun, huh?

I am really glad I did this piece, it was a great learning piece and stretched my skills.  My perfectionist brain knows where I would have done a few things differently, but I mostly did it for the experience, anyway.  I'm itching to work on one of my own original designs again now, which is really cutting down on progress for my older WIPs, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. 

2010 in Review

I'm not one for "resolutions".  But last year around this time, I decided that in 2010, I would really try to grow my needlework skills, both in trying different techniques, and trying my hand at not just designing my own creative needleworks, but actually following through on a few of them.  I love traditional cross-stitch and will never leave it entirely, but being exposed to some beautiful art quilts and needleworks over the last few years had really whet my appetite for expanding my own creativity, and seeing where I can go.

I started the year with my first stumpwork, a beetle from Jane Nicholas' wonderful book.

And in the spring I took an online design class from Sharon B of Pin Tangle, which was fantastic and resulted in these projects:

In early summer I designed a sampler for my cousin and neighbor:

The heat of summer brought out wild ribbons and sparkly things on sea creatures.

In the introspection of fall, the sparkles and spangles became imaginary worlds, based on tiny details of reality.

Somehow, some traditional cross stitch snuck in somewhere.



"Bertie" sampler by Needleprint



And even a little quilting.  (Only little ones though)

And along the way, I managed to see some beautiful places along the way and share them with the ones I love.

 

For us, 2010 was really a great year, and for that I am most thankful and lucky.  My 2011 goal is to continue the streak...and make some more imaginary worlds in thread.  

I hope 2011, for you, is productive and happy, and that you find what you are looking for.   Happy new year!

Finished trilobite sampler and free pattern #3

I squeezed in another finish!  My first little three-trilobite sampler.  I need to find a gray slate or stone frame for this.

I am enjoying building my little trilobite library but it's slow going, what with the ADD-like nature of my stitching whims and inspirations.  The first two in this series are Phacops and Anomocaroidea.

This little third one is Asaphida Ogygiocaris.  Cute, huh?

I've stitched this little sampler using HDF silk in colors "Primitive Barn Brown" and "Primitive Barn Bunny" on which are very complementary to the light gray and brown mottling of the 36 ct. Silkweaver linen color "Rock Quarry".  As you can see I took inspiration from real gray and brown trilobite fossils from my own collection. 

In the interest of science education and encouraging our small community of scienc-y stitchers, I have been posting the patterns for these little dudes.  If you would like to share these freebies with others, please do so, but please forward them here and do not copy or sell the patterns. 

To save, right click on the photo above and when it loads, right click again "Save picture as" and save as you like.  Enjoy!

A Fantasy Garden in Copper and Navy

My second December finish! 

I loved putting this one together.  The colors are delish, and the variety of stitches I chose kept it interesting, and of course the BLING.  All pictures are clickable to a larger version.

The general outline was from an antique drawing of an I-don't-know-what (jellyfish?) in Dover's "Ornamental Forms from Nature".  I love that book but really wish they'd label the artwork.   The orientation of the what's-it in the book is the other way around, like this:

Materials used include Vikki Clayton HDF silk floss in "Primitive Barn Rust" and "Motes of Night", DMC cotton floss and perle, Rainbow Gallery metallic threads, a variety of beads including Swarovski pearls and bicones, Delica seed beads, sequins, mirrors, and jewelry spacers.

Stitches used include Shisha, buttonhole, star, cross, chain stitch, straight stitch, stem stitch.

If the sun ever comes out again, I will take truer-color pictures.  But I just couldn't wait to show it to you!