Friezes have wonderful details!

The friezes are wonderfully colored and detailed on Janice's casket.  She did a lovely job of stuffing and making the animals in them with needlelace to give them dimention over the tent stitched background.  Note that many of the flowers had needlelace petals as well and some seem padded to raise them above the background.

I will give a shameless plug for the Cabinet of Curiosities course here - you can see in some of the details the materials made for the course that give it that wonderful authentic finish - such as the glass eyes, silver tape and tin plated brass hardware.  These are the frostings that help add the it factor to Janice's imaginative and expert stitching.  But I can't take credit for the Ram and the addition of a shell to make his horns - that is all Janice and I just love it!!

Details of Top of Janice's Casket

Today I want to show some details of Hagar and Abraham from the top of Janice's casket to give you an idea of the fantastic details she included.  The buttonhole edge to Hagar's cap, her hands, and the fabolous basket are just a few.  

Janice's Design Story

I am thrilled to be able to show Janice Gail's casket off for her and tell some of the story behind it as well as share the lovely photos.  We all can see that the piece is just gorgeous, but I know it is more so as photos of silk embroidery just never show the dimension and texture as well as we want because of the reflections off silk.  

Janice says about the design:

Well, I chose the ladies to represent my daughters (one is a musician for Sound and the other is an artist for Sight). The other three are for my sisters, one of whom has passed away. The other two sisters fought over who would get to be represented by which Sense (lovingly, of course). 

The colors of hair and dresses were picked to go with each individual, I TRIED to make them look similar to each person (not too successfully) and pictures were sent to everyone to keep them up to date. The back was to represent my husband and son, with me thrown in just to keep things going along family lines.

The top was simply a design just as you [teacher] sent it to us to see if I could give the right 17th century feel to things. I actually think that I like that one the best as I could attempt to get personality into the people. The knotwork was the first design picked, to symbolize my Irish heritage, and the sheep HAD to be on there as my ancestors were sheep herders in New Mexico in the 1800's.  

It was so challenging to try to tell MY story, but make it look like an original styled casket. I had fallen in love with a picture of the Martha Edlin casket when I was 10, and dreamed of having one of my very own for the 55 years since then, so there was no decision over what style. It's also VERY addictive, and I dove head first into a mirror surround after the casket (the same week)!

I love how she took the allegories of the senses and managed to represent her family while staying true to the 17th century form.  Tomorrow I will add a few details as I know everyone is dying to get up close!

Congratulations!!!

I am so happy to post these pictures today to celebrate two caskets which were finished by students.  I am going to take several blogs to show the pictures in detail as well as some stories and insights by both of the casket makers.

But today it is all about celebration!  There are many students who have wonderful stories they are working on, designs they are coloring, stitching started and some even finished but not mounted yet.  So it is excited amongst all this wonderful progress to see two pieces finished and displayed.  It is especially great when you realize that the routes to a casket were down two very different paths (but equally encouraged in class).

Janice Gail chose a traditional design idea with the five senses around the sides and Abraham and
Hagar on the top.  She rendered them in exquisite stumpwork detailing, working over 4000 hours on the embroidery.  She worked mostly with the threads in the course kits and bought a double casket to apply her outstanding work.  I can't wait to share more pictures tomorrow as well as the story behind this traditional design and how it represents members of her special family.

Five senses double casket in stumpwork by Janice Gail

Flat Top Casket by Edith and John Brewer,
Design adapted from Tempting Tangles Designs

Edith and John Brewer took a different path to a wonderful piece.  John decided to make the casket for his wife and went as far as making her an oak carrying case based on the originals we viewed in class.  They chose a flat top model and designed the interior as they wanted.  A true joint project between the two of them!  Edith has planned to make more than one casket and John is planning to oblige so she decided to use a counted work pattern she had see on Tempting Tangles Designs and so she purchased it and adapted it for this project.

I love these two pieces because they show the range - counted from an adapted pattern to original stumpwork and a purchased casket to a lovingly designed and fabricated piece by a spouse.  This is exactly why the Cabinet of Curiosities course is so "complicated" and also so difficult to explain when prospective students look at it.  The course teaches you, enables you and allows you the flexibility to make your dream.  It is designed to be respectful to your budget for such a large project as well as where you are in your comfort with different stitches.

What I find interesting, is that there is a handful of students who are doing both counted and stumpwork caskets or mirror frames.  Clearly they have decided to feed multiple parts of their soul with their work.

I hope you will join me for the next week in looking at the details and congratulating these accomplished stitchers (and makers) in the comments!

Tricia

Casket Drawer Tape

I am thrilled to have approved recently the first run of tape for casket drawers!  Silver is expensive and it was back in the day as well.  Those crafty 17th century finishers realized that if they made a silk tape with metal center, it would evoke the woven silver trim used to outline the embroidery and yet be far less expensive for the interior where there is a deceptively large amount needed.

This tape was the first off the looms in Europe and is quickly being finished as I know there are many who would like it for their caskets!

Tricia

A Poesy Casket Toy

The registration for the Winterthur symposium "The Diligent Needle: Instrument of Profit, Pleasure, and Ornament" starts on the 19th.  I am thrilled to be doing a lecture on embroidered caskets as well as teaching a poesy casket toy based on a new material made recently for me.

The description of the class is below.  For more information on the symposium - click here.

There are about a dozen known small poesies made from wire and silk braid found in embroidered caskets of the 17th century. These ‘toys’ may have been little trinkets of affection or fun projects taught by teachers to students. It may be coincidence, but a common conceit of the time was being painted with a small sprig in one’s hand. Were these stitched flowers made for such occasions? During this workshop we will examine the techniques used to join the braids to make petals and leaves and make a pink flower to place in a secret drawer of a casket.

Tricia's Summer Camp for Maker Kids

My son's basement lab.  One kid turned the
 corner and stopped dead - "oh god this is
beautiful he said.  I knew we had 'hooked
a new one'.

I think I have to explain the absence - I started getting email about where I had gone!

Well, most of the time I seem to be running an online maker camp for ladies (and gents) who love to embroider.  But in my 'off time' I spend time running my two robotic teams.  It is the summer all of a sudden and my older team decided to get started in May for the season that actually starts in September!  I think they were just a bit starved of spending time together and inventing.

As their schooling becomes more intense, it also has lost that sense of adventure, mystery and curiosity.  I know this to be true as they wanted to start 'roboting' the afternoon of graduation (from 8th grade).  So my house has been full of teens since the last week of May.  It has been quite the grind for me to have them around all day and work in the night!  My house is a wreck.  But as you can see from the pictures - they are having a BLAST.

Conductive clay.  They made it themselves.  Oh god what a
mess.  And they decided to make a double batch when
I wasn't looking - eight cups of flour!

It just really hits home how much of how we educate our

Light up paper airplanes
A boy's dream

Tail 'fire' anyone? We aren't going to show
you how we do this - that is our
product secret!

children has gone wrong.  They all text me at night to see how early they can come over the next day.  They are all standing outside my door the minute I say they can (how many teen boys are out of bed before noon on a summer day?).  Saturday my phone was buzzing all day (please guys - let ME have a day off!).  And Friday on our weekly trip to the local electronic supply house (too cool - so many LEDs and components to figure out what to do with), they bought rockets with their combined change.  So I insisted that they take over the organizing and get a bunch of dad's to supervise them with the explosive
charges (I needed a weekend off).

Well, the group texts went around like mad and somewhere around 11am on Sunday - my son informs me proudly that they have it all organized.  Noon at the Nguyen's house to build!  WHAT??  My stitching day gonzo.  They sent the Dads out for chips and Mountain Dew (they

Happy boys with explosive rockets.  Too much glue.  That
was once a nice dinning room table...

needed the bottle for water rockets in the front yard) and the door seemed to be open all day.    The World Cup at ear splitting volume and enough glue vapors to send us and not the rockets into the stratosphere.  They left at 9:30pm only to return today at noon!

We have been having fun.  This year the research topic is 'World Class' which means 'how to change education for the better'.  They have taken to it with gusto.  My walls are full of paper with what they don't like about school all over it and how to make it better.  They have settled on coming up with a STEM curriculum for kids that emphasizes creativity, invention, and exploration using competition and interactive physical games together.  They spent

Matchbox car + Dremel Drill +
LED = COOL!

this evening analyzing all the different channels they could get the 'product' out into the public.  Some really great ideas.  Seems I will be supervising some test bed summer camps in my future as well.

As example of some of the stuff they are doing - check out the pictures.  They have come up with challenges to learn different things about electronics.  One was 'can you light up a paper airplane and have it do tricks in the dark'.  Another was 'what can you do with surface mount LEDs, matchbox cars and glow in the

Tick tack toe in the dark with one
of the creations.  Or 'how many boys will fit
into a dark bathroom?'

dark paper?'  I know when things are a winner when these boys are working like mad and having a blast inventing and all of a sudden we realize that three hours have passed without a

A bunch of test bunnies for the paper circuit activity they
invented last week!

break.  We have some really great stuff and already started testing on all the third graders in the neighborhood.

We made conductive play dough and used it to make circuits, electrified a frisbee for nighttime ultimate, and made light-up origami puppets.  I guess it is not a surprise that two local boys beat down the door to join the team this month.

I have to pack Stumpwork kits tomorrow, so I had to tell them to stay home.  I can't risk having someone open their kit and find flashing paper airplanes in it.  But next week, they promise me they will invade again.  If the blog goes dark again… you will know they did!

Tricia