Paraguayan Ñandutí

This is a very interesting textile from Paraguay, near the Iguazú Falls in the north of Argentina. My family traveled there after I had left to finish high school in Michigan. (One of the [few] disadvantages to being the first kid in the family.)



This piece is a kind of Tenerife (named for the city in the Canary Islands where it is popular) lace with a large center medallion, surrounded by 8 smaller medallions in 4 different patterns. Then there are additional filling motifs surrounding those. My mom mounted it on a metal ring with the colored background... I think it shows up beautifully. This piece, unfortunately, is not mine, and will not be mine. My sister has asked for it. Here is a detail picture of the center and a couple of the surrounding motifs:



The picture isn't perfectly clear, but you can get an idea of the delicacy and the beauty of this work.

We adopted a golden retriever puppy yesterday. His name is Jake. Yes, you are correct, we are nuts! I will post pictures in the future. I have been spending my vacation stitching and listening to audio books, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I just finished the C.S. Lewis trilogy "Out of the Silent Planet," "Perelandra," and "That Hideous Strength." I love those books!

Amish Quilt

This is a queen sized quilt in a diamond pattern, with a small star appliqued to the center. My mom wanted a quilt in these colors, and we took the pattern from a book about Amish quilts. The fabric is a polyester blend, and the batting is cotton. I did the piecing, and drew up the quilting designs.



I did the quilting of the wreath in the center, but I did not do the rest of it; we found a church group in the Chicago area who did the quilting (for a very reasonable price) following the designs I had drawn out. I have decided that quilting is not my forte, specially when I am working by myself.

The center portion has feathered wreaths, the pink bands have a grapevine motif (including the grapes) and the blue triangles have a plant design. It turned out very pretty, but it is quite heavy, which is why it is hanging on the wall and is not on the bed.

We are back home from Michigan, but we have another week of vacation. Any suggestions of things to do?

Turquoise Necklace and First Sampler

I'm finding all kinds of treasures here in Michigan. I will still be posting things I found here even after I get back home. This is my mom's turquoise necklace that I made for her. She picked up the nuggets in Arizona, enough for 2 necklaces. It took me a long time to make them because it was a new technique for me, and I wasn't sure how to finish the clasp. I finally just did it. This one says "mom" on the sterling hoop. The one I made for myself has brown silk and the hoop says "survivor."



This one has turquoise and silver beads, and mine has turquoise and bronze beads.

This is a picture of the first sampler I made in floss. It was a stamped kit. I didn't know at the time that you were supposed to cross all your stitches in the same direction, but I only found one crossed different, but they are the opposite direction from the way I stitch now.



I drew up the saying and just stitched it in outline stitch. The date on it is March of 1978; I had just been married a couple of years. The scene at the bottom is mostly done in packed outline stitch, and I really like it. There is some satin stitch, and one of the plants has chain stitch branches.

I took this piece to a regular framing shop and asked for a 1/4 to 1/2 inch reveal around the stitching, but they framed it right next to the stitching, and I was very disappointed. That was my first experience with framing, and I have been very careful with who I let frame my pieces now. Most of the time I try to frame them myself.

Brick Stitch "amulet bag"

I made this bag as one of the assignments in an EGA correspondence course. I designed the color changes myself, mostly by buying 5 shades of matching colors and then changing them gradually as I worked the piece. The triangle was worked into the regular stitching, but it did not show up enough so I outlined it with an additional row of beads. Most of the fringe is just a plain row of beads, but several of the fringes have beads on the ends, and several have small fish swimming among the branches.

The triangles at the top echo the triangle edging, and there were enough beads left over to make the necklace.



My mom asked me to make her a turquoise necklace, and picked up the materials for it. It was taking me a long time so she kept this bag hostage until I finished it. When I got the necklace finished mom was getting ready to give it back to me, but I could tell from her face she wanted to keep it. So it's on permanent loan to her.

I will post a picture of the necklace tomorrow.

"Virtuous Woman" sampler

I'm on vacation this week, in Michigan, at my mom and dad's house. I thought I would take this opportunity to post a couple of my treasures that live here.

This is a sampler based on Proverbs 31, a poem to a virtuous woman. I stitched this one for my mother, because I thought it was very appropriate. The fabric is an antique linen fabric that came from my grandmother's household. It was originally hemmed to be a scarf for the top of a piano. I used the same linen for a couple of "botanical print" flowers and I still have some of the linen left. It is more or less a 36 count. The floss is DMC.


The most interesting thing about the fabric is that in some of the slubs there was some fibrous plant material, my guess is from the flax plant. At the bottom right there is a small hole, and there is another one that I darned and stitched over. I did date this one when I made it (Always sign and date your work!). I finished it in 1991.

Our stay here so far has been very traumatic. We brought our dog with us on vacation (as we have for the past 8 years) and he attacked my sister. We had to "send him to the farm." We are very sad and still reeling from the suddenness of it.

Suzani from Central Asia

I bought this embroidery on eBay, where they called it a Suzani. It is a beautiful central flower with vines coming off it. I have not tested the backing or the fibers, but I think it is silk on cotton. There are two stitches used in the embroidery, chain stitch and packed back stitch, done by hand. I don't think it is newly made, there is some fading in the color between the front and the back.



It hangs in a protected corner of my office; I don't want it to fade any more. It's not symmetrical, more of the flowers in the top half are trimmed with yellow, in the bottom half more are trimmed with blue/green. It is a very elegant textile.

I had a couple of days off of work this week, and had a wonderful time. I went to the Chicago Botanic Gardens with my family. The gardens are breathtaking. I took tons of pictures, they don't do justice to the gorgeous views around every corner. I'm just including a couple of my favorites. There was a display of bonsai in one of the courtyards. They were amazing. This tree is so perfectly proportioned you would think it was hundreds of feet tall without the person (my dad) included for perspective.




This is a walkway between the rose garden and the English gardens. The kids (my grandkids) aren't very far away, but between such towering trees they look so tiny!



Nothing in the gardens is a "happy accident." Everything is planned and refined... and beautiful! I'm hoping to go back, since we saw a very small section.

I'm happy to announce that my granddaughter was able to take "Isabella" home with her. Isabella was staying with grandma until her new owner could be a "big girl" and that happy event was this past week. This is a picture of Isabella coming out of the box. C got to play with her every time she visited grandma, but now she got to take her home. C. is having a wonderful time with her.



Grandma is having fun making doll clothes. Stay tuned for pictures!

Cambodia Batik

This batik looks a lot more traditional to me than the map batik from last time. From what I can tell by looking at it, I think the resist was used first, then the light blue, red, and green were painted on, those colors were covered with the resist, and then it was over-dyed in the dark blue, and then the green/gold was painted on over the top.



There are so many details that I like about this piece. I like the fish on the side of the basin, symbol of Christianity. I like the fact that Peter's foot seems to be "walking" on the water (not immersed in it). I like the colors, and the plaid towel, and I like the legs of the chair where you can tell the artist had a hard time making up his mind how long to make them.

We had a lovely weekend. We had a birthday lunch for Parker. His sister is getting a little put out that he has had 3 birthday parties in a row, and she hasn't had any yet. This is a picture of them at the zoo in Michigan City, in a tunnel that goes under the otter pool. Life is just so full of wonderful things!



After the birthday party, our daughter took us out to Soul Restaurant, and treated us to supper! She is so proud, because her firm did the decorating. It is a lovely place, the food is excellent, and of course the company could not have been better. We sat right in this corner. (At one point Jen had to lay out the light fixture on the floor to demonstrate how it actually went together; and she designed the "drum" light fixtures.)



We will be going back there!