Frak This

Here is a peek at the current piece I am stitching.  It's another in the Love Letters series and I hope to have it available for the Online Needlework Show mid-April. This time I'm celebrating the Fraktur style.  If you thought reading something in regular Blackletter-style script was a challenge, then you will understand that Fraktur script (a very curvy variant descended from blackletter) is even more of a challenge. Plus, the words are usually in German, frequently even archaic German.

Although you'd never want to read a novel typeset in Fraktur, the alphabet is so beautiful and elegant that it continues to be used in an ornamental fashion. You'll recognize it on everything from Gothic-looking t-shirt designs to marriage certificates.  Mathematicians may remember working with Fraktur letters alongside all those Greek characters. Here is a pangram (in German, of course,) a sentence using all of the letters in the alphabet, for you to see how lovely the text looks.  German pangrams are more challenging because they must include the letters with umlauts too. I'm including only the capital letters in the stitched piece.

The art style goes hand-in-hand with this typeface is the Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, also called Fraktur.  You can see online and in museums examples of documents lettered in Fraktur calligraphy adorned with elaborate ink and watercolor drawings.  The most common motifs are birds, hearts, and plants with crazy wild flowers. I do like crazy flowers. For something different, and I think appropriate to the style and its time period, I am stitching this one with Gentle Arts Simply Wool threads. It is such a different feel working with the wool.  You use a single strand, but it still has sooooo much body over 2 on 32, which I am attempting to show in the close-up below. I'm finding they work up better than I had expected; my hands are a rough and dry mess. Frogging is not nice (but is it ever?) and the needle is a bitch to thread, but once I get going the thread hasn't frayed or gotten thin or lost its twist on me.  There is a limited palette available, but I've been able to find colors that work.  All in all, I'm really glad I've tried it.

Nashville Cats Are out of the Bag

What a wonderful trip and a great show TNNA trade show IMHO.  Coming home Monday was a bit exhausting (checking out of the hotel, returning the rental car, three airplane legs, digging the car out from the snow in Spokane, and a three hour drive to get home,) but we were fueled on enough show excitement, caffeine and chocolate to keep us running.  My boys were all happy to see us - Hubby, son, and Toaster dog- as were we, they.

As always it was great fun to see in person all of the people I normally only get to type at. Things were actually busy enough that I know I missed visiting with many folks.

I tried something new this show by not advertising ahead of time what the new releases were going to be, thinking this would give some advantage to the shops that paid the costs of attending the show.  It also gave them the fun of surprises.  Many of the shops actually bring their own scanners to the show for a midnight web update with new goodies! Since pictures of all three of my releases are already all over the internet (even in shops that didn't attend!) I figure there's no point in keeping things off my own site...

The Nashville Cats are out of the bag.

First up, Rosetta: This is your classic monochromatic, geometrical-based, no-punch-line Ink Circles design. It's shown in Gloriana silk in Cranberry on R&R Espresso Linen 40 count.  I'm certain we'll be seeing some great other fiber combinations from stitchers soon.

Next, Nut Jobs: Also stitched in Gloriana on R&R 40 count linen

Believe me, I know that allergies are no joke, but I think we've gotten a little carried away with warning labels of all types. My inspiration for this sampler is below. If you can't read the label on this tube of printing INK, it says "gluten-free" in three languages! If you don't find that funny then I officially proclaim you as humorless or unable to help it due to some unfortunate circumstance such as employment as a product liability lawyer for some corporation.

Earbuds. The third new piece is the culmination of all those tiny 10 x 10 album covers you might have seen on FaceBook.  Each of the little albums is mounted on a tiny neodymium magnet and a steel plate is behind the stitching. You can move the albums around to show "what's playing" on your MP3 player.  We are currently listening to some Rolling Stones.  If you want to see my ink drawing that started this concept, look here. Watch for a follow-on chart with more music selections. I had more than one person tell me I was the "nut job" after seeing this one. :-P

So look for these three new charts in your favorite shop ONLY. (It will be a long while before I offer them directly for retail order.) Have an awesome week.

Those Little Details

When reading a book, I find those little details the author has woven in essential to transporting me to that other world. It's never enough just to have a decent story line or interesting, developed characters.  Good authors thoroughly research their topics and sprinkle in enough authenticity to bring the reader along on their ride.

Many stitchers have run across books by author Monica Ferris, particularly her series of mysteries starting with Crewel World revolving around various forms of needlework in the clues and crimes.  Monica's latest book Theadbare hit the streets just before Christmas:

Turns out that Monica had visited Nordic Needle in Fargo as part of the research for this book. She just happened to spot the chart my Mum designed called Fjord Ponies during her visit.

And somehow, this happened...right there in black and white on page 247.

We didn't know ahead of time.  I think better than any surprise I could have arranged for Mum.  So, of course, I had to get a special copy for my Mum for Christmas.  Monica was so sweet to work with.  She autographed a copy for us. I know my Mum will treasure this forever. (It's her Andy Warhol moment.)

So pick up a copy and enjoy the mystery and all of its little details.

Put it in a box - I'll take it

I was so delighted to see the Ashley in Louisiana chose an Olde Colonial box to finish up her Quiddity piece. She stitched it using Belle Soie Mango and Caron Waterlilies Indigo silks on 36 count Edinburgh linen in Antique Gold.  It's going to be a gift for her Mom, and I know she will just treasure it.

If you've not used one of these boxes before, you should definitely check them out.  They come in all sorts of standard sizes and can be special ordered to a custom size.  Also several different molding options.  The top piece is like an open frame. You mount your stitching on foam core or mat board and insert it from underneath. Use small tacks or a framing staple gun to secure it in the window. Then cover the inside of that top with some pretty paper (from your scrapbooking stash) to give the inside a complete finished look.  The bottom part of the box is already lined with a nice velvety something.

Again, lovely job, Ashley. Your Mom raised you well.

Music to My Ears

I just loved hearing about the projects you stitchers cooked up for holiday gifts.

Letty O. shared these photos of musical clefs that she stitched then mounted to a cigar box. What a neat finishing idea! As you can see, she changed the clef colors on First Bass to match the Treble (you're allowed to do things like that , you know!), then extended the staff line, as would be done on sheet music.  How cool is that.  Wouldn't you love to see that under your tree?  Letty, thanks for sharing this great idea and your lovely work.

Here's another shot of some Ink Circles Christmas love- this time with the happy recipient in the pic.  This is Max and his 99 sampler. Max likes beer and even brews his own. (I've seen the hop plants he has growing!) Have a Merry Christmas, Max! This special moment was brought to you courtesy of stitcher Sue in Pendleton, Max's mom.

Thanks everybody for the wonderful support and fun in 2011. I wish you all the most spectacular fantabulous 2012!

Cheers,
Tracy

Geeky Tools for Geeky Socks

If you subscribe to Knitty.com, you already know they have a wide variety of fun knitting patterns for free.  You have to learn to knit, after all, you can't really cross stitch it near total darkness or when your eyes are wonky.

May I direct your attention to these fun filled socks by Heatherly Walker (aka Yarn Yenta).  Now, aside from acknowledging they are very cool socks and wondering whether a sock designer's real name is "Walker," you may also be wondering why I'm  posting about them.

Well, if you scroll down in the pattern, you will see that Heatherly is a happy Ink Circles customer and used some wonderfully appropriate stitch markers that I made for her.

Wow, I feel so famous now.  Should you want to order your very own set of geeky stitch markers made from capacitors, resistors, light bulbs and other leftovers from my engineering days, I have a number of sets over in my Etsy shop. 

I know you'll want to download her pattern if you haven't already: Microprocessor Socks.  I think I will make mine in green and silver.

Very cool additional note: Heather has just told me that her socks (complete with the circuit board and resistors display) have been selected to be part of an exhibit on science influencing crafts.  Is it still cool to say awesomesauce?!?

Rubber Meets the Road

The first steps down a new path for Ink Circles have been taken.  A lot of you know how much I love ink work, and many of you have heard me explain, "Sorry - this new drawing I did just won't convert well over to cross stitch."  We could go into the basic 17 types of symmetry and which ones would convert nicely and for which order (fold) they would work, but we'll save that for the math blogs.

A friend convinced me that my non-stitchable designs, however, WOULD be pretty cool as rubber stamped images. So, here is a peek at a few prototypes. I wanted to have a few in hand to play with before ordering up the etched metal plates and investing lots of moolah. I found a company that would make up a one off using a LASER to etch the design into real rubber.  Simon Stamp seems to have done a nice job, with the design printed on the back of the wood block - nice professional touch.  This won't be the same company the final ones will be from, as I'll be switching over to a company that's business model is to economically make bulk quantities. 

 

The designs are 4" across. It's my thought that it should give a big enough motif to be the main design on a card or something.  Anything smaller and it might be too hard to color or layer.  I'm hoping to offer both wood-mounted and cling-style.

Below is my original painted version of the right-hand stamp.  I hope that crafters will find these fun to make and color. Tomorrow they are going to be sent off to my friend Diane in Virginia. I can't wait to see what she does with them. She makes amazingly awesome layered and embellished things and has promised to make up some samples to show them off and explore some different ways to use them.  She'll also be able to confirm whether image size and level of detail is optimal.

Initially, I'll be focusing on mandalas, but might dabble in Celtic or ...

I'll be sure to share more with you as I move along the path and definitely a heads up when they are available for sale.

I'm anxious to hear from you what you think regarding anything from mount types to images to sizes.  And, if any of you have any experience making/selling stamps I would love to hear any input you have from that angle.