Between One Step and Another

  There is such a feeling of triumph when I finish a long project.  I started the Elephant smalls in early July and they have been a constant companion in the work box all this time.  They have been on road trips - ridden in cars, trucks and airplanes, crossed a continent to a foreign country and back.  They've been looked at by hundreds of people as I sat working on them at shows.  They've been the vehicle to start more than a few conversations with an unexpected variety of people who admired them or remembered their grandmothers' handwork.  Those elephants have been a sort of member of my internal family and have spun off their own share of secondary inspriations large and small.  Hopefully, they will be the foundation of a growing new enterprise as they have already led to offers and suggestions for the future.  Two days ago, I took the final stitch - did the last finishing work - did the photographs. I'll be putting the patterns and pictures together to make the pattern set in the next couple of days.  I should be thrilled - jubilant.  But there's a sort of post-partem melancholy - a sense of loss that what has occupied the center of my artistic universe for all this time is now done and passing into yesterday.  Tomorrow has yet to take its place and fill the void.  Its an odd feeling - this time of transition between one artistic obsession and another.

Well, soon the details will all be wrapped up - the patterns packaged - the objects will integrate themselves into my work basket at need or be carefully wrapped and stored in a box. I knew this would happen - it always does. Major projects have a way of generating their own center of gravity so that all the rest of the artistic endeavors orbit around them.  Even when I'm not actively working on them, they are playing somewhere in the back of my mind, keeping their own share of my attention. When I'm done, its like having music that was playing constantly in the background suddenly stop.  Now I'm waiting for the next song to begin. So while I was working on Elephants I was also designing other things. Today or tomorrow at the latest the new series will begin - the patterns are all waiting in a notebook; the colors have already been laid out and organized,  And that too will be lovely ....

But I really REALLY enjoyed those elephants :-)

Adventures in a Foreign Country

Experiencing a foreign country can do wonders for an artist's perspective and creativity. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone and daily routine can open up all sorts of possibilities to let your imagination flow. Recently, I decided to visit my cousin who lives in southern Alberta, Canada. We haven't see each other in quite a while and, basically, we just needed some time to catch up and have fun. We are, also, involved with some mutual creative projects and there comes a point with that sort of thing when sharing files over the Internet isn't enough and we need to sit down together for a face to face collaboration. She is designing the Athena's Needle website and we are co-authoring a series of children's books. In short, we are doing what we've always done and cheering each other on with our creative endeavors.

But I have found another dimension to this trip that I didn't think about or expect. I live in the sub-tropical semi jungle of Central Florida where there is not real Fall or dramatic change of seasons. Where Winter is a time when it gets cool enough for the azaleas and camellias to bloom. Where humidity sits on your skin like a heavy velvet glove and it rains every afternoon at 3. Coming to the arid prairie of southern Alberta and the brilliant Fall colors has taken me out of the world I normally live in. Every kind of small thing in the environment is just basically different. The shapes of trees, the sound of the bird song, and the feel of the air. It is lovely and mild here in the Fall. The dry air changes the quality of the light and sharpens all sorts of minute details. The water in the roadside ditches sparkles more vividly and the blue of the sky is a gradient of different hues. Although the winds are gentle, you can feel the colder weather sitting just beyond the doorstep. All this difference has allowed me to step aside from my daily expectations and see things with new eyes. Ideas, projects, designs and colors are crowding my mind. I bought a new sketch book just to keep up with it all. Its so refreshing to get this kind of clarity just by stepping back from the too-well-known and embrace these new stimulations. I feel renewed and energized. And taking it all home is nothing I have to pack in my luggage or declare at the border. It is the treasures of travel and family and friendship that is beyond price. Now I will weave it all into new designs and have those as souvenirs of not just a place, but a journey of inspiration.

Planning

A discussion came up about how projects are planned.  I’ve always found it interesting how artist find their way from the initial moment of inspiration to the completed piece.  Each person develops their own process so I though I would share mine here.

As for design planning – When I get an idea for a design, I collect a whole series of images from books and from image files on the web. Once I find a picture or series of pictures that feel like I want things to look, I work up the design in PCStitch since I do a lot of cross stitch and petit point. I work with several images until I get the feel of what I want into the space I have set up and go from there setting up the colors and borders. But the colors on the computer screen are never quite the same as ones in real life under real light, so the next step is getting out my floss boxes and sitting by a sunny window to fiddle with the colors until they are all right with the piece and each other.

Its the nature of the project that determines what kind of fabric I use. If I am making pin cushions or smalls, I favor cotton floss on Aida cloth or hardanger fabric for its tight structure, washability and durability. I expect smalls to get a lot of use and wear and I want them washable after life in the work box. Linen, especially evenweave linen doesn’t have the firm feel I like and tends to get small pulls in the weave after a while. But if I am doing samplers, bell pulls or similar pieces that don’t get a lot of hand wear, linen is so lovely and agreeable and partners so well with silks. So its finding a balance with materials and purpose.

So I guess for me planning a project is a juggling and balancing act bringing images, fabrics and fibers into agreement with each other all before I sit down to stitch. But the true test of a design or project comes in the working. Sometimes no matter how careful you are with planning it doesn’t come out like you want it in the execution. The last stage of a project is not being afraid to take something out if it doesn’t work.

A Shine and a Sparkle

We have come up with Logo 2.0 today.  My cousin, Pam Steele, designer and creative genius behind Mystic Spyder Designs, has taken the logo and put a new shine on it.  Later this month I will be traveling to Canada to sit down one-on-one with her and get our new website planned and designed.  We have great ideas and I can’t wait to see how they will go from concept to reality.  And since the new set of embroidered smalls is just about ready to be unveiled, what better time to show it all off.

Deceptive Simplicity

Ages ago I found some patterns in an antique pattern book I thought might be interesting to try sometime.  They got filed into that vague “good for something eventually” category and saved on a page with other similar motifs.  The other day while looking for border ideas for a different project, I came across it.  With a few changes and minor edits, the simple motif became a running border; a few more edits gave it a corner.  And within just a short time I had a wide border and corner that easily became all kinds of articles large and small.  There is a certain joy to having something flowing and flexible that easily fits where you want it to.  There is no special honor about agonizing and fussing with a design until you get it right – simple can be wonderful.  And with simple came the thought of having a freebie when I mount my web site.  This, too, is not a bad idea.

Now for choosing the colors.  The leaves were no real problem, but when it came to the flowers… well…. I’ve mentioned before about all the glorious colors you can find in cotton floss.  And they come in shaded color groups that are just perfect for this sort of thing.  And therein lies the problem.  First it was going to be red because of the project I had originally wanted the border for.  You know, geraniums.  And then I found the blue – well, cornflowers.  But what about purple irises, and aren’t they more interesting with the the smaller flowers in one set of colors and the larger flowers in another?  But what about orange? Its Fall here and all the stores are filled with brilliant Fall colors like crsyanthemums.  And you can’t forget roses, can you?  So by this time I have five different color groups and when I found myself sorting out the bronzes and plums this morning I knew I had to call a halt to it.  There is no end to the beautiful colors – somewhere you just have to draw a line.  But even after that, what about mixing and matching the flowers.  Why stop with just one color of flowers on a thing when you can have two or three or all of them in a row?  *sigh*  I could see where this was about to go.  So I think I will package the set with a chart for color substitutions and a couple of paragraphs of ideas and suggestions for the individual to individualize it.

So far so good and perhaps I may or may not have created a monster – after all, if I make a substitution chart I only have to have one full chart of articles.  Okay – we’re ramping back down to simple again.  But there are blank spaces that the borders naturally make.  Is this a subtle invitation for me to get together a set of monograms for it?  After all I’ve been thinking of monograms – a small signature space – hm…  I think I see another simple monster looming on the horizon, but I think I’m make that for another day.

Moving Forward

As expected, I came home with a head full of new ideas. I also got lots of work done while I was away and the Moghul Elephant series is just about ready. Now comes the tedious part of making the pattern inserts, preparing the patterns, and checking the details. What makes this a little intimidating is that I have only rarely worked from patterns so I'm a little hazy on what this package should include. But I'm sure I'll come up with something useful.

Part of this process means getting together a logo and banner for the watermark and planned website. So all morning I have been working with my cousin, Pam Phillips-Steele (awesome artist/designer of the Steele Wizard Tarot and genius-in-charge of Mystic Spider Web Designs ). Together we came up with the prototype of the brand new banner and are framing out my website. This is really exciting. There's a lot of admin and paperwork ahead here, but a lot of it will become standard modules. This dream is taking its first few steps towards reality.

A Finished Piece

Embroidery is, by nature, a time-consuming business.  Its intended to be – to spend endless hours absorbed in a pleasant colorful task is an enjoyable thing for millions of people.  But sometimes when working towards a goal it seems like it will never get done; when the number of stitches done is exceeded by the number of stitches yet to do and that proportion seems like it will never change.  So when a piece is finally completed, when it is stitched, assembled, lined and embellished there is a wonderful feeling of triumph and accomplishment.  I was going to wait to assemble all the pieces until I had finished all the embroidery but I really needed to see a final product to give myself a boost.  So it is with great delight and no small amount of happy dancing that I present to you the Moghul Elephant Scissors Sheath and Emory Fob.  For those of you who like the details, it is done in DMC stranded Floss on 18 ct Aida Cloth.   More in this series will follow shortly.

As for now, we are off to Pennsic until the 15th of August.  Hopefully I will come back with wonderful stories memories and pictures. 

Traveling in Style

We are almost ready to start packing for the Great Journey North.  Every year we set up on Merchant’s Row at the Pennsic War at Cooper’s Lake Campground in Slippery Rock, PA for 2 glorious weeks of camping in our palatial Medieval pavilion,  This is a kind of international annual convention for the Society for Creative Anachronism.  That’s a group we belong to that recreates the Middle Ages and has been a huge source of inspiration for my needleworking for years.  We will be selling our Dragonscale Jewelry and Phillip’s beautiful carved horns and other treasures in Merchant Booth #72 (right outside the back door of the barn – in case you’re looking for us) .  I will be showing off my latest Egyptian blackwork creation in the Arts & Crafts Exhibition as well as teaching my class on Medieval Egyptian Clothing from Period Sources.  If you will be at Pennsic please drop by and say hello – the teapot is always on.

One lovely advantage of a long trip like this is the endless hours in the truck that I will have to do nothing to do but sit and stitch – no TV, no phones, no distractions.  I am so close to completely my first set of smalls – the Moghul Elephant series.  I have two versions of biscornu – a large elaborate one and a smaller simpler version that only need backgrounding and detailng.  I have not yet started the glasses case but that will be along shortly and then the set will be done with box lid to follow soon after.

Because I really hate to be without a project, I am already deep into designing my next series. I have several that are vying for my attention.  One is sailing ships, another is celestial sun and moon, a third I am toying with is a cat in a garden.  And then there’s that peacock idea that keeps pecking away at me, or was it a stylized lotus.  LOL At any rate by the time I return I will hopefully have finished the baby elephant and will be moving onto the next round.  I will keep you all posted

Inspiration

Even while in the midst of a major project, I find that its important to always have something waiting in the wings - some new design cycle that will pick up smoothly when I finally finish what I'm working on. I have been thinking for a while about doing a series with a Celestial Sun/Moon theme. Those kinds of images have fascinated me since I was little and delighted in looking at the Proctor & Gamble Moon and Stars logo. I have experimented with one drawing after another, but a recent discovery has thrown all the old designs out the window. I have discovered the Prague Astronomical Clock. The colors, the nesting of circles, the symbols and motion are just what I had in mind. Now to spend a while translating it into a design. I love it when a plan starts to come together.

Baby Elephants

Time to brag a little. I have been working for a while now on a series of smalls and a box lid with an Indian theme inspired by a brilliantly colored scarf I bought last March and a favorite gauze skirt. I got the box lid mostly sketched out but the details were fighting me. So I switched to finishing the pin book cover. It was the perfect smaller space to work out the color palette and basic design elements that will be repeated in the other pieces. And now that this fellow is completed the others are falling into place. The scissors fob is done - that was easy - only took a day. The scissors sheath is within a or two of being finished. The biscornu pin cushions large and small are already designed and ready to stitch along with the glasses case. And the box lid is well on its way. At least I know I won't run out of hand work while we are at Pennsic. (I must remember to take enough floss.)

The next step will be lining and assembling them. I am hoping while we are at Pennsic to find just the right lining fabric. I have some sturdy wine colored cotton that would harmonize well, and because it is a solid color I could embellish it with a little dab of the original design - tiny flowers on the inside of the pin book or on the back of the glasses case pocket. But I could also pick midnight blue, or rich green or deep gold. I will just have to fiddle with things to see what goes best. As lining fabric will not be part of the kits, its up to me to chose what I personally think sets off the pattern best. Even though I won't be including the fabric, I'll be including a page on assembly instructions which will show how to lay out the linings. The pin book will have a small inner pocket inside the front cover that could hold a small pair of scissors or a thread cutter or needle packets. The glasses case will have a back pocket. I decided on that while search for my nail file and 6 inch ruler in my work box. As the glasses case is for magnifying glasses that live in the work box, it seemed like a good idea to have a pocket on the back of it that would hold all those long skinny things that invariably sink to the bottom of the box.

The box will also be lined but in a cream color. I plan to use hardanger cloth for that as it is sturdy and has a wonderful even weave. I know once I get down to it I won't be able to resist putting some detailing inside. After all, what is a blank surface but an area of Great Potential. The box is deep enough that I can put a pocket inside the lid and tuck pockets around the sides to keep all the rattly loose things semi-contained. Yes, this all sounds terribly complex and one detail tends to reveal another. But if its one thing I've learned in all the years of being an artist, its that creating a work of art is all in the details. I don't want to put hundreds of hours into a project just to end up wishing I'd taken the extra 20 minutes to do some little thing that would make it so much nicer. Besides, once this is done its done. The patterns will be set up; the instructions will be written. I only have to invent this once and the rest is just surface embellishment.

I think working the lid and pin book together was a good approach to the process. I've started a few other designs that are still in the sketching phase. They seem to be following this same pattern - a broad concept for the box lid that I refine and tighten as I work through the smaller elements. Right now none of them have taken hold. Its as though they are all in the "dream" stage. As things go they will all work themselves out in good time. As always - It will come to me.

Elements

Design comes not only from inner inspiration but form external stimulus. A passing glance at a shape or object can set off a cascade of ideas. A series of colors or the way the light falls in a certain way can start my brian leaping from one thing to another building an image as it goes. Part of this process is learning when to let go of my mind and let it wander, to be the observer in my own process and leave the role of censor or critic out of things until something more concrete is arrived at. This doesn't happen all the time. But when the mood strikes me its like having a small child running around exclaiming over every shiny bit of nonsense that presents itself. Sometimes they are good concepts that I set aside for another time, so I take notes, gather a few images and put them in a holding pattern. Sometimes these ideas really take hold and I have to set them all down all at once. And I really know why these things are called "brain storms" - they begin with a brilliant flash and then blow everything else out of their path until they are done. The real work of it is to get the "dazzle" out of my inner eye and get the elements sorted and arranged - to take a design from a jumble of good ideas and marshal it into a harmonious reality of color and content.

The particular inspiration for this week is boxes. Since I've decided to do a series of box lids with matching accessories, getting the boxes first is pretty important. A painter has to have a canvas that's suitable for the painting - and sometimes its that blank canvas that demands what will be made of it. An artist can start with one idea, but if you let the idea unfold itself, it has the potential to become far more than the original. And I really can't just look at pictures and imagine how things might go. Its really important to have them and hold them in my hands. To turn them over and over, feeling how their shapes lend themselves to various concepts, and letting them tell me what they want to become. Yesterday, a sample arrived in the mail that fulfilled my best artistic fantasies. At the urging of a friend I had ordered a set of nested hexagonal boxes. Even before they arrived the ideas started. I woke up one morning a couple of days ago and knew what it would be. It was a real pain having to wait for the boxes to arrive to make sure they would be suitable, but I got started anyway just knowing that this was a really good one. And when I finally got the actual item, it was the perfect size and shape. This is really better than good.

So now to spend the hours at the computer drawing, designing, taking notes, getting the concepts lined up. This is what happened with the square box I bought at the craft store a few weeks ago. The trouble is the time it takes to make the prototypes. Its hard to remain fresh and spontaneous with a project when it takes 2-3 weeks just to do a sample. But this one - oh, I definitely know its going to be worth it. And the little elephant that was the brain storm of 2 weeks ago to adorn the square box is not forgotten. The sample for that series is almost done, the color palette decided on, the forms set up so that the rest will be variations on a theme. The trick is getting all the brilliant flashes to line up and take a number so they can each shine in their own time. Well, one step at a time.

Colors

Although it was my grandmother who first taught me to embroider, it wasn't until many years later that I discovered a passion for cross stitch. I was working at a crafts demonstration booth at the Kansas City Renaissance Faire. The October day had turned off chill and rainy, driving the usual crowds under cover far from where we sat. And we were really bored. The woman I was working the booth with suddenly turned to me and said "Would you like to learn to cross stitch?" At that moment, any cure for idleness would have sounded good, but it wasn't until she opened her work basket that I was hooked. There, nestled in a bag, was what could only be a captive rainbow. I felt like a kid seeing their first box of crayons. The colors were delicious - and such variety - and all shades and families of shades. This was such a far cry from the few dull shades of floss avilable at the dime store when my grandmother was embroidering tea towels. And I'm sure they were made all the more bright by the somber gray of the day surrounding us. She handed me a small square of cloth and told me I could pick any color I liked. So Laura showed me how to make an X with thread, and that day I cross stitched a single initial letter, then, in a fit of inspiration, I took a slightly darker shade and put in a line of stitches beside the first. It was like a miracle. That evening I took my treasure home and finished the letter. The next morning, I was at the door of the crafts store when it opened showing the sales lady my small sampler and asking her where I could get more of whatever it was. But the real miracle of the day was the display of DMC colors. Rank upon rank of delicious colors from bold clear primaries to subtle antiques were arranged in matched groups from delicate pales to rich darks. It was a revelation. This was certainly not the plain stuff of my childhood or the simple thread I embroidered my jeans with later in life. This was smooth fine thread fit for artistry - color fast and washable.

The next weekend, I showed up at the crafts booth with a small basket of my own and proudly displayed the small square I had spent the week finishing. Laura was amazed and pleased that her lesson had fallen on such fertile ground, but noticed that she had neglected to mention that the point of the exercise wasn't actually to fill up every single square. Having no template for this kind of work, I imagined it to be a sort of small needlepoint and worked accordingly, painting every block with color to make a whole picture. What else are all those colors for? I am told that this kind of style is referred to as "cross point" being as akin to needlepoint as it is to traditional cross stitch. But isn't that the joy of crayons or paints or colors? They seem to tell you what they want to be if you know how to listen, just like the crayons did when you were a kid.

I have come long way since that day almost 30 years ago. But every time I go to the crafts store the delight strikes me all over again. I see that rack of colors and I find that inner child again. I have long since stopped kidding myself that I'm only going to pick up a skein of the color I need, because there's always that color right next to it that has Such Potential. And, of course, you can't get just one without trying its associated shades. I have since worked with other styles of counted work - blackwork, Egyptian style counted work, Ukrainian red and black embroidery. I've worked with silk and linen flosses, and each has much to recommend it in its own way. But when I want to refresh my creativity and give my mind a treat, I always seem to wander back to the delight of those colors - simple cotton, durable, and with dye lots so consistent that I could go anywhere in the world they sell them and find a match. I think its no surprise that when I started looking for something new to create I found those colors yet again. I am looking forward to that journey.

Organization

Starting a business is a lot like writing a book. All the ideas are there. The skills are there. Even many of the materials are there. But the trick of it is to put it all into some sort of order that someone can follow besides myself. This isn't just about the art that I do with my needle; its about my ability to share it with others. And that requires not only putting my thoughts in order but putting the rest of it in order as well. That's a little more challenging.

Designing a piece used to be about an afternoon with a pad of graph paper, a pencil and an eraser and a few colored pencils. It only took a while to get together enough notes to myself to know where the project was going and the rest was just in the doing. I have a stash of floss and fabric that has grown since I did my first project many years ago that has been augmented by gifts of floss bundles from other people cleaning out their work boxes. Eventually, I sorted it out by color into sandwich bags and from that by color group just to have things sort of where I could have them in my line of sight. Once I had a project in mind, I'd pick a little from here and a little from there, or I'd go to the craft store and browse the colors picking out what pleased me at the moment. And the new acquisitions added to the ever growing melieu.

Artistically speaking, design is about spontaneity with a structure. The structure is what you intend to make - your original concept, while the spontaneity develops it as the work progresses and brings it into reality. But now that I intend to put my designs into patterns and kits, I am faced with not only getting my thoughts in order but also keeping track of what I do so that I can communicate it to others. Using needlework design software helps enormously, (and I hope to talk at some future time about various design programs on the market) I just need to remember to take a few notes and recall what colors or lines I change as I do the actual work. But it was the colors themselves that finally demanded attention this week.

First, I should mention that no matter how good your software is at the initial design, there is just no substitute for choosing your colors for real. To sit in the sunlight with a tray full of bright flosses to put one beside the other, to see how they correspond and contrast, how they interact with each other. There's only so far sandwich bags will get you - from a rainbow nest of snakes with no order at all, eventually you have smaller nests with lots of bags in between - its just another kind of nest of snakes. Earlier this week I finally snapped. Trying to pick colors for a baby elephant with flowers shouldn't be that big of a challenge but there I was sitting on the bed with colors spread all around me moving them from one heap to another. Putting bags back in the box, taking them out again. Forgetting where I'd put that whatever it was, putting it somewhere, forgetting where I'd put it, finding it when I'd found something else. I finally gave it all up in disgust and stormed off to the craft store. For a while now I've been using those little rectangular plastic bobbins that DMC makes to keep track of my floss splits and they've proven wonderfully handy. Well this was the day to bring out the big guns. I bought a couple of package of cardboard ones. They come 56 in a package and I figured I had at least that many single colors here and there.

It took the rest of the afternoon to get at least one of every color wrapped and ordered. Finding what I had multiples of, what I have bought over and over because I really really like that color. Then I found a small stack of tackle boxes we'd bought for some other project ages ago and ended up not using. Now the bobbins are again sorted by color. But instead of a jumble of bags, I have ordered ranks of color arranged by hue and color group. Its like taking a pile of piano keys, yes, each one makes a sound, but which one is right for the melody, etc etc, and now putting all those keys in a row arranged by note. I know where they are and, although I may not use every single one in a composition, they are at least available for the choosing. I even reserved one box for the colors I actually choose for the project. And although I'm not a big fan of plastic boxes as I work, its absolutely wonderful to have this contained and ordered rainbow at my fingertips, shaded like an artist's palette with nothing tangled or snarled. Its a righteous feeling. I have even made a resolution to keep things organized, to put colors on bobbins when I bring them home, to file them where they ought to go before they sink to the bottom of the work basket. We will see where that goes - where organization sits down with spontaneity. After all, they don't call me the Container Queen for nothing.

One Thing Leads to Another

I don't know exactly when this idea started to emerge. I suppose it was a culmination of a lot of small things that added up one by one. I was looking for a new creative outlet - something to grow and share based on what I loved to do. I think it began innocently enough when I looked around on line for ideas for a birth sampler to make to celebrate the birth of my first grandchild. I always designed my own things so I didn't bother looking around the wider world of needlework too often. I found a lot of things going on I hadn't seen before and it got me thinking. Then my partner suggested I showcase my needlework on DeviantArt.com - an international gallery of artists and craftspeople - as he had been doing. The enthusiastic feedback I got from people all over the world was really amazing. And then one day it came to me - why not make design kits myself? why not showcase what I do to a wider audience? It was an energizing idea and one who's time had come in my life. Besides, it would give me the impetus to explore a lot of design ideas I'd been leaving on the back burner for quite a while. So with the encouragement of my partner, my family and my friends I'm beginning this journey. I think it will be great fun, and I hope it will also be fun for those who join me here.