State of Mind

Love it when this raison d'etre takes hold of my state of mind.

It just happens, so, I go with it.

I'm in a Hardanger state of mind.

Say whaaa?

The photo above is what my current obsession is going to closely resemble when finished.

A beautiful person is the designer, Emie Bishop. Having met her once, much to my awed, speechless delight, she made quite an impression upon me.

Hardanger is a very precise, beautiful, ancient form of needlework. 

As a perfectionist, such as myself, it is mostly a dream which can develop into a nightmare if I screw it up.  😎


There are speculations as to the origin of this form of hand sewing. The place where it really caught fire was Hardanger, Norway. When Norwegian people emigrated to various parts of the world, they brought this lovely art with them.

Hardanger became very very popular in the USA among those who were brave!
It looks intimidating, unbelievably difficult. That was my attitude about it the first time I saw it. Yep, I was intimidated.

First of all, although many people stitch on the fabric designed for it, a 22 count (that's 22 squares to the inch), the most beautiful designs are stitched on 32 count fabric.

I go for the best, the most beautiful, the most challenging.

32 Belfast linen, it is!

Living in Germany at the time, seeing the fine Hardanger curtains in the front windows of the homes of the German people in the small village of Rodenbach, where I called home for a short time, I was entranced!

While living there, I had a pen pal, Lee O'neil, who loved to stitch on linen, loved to use the beautiful art of Hardanger. She answered questions, she inspired me, I decided to try it.
As my military spouse was gone for awhile, my 4 kiddos had chicken pox, DAM! I needed a distraction!

For two weeks, between cleaning up puke, changing diapers, running baking soda baths, I sat on my bed in my bedroom  to teach myself to ply the linen.
Having self taught myself other forms of needlework, this.....this...this was the mother of all!

This was my first Hardanger project.

Baby! It's called hard-anger for a reason! Just a joke. Sort of. 

Through many tries at stitching, rip it out, cuss, groan, start again.
Repeat X 20

Finally, it clicked in my over-worked brain.

The Hardanger patterns which had intimidated me prior to this, when I saw the beautiful patterns at German magazine stands, hanging in the windows, made sense to me, finally!
So amazed at figuring this out in self teaching mode.
YEAH!
I was so good, I amazed myself!

Sometimes this pattern is all ya get. As if the designers trust that ya know what you're doing! Hah!
This ~

Hardanger requires perfection or it just looks wonky. There are only a few basic stitches, repeated over & over. Sometimes there are a few different "filler stitches" Rut roh!

Most Hardanger is designed to be a stand alone finished piece. The button hole stitch is worked as a surrounding stitch so that when it's finished, the button hole edge will keep the outer edge bound to prevent fraying. Kloster blocks, usually only 5 bars, are the second row inside the button hole stitch to insure that the edges don't fray or come undone. The button hole stitch has to be 100% perfect, as it goes around the edge, on the perimeter, has to line up & come full circle (or whatever shape) to match up perfectly with the place where the originating button hole was started.

Have I fried your brain, hmm?

Welcome to my world!

Since that time, hardanger is still not easy, yet, my confidence level that it will turn out perfectly is way up there!
Having learned tips & methods to reduce the likelihood of mistakes, it's more enjoyable, now.

I have made a few table mats, many Christmas ornaments. I rarely give it as a gift. 
Only twice! 

The angel pattern I'm working on was published in 1995.

Yeahhhhh!

It took me that long to build my skills, have the confidence to be able to accomplish this fete de accompli.

Even such a small project takes a lot of time, patience, so very elegant when it's finished.

I'm in a Hardanger state of mind!