A Very Happy Easter To You and Yours!

Hope You Have A Hippity-Hoppity Easter!

Yes, it's a bad pun, I know, but I just couldn't resist :) The two things I think most about when I hear "Easter" are flowered, beribboned Easter Bonnets and Easter Bunnies, which the vintage postcard above demonstrates nicely (with the addition of that perennial favourite, the Cute Easter Chicks). I don't know why I think of Easter Bonnets, as I have never once worn a Bonnet in my life, Easter or otherwise. 

It's probably the influence of the old Irving Berlin "Easter Parade" movie and its hit song,  which I confess I have only ever watched in the past to see the costumes. (By the way, did you know that the inspiration was the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival in NYC which originated in the late 1880's?! Some 2012 photos here). 

But I like to believe it is because of my eternal fascination with hats of every kind, which is a most unfortunate obsession to have since I lack the certain something it takes to wear one successfully. There are People Who Can Wear Hats and there are People Who Cannot Wear Hats, and I am firmly in the latter category. My Grandma, now, there's a lady who can wear a hat! Somehow I didn't inherit that gene. *sigh*

But no matter, for there are Easter Bunnies! My very favourite sort, of course, are the chocolate type :) My family likes to snap off the ears and eat them first - very savage, aren't we? LOL. But I have a very handsome bunny of the inedible variety to show you this year. My Stitchy Guru Mother made him out of scraps (which is why he's mint green) after we had a debate about the essential nature of Bunnies. 

Mom: "What's the essence of a bunny? Ears?"

Me: "Ears, for sure. But also a fluffy tail."

Mom: "No, they don't need a tail."

Me: "Do too! They need a fluffy tail more than they need arms!!"

So meet Mr. Bunny (I have yet to name him but hope to do so soon):

He's just a trifle taller than my thumb! His body and ears are knitted and his cute little feet that let him stand up on his own are crocheted. "But it can't be a he - it has a pink bow!", you might say. To which my defense is that he's, um, fashion-forward? I don't know. But my new bunny friend seems very much a "he" to me, so a "he" he shall be, right? Right ;) You might think he's cute now. But just wait for it ----

FLOOF!!!! Just look at that tail! Cute explosion!!! Tell me the truth - you never noticed he didn't have any arms, did you?! Huh?! Did you?!!! I know I sure didn't.

Ergo, I win. Bunnies Must Have Fluffy, Floofy, Floomfy Tails. I rest my case :)

Any suggestions as to what I should name this little fellow? 

ES Featured on DMC Threads!!!

I'm SO EXCITED to share some absolutely awesome news: Emma Broidery at the wonderful DMC Threads blog has written a feature on my Floral Heart project!!! 

The post is called "The Creative Process" and is well worth reading! Emma contacted me a few days ago by e-mail and asked if she could share three pictures from my Floral Heart set on Flickr for an article. Naturally, I was thrilled, and said yes! She sent me a link when the post went live this morning, and I clicked to read it with delight and, yes, a little  apprehension - because I had no idea what she would say. 

I was floored, FLOORED, in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE when I read her marvelous, thoughtful, very kind words about yours truly and my stitching! I was curious as to why she had wanted to use my floss toss photo and the one of my two test pieces, rather than close-ups of Floral Heart, and the post provided an insightful answer.

When I started this blog in 2011, my aim was to share my stitching progress with other stitchy bloggers because I found that reading about the ups and downs of their projects was very inspiring. Over the last few years of reading and writing about stitchy things, I have found that blogging has provided helpful information about what does and does not work, which has made me a better stitcher! 

But until I read Emma's article, I had never thought about sharing my progress on my projects as being a "window" to how I work and how I think - what Emma calls "The Creative Process" - but it is so very true! It is astounding and humbling to imagine that sharing a photo of a simple floss toss might be relevant to someone else!

This is one of my favourite parts of the profile:

I love that she took the time to photograph the threads she used in her project – this is an extra step that can tell us so much when preparing for a new project, or pinpointing what works and doesn’t work in a piece. For example, she mentions that she didn’t end up using one of the threads pictured, and notes the ones she did use. I like that she took the time to test her threads first, to find the shades she really wanted…

The really amazing thing is the I almost didn't post that picture at all! I forgot to take a photo with the skein of white when it was unopened, and was embarrassed that it didn't line up with the others. And then when I was working the project, I decided not to use the dark green - but I couldn't take a new picture because all my skeins of pearl cotton were opened out and used! But I put it up anyway, and now I am so glad :)

What Emma's post has brought home to me is the importance for ALL STITCHERS to share our "Creative Processes"! Talking about and sharing photos of our Works In Progress (WIPs) is just as useful - if not more so! - than posting only about the Grand Finishes. This is easy to forget, especially as there is increasing pressure on bloggers to "stage" their photos  to look "perfect", which in reality is an impossible goal.

Stitching is not always smooth sailing. There can be tangled and fraying threads, knots and snags, messy stitches, broken needles...and the back will never, no matter how hard we might try, look as good as the front! But part of the JOY of stitching is finding a way around these things, of working through the many small obstacles, and making each work MEAN something to us that is far more than the sum of fabric and thread. With every work we do, we LEARN, and that is something to celebrate!!!

So take time to share your thoughts as you're stitching! It is so fun to follow a project from start to finish, to see how intentions manifest and change in the process :) I will be making it a point to take and post more WIP photos in future, and am working on a detailed account of how Floral Heart came to be - it was really a Happy Accident and those are the very best kind of Mistakes ;) - that I hope to post up soon :)

DMC Threads is currently writing an informal series of stitcher profile articles, of which mine is the latest. I hope you'll take time to scroll down through Emma's archives to read some of them. I particularly enjoyed the features on glow-in-the-dark thread, creative projects and colourful stitches!  And I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts on your own Creative Process! Feel free to write below :)

A New Finish and Exciting News!

Good gracious, I can't believe how much time has flown by! Isn't it incredible that today is the vernal equinox, the very first day of Spring?!

As you may have guessed by now, the second Annual Eglantine Stitchery Christmas Giveaway did not come to pass this year, despite my very best efforts to the contrary, and I apologize for any disappointment this may have caused. But the good news is that I hope to have the Giveaway up and running again next year!

I am hoping to get back to regular blogging as soon as possible. I'm afraid that my unexpected absence was due to illness again, but I am feeling much better currently and cannot wait to get back to reading my favourite bloggers! I've missed you all so much :) Thank you to my followers for staying with me; I appreciate your support!

Over the next few weeks, I am planning to update the ES site design and add some more information on my new stitchy addiction, hand embroidery! I've also been happily experimenting with fine (thread) crochet since the summer, and have some finishes and thoughts to share. And I am hoping to update and expand the Cross-Stitching Resource section and the Free Patterns section soon, so stay tuned :)

The exciting news is that I have discovered a whole new community of stitchers on Flickr, Yahoo!'s photo sharing site, and I feel like I've fallen down a magical rabbit-hole, just like Alice, and ended up in fantastical Wonderland of All Things Stitchy!!! It's a marvelous feeling! My profile is here, and my "photostream" is here. Both are linked from the new Flickr widget in my sidebar at right ;) It's supposed to randomly show one of my (very few at the moment!) photos each time you visit, so please let me know if it's not working for you, or if it slows your loading of this page!

What I find really fun about Flickr is that you can subscribe to groups - at the moment I have 16, about beading, crochet, cross-stitch, embroidery and thread! - and there are so many craft groups to join that it makes the head spin! And you can also follow individual "contacts", and get updates whenever new photos are added! And the beautiful, incredible textile work!!! It's astounding. A quick look at my favourites will give you a bit of an idea, but I've only just really started looking.

The second part of this news is that I won an embroidery contest on Flickr! You couldn't be more surprised than I was, which was A LOT, lol :) I still am! 

So it is with great pleasure that I present to you Floral Heart:

You can the see the whole set up on Flickr here (8 photos, from floss toss to finish!). The contest entry photo - Floral Heart "New Year, New Stitches" - has the materials and stitches used and the pattern source. The design is part of a FREE sheet found in the wonderful Hoop Love group (dedicated to sharing vintage patterns), and is from 1939! There are close-up shots of the roses, daisies and bow in the set as well. 

I'm intending to do a post here on ES soon with some WIP pictures and all the details. The "New Year, New Embroidery" contest was hosted by the New Embroidery with Vintage Patterns (NEwVP) group, and had three different categories whose winners were determined by popular vote. Some of my lovely prizes can be seen here. 

If you have a Flickr account, or get one in the near future!, feel free to come say hi :)

I'm really glad to be back, and I can't wait to catch up on all the stitchy news! 

The Jane Bostocke Sampler

Recently, I've been lucky enough to stumble upon some books about the history of needlework in my local library, and have been reading about some very interesting pieces of work :) Some of the earliest pieces are mentioned time and again, and one of these is Jane Bostocke's Sampler, worked in a variety of different techniques, including blackwork. The JBS is considered to be the earliest dated sampler, as Jane stitched both her name and the date she finished the work - 1598 - and the birthdate and name of the intended recipient of her gift, cousin Alice Lee, born in 1596.

This is a photograph of the sampler from the Victoria & Albert Museum: Search The Collections website, item access number T.190-1960, where it currently resides:

According to Thomasina Beck, in her excellent book "The Embroiderer's Story: Needlework from the Renaissance to the Present Day" (which I'll be reviewing at length in a future post): “The complex stitches and patterns are crowded on to the rectangle of handspun and woven linen, with enough of each to show how it would have looked on a cuff or pillow cover. A strawberry pattern in detached buttonhole stitch leaves one fruit half finished and another waiting to be filled in, as if Jane were inviting Alice to prove her mastery of the stitch by completing them" (17).

Here is the black and white version of the sampler as it appears in Beck's book (19):

And the full two-page spread Beck devoted to the JBS, showing illustrations of how individual motifs found in the sampler can be combined in new formations (18, 19):

Indeed, the thing that charms me the most about the JBS is the way that Jane worked so many different stitch variations within each motif, as if to show Alice the range of possibilities! She also added embellishments - seed pearls on her own name, and what appears to be seed beads on one of the large celtic knots. She even included two small motifs in metal threads at the top right corner (V&A, "Physical Description"), which would have been very expensive at the time.

There are motifs that have been unpicked - "frogged" in today's parlance - as if to demonstrate that mistakes happen to everyone! All these careful considerations suggest a very generous spirit, and although the overall effect is a little more crowded than the band samplers more commonly worked today, there are some very interesting designs in the JBS, and it is a captivating work.

And I am obviously not the only one to think so, as I was able to find some works inspired by this sampler online! On Linda Peterson's website, there is a photo of a large blackwork piece worked from the "New Carolingian Modelbook: Counted Embroidery Patterns Before 1600", using motifs adapted from the JBS, particularly the large Celtic knot configuration.

Flickr user alexhaugland has a close-up of the JBS strawberries that appear directly below the Celtic knotwork band in the original, and a photo of a linen shirt embroidered with his own interpretation of the strawberries at the collar and cuffs. In his notes on the shirt photo, he says that the shirt is based on one in the Bath Museum of Costume. I think he probably means the shape of the shirt, not the blackwork design. Although the Bath Museum has a wonderful online archive, the only similar artifact I could find was a plain men's linen undershirt, which was possibly the inspiration, as it too has banded cuffs and a loose flowing fit.

Carol Hanson, also known as Caryl de Trecesson in the historical-recreation Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA), runs the historical resource site Dragonbear. She has a wonderful free project, Jane Bostocke's Strawberries, which is worked in a square, instead of a band as it is in the original. Carol has finished her work as a box-lid insert, but the size and shape would make a good biscornu or pincushion!

The chart is a .jpg image, in colour. Although Carol used unusual specialty padded buttonhole stitches for the strawberries (in keeping with the original), the same area could easily be adapted for simple satin stitches or a cross-stitch fill. A blackwork filling could also be used, or the outline left plain. Like in the original sampler, there are many different stitchy possibilities :) It should be noted that the central flower, the strawberry blossom, was not rendered geometrically like the rest of the pattern, but it could be evened out with a bit of creative finagling, I think!

Speaking of motif designs, I decided to play around with the pattern that first caught my eye when I saw the Jane Bostocke Sampler in Beck's book, what I'm going to call the JBS Acorn Motif, which I've tried to enlarge from the V&A photo (the museum does provide limited high resolution downloads for use with permissions, but I couldn't get the service to work for me, so please excuse the blurriness):

I actually intended to try to chart both of the reddish bands in the center, the top being the Acorn and the second being a floral motif, but without better quality photos I was unable to puzzle out some of the stitches in the second row. I've done two versions of the Acorn Motif - the first is the single motif, and the second is a repeat of that motif, to show how they might be connected. Both images are .jpgs; to downland, click on the photo - the original large upload size should appear in your window. From there, just right click with your mouse and select your save method. If you should encounter any trouble, please let me know!

Here's the JBS Acorn Motif:

You may notice that the bottom of the motif doesn't look exactly like the original - that is because the original stitched band shortened the repeat at the bottom! So I adjusted the chart to make the image symmetrical, as is generally more preferable.

And here is the JBS Acorn Diamond Repeat:

Finally, there are a few short histories which include the JBS that may be of interest: The History of 16th Century Samplers at the Victoria & Albert Museum; the Blackwork: Tudor Embroidery handout from the Guernsey Museum (available through the link in the Education section, 4th link under “Tudor”; look at the sidebar, under Education > Resources (themes)); and the Traditional Embroidered Samplers III: Jane Bostocke's Sampler article at the Posy Tree Blog. Nancy Spies of Wyvern Tales also has an interesting post about the evolution of charted cross-stitch, ending with the JBS which she states was likely worked from printed patterns.

More generally, The History of Samplers article on the Exemplum Samplers antique shop site says that: "The word 'Sampler' is derived from the Latin word 'Exemplum'. The meaning of this word being 'an example to be followed'". I did not know that! And the same site has a very interesting list of Sampler Motif Meanings; for instance, a Bee means “Hope” and a Cat means “Idleness”. I would never have imagined that a Crab symbolizes the “Unconscious”, and I have no idea why that is, LOL! You truly learn something new everyday : )

There are other Sampler Motif Meaning lists on the web (such as those found here and here); none appear to be complete, but many meanings overlap. I imagine that all are a matter of interpretation, and may not be applicable in every circumstance. I didn’t spend a lot of time delving into motif meanings, as truthfully it was the blackwork of the JBS that caught my eye and not its nature as a sampler, but I did discover that most of the motifs Jane used – the Strawberries, the Pomegranates and the Grapes – generally represent religious matters.

And a really neat blog called Worn Through, run by costume conservators, includes a photo of the JBS in its viewing frame in a post about the Victoria & Albert Museum's Textile Studies Galleries, which have closed and are being replaced by a new facility due to open next year.

On a related note, we know that the JBS was worked by Jane for Alice to learn on, but it appears that Alice never added her own stitches to the work. Or did she? A post titled "Taking Samplers At Face Value...Should We?" on the Needleprint blog raises in interesting point – historical samplers are most often assumed to be the work of one stitcher, but since they are heirlooms most often passed down through families, it is possible that later generations added their own stitches to the pieces, as evidenced by the variations in stitch quality that appear on some works. The author suggests that the crudeness of the cross-stitched figures at the top of the JBS does not correlate to the complex blackwork below, which may suggest multiple stitchers.

So! Lots of food for thought, isn't it? It is amazing to me how one single historical needlework sample can yield so much different information and provide so much inspiration! I started off thinking "hmm...that little detail there looks kind of neat" and that snowballed into a whole lot of intriguing research :) What do you think of the Jane Bostocke Sampler? Is there anything about it that appeals to you today, and would you consider using historically inspired motifs in a design of your own?

I'm really curious to hear what you think!

I'm not intending to stitch the acorns myself, but I thought that they might be nice for Autumn, suitable for a quick stitch, perhaps as a small pincushion or needlework cover for a gift. If anyone stitches up one the charts, I'd love to see it finished ;)

An Unexpectedly Eventful Summer

After another unexpected delay, I'm finally back to blogging! We had to go home for a family funeral in July - my Grandma's brother passed away, but he was very ill for a long time so it was really a blessing, although very sad nonetheless - and stayed for a few weeks. It was nice to be close to the ocean again. This is one of the three main views from my favourite beach; I love being able to sit on the large rocks on the shoreline and dangle my feet in the water. It's my ideal summer day, in truth!

The above photo is of the wild bluebells which grow in the tall grasses along top of the rocky shoreline. It's funny how something so delicate can flourish where the winds are so harsh and salty, isn't it? Tenacious little things. Here's some clover:

I know it's a very humble plant, but I've always loved clover, both the pink and the white varieties, not only for it's sweet smell on hot days but for the cute round tri-part leaves :) And I can never resist looking for a four-leaved one, for luck!

Happily, the monarch butterflies were back again this year! I even saw some yellow variants, and a pair of very unusual large white butterflies with bright blue spots on their wings! But I didn't manage to take any pictures, as all of them seemed to be in a very busy mood and kept flitting around almost faster than the eye could follow!

The weather was uncommonly hot here this summer, and between the heat when I was home and being away from home, I didn't get much stitching done at all. But I have started to crochet again, and look forward to sharing my experiments with you soon, as well as the one small cross-stitch finish I managed.

As the weather cools off and life hopefully settles down a bit, I can't wait to get back to blogging and crafting. I'm still horribly behind on my e-mails, and again I must apologize :) Thank you all sincerely for the lovely comments and best wishes!!!

Wherever in the world you happen to be, I hope that this summer was a good one for you! And here is one of the lovely sunsets we were blessed to see this summer: