Medallion Rug Practice Stitching Borders

Since I’m going to be using 4 different borders on this rug, it’s time to play with some border designs. I’ve used the Snake Skeleton before on the Middle Atlas Rug, but I’ll use new colors for it this time. The picture is dark – Merlot borders, the fish are two shades of red, the background is Midnight, but I might try Navy to see it that brightens it up a little, and the skeleton stitches are Dijon. The section going vertically has a lighter skeleton, and I won’t use that. It would draw too much attention from the rest of the border.

Then I tried a border of 8-pointed stars, which I like but haven’t decided on a background color yet. I also tried a border of diamonds on point with cross stitches inside. This looks good on paper but I’m not sure it will work on the rug.

I’ve seen a border in the Moroccan embroideries and some rugs that looks like a backward S. I had to play with this one for a while to figure out how to needlepoint it. I’ve got it working if it goes in a straight line, but the center will have a border around an octagon. I’m still trying to figure out if I can work on a slant. If not, it will have to be one of the borders that go around the entire rug. I used Mosaic stitch for the outer border of this one, but it will have to be changed. As you can see, there is an extra stitch along one side of the S repeat. So I’ll probably switch to Cashmere stitch which is done over 3 threads and will work out better.

I like three of these enough to pencil them in for the rug. I’m still playing with other possibilities in order to decide a fourth border. Since I’ll have to start with the borders, you won’t have to wait more than a week or so to see which one I’ll be starting with.

The next post will show some motifs I’ve been working on to use at the top and bottom of the rug.

Medallion Rug Planning

I’ve been a little under the weather this past week with a cold, but I’m still thinking ahead. It’s about time to start the next rug, so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and planning. I showed you a photo of an antique rug last month that is my inspiration for the new rug. But all the photos have been put away and I’m designing the rug on my own. The first thing I did was think about the layout of the rug. The antique rug has lots of triangles, but I’m doing something different. This might be a little light, but you should be able to get a rough idea of what I’ll be doing.

I’ll be stitching three borders around the rug. The X and Diamonds at each end just mark the place where I will be putting large motifs. The center is an elongated octagon with a border around it. So I have lots of work to do. I have four borders to play with and 3 large motifs to plan.

Then I needed to decide the colors to use for the project. I knew I wanted dark blue and lots of red. This type of rug is more like the traditional Turkish, Persian, and Oriental rugs. In Morocco, they are called Rabati rugs – rugs from the capital of Rabat.

I decided my main colors quite easily, but needed some other colors to provide contrast in the borders and the motifs. I have three picked out, but have three more in the wings if I need them. Here’s the palette:

These are all Silk & Ivory by Brown Paper Packages which will be used on 13 count canvas. Starting on the left -

Classic Navy – the color for the center background

Midnight – used in borders and maybe motifs

Merlot – the edges of the borders

Cabernet – borders and motifs

Burgundy – the main red color which will be used as often as possible

Bordeaux – borders and motifs

Claret – borders and motifs

Dijon – borders and motifs

Paprika – borders and motifs

Curry – borders and motifs (finally gives me the gold color I really wanted but couldn’t find the right shade – thanks Anne!)

Now to practice stitch and get more details decided. I hope to be able to start work on this rug December 1st.

High Atlas Rug – My Favorite Parts

This will be the final post for the High Atlas Rug. I promised I would tell you what I liked best about it.

First is my favorite insert, the one shown below. This one really gives the Moroccan feel to me. The sections that were done in the yellow area match the black section in size, so it is more balanced.

The my second favorite is the star bands, one of which is shown below. The vertical bands in the rug had to stay fairly straight and lined up because of the space available on each side of the motifs. With the two horizontal bands (the star bands) I had a little more room to play around. The stars were placed fairly even across the row, but they are one or two threads above or below each other. Then I did the same thing with the small motifs between them. It gives a more haphazard arrangement, which I really like.

The photo also shows the small black band so you can see how I changed it to be simpler and lighter. Don’t be afraid to change an element if it isn’t to your liking. Sometimes it changes the whole look of the piece – small change and a big change. This was was a great improvement to the overall look of the rug.

Thank you for all the comments about the finished rug! I enjoy hearing from you.

I started planning a new pillow pattern last night. Hopefully I’ll get it figured out in time to stitch it online in a week or two. I’ll use the leftover thread from this project, but Peanut Butter won’t be the main color this time.

High Atlas Rug – Finale!

69 days!

15 skeins of Trio thread, and  5 cards of Splendor Silk were used to complete this High Atlas Rug.

It measures 13.5 inches X 23 inches.

Here is the original rug so you can compare it with my adaptation. My colors are a little softer but close to the original. And mine is definitely smaller in size.

My goals for this rug were to create a needlepoint rug that looked like a woven rug and I feel I accomplished that goal. The second goal was to create motifs that could be woven into the rug as I stitched. Some of the motifs do contain the Brick Stitch which I used to create the woven feel of the original. Others used different stitches, but I like the look of them within in the rug. The motifs stand out a little more because of the use of other stitches.

There are two things I don’t like about the rug. The dandruff of the canvas showing through in many parts of the rug is my main complaint. The second is the green that I used in the rug. When used in very tiny amounts it’s okay, but it seems too much in some of the motifs. Maybe if I had used more of an olive green, it would have blended in a little more. The description of the original rug said they used green but I really don’t see any myself.

Here is my completed High Atlas Rug:

Despite my grumbling about the dandruff, I think she turned out nicely. She’s similar to the original, but not identical. There were more motifs on the original. There was no set pattern for the vertical bands and the star bands, and I felt some were too crowded so I made them cleaner and simpler. Over the weekend I’ll post one more time about this rug, telling you about my favorite parts.

Thank you for making the journey from blank canvas to completed rug with me. As usual after finishing a large project, I long for small projects for a while, so you’ll see a new version of the Henna Star design next week. After that, who knows what I’ll be working on. There are several things in the works.

High Atlas Rug – Progress 20

There isn’t much to show today, so let’s do a question first. Looking at the rug, which color do you think would use the most thread? How about second most? I purchased five skeins of Trio to try out the thread and determine how much I would need to stitch the rug. The yellow and black used in the inserts is about the same amount and when you take out the design in the middle of each black band, I would have a little left over. I decided to purchase one extra skein for the beginning and ending band. I also figured that there was a lot more of the background color (peanut butter) than anything else, so I ordered several extra skeins of that. Now that I’m almost finished, I discovered something over the weekend. I’m going to have almost 4 skeins of the peanut butter background left over!! And I might not have enough black to finish! All the others colors I planned just right. The problem with the black was having to use 3 ply instead of 2 ply to cover the canvas better. So I used the same number of skeins of black and peanut butter to do this rug. Who would have thought?

I’m now working on the final two bands. The X boxes are half finished and the black band is a third finished. Everything is looking good and I hope to have this finished by Saturday. We’ll have to see. Here is the final work area:

And here’s the whole rug as it is today. One more post and then it will be time to go over the good and bad things about the project. Stay tuned.

High Atlas Rug – Progress 19

All the vertical bands are now complete! I finished the band on the right last night. I also took the time to take out the center of the motif in band 5 (bottom left). It didn’t look as good as the original one and I found that I had not counted properly when adding the various layers to form the diamond. I added a row of stitches over 1 thread in the same dark brown as the last layer and then stitched the center again. Now it looks better and matches the first version. On the left below is insert 5 and the last 3 motifs in the left band. On the right, insert 6 and the last 4 motifs on the right band.

All that’s left now are the two horizontal bands that I used to start the rug. The large X boxes and the final black band. I’ll probably work on them both over the next few days, alternating between the two. As I’ve said before, the black is hard to stitch at night.

When the rug is finished in another week to 10 days, I’ll go over my goals for the rug to see if I accomplished what I set out to do. I’ll also tell you about what parts I really like, what things went wrong, and maybe even tell you about some upcoming projects to share with you too.

High Atlas Rug – Progress 18

The last insert is now complete. I changed it a little by eliminating two of the diamond shapes and switching the background to Brick Stitch like the rest of the rug. I was never really happy with the Basketweave Stitch on the first version. Around the outside of the center motif I only used one color, rather than the two in the first version. It’s better now, but I’m still not completely happy with it.

I was hoping to finish the band on the left side of the rug last night, but only added one motif. I’ll add the one that looks like Irish Chain today and then see if there is room for two more motifs or just one. Then I’ll move on the the right side of the rug and finish that band. I think there is room for 5 motifs on that side. So close to be finished. It’s getting exciting now to see how long it will take to complete this fourth rug.

Needlepoint Now Magazine

Many of you who read my blog know about Judy Harper of Austin, Texas. She shares her painted canvases, stitching tips, and free fun projects on her two blogs Possibilities, etc and Freebies, etc! (which are listed in the Blogroll to the right). She also writes an article for each issue of Needlepoint Now Magazine.

The issue that is mailing this week is for September and October. In her latest article she interviewed me about how I got started adapting Berber rugs to needlepoint and shows the inspiration and my adaptation of the Blue Rug from the Middle Atlas of Morocco.

I’m hoping that people who read the article will come here and see what I’m working on now and continue to read along as I work on more projects based on Moroccan and Berber art. Now you know why I’m in no hurry to finish the High Atlas Rug. I didn’t want to finish it before the article came out.

I’m working on some smaller designs to do after the latest rug is completed. And I have a small stitch-along project to share with all of you for the One Year Anniversary of this blog on October 16th!! Stay tuned. There is a lot more to come.

High Atlas Rug – Progress 17

Moving right along! I’ve finished Insert #5 and I like the colors better on this one. The band that runs through the middle of the rug is also completed. I love using that word- completed! About two more weeks till the entire rug is completed. This rug definitely is stitching up more slowly, but I don’t mind.

My next task is to do Insert #6, which is on the top, left in the photo below. Since I didn’t really like that motif, I’m hoping to change a couple of things (nothing drastic) and see if it will look better. If I have time, I’ll also work on finishing the band on the left side of the rug. It only needs 4 motifs to be completed. Here’s the whole rug:

High Atlas Rug – Progress 16

Things are going faster now. No new motifs to design or show. Just repeats of the beginning seven inches of the rug. I’ve stitched the last of the small black bands and the zigzag bands. I’m now working on the fifth insert. I’ll hopefully finish that today and then stitch the middle band and start the last insert tomorrow.

Insert 5 is a repeat of insert 2. It was top right when I started this rug. I’ve change the colors a little and moved it to the left side this time. I’m stitching the black while I sit outside each afternoon on the shady patio. It seems to be easier to stitch in the natural light.

I’ll stitch the four motifs that are between the last two inserts before starting the last insert. I hope to have that done in my next post. It’s more enjoyable stitching the rug now that all the designing is completed. I only have to make a few decisions on what colors to use for each of the motifs and that is much easier now as well. I can easily see which motifs stand out more and tend to use those color combinations more. I’m hoping to be finished in about two weeks.