Please go to the Bissell web site and vote for Katie. We're trying to collect enough votes to make the finals so we can win funds for SEGA, the local greyhound adoption group.

It takes only seconds to vote, and you can only vote once.

P.S. Feel free to pass this link on to your friends.

Free vintage patterns (as downloadable PDFs) of cross-stitch, knitting, crochet, tatting...all kinds of needlework. The files are scans of old publications now in the public domain. (Think: Project Gutenberg for crafters. Some of the publications actually are available through Project Gutenberg.)

Just imagine:

Beeton, Isabella. Beeton’s Book of Needlework Consisting of Descriptions and Instructions, Illustrated by Six Hundred Engravings, of Tatting Patterns, Crochet Patterns, Knitting Patterns, Netting Patterns, Embroidery Patterns, Point Lace Patterns, Guipure D’Art, Berlin Work, Monograms, Initials and Names, Pillow Lace, and Lace Stitches. London: Ward, Lock and Tyler, 1870, 592 pgs. Project Gutenberg e-book, converted to pdf format jac apr2006. An enormous and wonderful book, essential for understanding late Victorian needlework.

Dillmont, Th. de, ed. Bibliotheque DMC Alphabet de la Brodeuse, Lettres, Chiffres, Monogrammes et Ornements points comptés suivis d’une série de modèles avec calques pour Broderie de blanc [DMC Library Embroiderer’s Alphabet, Letters, Figures, Monograms and Ornaments in counted stitches followed by a series of patterns with tracings for white work]. Mulhouse, France: Dollfus-Mieg & Cie, [c.1890], 149 pgs., in French. Scans donated by Digital Archive, reedited jac sep2006 Dazzling patterns for cross-stitch and other charted embroidery – alphabets, borders, medallions, monograms, naval and heraldic symbols, hunting motifs, winter scenes, white work monograms.

Dillmont, Th. de. L'Art Chrétien en Égypte: Motifs de Broderie copte, Première Partie [Egyptian Christian Art: Coptic Embroidery Motifs, part 1] Mulhouse, France: Dollfus Mieg & Cie, [c.1895, approx 60 pgs.]. Scans donated by Sytske Wijnsma, photo edited by Judith Combs may2007. Clear illustrations of simple embroidery stitches that quickly progress to patterns of dazzling complexity. 30 plates, many with thread count notes. French text.

Wilke, Harriet Cushman, ed. Priscilla Cross Stitch Book, A Collection of Useful Patterns with Suggestions for Their Use in Various Styles of Work. Boston: Priscilla Publishing, 1899, 48 pgs (cover missing). Scans donated by Judith Combs aug2006. A classic. Detailed descriptions of the many embroidery stitches used in charted patterns, as well as charts for alphabets, historic, formal and floral borders, church and heraldic motifs, intricate birds, butterflies, flowers. Many of these patterns work for filet crochet, beading, charted knitting, etc.

Okay, I'm going off to drool a while... You'll find the goodies over here.

Tags: free patterns

The baby afghan I made for fancyhorse 's grandbaby-to-be has arrived safely at her house (thank you, USPS).

The fancy doily I made back in May was from a pineapple-pattern called "Exquisite," and I made the doily in cream-colored thread. I had already picked a cream-colored yarn for the baby afghan, and I stumbled on a pineapple-pattern for an afghan named "Exquisite"--it seemed meant-to-be:

( Photos here... )

Tags: baby afghan, crochet, ravelry

I’m starting to use the Ravelry site, and I really like it. It’s a site where knitters and crocheters keep track of their projects—what’s done, what’s in the works, what’s next in line—and inventory their yarn and thread, patterns, craft books, tools, etc. Users can see who else is making or has made something using the same pattern, what kind of yarn was used, what pattern modifications had to be made. One of the strongest features is that the site is designed to link to things that already exist: to a crafter’s Flickr pictures and blog and—eventually—to a crafter’s books on LibraryThing.

 

But the Ravelry site can’t link to blog entries that aren’t public. So here’s what I’m doing: I’m going to try to keep my craft blog posts and noncraft blog posts separate. Craft blog posts—which will have this user icon—will all be public, and so will any replies you care to make to those posts. Noncraft blog posts will be remain friends-only and will have any user icon I want…

 

But there are old blog entries I want to link to the corresponding project on Ravelry. I’m going through my older posts, copying the craft-related information from a post, and creating a second post containing just the craft info. That second post is getting the same date and time as the original post, will have this icon and will be public, but it won’t have people’s comments on the projects. I’m not going to turn people’s very kind, friends-only replies into public comments, but I’m also not going to delete much-valued replies to my posts just so my posts will be “clean” enough to go public. So if you happen to look back at old journal entries of mine, don’t think you’ve gone nuts: yeah, some of the posts are all-but identical.

Tags: ravelry

In the past few days, I've finished up a baby afghan and a shawl (pictures later). I've gone back to working on the accursed greyhound table runner. I have 12 rows to go (plus the edging), and I haven't omitted any of the border checkerboard blocks. And, near as I can tell, I haven't misplaced any of the blocks, either. Fingers crossed, but it looks like third time might be the charm.

(Actually, it took three tries before I worked out a shawl I liked: this one isn't triangular, but is just a nice, long rectangle. But it seems to be taking multiple tries before I can get things to work out, lately.)


Oh, honestly! Talk about an accursed project: I took a break in typing this to take Sam and Jacey outside. When we came back in, Sam darted ahead to sniff around where I'd been working to see if I'd left anything for him to eat. (I hadn't.) When I came back into the living room, he jumped down from where he'd been on the sofa (he knows better than to sniff around at that end of the sofa) and ran back across the room so he could look all innocent...and he hooked the damned crochet thread with his collar and unraveled nearly half of the most recent, carefully counted row.

Tags: ravelry, shawl, table runner

I'm on the sofa, crocheting away while I watch Pride and Prejudice (Garson & Olivier) and now The Importance of Being Earnest. Sam, after sleeping on the floor for a while, decided to get up on the sofa to sleep. I went to unwind some more yarn and discovered that Sam was sleeping on it--and he refused to move. So I had to slide my hand around under him, then peel his 65 pounds off the sofa so I could retrieve my yarn.

In other news: I got my invitation to www.ravelry.com, where I'm KathyInGeorgia. (They don't allow hyphens or underscores in screen names, and KFInGeorgia or KFinGeorgia looks a bit strange to me.) I'll be having fun over there...

Tags: crochet, ravelry

I'm sitting here, carefully counting my stitches as I crochet while The Return of the King plays in the DVD player. But as I'm counting, Gimli and Legolas are in the background, counting their enemies as they dispatch them. 

There's one too many sets of numbers in the air...

Tags: crochet, ravelry

I'm envious as all-get-out. Go here and click on any one of those five sets. Just look at those gorgeous things! Yeah, they're pretty when you click on the individual photos, but the array in thumbnail view is stunning! I wish I had (a) her courage where color use is concerned, and (b) enough time to produce work like that. And talent, too. Some of these feature very difficult techniques.

I haven't yet ripped out the filet-crochet-gone-wrong. I'll probably give it another try, when I will rip out rows 5 and 6 and redo and hope for better results. Meanwhile, I'm working on a shawl, making up the pattern as I go. (It's more-or-less a triangle. As long as it has more-or-less three points, how wrong can I go?)

Tags: crochet, ravelry, shawl, table runner

And if it goes wrong again, I'm just going to make a donation to SEGA and call it done. Some things aren't worth the trouble...

Working my way back across the table runner, got to the end of row 6...and spotted an error at the beginning of row 5: I skipped the filled block in the checkerboard-type border. This is exactly the same error I made before, and it's fake-able, but it's infuriating; fixing it properly means ripping out rows 6 and 5--with no guarantee that I won't make exactly the same error again. What's really infuriating is that I've been carefully checking my rows to make sure all the blocks were present--and they have been--but haven't spotted when a block is present but not properly filled.

Where's my damned checkbook...?

Tags: crochet, ravelry, table runner

The lives of some people on my friends list are full of strife right now, and those folks have my deepest sympathy.

My life is relatively stress-free right now (I refuse to think about work on my day off), and my biggest problem today is crochet-related. So welcome to my complaint about something that holds no major ranking in the problems of the universe. Sometimes it's nice to have trivial problems.

I'm working on a table runner that I plan to donate to SEGA for sale at their fall festival. (I'm not doing another life-sized greyhound--I'm not that crazy.) I'm making the table runner using a thread that is cotton with a metallic accent. This stuff is tricky to work with: just the pressure of your fingers as you hold the thread to work can force the thread to untwist a bit; the longer you work, the more you untwist, and the more you force one section to untwist the more another section of the thread twists back to compensate. Thus, you wind up with a handful of twisty thread, and every stitch makes it worse...unless, of course, you can force yourself to hold the thread loosely--which is not as easy as it sounds.

The table runner is in what's known as filet crochet (both those -et endings are pronounced -ay: filay crochay). In filet crochet, you have a grid, and the design is caused by filling in some of the squares on the grid. When you work a long series of filled-in squares, it's easy to get off track a bit, since every square on your grid actually is three stitches, and if you get off by just one stitch, you can screw up how many open squares ought to grow back out of the solid patch. This isn't necessarily a problem, unless your design has a border that consists of alternating open and filled squares like a checkerboard--yeah, a border like this pattern has.

So I fought the twisting threads. I compensated quite neatly for a mistake I made (and noticed two rows later): I left a square open when it should have been filled, but I was able to fill it in with a bit of thread I attached especially for the purpose (and the "fix" was perfect and unnoticeable). But I came out of the solid greyhound part with one fewer squares than I was supposed to have, and I had no neat way to grow a new square. And when I unraveled back to where I had made the open-square error--figuring if I had to rip stuff out, I might as well fix that error, too--I still didn't have the right number of stitches. And I wasn't really happy with the beginning chain of the piece (sometimes the chain is really loose; often your border will cover the foundation chain, but not in this piece). And while the overall piece was the right width, it was too short--stitches weren't standing tall enough. (That probably would have been corrected by blocking, but still, that was just one more thing wrong with the piece...)

So I ripped out back to the beginning: 25 of 29 rows were done, and it was close to 18 hours of work (some work Sunday, and I've worked at least 12 hours today). I'm going to give this one more try--keeping a really loose grip on the thread, and using tons of stitch markers (every tenth grid square, for crying out loud) and moving the stitch markers on every row so I can make sure from row to row that I have the proper number of stitches.

And if it goes wrong again, I'm just going to make a cash donation to SEGA and call it done. Some things aren't worth the trouble...

*I know I called this a rant, but I can't work up the energy--or anger--for a proper rant. Let's just call this a complaint.

Ooh, if you pick "frustrated" as your mood, look what icon you get...

Tags: crochet, ravelry, table runner
Current Mood: frustrated