Roland Designs

   Here is an amazing rug made from a Roland-designs pattern, I will let the Abigail explain tell her story in her own words....

About 10 or 15 years ago, I lived in a place that abounded in good tag sales (Connecticut - as opposed to where I am now in North Carolina where there is nothing of the sort).  Inspired by the latch hook rugs that my sister made when she was a little girl, I began the process of buying up affordable wool rug yarn leftovers from thrift shops and yard sales, although it would be years before I had the time to pursue such an effort ("retirement" made the difference, and I use the quotes because I kept going back to work).  At the time, wool in almost any form (fiber, fabric, clothing) was expensive and in short supply, supplanted by acrylic and other synthetic fabrics and fibers none of which I thought had any value at all.  And when it comes to crafts, my thesis has always been, "Your finished product is only as good as the materials you use to make it" no matter how glorious the pattern or design.

After years of hoarding these yarns, I finally ordered some canvas (3.5 mesh) and transcribed a Perler (like HAMA) bead design made by my daughter into a small rug that she could stand on in front of the kitchen sink when she washed dishes (which she seemed to do all the time).  It was during this first effort that I began to "fall out of love" with wool yarns.  That process has continued and grown to the point now where I will actively avoid them and here's why:  the yarn itself has a flat, matte quality devoid of any liveliness and it is very difficult to knot properly.  On the wool-upside, some of the colors and dyes from years gone by are wonderful, and probably cannot be found (at least by me) in any other form.  I never thought I would utter these words, but my very favorite fiber for this particular craft is polyester (full of life!) and acrylic (older ones have good color) and both are easily knotted.  With all this in mind, I must tell you that with few specific exceptions, I cannot afford to buy brand new yarns.  I haunt ebay and have had great success finding good yarns that suit my needs.  The drawback: because it's difficult to find affordable yarns I like in volume I end up purchasing those retail from online suppliers.  Here's the skinny on them:  probably my favorite supplier of acrylic yarns that have acceptable color, are the right length and knot well is Mary Maxim.  They're pleasant to do business with, their shipping is reasonably quick and affordable and the colors are OK - not great.  For superior (by today's standards) color, I choose Herschnerrs; however, their quality control stinks and the strands themselves are somewhere between flimsy and insubstantial.  Even though I now use 5-mesh canvas, I still have to double the Herschnerrs strands which is a tedious process.  It takes about three times as long to work one double-strand hole as it does for a single-strand hole.  This is because care must be taken to hold the two strands evenly as they are hooked onto the canvas or else regardless of the excellence of your efforts, they will knot unevenly.  Also when knotting, each of the four ends must be pulled individually to form a balanced double knot.  This doesn't sound like much work, but it definitely adds to the overall time required to finish a project.  Also it's an added expense:  for a rug that is 180x180 holes you have 32,400 knots and I figure half of those are background which means 16,200 x 2 for Herschnerrs so that the actual total yarn usage is more like 48,600 strands.  The 320-strand yarns cost $.89 each per roll which is approximately 50 additional units or another $45.00.  It doesn't sound like that much, I know, but on a tight budget it's an issue.  Another deeply annoying flaw with Herschnerrs is the absence of quality control in the manufacturing process, as I mentioned before: the individual strands include some that are too long, too short, too thick, REALLY too thin, and knotted.  I've considered contacting Herschnerrs about this, but my guess is that they know and don't care enough to take care of this piece of business (how could they NOT know?).  So I continue to use them for their superior shades and try to make do with whatever I can get my hands on through eBay.  At this point, I'd be very interested in a 7-mesh-to-the-inch canvas (the denser the better).  Is there such a thing?  I have no idea.

Also in my effort to be as true as possible to your glorious chart, I had to find a way to expand a maximum of 8 shades of green (all I had) into the 11 called for in the chart.  I don't know whether or not you can tell from the picture but I had to cheat to accommodate the demands of the wonderful chart.  I made up four different "crib sheets" so that I would be able to remain true to the decisions I had made for the green colors.  (See attached photos of crib sheets).  Essentially, they got divided into three groups: yellow greens, black greens and gray greens.  The blue greens didn't have to be shared among the various leaf groups in the chart.  I tried to use the GARNET suggested for the background at the center, but it ended up by looking too sanguine, so I went with just a few bits of GARNET here and there and mostly CORNFLOWER BLUE (another surprisingly lovely shade from Herrschners).  Because I work from right to left and from top to bottom, I started in the upper right hand corner with the DARK ROYAL BLUE background and the 3 shades of BROWN for the stems and branches.  I worked across blocks of 40 holes vertically and horizontally at a time (for me, anything wider/deeper than that leads to the possibility of confusion) and then another 40 which brought me almost to the center of the design.  Because I was so thrilled and excited about this hooking design, I was sort of frustrated by the fact that I was doing just background and lots of BROWN (it's the colors that give me a thrill!) so that by the time I got to the right side of the middle of the design I didn't have the heart to do that main element in blacks, grays and off-whites.  So I had to figure out what shades of the same color I had in enough volume to get me through the entire flower group.  As it turned out, the coral-y, orange-y pinkish combination worked well.  Another thing I felt I should do throughout the design to bring more light - if that's the right word - into its various elements, was add the occasional very bright WHITE spot.  Sometimes I felt it was drowning in a kind a darkness, probably as a result of the fact that I was using yarns that were not "lively".  Another salient thing about the "darkness" issue is that since my eyes got old, I have found it increasingly difficult to work with very dark colors.  About twenty years ago, I was working on a wonderful counted cross-stitch sampler (very complex and colorful) done on black linen.  I had to throw in the towel because I just couldn't "read" the holes in the linen anymore.  So vestiges of this difficulty remain.

A few days after I arrived at my new home, I received this pretty stitched card from my dear friend Saara.

You can check out her blog here : 

http://pieniristipistoblogi.blogspot.com/

Dear Elga from south Africa has started a new blog with photos of her miniature embroidery.

You can check it our here : http://elgakoster.blogspot.com

   I recently received an email from a dear lady in Australia with a photo of a filet crochet panel she made for her church.

Here is the photo and her own explanation....

My panel ....... I designed it myself on large sheets of white butcher's paper in half-inch pencilled squares, it took me four months -............... You will see it is strongly "Australian bush" as I lived then in a little mountain village, Kinglake, which was almost totally destroyed in bushfires in February 2009 - including the church, and my panel of course!

............. I have framed a photo of it, and will give it to the community once they have rebuilt their church (for the third time, the first time was 1929, again due to bushfires).

  Here are more photos from dear Elga, she stitched the Berlin woolwork lion chart into a miniature wall hanging for her doll house . Beautiful !

My sister sent me these photos of her beautiful little new baby, and her filet crochet blanket.

Congratulation Claire on your new little girl, and of course the amazing filet blanket.

I just received these beautiful photos of miniature petit point from a talented friend in South Africa.

If you would like to try your hand at this form of embroidery, or need fine silk gauze, check out this website :

http://www.micro-stitchery.com