The Tale of the Little Red Box
February 22, 2009 at 11:56 am | In Patchwork, quilt | 1 CommentTags: Crazy Quilt
Once upon a time, there was a little red box:
The little box was very sad, because she turned out to be just a tiny little bit too small for the beautiful dress that was made especially for her:
So her big sister got to wear the dress instead, and she was left with nothing at all to wear. 
The woman who had created the little box felt responsible for the sadness of the box, and started to think about what to do about it. Then she remembered the big box of fabric scraps that she had collected over the years and showed the contents to the little box, to see if there’s anything there that would strike her fancy. Together they came up with the parts of a dress for the little box:
The little box really liked the bright reds and yellows that fit so well with her red coverings, and she was very happy with the result. But a few minutes later, she became sad again. The woman who made her didn’t want to see her so sad and asked her what the problem is. It turned out that she was envious of all the pretty embroidery threads and beads on her big sister’s dress. “Don’t worry, little box,” said the woman, “you’re going to be a crazy quilt box,” and she showed her the boxes full of embroidery thread and beads and lace trimmings she had collected over time. Now the little box was smiling again, and went to sleep dreaming of the sparkly dress she was to wear one day.
To Be Continued…
Boxology
February 20, 2009 at 4:53 pm | In Embroidery | 2 CommentsTags: needlepoint
Oops! After cutting the cardboard sides for my needlepoint box too big to start with (better safe than sorry), I made them smaller a couple of times till I was sure they would fit. After covering the sides with fabric and sewing the box together, I ended up with this, though:
Yep, the box was too small! Since I couldn’t make the band shorter, I needed to make another box. Second time around was easier, though, since I knew exactly how big to make the sides. A bit of fiddly hand-sewing later, things were looking much better:
Now the only thing left to do was adding feet and covering the bottom, which was fiddly as well, but the result is worth it:
This is where Jocelyns Needlepoint Box Tutorial really shines: Explaining all the small things that make the result look neat and tidy, and that are actually easier to do if done right. By starting to attach the piece of fabric that covers the bottom of the box in the middle of all four sides almost simultaneously, I was able to stretch the fabric nice and tight without much fiddling and additional cursing.
The lid was another story, though, but that’s entirely my fault for not considering the consequences of my choice of material:
The canvas I’ve stitched this on is very stiff, so it’s hard to pull it around the cardboard of the lid and get a tidy backside. That it’s white doesn’t help either, since that colour doesn’t appear anywhere else on that box.
So, next time around I’m going to change a couple of things: Either use a thinner and more flexible fabric, or at least take some paint in the general colour scheme for the box to the canvas before starting to stitch. A friend also suggested to use a small ribbon or something to cover up the sides, which I think would also work.
But all in all I’m still very pleased with the finished box, so here it is:
Now, there’s still that too small box left, and I already have a couple ideas what to do with it, so back to work play it is!
Needlepoint Lace—Flower Motif
February 8, 2009 at 8:23 pm | In Lace | Leave a CommentTags: Encyclopedia of Needlework, Needlepoint Lace
I’ve made another little bit of progress on my needlepoint lace motif from the Encyclopedia of Needlework and managed to finish all the lace fillings:
And while only practice makes perfect, even a little bit of practice helps a lot in how my stitches turn out, as you can see in this detail of the flower:
I worked from the left to the right, and the fillings are symmetrical on both sides. You can clearly see that things went way better on the right side, when I already got the hang of the filling. The difficulty lies usually in the irregular forms of the motifs, so I have to start and end lines in different places and space the stitches correctly. So, any kind of stitch practice, as in a sampler with lots of squares, wouldn’t really help me. Properly inserting the fillings into those irregular spaces does take practice, and this kind of practice only comes with working more pieces of this.
So, on to the last step, buttonholing the outline. Since this is a relatively large piece of lace, this will be a major task, so don’t expect me to be finished by next week. In the Encyclopedia, this piece is shown with two different kinds of outline: The normal one as described in my Tutorial, and the high relief used in traditional Venetian lace:
I’m tempted to give this a try with this piece, though it’s a lot of work and probably a mess keeping all those padding threads in line. I’ll report back, hopefully soon, on how things are going.
Living Dangerously
February 1, 2009 at 2:28 pm | In Knitting | 4 CommentsA couple of weeks ago I surprised myself by feeling the need to make something for me to wear! I’ve always shied away from sewing or knitting clothes because of the need to fit. I guess I’m afraid of investing all that time and then finding that it doesn’t fit or I don’t like to wear it. But I immediately was attracted to this winter vest out of chunky yarn, and since this is a relatively easy piece of clothing (no arms, for one), I decided to risk it this time. Getting gauge wasn’t easy because I had to substitute yarns and the pattern doesn’t lend itself to a single gauge swatch, so I used the first front as an extended swatch, and around the third or fourth try I was happy with the results I was getting. Using chunky yarn definitely does cut the time needed to knit this up, so here’s the first front, all finished:
I seem to be in love with cables lately, so this is no exception. What I really start to appreciate in knitting patterns is the attention to the little details. Here it’s the ribbing that’s different where the cables are so they grow organically out of the ribbing, and the arm decreases that are done farther in on the area of purl stitches so as not to disrupt the 1×1 ribbing at the side. And I’m happy with the colour I chose, as well. The model in the pattern I’m working on was in white, which definitely isn’t my colour. The picture shows the colour off well, it’s a dark, rich orange.
The second front is already on the needles, so I hope to be able to finish this in less than a couple of years. 
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