Category Archives: Swatch Library

faux entrelac ?

it’s been a while since we added to the swatch library. since we’ve been hit with a flurry of ideas (and a serious case of starter-itis), now seems as good as a time as ever to resume entries in our little swatch collection. THE LO DOWN the stitch is called the “tilting block pattern” in the walker treasury.  garter stitch blocks alternate with simple lace trellis blocks to create a checked pattern at an interested angle.  the right and left slants produced by alternating between…

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frost flowers in the spring

  What is it, that, from their faces fresh as spring, such fair, fresh, alert, first-flower faces, like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like Roman hyacinths, scyllas and yellow-haired hellebore, jonquils, dim anemones, even the sulphur auriculas, flowers that come first from the darkness, and feel cold to the touch, flowers scentless or pungent, ammoniacal almost – DH Lawrence, Frost Flowers (written in Cornwall at the end of the bitter winter of 1916-1917)

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berry goodness

goodness (n. & int.) n. 1. virtue; excellence, esp. moral. 2. kindness, generosity (had the goodness to wait). 3. what is good or beneficial in a thing (vegetables with all the goodness boiled out). int. (as a substitution for ‘God’) expressing surprise, anger, etc. (goodness me!; goodness knows; for goodness’ sake!). [OE godnes (as GOOD, -NESS)] (excerpted from the Oxford English Dictionary)

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lace and the miter square

while fiddling around with a section of our penelope pattern, we ended up making a little swatch that turned out to be a lace version of the miter square.  we’ve seen striped miter squares before but haven’t as yet come across a lacy concoction. . . it makes a nice little coaster by itself, and if ya whipped up a whole bunch, you might just end up with a really cool blanket!’

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indian cross stitch

Don’t throw the pa-ast away You might need it some rainy day Dreams can come true again When everything old is new again – Peter Allen, Everything Old is New Again lyrics THE LO-DOWN indian cross stitch is one of those stitches that we consider a minor miracle.  it’s the same on both sides, works up quickly and is quite a bit easier to execute once you get the hang of things than it may seem. we’ve provided a step-by-step tutorial to illustrate the tricky…

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