Something Old
Nostalgia will get me every time.
It all started with Julie. This shouldn't be too surprising as I consider her to be my crafty muse. First it was her post on monochrome cross-stitch on whip up. Then it was listening to Episode 3 of Stitch-Cast where she talked about a variety of embroidery forms. And finally it was a trip to her house for an afternoon where I got to see the lovely linen and hand-dyed embroidery floss that were ready to be turned into a beautiful monochrome sampler. I resisted the impulse at first, but after seeing that floss (along with a sampling of the cross-stitch projects she'd worked on over the years) when I came home I had to dig through my house looking for all my counted cross stitch.
Funny how a craft can be so worked into the fiber of my life. Long, long before I had any idea about what to do with yarn, I was exposed to needlework. My mom did embroidery and crewel work and cross-stitch. To be honest, I can't even remember when I started doing it. It seems like it was almost always there. It faded in and out at times, and the last time it was very present in my life was towards the end of my relationship with my ex-fiance. Looking back now, it seems like I started to take up cross-stitching in earnest again right before things started to get really difficult for us. We were going through a good period, and for a brief period of time in the relationship, I got to be the person that I liked to be. I made several very nice pieces that went off to commemorate births, weddings and kitchens and almost nothing for myself. And then things entered the downward spiral that leads to the end of a relationship. And when the boxes got packed for the new apartment, the cross-stitch got packed away, too. It would emerge briefly every now and again after that, but almost never long enough for me to finish anything, in spite of the lovely collection of linen I had amassed and the full collection of DMC floss colors that called out to be painted with.
Big sigh.
Long pause.
I guess I didn't realize how deeply I associated the cross-stitch with a particular time in my life. One that I would never want to go back to, but one that was absolutely necessary for me to become who I am today. I don't mean to make it seem so melodramatic, but as I write this, there's just this rush of memories that come flooding back. I type a bit, remember some more, and get stuck trying to remember who that person was way back there playing with tapestry needles and embroidery floss.
The good thing was that I did manage to collect all my cross-stitch things and projects together. I'm not quite ready to start working on them again, but I thought it might be nice to catalog them, and do a little more remembering.
This piece is worked based on a chart designed by Theresa Wentzler. Called "The Castle", I started this chart not too long after it was published in 1988, just after I started college. That would make this piece my oldest unfinished project. It hardly seems like I started this almost 20 years ago. Of course, I couldn't make things easy on myself. I chose 22 count white hardanger instead of the recommended 14 count Aida. A real treat when you've got a lot of half and three-quarter stitches to deal with. This is a recipe for early blindness, but I didn't care. I loved how much like a painting it seemed like when I worked those small stitches. This was also my first real foray into cross-stitch projects with multiple colors blended together. Quite the magickal embroidery floss adventure. Even though I'm not as big a fantasy fiction buff as I used to be, I still love this design.
Which is why it is a litle bit sad that I abandoned it so close to completion. Well, okay, there's still a alot to do, but all things considered, it's closer to the end than to the beginning. If I get started into cross stitch projects again, this will be the first one I pick up. I think it needs to be on the wall of my fiber room. To remind me of where I come from. And that no matter where life takes me, I always have a little well spring of craftiness that can help me get through the more challenging times if I let it.
That one is sooo pretty, you must finish it!
I love her designs :-) I did the castle and then I did her fantasy sampler which I turned into a fire screen and then I did another one ( I think it was called the rider)which is a man sitting on the neck of his dragon - I collect dragons :-)I love the way she blends the floss to graduate the colours. Like you I no longer cross stich - depite having every DMC colour under the sun and enough fabric to start a shop :-)
Oh! Migod! You did that? By hand? HOW? Did you use a magnifying glass? Like those ones people use for tying flies? That is AMAZING!
For what it's worth, I think you should frame it and hang it in your crafts area as is - unfinished. As a reminder of the unfinished person who worked on that INSANELY WONDERFUL cross-stitch, but never quite completed it, because her life moved on to much better things.
I know. Corny. But still.
I used to be obsessed with counted cross stitch. Isn't it odd how our craft hobbies can change over time? Sometimes I worry that knitting will be replaced by another fiber craft. But I don't think so.
Thanks for the memories. I recall doing a unicorn in shades of grey and white on BLACK 22-count fabric. Because, you know, I HAD to make things more difficult for myself. Your castle is wonderful!
Mmmm, I really like commenter Erika's idea. Some of my favorite artworks in museums are the unfinished pieces.
I started this pattern, too, and not knowing any better, I got regular Aida instead of the evenweave that would make the fractional stitches so much easier. I believe the designer did the original on Aida and actually split the little squares. I think I read that on her website a couple years ago. I only got about 1/3 as far as you did. I picked up cross-stitch again a couple months before my dad suddenly passed due to a fall. Started a memorial sampler for him but just couldn't work on it after a couple of months.
Your Castle is a beautiful piece of work, and while I never would have thought of it on my own, I think that framing it "undone" is a GREAT idea.
The idea about hanging it unfinished is wonderful! I don't think that would work for an unfinished quilt of my mother's though. We have the same pattern, my husband started it on black aida cloth. It's not finished, but it's not to the point you can even tell what it is. Ho hum.
I can't wait to see the progress on the silks. I love spinning silk!
I started that piece and stopped ages ago. It wasn't hard to do per se, but it was hard to remember what part of the piece was up (I started at the rocks/castle bit in the middle). I have mostly moved on to samplers in variegated silks and knitting. It is amazing how much faster knitting is even with large pieces. Makes it a little difficult to go back.
Ah, Theresa Wentzler is the Alice Starmore of Cross stitch. Her patterns are stunning and so detailed and simply lovely. Cross stitch was my first fiber/needlework love. I need to get back to it at some point. I love doing work on linen over 2. I've also done a bit of work on linen over one. That is a recipe for blindness AND insanity! :)
It's lovely!
It looks beautiful as it is. I would be sorely tempted to (somehow) attach or connect it to a denim jacket (though I don't know what size it is!) and wear it. I think there is a closet hells angel within me.
I don't know if I'll be able to leave it unfinished, although I like the idea. Somehow, this piece and I are supposed to work towards completion together. Maybe today is the day I will head to JoAnn's for more tapestry needles and some white muslin to hold all the blends on.
She does great designs - my sister has done quite a few. I used to cross stitch in earnest in College - not such a great time. Maybe that's why I haven't picked it up since? (hence the LARGE pile of floss and fabric in the closet!)
Absolutely stunning! (can I see the back) I've dabbled in cross stitch with a few samplers but never anything that I would call art. This is art.
Wow! It's so gorgeous!
I recently revisited my cross stitch and needlepoint crafts, too. I've been trying to re-organize my life so that I can bring some of these crafts that I loved, but that have slipped away for one reason or another, back into my daily routine.
I have always admired Teresa Wentzler's designs, though I've never tackled one. I've got a couple of pieces that are very large and detailed in progress, though, that had been abandoned for over six years. They - as well as some needlepoint pieces - have been pulled out and reinstated as active WIPs. I wrote about them in my blog a week or two ago.
It's funny how a small groundswell of cross stitch and embroidery seems to be rising in the blogs right now. I've always known that my own crafting goes in cycles. Now that I read blogs and see others going into the same things I am, it feels as if those cycles are somehow universal rather than personal.
Makes me feel very connected to the cosmos.
Isn't it funny that we both have unfinished TW cross-stitch projects from before we met? And you really have to finish it! You just have the bit down in the corner, well and the backstitching probably. I always saved all of that for the end and from the look of your close-up, so do you. But we could have a stitching party to help it go along!
(Oh! And a trackback -- how cool! I don't even really know how those things work. Other than the 1000 spam trackbacks, I've only had like two real ones in my "many" years of blogging. :)
I cross-stitched for years, too, and associate it with being married. After I got divorced, I finished most of the projects I had started, but then basically put it away. That was a LONG time ago, but I hung onto my binders of DMC floss and piles of charts and magazines. Just recently (like, 2 weeks ago), I gave all the DMC to my sister, who embroiders, but I have to say that that was hard. Cross-stitch definitely evokes a particular time in my life for me.
T.W.'s designs are just amazing, aren't they? Love them . . .
Holy weirdie wowness!
I've nosed around your site a few times and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but this time, I'm blown away. I too have stitched this pattern (finished in...1991, if I remember right?). I too play Oblivion, and also noticed the yarn thing. On that front, I'm taking a 'zine-making class, and I actually wanted to create a little section called 'Obliviyarn'. I'm convinced there's a knitting circle hiding out somewhere. Possibly at one of the Daedra shrines - there's one deity who's totally spanked out (his followers are crazy and some run around without pants), and he demands an offering of yarn and lettuces or some such. (Lettuce Knit!) And how's this for a grand plan: a virtual yarn stash! Last night I decided to start picking up all the yarn I find and storing it in a barrel in one of my houses...or perhaps just chucking it all over the floor in one of the rooms - tons cheaper than the real thing, though not nearly so tactile.
And was trés excited by your spinning supplies. Hooray for silk!
Thanks for the enjoyment. Cheers! :)
I think likening TW to Alice Starmore is probably a good comparison. I've been looking around for someone else who makes such intricate designs, but with a less fantasy-fiction theme, but so far, aside from the single color french designs that Julie pointed out, I've found very little.
And I do think I go through crafting cycles....now the off cycles are just getting longer since I have added more crafts into the mix!
As to showing off the back... I think that this one might be something of a mess, since it was one of the first big projects I took on and I've never been very concerned about what it looks like on the reverse. I know that there are people who enter pieces like this competitively and they worry, but I've never been fast enough when it comes to project completion to even consider that sort of thing.
And Sophie, if you make that Obliviyarn module, let me know. I keep thinking that given the sheep and the yarn, there ought to be some spinning wheels around or magical looms or something like that somewhere. And there's certainly already lots of beautiful places for my character to sit and knit!
What you've written is very well expressed, I have to agree wholeheartedly w. your view on hanging it. Anyone who's started/done a Wenzler cross stitch is amazing in my eyes = such complex and detailed work to be done. Really interesting that you've kept the cross stitching stuff and are coming back to it years later. I do that once in a great while whether it be knitting or other needlework - what a different perspective.
Oh, just gorgeous.
See, now I want to go pick up my cross stitch again. *sigh* There needs to be less work and more time.
OMG that link to Julie's site had me absolutely drooling! I haven't touched my voluminous cross stitch supplies in many years either and that white on red sampler made my hands itch for it! I have 3 very intricate samplers on linen in my bedroom/living room which were spared the damage rest of my home recieved during Hurricane Wilma. Unfortunately I have 4 large "scenes" like your castle that have severe water damage and cannot be repaired. I haven't brought myself to actually remove them from their custom frames yet because it makes me so sad....that red sampler gives me new hope :) Now to find the time (and stronger glasses!! hehe)
OMG that link to Julie's site had me absolutely drooling! I haven't touched my voluminous cross stitch supplies in many years either and that white on red sampler made my hands itch for it! I have 3 very intricate samplers on linen in my bedroom/living room which were spared the damage rest of my home recieved during Hurricane Wilma. Unfortunately I have 4 large "scenes" like your castle that have severe water damage and cannot be repaired. I haven't brought myself to actually remove them from their custom frames yet because it makes me so sad....that red sampler gives me new hope :) Now to find the time (and stronger glasses!! hehe)
I think you have inspired a lot of us to pull out embroidery projects hiding among our yarn. DH and I have on-and-off worked on a sampler together for oh, about 10 years now....
That x-stitch design is something that you must finish someday. It's too lovely not to have on your wall. I have an uncompleted floral heart worked with one strand over one thread on 28 count even weave. The small stitches do indeed make it looke like a painting. Working with a magnifying glass, however, make me dizzy. :-)
Your old project is better than my old project.
;-)
I really like your dragon. I moved away from cross-stitch and toward knitting when I realized my close-up vision was fading.
My cross-stitch story was long ago, when I still was into cross-stitch, and so was every other nurse I worked with. There was a very young woman, early 30's, who was dying of breast cancer. One of the nurses taught her to cross-stitch. Even though we all knew she wouldn't last more than a few weeks and would never finish the project. She loved it, and happily worked on her project (a rose, as I recall) until she died. She didn't finish it, but I think that was never the point.
The point was that it is never too late to begin.
Great post! I am so happy to hear that you saw someone else's new cross stich endeavor and thought back to when you used to do it. I have loved cross stitch since I was in junior high school, and while my tastes in designs (for cross stitch, embroidery, knitting..) have changed over the years, my love of the craft of cross stitch itself has remained. I am overjoyed at the abundance of beautiful linen and flosses that are out these days, not to mention gorgeous designs. I am working on a design now called Mouline Rouge by the same designer (Long Dog) who made The Token. I am working it on 40-count Lakeside Linen, with a silk embroidery floss that is to die for. Vikki Clayton's company (Hand Dyed Fibers) makes beautiful silks, many with subtle variegations.
When I see your Castle, I do get sentimental. My late aunt stitched the Castle and gave it to her daughter when she graduated from med. school. She also stitched the Carousel and several of the individual horses. These days, with the wonderful array of overdyed and hand dyed flosses, it is much easier to create subtle color effects without blending colors and using so many of them! TW is such a stand-out for the way she creates the effect of a painting. You have SO MUCH of the Castle stitched. It would be so worth finishing. That design has really stood the test of time, as there are new people stitching it all the time...but I also wonder how many half-finished Castles are in closets! LOL.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/84301114@N00/35571654/
I thought I'd share my version! Although I've made progress since the point when I uploaded this photo, I've been enjoying working on it slowly but steadily. I bought it a few years after it came out, but didn't start on it until two years ago. Crossstitch is the earliest craft I ever learned, so although I don't work on it as intensely as I do my other crafts these days, I always have something going on.
The one major change that I am making to the pattern is that I chose to change ALL the colors of the dragon to Kreinik metallics. I think dragons are supposed to shine, so I chose a thread that will shine appropriately.