It was an intense year for making gifts.
One of my coworkers was making crocheted cat toys for Christmas and had a number of charming patterns. I have done more embroidery and knitting in the last year than crocheting but these were too cute to pass up. Fortunately, one of my nephews was still young enough to enjoy receiving a stuffed animal. I loved the frog prince and decided to pair it with a Frog and Toad book--one of the many good books from my childhood. The pattern was written for a 5" tall stuffed frog but, as usual, I felt that it needed to be modified into a toy that could really be played with. I ended up with a 5" head and had to make the body and legs to match! I barely had enough yarn to finish it. It was fun to be able to raid my stash for the extra bits. The blue is from a scarf that I made a few years ago. The black and lighter green is from the afghan that I made for him last year. The coral was from a free swap. And the whole thing is washable!
This portrait was for his mom. Just before Christmas last year, I saw a beautiful photograph that her brother had taken of them and thought that it could be lovely interpreted in embroidery. It took a year of tweaking and thought to come up with a design that was within my skills and that would do justice to the
original. There was barely enough time to actually do the stitching! As always, I learned a few things in the process. This is the first time that I have worked in silk and I love it! So smooth, so easy to control the twist, the stitches just blend into each other in the stem stitch that I was using. I will continue to use cotton floss for the most part due to practicality and cost. But I hope to explore using colored silks for a few special projects in the future. The little bit of silver thread that I used for her ring also brought just the right amount of highlights while remaining in the minimal color palette that I had in mind.
This piece was a bit of a departure from the monotone and muted colors that I have been working in over the last year. The Klestici locale and people of the Paldontian world have been an enigma to me in some ways. They are not my character but they are my sister. Due to the setting of our story, they have also not received the same amount of analysis and cultural design that some other groups have that have been closer to my personality and interest. So when I decided to give her a Paldontian design, I made a number of sketches, looking for a stylized representation of elements that would be a part of their life and landscape, initially thinking of embroidery that could be used on a costume. This design, in its early stages, was simply a representation of rock stratifications. When I added the swirls of a mountain stream, the picture appeared. This piece was fun and stimulating to stitch. So much so that it got pulled out and shoved back into my bag a few too many times and got a little misshapen. It was also my submission for the Crosspoint Art night in early December but Elsa didn't know that it was for her until she opened it for Chrismas.
The colors just glow and the silver thread (again) in the clouds and the gold vein add the hint of shine that finishes the piece. I especially love the seed stitch rocks.
This design, found via NeedleN'Thread, was from an Elizabethan embroidered book. The original was stitched in a much more complicated way but I liked the look of the simple stitch in the single, dark color against the rich backgrounds available to us today. The fabric is dupioni silk, picked up as a remnant a few years ago with my other sister in mind. She loves dark, garnet reds. Just as our family thinks of opera and cardinals for Mormor, we think of Camille whenever we see this color. I don't think she'll ever be able to choose another favorite color.
The majority of the stitches are split stitch with little buttonhole rounds at the center of the flowers. The majority of the work was completed last spring while sitting in the jury pool at the King County courthouse. I intended to use it to bind a book for her, then ended up getting so caught up in finishing other projects that I had to just wrap it around the pages to give it to her. The idea of designing book covers to resemble antique ones was new to me before I began this project. I was really happy how it turned out. Now I want one!
Silk is hard to photograph! This one shows the color better but washes out the black.
There was one more project for my mom but I found that I didn't have any pictures. That will be remedied this weekend.
The day that we brought them home, we were both exhausted.
Max is the curious one. They particularly like chewing on our slippers.
Jonathan's chair is the prime sleeping spot. He will sometimes move his chair away from the desk and use mine instead to avoid disturbing them.
Bonded brothers. They play with each other constantly, look for each other around the house, groom each other and sleep curled up together. It was such a good decision to take both of them. Not only do they chew on each other rather than us, they have been less inclined to bother Missy since whatever their brother is doing is far more interesting than the sitting around that she does. They are still quite curious about her and she will now let them be on the same piece of furniture with her as long as they are at a respectful distance. Excess encroachment is met with hisses and swats. "Too close, a little too close!" It is tempting to think of them in terms of how much they have grown in the last three weeks but we get reminded of how much bigger she still is (despite her otherwise diminutive stature) whenever they are out in the main house together.
