Bear Paw Coaster

Here’s another adaptation of a quilt pattern. You can see the Bear Paw clustered in the center of the coaster, one paw per square. This is another 3 inch coaster so it’s a good way to use up some of your stash. I prefer to use overdyes for the four box borders, ThreadWorx or Watercolors, and then solid colors for the bear paw and the background. This particular coaster was done with a Needle Necessities overdye for the boxes. A dark green would be a good choice for the paw, but I went with a golden brown. Fill in the background with any stitch you choose. Since the interior of each square is an odd number, I wasn’t able to continue to fill in the background using the Scotch Stitch, so I used a Byzantine stitch. I’ve used this pattern in some of my boxes as well. With the boxes, the design is a little larger and the Scotch Stitch works for the entire background.

You can use any threads you have in your stash – cottons, silks, wools, metallics, or any combination. The background doesn’t have to be white either. In this version, I used a colored background and it still looks great! Use your imagination and create color combinations that fit your style and color scheme. This is another pattern where you could make a set of coasters with thread left over from another larger project you have completed to reinforce the color scheme you have established.

Patterns for these coasters will be coming the end of January. Please don’t copy my patterns.

Moroccan Motif #10

I’ve started a new motif. It’s in the center of this picture – all the little triangles. Because I’m working on a small sized rug, I can’t do as many triangles as this picture shows. 

I’ve taken artistic license on this one. I’ve created a pattern with three triangles, alternating off-white and yellow rows. Then I added red and black for background and borders between the sets of triangles. Below is what I have created. I’ve done two repeats of the pattern and will continue to look at it and see if I want to change anything before I begin to stitch again.

 

 

Because of the holiday, and a two-day craft fair, I’ll be offline for a few days. Have a great holiday. See you next week.

Border #3 is Finished

When I showed you pages from my notebook, border #3 was shown but I wasn’t happy with it. This is how it looked when I started this project.

I have worked on it and now there is a new version. I think the large red crosses and smaller yellow crosses are a very good match to the pillow. But there is too much white showing through on the background for the stitch.

This pillow and the rugs I’ve shown are woven. This border design was stitched over a solid black section. I need to write comments in the notebook that any sections that are stitched over a woven section need to have a background of basketweave first. Then my stitches can be placed over that background. That will make it look much better. I’m not going to take it out. This is a learning piece for me.

Here is the rug so far. I think it’s finally beginning to look like a rug.

The Color Blue This Time

I thought it was time for another post about color. Our master bedroom is wedgwood blue, with beige and brown (dictated by the beautiful tile on the master bathroom floor). I had bought two Jean Hilton designs last year. You’ve already seen the olive and rust one that is downstairs. So I pulled out Jean’s beautiful French Diamond and set out to find the colors for the bedroom.

I wanted to use the French blue mono canvas, so I needed a dark Watercolors that had some blue and brown in it. I ended up with Storm Clouds. I don’t have any left apparently, so here is a close-up of part of the finished design so you can see the color variations. There’s a dark blue, mottled blue, brown, etc. Perfect.

Then off to the store for threads I didn’t have in my stash. The three shades of blue in this picture are floss, laid very carefully to look like ribbons. I had those and the Neon Rays, but needed to buy Flair, Frosty Rays, and Kreinik, both #16 braid and 1/16″ ribbon (which I love). I had more choices than those in the following picture and tried and eliminated several before the final group was selected. There were two Kreinik ribbons, one was beige and one was more rust. The rust looked horrible next to the light blue ribbon and the beige Neon Rays toward the center. I ripped it out and used the beige ribbon in the center with the rust on the outside of the design. The design worked better for me by going from the light colors in the center and getting darker as you move to the outside. I also found it interesting that the brown Kreinik ribbon on the outer corners seems so much lighter than the Kreinik braid that is placed by the laid floss in the close-up. There are the same number. I think the rust ribbon alters the color some.

I took out one step in one area of the design. The “flowers” in the middle of each side had an extra border around them. I didn’t like it, though I tried it with two different colors of blue. Instead, I made the pattern for those sections a little bigger using the stitches Jean had designed. I love the completed design and it is framed with a medium wedgwood blue velvet-like mat.

Oh the Possibilities!

I’m reworking the next stitch on the rug today. While taking a break on this, I went blog reading.

Judy at Possiblities, etc! is also working on adapting art – Japanese ceramics! She’s done extensive research on Japanese ceramics and has learned about process they used to create these beautiful ceramics. With that extensive knowledge, she has created some beautiful painted canvases. The detail is amazing to me. The history behind the designs is intriguing and makes the canvases even more wonderful to stitch. It makes stitching them have a sense of history too.

This got me digging into the stack of books on the needlepoint room floor. Moroccan art has more than rugs and tapestries to study. I just got a book called The Arts and Crafts of Morocco. This covers jewelry as well as tile, mosaics, and ceramics.

Here are two examples I’ve added to my photos to use for reference as I start designing next year. There are just too many beautiful things to choose from. And you’ll notice, they don’t use red in either of these types of art. Interesting.

Back to the rug so I can do another post the end of the week.

Adapting Art

Isn’t this embroidered panel beautiful? I’m going to enlarge it and see if I can figure out the stitches that were used. As you can see from this picture and others I’ve posted, red is the main color for rugs, tapestries, and embroidery in Morocco. I haven’t been able to find many example of embroidery so far.

My love of Moroccan art has me studying rugs from Morocco and trying to recreate some of the motifs and borders in a sample rug of my own. You’ve seen some of them on this blog over the last month. Adapting art is not just looking at a motif and a border and starting to stitch. Creating them using only the basketweave stitch would make this easier, but that is not what I’m after. I want to create my own form of art based on Moroccan art.

I’m only at the beginning of my studying. I have a stack of books, ranging from general books about Morocco (even though I lived there), history of Moroccan rugs, decorating with Moroccan style, and books about Arab motifs and how they have developed and changed over time and why.

Over the next year or two, I will be learning everything I can about Morocco and the rugs, tapestries, and tiles they have created over the last century. When I have a complete understanding of the patterns and style, I will be able to take all that knowledge and create original designs that contain components of Moroccan art as well as my own twist on them. In the meantime, I’ll continue to play with patterns and finish the rug I’ve started. I’ll also design and make some coasters using the motifs I’m studying. I hope you’ll continue to come along on this journey.

Another Coaster Design

Time for another post on choosing colors and a new coaster. This coaster design is called Star Quilt. I started out making it from three different colors. One color for the background, one for the stars, and a third for the little square fillers. This looks great in red, white and blue. Or you can try two shades of one color and an accent color, like two shades of blue and a very pale yellow in this picture.

Then I decided to do the design in four colors – two shades of aqua, dark brown, and white.

I can’t seem to leave a design the way I originally design it. So I decided to try it with an overdye. This one is done with Needle Necessities #178 – shades of lavender, pale olive green, and pale wedgwood blue. I chose white for the stars and then dark purple for the center of the stars and the filler squares.

This one is my favorite. It doesn’t even seem like the same design. That’s why it’s fun to play with different colors and types of thread. They can change the way a project looks, and it’s so easy to do. I used the same stitches on all three of these coasters.

P.S. If you’re interested in making these little coasters, I’ll be charting them over the next month or so. They will be available for purchase, hopefully by the end of January. I created these on my own, so please respect the copyright. Thank you.

Motif #3 Reworked

This version definitely looks much better. I’ve changed colors some, but I think it will work well with the rest of the rug as I go forward. Here’s how Motif #3 looks on a real rug. You can also see the sample stitching I did for the motif. I originally did Motif #3 in all brown with an off-white stitch around the outside. It didn’t look much like the original motif and was way too brown for the rug. Here’s how it looks now.

Like the rug, the color of the background and the stitches along the top and bottom change with each repeat of the motif. The off-white at the top of the two completed motifs will be more visible when the next border is completed. Now it’s time to work on the computer and complete the design. When that is finished, I’ll post it.

I’m finding that the Impressions doesn’t cover well when I do straight stitches. I doubled the thread for the red sections of this motif. I think I need to go back and double the black thread as well.

8 Point Star Coasters

While I’m reworking Motif #3 on the Moroccan rug, here’s a coaster that I designed several years ago. This star is created by making four chevrons together. It’s a great way to use up leftover threads from other projects. Normally I make this with one overdye and two solid colors. But you can use any type of thread. I’ve used Kreinik #16 (in the second picture below), wool, silk, and any combination of these. If you’ve completed a project that will be in your living room, make a set of coasters from the remaining threads to match. The combinations are endless. They are mounted in three inch acrylic coasters.

This first picture shows the original version. I use overdyed threads for the center star and for the corners. I prefer a light color for the center and a darker color for the outside border. A set of coasters with this Watercolors could be the same center and background and a different dark color for the outside border (pink, lime, and yellow would be great).

This second version has only one little change, but it makes a big difference. The small square in the corner of the background that is surrounded by the overdye thread is now the same color as the outside border. In this particular coaster I used an overdye for the background and Kreinik #16 for the star.

The newest version leaves out the background around the star. I finished it off by putting diagonal stitches for the background. Each diagonal row is four threads from the previous row. 

Let the Stitching Begin

I’ve started the stitching using the chart here that was posted last week. I’m using Congress cloth and I attached a larger piece than the 5 x 7 finished size to the scroll frame because I’m not sure there will be enough room if I have to alter some of the motifs to make them larger. This stitching sample is an example of how things can change once you start stitching.

I’ve already run into something that isn’t working. If you look at the post Creating Motifs and Borders, you will see that Motif #3 doesn’t have all one color. I think the stitch itself will work, but I’m tearing it out and will redo it with several colors to make it a closer match to the original motif. I hope to have it redone later this week.