Ruth's Mini-Roses, My Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery Interpretation

A while back I was stitching a Brazilian dimensional embroidery design by my friend, Ruth Griffith, called "Mini-Roses". I wrote about it here, when I explained that the center roses were stitched with the #15 milliners needle instead of the #1 milliners needle we ordinarily use with Lola.

Well, I have finished it.

I had a couple of different dye lots of #121 moss green (back when it was that gorgeous light moss green color) and I intertwined the border with some pink oat beads that I found.  I had a few extra, so I added them for some of the side flowers:

And I added Iris bullions around each to frame.  Instead of rolled roses, I found some tulip shape glass beads in my Stash of Wondrous Things, and I added more little seed beads for sparkle:

Because we can do whatever we want when we are creating our finished embroidery, I fiddled around with Ruth's Tole Rose, just adding an extra cast-on stitch or two:

And because I don't have the embroidery in its final frame (the picture above isn't as sharp as it could be), here is the original photo:

I'm headed for the craft store to purchase a wooden embroidery hoop. I'll paint it with acrylic paint and add a ribbon around the outside, much like I did with "Meditation", the design Mary-E. Crichton and Gayl Ratigan will teach at our BDEIG Seminar next month. Here's a picture:

Here are a few pictures of how I finished the frame (a purchased wooden hoop), painted with acrylic paint:

After the paint was dry, I re-hooped my embroidery, trimmed it and gathered the back side:

..and finished the back by popping in a circular-shaped piece of mat board:

I always label the back of any embroidery I do - date, designer (or my name if it's one of my designs), Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery.  And I have a nice Micron Pigma Pen where I can initial and date my work on the front:

Then I finished the "frame" with some sparkly ribbon and a glue stick -- and left ribbon tails (which I knotted) to tie a pretty bow for a hanger:

So you see how easy it is to finish your embroidery!

If you are interested in purchasing either of these designs to stitch, they are now available. I'll have mine posted on my Millefiori website (if I ever stop making blog entries), but you can email me for information. I am marketing "Mini-Roses" for Ruth Griffith, and in addition to six brand NEW Brazilian dimensional embroidery designs, I'll also have "Stardust" and "Twitter" ready for you to stitch. Everything should be ready to send by early next week, and I'll put you in touch with Mary or Gayl if you would like your own copy of "Meditation" -- or if you would like to purchase a dozen to teach to your own B.E. classes!

Just a note -- if you are looking for the little flower beads, try Beadcats.com.  You might  find the little rice pearls (also glass flower-shaped beads) at either Shipwreck or Fire Mountain. (I even saw them on ebay)! Or  check your local craft store.  I think there are probably other excellent bead merchants, too; these are just favorites of mine.

Rosalie

Waiting for Cuthbert to Move ...

...so I could download my pictures.

He didn't, so I worked around him.

Here is a picture of a new flower I designed -- the Edelweiss, a pretty little alpine wildflower we all remember from "The Sound of Music".

I'm not sure if the designing or the stitching, or the creative presentation is the most fun. Probably all of the above. I stitched the design with the "Alps" on medium blue Trigger poplin and mounted it on foam core board (poked pins in the sides). Then I finished the sides with some pretty rick rack (nice to find a use for that stuff!) pinned to the foam board, too.

I wrote the flower name with my Micron Pigma Pen (the entire embroidery is also signed/initialed-dated). Then I glued it to that board using my favorite fast-drying clear glue, Fabri-Tac (from JoAnn Stores). The wood is a piece of pine board that someone wood-burned some daisies onto (I touched them up with my acrylic paints). I thought it was pretty, and it made a nice frame.  Yes, I found it at a garage sale. Oh - those flowers? 

Well ... I wandered through the house because I just KNEW I had some silk flowers somewhere. I did. They were in a bouquet, so I popped off a couple of blossoms, decided where they might look nice, dropped a splotch of glue down and plunked them into it.  I like the way it all turned out.

The picture that inspired me was sent by a friend.

I looked at it and tried to decide which stitches I would use (Yes, designing is just that easy!) and I researched it on the Internet. Those "petals" are actually bracts like a poinsettia and the "flower" is the center part. I discovered that the bracts are fuzzy and thought Cire would be a perfect fiber choice.
     I'll leave all of the stitching details to be a surprise! This will be the May Freebie "One-A-Month" design that the Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery International Guild, Inc. is giving to everyone in honor of the start of our next 20 years as a guild.
     Our first flower is already posted - I wrote about it the other day here. If you go to the BDEIG website, scroll to the bottom of the page for "Free Designs to Stitch". That's where you'll find all of the instructions.
 
I stitched the Edelweiss on white fabric using Cire #227 (palest sea green). Here's a picture.

Looking at it on my computer monitor, the fabric threads were showing and it looked kind of "harsh". So I popped the jpg into my photo editing app, tried a little "noise removal" and then did an "unsharp".  I'm not sure I really know what I'm doing, but liked this final version a lot better.

Cuthbert got tired of loafing under the "sunlamp". He moved over and decided to loaf on the kitchen stool instead.

Rosalie

Itty Bitty Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery ....and Something New: TooT

It's my "Itty Bitty Clown"!

My Millefiori Design #884 - Itty Bitty Clown -- is back for an encore. I had a request and went in search of this little guy who is only 3" tall. I found him in a circus tent playing with the elephants. He's made with a stitch I developed a while back called "The Nibble" using variegated rayon floss. This is a close-up view of "The Nibble":

Here's a Great Big "Itty Bitty":

Finishing touches are the most fun to do when the stitching is complete on one of our Brazilian dimensional embroidery designs. I used a red plastic embroidery hoop and added a 1/2" diameter blue satin cord as edging, gluing all to the blue mat board with my favorite fast-drying clear glue, Fabri-Tac.

The balloons are buttons (you can cut the shanks of plastic buttons with your wire-cutters), an old earring (the golden 'balloon') and buttons with offset holes (I have seen these recently at Michaels). The balloon strings are black sewing thread. 

By the way, I found the elephant he was playing with. The elephant's name is "TooT, and is one of my newest Brazilian dimensional embroidery designs that I will teach at BDEIG Seminar 2012 this June. (Pictures of ALL available classes will be posted soon; keep checking back.)

Here's a picture of "TooT":

One nice thing about elephants -- they can hold a LOT of flowers. There are some new flowers here, and there are some favorites - a petal of one, a leaf of another -- all fitting together to make something brand new! For example, TooT's little "hat" is really a flower from the book My LadyFlowers by Rosalie Wakefield (me). I knew it would balance up there because I've seen it done before! See:

Rosalie

Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery -- Knotting More; Knotting Less

Beginning and Ending Knots:
   Any and all comments by fellow stitchers are welcome; this is just what works for me...

To start - point the tip of the floss to the tip of the needle (one in each hand). Grasp the tip of the floss with the hand holding the needle and wrap it around the needle 2-3 times (this is a quilter's knot - probably diagrammed online somewhere, definitely on YouTube via Google online search). Pull the needle through. Moisten the knot (this tightens the rayon). Then fray out the floss on the other (short) side of the knot. ...and then start stitching.
     Here's something to help you remember, something I heard at a quilt show one time:

   This is the Sneaky Snake (wiggle the floss).
   This is the Silver Rat (point the needle to the floss).
   See the Sneaky Snake wrap itself around the Silver Rat  
         (wrap the needle with the floss).
   .... And swallow it whole! (pull the needle through).

[and I really wish I could remember which quilt instructor told us that, because I would definitely give her credit!]

To end - On the back side of your embroidery, slip the needle under 2-3 threads, wrap the needle again (counterclockwise so the Z-twist rayon floss unwinds itself or 'flattens out' the plies) just once or twice. Pull the needle through and tighten the knot, moisten, cut floss. If you fray out the floss, you don't need to have a long floss tail on the back.

Another ending (one I often do, but probably not recommended for wearable items that might be laundered often): Slip the floss beneath some stitching on the back side and weave one direction and then back another direction. This will also secure the floss nicely.

The BDEIG (Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery International Guild, Inc.) website has a "Fair Judging Recommendations" page up that explains more about knotting B.E. See the section on Worksmanship on Page 3-4.

I have an earlier entry on this blog (even with a photo) about the back side of Brazilian embroidery. It's not SUPPOSED to be nice and neat, like traditional embroidery with cotton.
      This is what works for me; but others might have other suggestions that also work just as nicely.
   
    

Hummy Art Quilt - Into the Bathtub

It takes supreme confidence (or some other unspecified trait) to show pictures of the back of our Brazilian dimensional embroidery, or even such "personal" photos as hummingbirds taking a bath. But that's what I'm doing ...

And I feel SO like an ad for Procter & Gamble. But this is what I do when I am finishing an embroidery project, so I might as well write about it. To save wrinkling and trying to iron around a lot of dimensional flowers, I usually leave my embroidery stretched in these wooden stretcher bars when I wash out blue lines and extra floss dye.

This embroidery is fairly large, so the bathtub is the place where I'm soaking the project, and because I used EdMar rayon colors that are made with heat-sensitive dyes (especially the reds and purples, some dark greens and occasionally black), I'm using a room-temp (not hot) water soak. It will take a day or two or more; luckily, we have two bathtubs in our home!  I use Ivory liquid (any mild soap will do) and BIZ, which is supposed to help remove extra soiling. The Color Catcher sheets (by Shout) will pull out any extra color. There are other products that work just as well, though. 

     I might have mentioned that I traced the pattern onto fabric with those new metal-tip Marvey LePen wash-out pens. These are my favorite!

Sorry that photo is so large! But it's a very nice pen. EdMar (where we get our 100% rayon floss for Brazilian embroidery) carries them, as well as various merchants linked at the BDEIG website. You should have seen the "blue" that washed out right away, but it DOES come out, and that's the most important thing, to me.

     Oh, by the way -- did you notice something "different" about the photo of the little Hummy Art Quilt pictured above?  It's upside down!  I didn't notice myself until I was posting the picture and saw all those little hummers standing on their little heads.

Back to the bathtub ...

This is the second day with Color Catcher sheets pulling dye from the floss. Because the stretcher bars tend to do the back float, I've weighted the project down with nice heavy vases, trying to not mash any flowers.

By the way -- I learned something interesting from a fellow stitcher. I used to tell people to soak in cool water, and then dry the project fast with a hair dryer. Well, guess what? The hair dryer puts out HOT air -- which will make any extra dye run again.  So ... I'm going to just keep this project soaking until it doesn't run any more.

     I did that with one of my new designs -- the Ruby Slipper Orchid -- and after about a week in the water, I noticed there was no color bleed:

     I'd remind myself to not use bright reds and purples, but they are so lovely, it's worth the patient wait to soak extra dye out.

My husband just came home from an errand -- he brought me lovely red roses for Valentine's Day, a beautiful card -- AND a box of chocolates. I was going to mention that I'm dieting, but decided that I would make a Personal Attitude Adjustment and consider that chocolate is one of the Five Food Groups.

      I'll remove myself from the computer now so that I can give him HIS Valentine!

Don't Look At Our Behinds

Brazilian embroidery is so beautiful, so exquisite, so neat ... and, well ... so DIMENSIONAL --on the front!

This is the back:

Doesn't it look like a can o' colorful worms, singin', dancin' and havin' a party out behind the barn?

It's supposed to look that way!
     Traditional embroidery is neatly stitched front and back -- but not Brazilian embroidery, the rambunctious, riotous, colorful Poster Child for the Creative Stitch.
     Brazilian dimensional embroidery marches to its own drummer. Brazilian dimensional embroidery has, in fact, a whole band of drummers marching in the direction of their choice, led by a fairly short list of dimensional stitches that are commonly used (and then re-used, re-invented, re-created into new stitch innovations).

The reason I'm shamelessly posting pictures of my behind -- Excuse me! I meant to say the "behind of my embroidery" -- is to let stitchers new to B.E. realize it's OK to worry less about the back of their needlework.
     Take a look at the Judging Criteria prepared by the BDEIG Standards Committee. Print this pdf and take it to your County or State Fair Superintendents and ask them to use it to judge Brazilian embroidery entries. Ask them to please not judge the back of the work. 
     B.E. stitchers just don't worry too much about the back side of their work -- it's the front side that should get all the attention, both in fair judging and in general admiration. 
     A lot of Brazilian embroidery is stitched on the heavier-thread-count Trigger cloth or Blazer poplin to hide any floss tails that might shadow through. However, there are a lot of other fabrics that lend themselves well to B.E., especially fancy fabrics, and it never hurts to keep the back side of the embroidery as neat as possible -- especially if a stitcher is using a lighter weight fabric.
     By the way, even when Trigger cloth or any of the heavier poplin fabrics are used, it's always nice to add a lightweight lining fabric (my choice is 80%-20% poly-cotton blend Symphony Broadcloth).  --It's just what I do. Everyone has a personal preference.

     Yes, these are pictures of the little Hummy Art Quilt (the backside part we politely aren't supposed to notice). I've just finished all of the leaves and flowers and am busy stitching eyeballs on hummingbirds. I'll post more pictures soon ...and then I'm going to go in search of fabric to finish the edges, sashes and bindings and other quilty things.

Madelon

In the interests of finishing sentences (or blog posts), I realized that I forgot to share the finished design, "Madelon", with you. I wrote about using the Ridged Blanket (or in this case, Buttonhole) Stitch and remember that I forgot to show you the finished design. By the way, the flower petals are stitched with the Raised Buttonhole Stitch (stitches verrrrry, verrrrry close together). 
     Instructions for the entire design are in the BDEIG Education Projects Book  but I thought you might like to see a picture here, too.

I'll also share the Ridged Blanket Stitch soon! I stitched a sample and think you'll like adding it as fill to your embroidery.

Here's the story about why the design is named "Madelon", and while I have everyone gathered around, I'll write about how I finished this piece.

I also sign all of my finished, original embroideries this way (if it is someone else's design, I'll add their name before my signature).
Here's how I finished the piece:

Most of us stretch our pieces over foam core board, pin the sides and/or lace the back (the proper way is to use archival materials and lace the back). After that was done, I glued a second piece of foam core board to the back. 
     Then, ignoring all the rules of "Proper-Ness", I found a piece of trim/braid and pinned it into the sides of the top and bottom foam core boards that were now stuck together for eternity (or till the glue gets crumbly and the pieces fall apart, whichever comes first...). Usually when I'm pinning trims on as a frame, I'll put a size 11° seed bead on the pin first.
     And, as shown previously, I attach a label to the back.