Tag: Stitch: Dyed thread

Once upon a time …

~ Liz A ~ 14 Comments

In a tiny church in a little town, a gentle man taught two young mothers that their time and their talents counted as much or more than any treasure.

One turned to the flowers in the fields, making her beloved road-sidea into arrangements that delighted the eye. The other turned to linen and white thread, stitching them into sacred cloth.

Years passed and the two young mothers became grandmothers, their three daughters having grown and become mothers themselves.

And the gentle man moved far, far away, but his lessons were not forgotten …

Edge-y

~ Liz A ~ 24 Comments

P’s coverlet made it safely through the washer and dryer. Now a carefully saved bit of Deb Lacativa’s dyed thread is finishing it off …

As Grace suggested, and as Jude has often counseled, the stitched words are buried in the double-gauze middle so they don’t show on the front …

The edge is composed of softly fringed layers, the better to soothe P to sleep in her new big girl bed.

And really, it’s not done done. I will continue to embellish front and back …

Playing off the motifs from Parker’s outgrown baby clothes …

or stitching secret words on the back … whatever they may be.

P.S. The post title also refers to our current state of limbo as we hope a possible offer on our house comes through in time to secure a contract on a house we hope to move to.

Iron-y

~ Liz A ~ 19 Comments

I gave this piece, continued from here, a very light pressing, not wanting to smash the stitching …

There’s a back story, of course …

I’ve been using Rowenta irons for over 20 years, ever since being introduced to one at a B&B when I needed to iron a cotton Laura Ashley dress that hadn’t traveled well. I was smitten by its weightiness and by the scorching heat it generated.

Unfortunately, I have a habit of knocking irons off the board, thereby bouncing them on the concrete floor, which tends to scramble whatever electronic impulses are necessary to make the darn things work. After the most recent drop, I went to Target and grabbed the first Rowenta I saw off the shelf. Alas, I did not read the box labeling, which touted a new feature: no temperature control button. Rather, the damn thing promised to automatically adjust to whatever fiber I was pressing. I call BS on that.

So I went back to Target, bought the cheapest iron I could find (a Sunbeam) and have been happily ironing away ever since. And yes, I did scorch one piece of cotton cloth by using the linen setting … but hey, I like to live dangerously.

All that by way of saying I eased back on the throttle with this cloth, using a wool setting so I wouldn’t overdo it.

Deb Lacativa’s so-called Dirty Threads served me well, as always. Shades of grey for the initial wording …

“what if words are like shadows … like dreams that fade away with barely a trace left behind … leaving thoughts in their wake … ”

Followed by sea blues and greens …

“… and a new understanding of how we might go … in the words of Old Man Crow: we dream of a world where live is the answer, when the question is how do you get through the day?”

And finally, sky blues and violets …

“Stitched by Nana (Liz Ackert) for Griffin in 2019”

with an asemic bit that can only be read on the back …

“keep on dreaming, keep on believing you can make dreams come true.”

With thanks to Hazel at Handstories for telling me about the book Pockets by Jennifer Armstrong, which put the idea of a hidden phrase in my head (while I await receipt of my own used copy, ordered from abebooks.com for $3.99 with free shipping).

And with thanks to Griffin for loving this cloth into being. Soon enough ’twill become a pillow for his bed.

P.S. This project has gotten my rusty stitch lettering back up to speed. Now I’m looking forward to revising this bit of patchplay.