Tag Archives: A. Catherine Noon

E Is For… Embroidery

Knoontime Knitting
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Piece from a kit; original company unknown. Embroidered by A. Catherine Noon. Photo copyright A. Catherine Noon, All Rights Reserved.

Embroidery.  It was the first textile art I ever learned.  Crewel embroidery is an art with a long history.  The Bayeux Tapestry, in fact, is not a Tapestry, nor woven:  it was, in fact, embroidered.  The Victoria and Albert Museum in England has a fantastic page on the history of English embroidery, here.  Embroidery has a wide history, not just in Europe, with some of the oldest references dating back to China 500 B.C.E.

I find it relaxing.  I have started to work on my own designs, usually modifying an existing one as from a kit, like the one from the left (which is one of my oldest pieces, and I did not modify it; I think I made it around 1987).  Embroidery artists are able to translate their graphic ideas into needle, thread, and fabric, and do so either from their own original designs or by adapting from paintings and other art.  I find that pretty darned amazing, to be honest.

I confess, though, that I adore kits.  I find ones that I like, and then it’s like coloring in designs in a coloring book.  My mind relaxes while my hands are kept busy, and I get to play with color and texture.  While embroidery seems intimidating to the beginner, needlepoint and cross-stitch are both needle arts that similarly have kits and can be done with little to no experience.  If you’ve a mind to try embroidery, though, give it a shot – I made this piece before I learned anything from another textile artist, and was able to follow the instructions.  Most of the stitches are fairly simple ones; the only more complex bit the French knots (which, in the spirit of full disclosure, I found horridly difficult – so after this kit, I made sure to pick ones that didn’t require them).

But for the adventurous artist, and for those of you who are able to translate flat, written instructions and graphics to the three-dimensional world of canvas and thread, the world is your oyster.  There’s a burgeoning interest in needlework and some amazing books that have come out recently that are sure to delight both the novice and experience needleworker.  My favorite of the new artists is Jane Nicholas, but beware: viewing her site may consume many hours of your time because her art is captivating.  You have been warned.  🙂

What about you, Dear Reader?
What classical art catches your fancy?

D Is For… Decoupage!

Knoontime Knitting
From Alterknits by Leigh Radford, photography by John Rizzo

From Alterknits by Leigh Radford, photography by John Rizzo

One of my favorite knitting books is by Leigh Radford, called Alterknits:  Imaginative Projects and Creativity Exercises.  She has a ton of really great ideas.  One of the last of them is the best use of yarn ball bands ever.  She covered a dress form with them.  I think the effect is surprising in its simple beauty.

Until I read her suggestions, I didn’t know what decoupage meant.  There’s a whole artform out there surrounding it and you can get special glues and papers for it.  Basically, it’s covering objects with glued paper, then applying something that gives it a high gloss.  There’s a great tutorial at WikiHow and a bunch of other links that I didn’t take the time to delve into, but if you google “decoupage” you’ll find them.

What I find particularly exciting about this particular type of art is that you can use ephemera and found objects from around the house.  This can create unique artwork that is also a snapshot in time – catalogs, magazines, newsletters, those circulars that come from big box stores each week – anything can become grist for the mill.  In today’s day and age, finding art that we can make that’s in line with the idea of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is a positive thing.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What kinds of things might you memorialize like this?

C Is For… Crochet!

Knoontime Knitting

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Crochet.  All it takes is a hook.  The textile world seems divided into Knitters and Crocheters; I’ve rarely met a Switch.  I decided to try learning and this scarf is my swatch that, well, grew.  The teacher provided us with a ball of bulky yarn and a hook, and I had a ball learning single crochet, half-double crochet, and double crochet (which really should be triple, since there are 3 chains, but treble is something else, and…)

Yeah, I’m a Knitter.

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I mean, for one thing, I have a heck of a time keeping my stitches in order.  I somehow end up with more, or less, depending on where I am in the project.  I know it’s a matter of practice, but my knitting seduces me.  I’ll say this: I’m really glad that I know some crochet now, because there’s this sweater I knit that has 4 crocheted medallions up the center, and I really want to finish it.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What craft have you begun that you want to practice more?

 

B Is For… Bargello!

Knoontime Knitting

Today’s letter, B, can mean many things. My favorite in terms of crafts is Bargello, the Italian needle art that resembles flames and waves. The image to the left is a common style, with the colors undulating back and forth across the canvas but all relating to each other in their pattern.

It’s a simple pattern to work, because it’s essentially vertical or horizontal. There’s no fancy stitchwork involved, just carefully placing the stitches neatly one beside the next, offset in order to create the characteristic wave or flame effect.

A quick search of Google images reveals many, many modern interpretations of this relaxing art; I recommend wandering around or, if you’re ready to take the plunge, grab a kit and try it for yourself. For the brave at heart, you don’t even really need a kit. Just select some colors and play with the wave effect across a swath of mesh fabric.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What’s your favorite craft that starts with the letter “B”?

A Is For… Alphabet

Knoontime Knitting

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Alphabets are magical.  Before reading and writing became ubiquitous during the Renaissance, it was the province of specially-educated people, usually men, who spent their lives learning to be scribes.  The illuminated manuscripts they left behind are masterpieces of art, calligraphy, adornment, and design.

I learned calligraphy as a child and spent many years away from it.  I’ve recently rediscovered it and have been having a ball playing with it.  By “play,” I mean not taking it seriously.  I haven’t used my dip pens, nor pulled out any of my instruction books, nor worked with my calligrapher’s drawing table more than a couple times.  Instead, I’ve been doing the calligrapher’s equivalent of sketching – drawing designs on the page with quotes, or poems, or other things.

Quite by accident, I stumbled on something that I’ve been calling mandala; though, strictly speaking, it’s not really a mandala (the word in Sanskrit that means wheel).  My designs are usually square or diamond-shaped, and are composed of words rather than shapes.  But they are meditative, ask questions, or seek to answer something.  Take this image, for instance:  I was seeking what meant “home” to me, and trying to answer the question of “what makes a dwelling a home”.

What about you, Dear Reader?  What craft did you play with as a child or youngster that you either have already rediscovered now, or might want to play with again?

 

Thoughtful Thursday, 3D and Writing

Knoontime Knitting

Emerald-Scarf

Welcome to Thoughtful Thursday, where we chat about 3D and writing.  Today I have a bit of a twist on the topic.  Since Book 2 of the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep, is out on April 8th, I figured I’d share a little bit about knitting and 3D and use the opportunity to share about the book, too.

When Rachel and I created Persis, we wanted a world that valued handicrafts and the home arts.  The job of a homemaker has become invisible and thankless, thanks in part to the fact that it’s largely women’s work.  The women’s liberation movement in the United States did a lot to emancipate women from being chained to the kitchen sink, but as a consequence, their traditional work of raising children and caring for the home became less than laudable.

I have a friend who is about thirty-five years older than me.  She decided to stay home and raise five boys of her own, as well as twenty-nine foster children.  She told me that she’s endured a lot of grief from women friends who said that she wasn’t living up to her full potential, and that she was oppressed.  That made me sad, because she’s an incredible mom and creates a home in which people enjoy spending time.

Because of that, we wanted the home arts to be elevated in importance such that they were considered to be a critical part of society.  The job of the Keeper is a desirable part of the fabric of life.  Developed to support miners and livestock farmers, the Keepers are trained to manage household bookkeeping, cooking, and various arts.

For our book release, we’ve both made scarves.  The picture at the top of this post is the Emerald Keep Scarf.  I knitted it because I love to make things, and this was fun to do because it was referential to my own book.  I felt closer to the world we created by making something for the book, which is an unexpected side benefit.

So tell me, what do you like to make, whether it’s a meal or something artistic?

Make Something Monday – The Emerald Keep Scarf

Knoontime Knitting

Now that I’ve sorted out the design and simplified it, the Emerald Keep Scarf is coming along very nicely.  Last week, I talked about the difficulties I was having with it and how the design process was coming – or, as it turns out, not coming.  This weekend I got almost 18 inches done.  At this rate, I’ll be done by the end of next weekend or the middle of the week following, well in advance of the start of the Keepsake Book Tour.

The stitch is a simple pattern from Barbara Walker’s A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns called Two-Color Star Stitch.  I find her books invaluable in designing projects because she puts the knitter in the driver’s seat.  Through teaching how the fabric works inherently, to how geometric designs are created by the yearn, a knitter can go from a basic student of the subject to a designer in very short order.  I have a long way to go before I’m a master knitter, but I am a lot closer to the goal because of her books.  I highly recommend them.

I’ve made this stitch pattern a couple times before, and I like its simple beauty.  This time, I selected an emerald green dark tone for the main color and a light mint for the accent.

The more I work with this pattern, I find that I like the reverse of the fabric just as much as the front.  It ends up looking almost beaded in texture, with neat edges on each side.

I cast on 30 stitches, since it’s multiples of 3; on size 7 needles the fabric is quite wide.  There’s a lot of horizontal stretch to it and it will curl (which is why I had such difficulty with edging it).  I don’t mind the curl in the finished design, it has its own beauty; I’ll still play around with some possibilities for edgings in future projects but since I needed this done for the book tour, I didn’t have the time.

I did have an interesting breakthrough as I was working it.  It finally it me that the colors are tied to the stitch order; meaning that row 2 is always Color A and row 4 is Color B.  I don’t need to keep track of the row count because I know which pattern row to work based on the color on the needle.  All wrong side rows are purled, so it’s an easy pattern to memorize – even for me, with the difficulty I have with 2D to 3D translation.

Keep your eyes peeled for the Keepsake Tour; it starts March 8th.  Emerald Keep is out on April 8th.

What are you making this Monday?  Please tell me in the comments; I’d love to know.

Stash Sunday

Knoontime Knitting

I am working on the Emerald Keep scarf for the Keepsake Tour, which of course means that I instantly want to play with something from my stash. Doesn’t that always happen?

So here’s what’s on my desk right now, that’s not the Keepsake scarf:

Top left is my character binder for the novels currently in progress, (Sealed by Duty and Sapphire Dream, in case you’re curious).  Under that is my Franklin Planner.  On its side is some pretty Caron Simply Soft Paints yarn, which I bought when I bought the yarn for the Emerald Keep scarf but am not using in it.

Which begs the question, what shall I make with it?  ~rubs hands together~

Next is my keys.  This is important.  Hard to get into the house without them.

Don’t ask me how I know that.  I don’t want to talk about it.

Moving right along, we come to the Caron ball band for the light green yarn in the Emerald Keep scarf.  The glue failed and it fell off, so I brought it in here to make sure I have it up on Ravelry before I discard it.

The grey is for a possible pair of Quill’s Socks, which were featured in Emerald Fire and remarked upon by every editor who worked on it as well as several fans.  Yes, Teeka finished the socks, yes, Quill liked them, and yes, I’ll feature a pattern for them when the website redesign goes live – and I might even make a pair of them to give away at some point.  Though, in all honesty, I probably won’t have time to make them for this Keepsake Tour.

Next is the yarn I bought to make Rachel a pair of fingerless mitts she can use in the hot climate of the Nevada desert.  I’ll use some kind of lace pattern on them, probably but right now I’m just sketching with it.

I realized I caught the edge of my little post-it note with Rule #11 from NCIS:  “When the job is done, walk away.”

On the right of my desk, I have two needlework kits that I’m looking forward to starting.  One is a ladybug which is in honor of the fictiious Ladybug Bed and Breakfast.  The other is a lovely peacock I bought while visiting Rachel last month – I adore peacocks.

What’s in your stash?

Work In Progress Wednesday

Knoontime Knitting
Attempt the First

It’s Wednesday.  I figured I’d share what I’ve been crafting around with.

My first item to share is the Emerald Keep Scarf, which will be a giveaway in the forthcoming Keepsake Tour starting March 8th, to celebrate the release of Book 2 in the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep.

It didn’t work.

I mean, yeah, it’s fabric, and it’s knitted.  But that’s about it. For one thing, the stitch said WS (wrong side) for both pieces, but either I misread it or it’s a typo because clearly, it’s incorrect – the edge stitches clearly are backward from the main lace stitches.

Attempt the First, Backside

This is a view where you can see the edge stitches are right-side up, while the lace is wrong side.

Grr.

Attempt the Second, Front and Frustration Both Start with F.
So does my favorite swear word.
Jus’ sayin’.

Started over.

And… I don’t like my idea of the border.  You can’t really see it well in this shot, but the edges pull in too much and make it look sloppy.  The reason I wanted a border to begin with is that this stitch has quite a bit of bias curl; however, the edging I picked (mistake-stitch rib) isn’t working.

I think either I’ll throw an extra yarn over in to create a sort of gutter, or eliminate the edges entirely.

Mancooking.
Why move stuff outta the way when you can stand over it?

I mentioned to a friend that we made candles last weekend and realized I neglected to take photos.  I planned to take pics of the cold pots, but we have to cook in our kitchen so they had to come off the stove.

And, apparently, my kid thinks it’s no big deal to stand over them rather than move them out of the way.  He’s cooking a very lovely taco salad at the moment, (well, cooking the sausage that will go in the taco salad).  Yum.

Soap! Curing!

Our batch of soap that we made a couple weeks ago is curing very well.  It’s a lovely creamy ivory color now.  We cut it this weekend to allow each of the bars exposure to air, so they can continue the curing process.

In case you’re wondering, curing is letting the chemical reaction between the fat and lye to finish.

This is raw soap and not milled soap, so it’s not made in a mold.  You can use it as is, once it’s cured, or mill it again and then pour it into pretty molds for a nice appearance.

Candles, Dipped 2015

I only made a half-dozen this year so far; I may fire up the pots once more before I put everything away.  I like the way these came out; they are nice and uniform.  They’re also really long, which is my favorite (I have four different heights I can make).

Basket-o-Candles, Bad Lighting.

This isn’t a very good shot, but it’s of my candle stock.  I’ll see if I can get a better one for you one of these days – but for now, it’s off to eat dinnah.

Yum.

What are you making?

Make Something Monday – Bryce Canyon Hat I

Knoontime Knitting
Bryce Canyon Hat, all done!

I finished the hat late Sunday night.  I used a sewing needle bind off so that the edge is nice and loose.  It’s very warm; reflects heat back against my head.

Top View

I love the way the top came out with swirls.  One thought I had is to continue the swirls down the body of the hat using decreases after each yarn over.

Bryce Canyon Hat, Almost There

Here’s a shot of the rib stitch.  My next one, I want to do something more interesting on the body of the hat.  The ribbing is boring; I’d like to try something more fun – maybe even patterned.

In process, large enough to go on the double-pointed needles.

It looks like a little bag at this stage.

Top View, in process

Here’s the top before drawing all the stitches up.  A pom pom might look cute here, or even a bauble.