High Atlas Rug – Progress 3

This rug is definitely progressing slower than my other rugs. Lots of details and separate sections. I finished the band with the large X boxes and decided to work on the first of the six inserts next. These inserts are each four and a half inches wide and four inches tall. As shown in the original section below, there is a band of plain yellow at the top and bottom of the insert. Within the black band is a design motif.

I used one strand of 2 ply for the yellow section. Nothing hard, but does take time to complete. Then I worked on the motif next. It’s partly done in the photo below. I think I’ll take out the off-white stitches until all the black has been stitched around the motif and then put the off-white stitches back in.

I used 4 ply of the black for the first pass on the right. This makes it very thick and doesn’t let the canvas show through when I’m doing stitches across 1 thread to set up the brick pattern. Then I switched to 3 ply for the rest of the background and it’s covering well. I’ll try to finish that part up today and work on the yellow band across the top of this insert. After this insert is done, I’ll start working on the motifs in the bands to the left and the right of this insert. We’ll see how far I can get by Monday, when I’ll post again.

This is how the rug looks this morning, after a week of stitching. The insert I am working on will be repeated at the bottom of the rug on the opposite side. I’ll change the colors too, so it won’t look exactly the same.

High Atlas Rug – Progress 2

I’ve made progress on the X box row. Let’s start with another look at the original motif.

I showed the start of this motif in my last post. You start by making the large X in each box using the main background color. The second step is to fill in the background around the X. You can see that there isn’t just one color for the background of these boxes. I decided to use 5 different colors. The box on the outside edge is brown done in Splendor. The middle X has a pale yellow background, also in Splendor. The other 3 colors are a very dark brown and two other colors area a lighter and darker shade of the background color. I like things orderly and I knew this rug would be a challenge for me. This row was easy to lay out since there were 9 boxes. The next photo shows the 5 different background colors.

A few comments on threads. I’m using one strand of Trio for the rug. But I know that I may need to ply up for some sections. When you pull the Trio apart, you get 3 strands of 2 ply. If I need to add to this, I’ll try 3 ply first. If that doesn’t work out well, then I’ll do 4 ply. The darker the thread, the more I might need to add a ply or two. The canvas shows through on the darker shades more easily than the lighter shades. I’m finding that if I work a little slower and don’t pull the thread so much when I complete a stitch, the better the coverage. The same thing is happening with the Splendor. When you pull Splendor apart, you get 3 strands of 4 ply. In the section that I’ve stitched, the yellow is 4 ply and the brown is 6 ply.

One step left to complete this motif. I need to use the background color to completely fill in the squares. I haven’t finished all of this step, but will continue to work on it today and again tomorrow night.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we’re going to the King Tut Exhibit in San Francisco. We’ll be home before dinner, so I will have some time to stitch tomorrow evening. When this row is completed, I’ll probably start a few motifs in the left, right, and middle bands. I’ll also start the first of the yellow sections of the large square inserts. There are no motifs in the yellow portions of these boxes, so it’s a good thing to stitch on while watching TV. Here’s the rug so far.

I have 6 more  boxes to go to finish this band. I’ll work on it as much as I can today. I usually stitch on my rugs about 4 hours a day. The air conditioner is already on here. It was 94 tomorrow and will be a little hotter today. Not what you would expect in Wine Country, is it? Then it will ease off to the 80s the rest of the week. Even with air conditioning, I find that working longer than an hour gets my hands too hot while using this 50% wool thread. So I break it into about 4 shorter stitching periods. In between stitching, I work on the computer to get motifs done. I’m not used to designing on the computer, but I’m working on it more for this rug. Another goal for me – getting the stitch diagrams for the motifs done before stitching them in the actual rug. So far, so good.

High Atlas Rug – Progress 1

I finally have started the stitching on the new rug. Using a HB pencil, I sketched the outlines for the first part of the rug. This is hard to see because of the pencil marks, but it gives you an idea of what the areas will look like.

I started with the band that runs across the top of the rug. It’s done completely in black Trio using the Brick Stitch done over two thread horizontally. I know that you will be able to see some of the canvas through the stitches, but I don’t want to pack this section tight, because I will be top-stitching over it. The practice stitching for this really looks good, so I’m hoping that I’ve finally found the right stitches to use for this type of top-stitching. I finished that part last night. On the left below is the original of the first two sections. On the right is the start of the black band that I have completed.

After the black stitching was completed, I started the zigzag line on top of it. This is done over twelve threads, going into the canvas one stitch before the top and the bottom of the band. I’m using Splendor for the top-stitching. I pulled the Splendor apart and took  one set of four strands. I did not separate the four strands at all. It’s easy to work with and isn’t slipping around at all on the piece. I’m pleased so far.

Then I went back and started stitching the Sprat’s Head stitch in each of the triangles formed by the zigzag lines. Normally, Sprat’s Head is done with two threads between the stitches. I did them with four threads between each of the stitches. I wanted a more open stitch this time.

You can also see that I’ve started the X row as well. That will take a few days to completely finish. The background color is used for the X and for the border around each of the squares. The background for the X will vary from one to the next, using 3-4 colors – some lighter and some darker than the background color. I’ll play with different combinations as I go. I haven’t made any decision on which colors to use. I like seeing what comes to mind as I stitch. Though there isn’t much to see at this point, here is a photo of the rug so far. It’s only been 2 days. It will grow as the days and weeks go by. See you in a few days.

How to Adapt Needlepoint – Step 7

Step 7 – Do the Layout of the Rug

Time for the final step before I start stitching. Early on I showed you a plan for the rug – just the bare bones of the layout following the layout of the original rug. Now it’s time to figure out where the motifs will be placed on the rug that I will be stitching. The original is quite complex and has motifs crowded into the various bands, sometimes putting two small ones on top of each other. I want to be a little more organized than that. Since I’m working on a smaller overall size, that will also limit how many motifs I can stitch on the rug.

I started with a large piece of graph paper with 8 squares per inch. Using four squares for one inch of the rug, I drew out the general layout so the rug will measure 13.5″ X 26″.  Then I got out colored pencils and started filling in the colors and some of the motifs. (I didn’t have enough variation in the brown colors, so I’m using an orange for one of the medium browns.)

Though I would like to sketch out the entire rug before I start, I haven’t figured out all the motifs yet, so this one is not complete. I’ll continue to work on it over the next week or two, but will actually start the stitching in another day or two.

This close-up of the beginning of the rug shows where I will start my stitching. I’ve figured out the beginning border using black Trio and it will have the very light beige Splendor stitched on top of it. The practice stitching for this looks pretty good. It will go onto the computer tonight. I’ll also put the large X box into the computer tonight. The background for the large Xs will vary across the row.

Other motifs that I have completed will go into the computer tomorrow so most of them will be done before I start the stitching. I won’t try to do the whole rug now, just the motifs on the computer. The whole rug will come later.

As I work on color decisions, I use the color stick you see at the top of the graph paper. I have actual samples of the threads that I will be using wrapped around a piece of cardboard and taped down on the back. There are six shades of brown (the background color is the third color from the left – Peanut Butter). There are two shades of yellow, a light green, and an off white and black that are not shown. The background is a medium color, so the motifs will be stitched using a combination of the lighter and darker browns, along with touches of light yellow, light green and off-white. Many of the motifs are repeated throughout the design, so the colors used to stitch them will vary. This adds a little more variety to the design. The other rugs that I’ve done were always done in bands that went across the entire width of the rug. This rug is different and is more of a challenge when it comes to layout. If I don’t like how one section is going, I may decide to take out a planned motif and put in another in its place. I don’t make ALL the design and color decisions before I start.

Like the Berber women who create the original rugs, I have an idea in my head about how I want it to look and I’ll make changes as I go to accomplish what I see in my head. The Berbers don’t have anything written down before they start working on a rug. Many women will work together to create a rug, but the person in charge is the only one who knows what that plan will be. Neighbor women, family, and even the husband of the designer will wander through the house while a rug is being worked on and give their opinions and suggestions, which may or may not be included in the rug. Wouldn’t that make things interesting?

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post on Saturday and show you how the stitching gets underway.

Grandgirls and Needlepoint

I’m home after a short trip to visit my three grandgirls – ages 9, 10, and 13. I arrived Thursday evening and we waited until Mom and Dad left for work early Friday morning to get busy on learning needlepoint.

I decided to start them with plastic canvas and knitting yarn. Easy for them to work with and they can handle it without stretcher bars, etc. I brought three sizes of squares that I had cut and packed for them and about 9 different colors of yarn – not full skeins since I wanted to see how they did before investing a lot of money. They each did a little square (15 stitches by 15) to learn how to do basketweave. They learned and stitched quickly, so we moved on to creating a simple design with triangles and squares. The photo below shows Ansley’s (age 10) design and Cohen’s (age 9) design.

From there, they created everything on their own. Letters became a big thing. Keaton (age 13) created a design of her and then made an E square for her best friend Erin.

We started running out of plastic canvas and yarn by lunchtime, so Daddy took us to a yarn store where the girls picked out 3 solid colors and 3 variegated colors. When I came downstairs Saturday morning, this is what I found.

All three girls were at work, two of them for over an hour by the time I got up. And Cohen was finishing an M for Mommy (it was done before breakfast).

While the girls were at the movies with their Uncle (my second son), Mommy and I went and found more yarn and plastic canvas. They loved that but didn’t have any time to start on the new colors because we went to a 4th of July party.

Sunday morning I taught them a couple more stitches, including Scotch Stitch which they all started working on. It’s perfect for making little dog collars for the chihuahuas. Later in the day, Ansley put on a fashion show so everyone could see the new dog collars. That’s Taco in pink and green and Pip on the right in turquoise and plum.

I took along a Christmas ornament of 3 little cats. I wanted them to see what they can do with basketweave and what they can work on soon, when Grandma buys them painted designs. While at the party Sat. night, I was stitching inside (too hot and humid for me outside). I stopped to talk with some of the people who came through to get snacks. When I looked down, Cohen had the ornament. “This is where I go next, right?” she asked with the needle in the canvas in the correct spot going up a row!

Sunday night, Keaton’s best friend Erin came over and spent the night. At 12:30 am Monday, Mommy checked on the girls and they were needlepointing away. So we now have 4 new members of the needlepoint community. Three and a half wonderful days. I came home tired (got up at 4:00 am California time) but very happy. Now back to designing a High Atlas rug. The girls got to see how I go about this and the threads that I will be using.

How to Adapt Needlepoint – Step 5 Again

Step 5 – Part 2 Practice Stitching and Starting Layout

I’m still working on motifs for the new rug. Here are two more I can share.

I don’t have a name for this motif. I’ve never seen it before, but I like it. I don’t have any of the dark brown yet, so I used black in this adaptation. The canvas shows through on the black stitches. I’ll need to rethink the stitches on this some more.

The second motif is one I used for the first time on the Anti Atlas rug. I think it looked better in green. I may need to change some of the colors.

After working on some of the motifs, it’s time to put them together and start laying out where the motifs will appear in the rug.

The bands with the X squares are continuous, so I don’t need to design anything for that band.  The long bands the top and bottom are continuous and have lots of motifs, some of them very close together. At times there doesn’t seem to be a pattern to the design either. I’ll have to plan how I want to do these long bands before I start working on them. There are also two bands through the middle that are long continuous bands. Then I’ll have to plan the three short bands across the middle of the rug.

One way of planning these bands is to put the practice stitching pieces together to see how they look. It’s easy to rearrange them until I find an order that I like. Here’s what the 4 piece I have stitched look when put together. Do they look okay? Should I change the order some? What else needs to be added? Should any of them be repeated within the band? I’ll need more motifs before I make any final decisions.

I’ll be visiting my granddaughters (and two of my sons) for a few days. While I’m away I still have things to work on.

I’ll be teaching the girls to needlepoint! We’re going to have a lot of fun.

The rug was starting by using “twining” so I need to see what that is and if I can use it.

I need to decide how to do the narrow black and white bands – at the beginning and in the yellow and black areas.

The black sections have larger motifs that I need to figure out.

See you in a few days.

How to Adapt Needlepoint – Step 5

Step 5 – Choosing Motifs and Practice Stitching

Time to get specific. The basics are sketched out and now I have to decide what motifs to use.

I start by studying each motif, looking for ones that I have not yet adapted. I know there will be some repeats, but adding new ones from the different areas helps to set them apart.

For new motifs I like to do some practice stitching. I did a lot of this with the blue rug, showing you how I worked out most of them ahead of time. I’ve set limits on the amount of space I can use for the bands on this rug, so I need to play with the motifs and see how best to adapt each of them to 27 stitches or less. Some of the new motifs are tall, so I may have to use a combination of tall and then small motifs to make the bands look good. A lot to play with. I started with an easy one – the boxes with the large X inside it.

The photo on the left is the original motif. My first adaptation attempt is in the middle. I’m using the brick stitch horizontally over two threads to make it look like a woven rug. The X took up the whole box and was too thin. So I tried again making the stitches for the X go over 3 threads instead of two in the photo on the right. I also shortened it so that there is room for some of the background color around the edges of the square. This looks better.

This second motif reminds me of Irish Chain. In the photo in the center, I did the entire square using three straight stitches for each of the little squares that make up the motif. Again, I didn’t like the look of it.

I didn’t do a complete square for the second attempt. I just moved a few rows above the first attempt and tried part of the motif in Scotch Stitch. This is the photo to the right. I think the motif will stand out a little more this way, so I’ll us the Scotch Stitch on the rug and Horizontal Brick Stitch around it as background.

This gives you an idea of what I’m currently working on. This step takes some time – one to three weeks as a rule. In the next post, I’ll show you a few more motifs and a possible arrangement for the first vertical band.

How to Adapt Needlepoint – Step 4

Step 4 – Setting Goals for the Project

I try to set one or two goals that I want to accomplish while working on each rug. This helps me focus on one or two specific aspects of a piece so that I can learn more about each rug as I work on it. As a rule these goals come to me while I’m studying a rug, before I start analyzing motifs or start my practice stitching. I’m now getting ready to stitch my third rug. Here are the goals for each of them:

The red Zemmour rug –

Adapt a few simple motifs to needlepoint

Arrange them in an order that will give the look of a real Zemmour rug

Results – I am able to adapt these motifs without doing weeks of practice stitching. It comes to me easily and the result of this first rug was pleasing to the eye, had the correct colors for the type rug I was stitching, and also has the feel of an authentic Berber rug. So far, so good.

The blue Middle Atlas Rug –

Design and stitch a blue and brown rug for our bedroom that we will enjoy looking at every day for years to come (sometimes motivation is a good thing)

Create more complicated motifs using needlepoint stitches that others can recreate

Results – The colors were perfect for our home and I got wonderful comments from many, many people. Several motif bands were quite complicated and required a lot of practice stitching to get them to look correct. One motif was dropped because it was so complicated and just couldn’t be adapted to my satisfaction. I don’t want my designs to be so complicated that other stitchers can’t use my designs. This was an important step for me. I’ve always loved designs and rooms that have understated elegance. I need to keep this in mind as I design other projects.

The Anti Atlas Rug –

Create a better way to add motifs on top of a stitched area. I’ll work on this with the basketweave squares

Use 3 separate color schemes that can work together to create an authentic looking rug from the area.

(Another unspoken goal was to use only what I already had on hand – canvas and thread)

Results – The first goal was not met. I was very disappointed with this part of the rug. The long stitches in the stitched on motifs continued to slide and shift long after I finished a section and started on another one. Also getting the motifs stitched at all was difficult. Over all, the design of the rug, the layout, and colors used were good. I learned a lot of new motifs in this one and will use some of them in later projects. (And I only had to buy one skein of floss to complete the orange section. All the other threads and the canvas were found in my stash.)

High Atlas Rug -

Design a needlepoint rug that looks more like a woven rug – this will influence my stitch choices

Design motifs that can be “woven” into the rug as I stitch – this could prove interesting and fun

As I continue to work on all thing Moroccan, I’m trying to stretch my knowledge and my needlepoint adaptation skills. And in the back of my mind, a solution to top-stitching motifs onto a stitched background is always rolling around. I should also note that I don’t write these down, but they are always there when I plan and stitch on my rugs.

If there are any other designers reading along, do you set goals for your projects? I would love to hear about it!

How to Adapt Needlepoint – Step 3

Step 3 – Deciding What Colors To Use

The description of the rug I’ve selected says that browns, black, white, yellow, yellow/orange, and green were used to make it. I don’t see green in the photo, but I will probably use a little as an accent color. This gives me a good start on colors. I know orange isn’t my favorite (and many of  you said the same thing), so I won’t use orange on this.

Trio is from Brown Paper Packages. Since my LNS doesn’t carry Trio, I ordered 5 of the colors to play with and I’m confident it will work well for this project. It’s the same wool/silk combination (Silk & Ivory) that I used on the Blue Middle Atlas Rug. But Trio is standable, so I can use one or two strands at a time to work on 18 count. That will keep it easy to manage and will avoid any pilling.

Another thread I’m playing with is Splendor by Rainbow Gallery. This is a strandable silk thread. I know silk is used in many of the rugs I’ve been studying. I am going to buy 4-5 colors that I can use as accent colors for some of the motifs. I have a very pale yellow that will work, but I need to get a green and at least two more shades of brown to make parts of the motifs a little more visible.

The Trio for the entire project won’t be here until next week, but I can show you what I have on hand. The skein across the top will be the background for the rug – the major color. I didn’t want anything really orange and this will work well, I think. It’s called Peanut Butter. On the left are the other Trio colors. The darkest brown is from my blue rug. I ordered the same color in Trio, as the Silk & Ivory will be too thick for this project. The lightest color of Splendor is a light beige. The only color that isn’t in this photo is off-white. I should have grabbed some of that from the Silk & Ivory to include in the photo, but forgot.

It’s easy to see that this project will not have any vibrant colors. I’ve chosen a more neutral set of colors. Something a little different from what I’ve stitched before. We’ll see how this goes.

How to Adapt Needlepoint – Step 2

Step 2 – What size will it be and what kind of canvas will it be stitched on?

I want to keep this to a manageable size. I don’t want to be stitching on this for the rest of the year.

Looking at the top and bottom bands, there is a row of “boxes” with a large X in each one. So I started with that.

If I made each one 1.5” square, then I could do the whole rug based on that. The bands across the top, bottom, sides, and bands that cross up and down and across will all be 1.5” wide – that’s 27 stitches if I use 18 count canvas.

There are 9 boxes across the bottom with 3 boxes under each section where you have the large yellow and black areas. So I plan to make the yellow and black sections 4.5” wide and 4” tall. I did a quick drawing on graph paper and colored in the yellow and black sections, and not much else. I wanted to get an idea of how it would look and the approximate size of the rug on 18 count.

I know for sure that the X band will be 13.5” tall (9 squares that are 1.5″ square). The length of this quick rendering is 21” long. I know that’s not quite accurate for several reasons.

I forgot to make the black section twice as wide as the yellow. This will add about a half inch or more to the length.

I haven’t played with the black and white sections yet, so I don’t know how many stitches I need to plan for. There are four of these sections above and below the yellow bands. And there are small bands that look like zigzags above and below the yellow. That will add another few stitches. When that’s worked out, it should be about 23 inches long. I won’t be stitching the rug for a few weeks, so this could all change.

Now Step 2 is more or less complete. This is always a rough estimate of size. As I do my practice stitching later in the development stage, this will become more exact.