Hi friends it's Amanda Mae with Ardith Design. Welcome back to my channel where
we celebrate all things counted cross stitch and sustainable stitching. As many
of you know I'd love to be a connecting thread that helps to connect historic
needlework to contemporary needle arts. today is a special episode as I want to
focus on my save the stitches finds and I want to show you some of the kind of
restoration and rehabilitation of some pieces of counted cross stitch and other
needlework that I've come across in my travels here in the mid-atlantic region
of the United States. Many of the pieces that I have collected, acquired, curated
are pieces that would have otherwise been thrown away and I have collected
for the last I would say five years and I've done some cleaning. And I am gonna
link below some resources on conservation and articles on cleaning
historic textiles and things you don't do to clean historic textiles and a
couple links to museums about you know museum quality piece of stuff that you
don't you do not want to clean. I want to preface by saying that I am NOT a museum
curator. I don't have any formal training, so please if you have any questions
regarding a piece of needle art or needlework that you have please defer to
a museum in your area or again see the links below if you have a particular
questions. The pieces that I have cleaned are all from either the 1970s, 80s, 90s
and early 2000s. I cleaned them following videos and techniques that I've seen on
YouTube, because let's face it, at YouTube it teaches a lot of us how to
adult, how to do things, and also from other needle shop owners and people on
how to clean. Again, I am NOT an expert and if this helps someone in some small
way awesome. I don't want anyone to accidentally ruin a 19th century early
20th century or earlier piece of needlework. Again I I took a I took a
risk on cleaning some of these items and I want to kind of show you what happened
and so we're gonna have a save the stitches finish parade. and by finished
parade I mean that these pieces are they've been stitched and they were
either framed or folded to be framed or finished and I acquired them. I paid I
purchased all of the pieces I'm going to show you. some of them were going to be
thrown away, and the owners or the volunteers at the
thrift stores or the op shops they chose they wouldn't take my money because the
pieces were dirty so I made a donation. Always always always make a donation if
you're taking an item that that a thrift store or community store are not putting
out on the floor. You can make an anonymous donation or make a donation
right there to the manager, or the lead volunteer, the lead employee, but it's
just it's just good manners. I want to show you all of these pieces and I also
want to say that there's no judgement. I am a judgment-free zone,
if you've thrown away pieces in the past that's cool. It happens. if there's a
lot of reasons why stuff gets thrown away.
right now it is mid January of 2019, and thrift stores are getting
inundated here in the United States with donations from people going through the
organizing process. usually every January is a new beginning cleaning out the
closets. people start rearranging and start organizing. well the popular
streaming service Netflix took advantage of the season of organizing and new
beginnings when they released their new Marie Kondi KonMari The Joy of tidying up, her
documentary series that she executive produced. well with her coming out with
saying you know, "sparking joy," "get rid of things that don't bring you joy," thrift
stores are being inundated, charity shops, consignment shops, antique stores, are
being inundated with donations people just purging their stuff. well with that
purge comes stuff getting thrown away, and donations no longer being accepted.
and the local area that I'm in in Maryland
many of the small charity shops are actually like refusing to accept
donations. so what does that mean? that means in inclement weather if it rains
outside it snowed we had freezing rain this past weekend that means that a lot
of people who have made the time to go and donate things they don't have the
time to go to another shop to donate, so they'll it's called "dumping it." like like
"a dump and dash," they'll leave their things in the parking lot, by the sheds, or
whatever or by dumpsters and then leave. well, inclement weather happens: it rains,
it snows, if items are wet or soiled shops cannot take them, they
automatically get thrown away, which means that even that nice you know
really nice hundreds of dollars worth of clothing or home goods or antique
samplers they get thrown away so that's all of my preface to say that this is an
interesting time. I felt like this was a timely video to do this. if you see a
piece of needlework or needle art that needs rescuing or needs a little
love you know don't be afraid. I'm not I'm not sitting here telling you to
hoard things, but you can give your needlework new life, and I'm all the
pieces that I'm about to show you are cotton they were either linen or cotton,
Aida fabric and cotton threads which means I am not showing you anything that
had wool or alpaca or any animal fibers. meaning there's no silks in here that
I've cleaned. this is all cotton based. they--I took a risk, uh that the colors
were not--that that I took a risk that the threads were colorfast, meaning that
they wouldn't bleed but every piece that I cleaned I cleaned it with the
assumption that there would be color bleeding.
I used regular blue Dawn dish detergent, and tepid water water that was neither
hot nor cold, a clean base a clean bowl and I submerged the piece a picked it
submerged picked it up do not crinkle. do not scrub. in and out in and out of the
water. I used my fingers gently to massage I'm pulling a piece right here to show
you. Hold a piece gently to massage to see like getting the rust marks off, but
nothing to obstruct the threads. I am going to insert a video it shows you how
I remove some of these from the frames and I did speed it up so that it might
look like I'm like ripping stuff out of the frames I am NOT. I just I I didn't
want to sit there for 27 minutes you know carefully peeling back for you to
watch, so there will be I will insert in here some time lapse video of taking
pieces off of sticky board, and with that let's get started! Oh close
to nine minutes into the video. thank you for staying with me hanging on. let's get
started with the parade of rescued save the stitches cross stitch count across
stitch pieces and we'll start with this little piece here. this is a welcome
eight a sign with a with a pineapple which is symbolizes welcome this was
mounted on a sticky board and it had tape and it has some acid burn. the
frame here I carefully removed it the frame had been backed with tape and the
nails here actually rusted out on the sides of the Aida. the staining and with
the light dawn dish detergent I was not able to remove this the the rust marks. I
left it as is in the back. I did not cut any of the stray threads and the
previous owner did cut their aida in order to fit it, so it would stay in the
frame. there the stitching is just fine. it's on a 14 count Aida, and this might be
great reused and turned into a little pillow for a dough bowl. the next piece
is a little kitty cat. here kitty-kitty. this piece I purchased
and it just needed a little love. it was dirty. I washed it and pressed it, and
this is the "here fishy-fishy." this was in a frame but it doesn't need to be
reframed. it can be flat folded or done is something cute small with it. the next
piece I have not cleaned, but I found it in my stash and it is you know for
Valentine's Day here's love left in the in the hoop
with the threads, and I think I need to finish that up. the next piece that I
have is from a kit it was a vintage kit. I am unsure of the year, and this is
gonna be in a time-lapse video of me removing this this one was oh boy this
one was a was a was a hot mess to do. as you can probably see this was mounted
behind glass. I have not pressed it, but it's got the
dirt and the grime from where it had been folded over. and coincidentally
enough it smelled like cigarette smoke. thank you for not smoking. the previous
the finisher stitched down the edging. oh and here it is it says, "copyright needles
and hoops all rights reserved." I want to see it's
probably from the 70s and this and it's got the thick cross stitching it looks
like with four yes four threads on linen. the next piece was also in a little
frame and I want to make this into a little dough Bowl because it's really
precious. this is a cherry and it says "kitchen's open." this was dirty this piece
was yellow I thought I genuinely thought this whole piece was yellow aida, and not
white aida. you would be surprised just the amount things get soiled over time,
because again the soil it attracts dust dust attracts more dust and attracts
moisture which in turn attracts mold and more dust. so remember it gets compounded.
I liken it to a slippery slope, you know it starts just going down.
the next piece is the hunting piece that I removed and I'm going to insert here.
okay the time-lapse video of removing the hunting piece. there's the back. I
didn't think this piece was dirty. it was dirty. it was very dirty. I want to show
you close up here. this was in this frame.
and it was mounted on sticky board. now the sticky board I'm gonna show you the
sticky board this is what it looks close-up friends. this is what the sticky
board did over time. there are thread remnants, a lot of the
fibers came off. it it took me a good bit of time just to remove this from the
sticky board. there's a lot of debate and controversy over whether or not to use
sticky board on your finishing. I am NOT here to tell you what to do. I can only
show you what I have seen on the pieces that I have saved. the stitching here
appears to be unaffected in the front. this piece was extremely dirty, and it
had residue on it. with the piece being this kind of brown, I didn't realize how
dirty it really was and I'm really happy that I washed it and I dried it. I have
not pressed it. it's fun. I think it would be really fun to turn into a pillow and
I don't know I don't know really what to do with it. I liked that the the little
shoes had the three-dimensional with the thing as I had said in a couple videos I
purchased I had seen the frame from far away and really liked the frame that was
the reason I purchased this one, so I again I was I selfishly bought it for
the frame it coincidentally had the needlework with it. again this is the
this is what the sticky board took a lot of fibers with it.
okay the next piece I'd like to show you I'm actually pretty I'm pretty happy
with it. this one was in a frame. I think I showed
one of my very first Floss Tube videos, and it's the Amish laundry on Aida and
it was behind a frame. I saw that from the glass it had it
looked like mold was setting in, and that piece was behind glass with no spacers
it was just a like a basic big box door frame not a needlework frame, and I saw
the moisture that had developed, so I wanted to take this out and clean it and
dry it and get it pressed and ready. thankfully it's the main part of it did
not get damaged from being behind glass without the spacers, but no matter how
much I try to clean it it still has some yellow water damage around the frame
where it was in the frame edge here. here's the back.
I've got this and I thought it would be fun to mount it in my laundry room on
one of the little lingerie wash boards that I have. we'll see. I'm happy that
it's clean and that it doesn't it you know it doesn't smell like mildew, so I
was really happy about that. the next piece I have is full coverage,
and I had shared this a long time ago. I had purchased this at a used book store
it was underneath the cash register in a wonky ugly dusty dirty frame. here I'm
going to insert pictures here.
[photos of the autumn barn cross stitch behind glass before cleaning]
The frame was a hot mess, and it was really dirty and it literally this piece
it had been taped and it was like bunched down it had not been stretched
so it was all wonky and I paid $5.00 for this at the used bookstore because I
just could not leave this piece behind, and I don't know how long it had been at
the book store they didn't tell me. a lot of times bookstores buy estates, so that
they use bookstore they buy everything in the estate like the library room so
they'll they'll get the art along with the books and so they'll sell the art
there's just some really cool stuff that bookstore. it's Wonder Books in Frederick
Maryland. I'll link below. there big-time on eBay and there they sell like books
by the foo,t and I've purchased some of my needlework books from them and
they're tremendous book store. I'm not endorsed by them, I just I really like
them and going down the dark, used bookstore aisles and you find treasures.
I mean why not? so this barn scene here it's got the
corn in the fields and let me tell you this was a joy an absolute pleasure and
joy to clean. the whole time I was cleaning and I thought of Michelle Rudi
Farm Girl and her full coverage piece that she did on the dimensions kit that
I believe now Country Stitchers Deb is gonna stitch people sent her that piece
and it was the farm and she was saying how she always stitched it when she was
at her farm related events I think 4-h and her stuff with her goats and she
said that it smelled like barn and so she cleaned hers and got it already this
one did not smell like barn but it it was it was it was gnarly. I washed this
one it's one took me close to an hour and a half to clean just this piece.
and then to stretch it, dry it, and press it. I did press it. it needs to be pressed
again, here's the back of it, I did not trim off any threads .I am so
excited with how vibrant the stitching came out in this. I again I if you look
at the video before this was murky Brown. it was not pretty. this again in and out
in and out of the water, Dawn dish soap. I changed the water so
over an hour and a half of cleaning this in and out in and out I want to say I
changed the water in the small bowl close to 30 times, and the water went
from black to clear and down below I'm gonna have a link to a restoration
DeWit, they restore historic tapestries and they use the "aerosol suction" and
they show how they you how they clean with water detergent and how these
tapestries go from the water being black to the water being clear. I don't have
aerosol suction, but I do have triple filtered water and the dawn that I that
I'm using. anyway I just love this piece. I don't know what
to do with it. I think I might get it ready and do my "Priscilla and Chelsea"
method and finish it up for autumn. I just love it. I just I love it.
I don't know if you can see behind me, but I have my "gathering honey" piece that
I purchased from eBay. it was already started, and I got it
without the threads just the piece with the pattern from the book from the 1987
magazine issue. I had already had the magazine issue in my stash, and I had
this on my "to stitch one day" here why don't I just pull it it is on a frame
that I got, surprise surprise at the thrift store, and I don't know how to use
this frame it doesn't have anything for me to make keep this taut.
I would love some feedback on it. this is an unmarked frame. I don't know how to
use it. my newbie the newbie cross-stitcher in me
is coming through. I stitch in-hand, so I don't know how to use this, but I
tried to put it up on the frame...what got me started in my cleaning expedition was
I got this piece and I was so excited to start it, but it had it was covered in
cat hair. covered. and I have a high high sensitivity to cat hair, and when I had
pulled it out of the bag I had a really severe reaction, so I put it right back
in the bag and I've been wanting to start stitching on this for a while but
it needed to be cleaned first. so again I cleaned it. I'm really happy. I pressed
the linen. I got it all ready to go, and then here's the back of it. this is again
somebody else's stitching, and I am going to I want to finish it and I have this
on my goal to finish this year. I know Kindred Stitcher is also on her
year of WIPS, she did her WIP parade. she's got this on her list, so I'm really
excited I am concerned and I would love some feedback the the style the person
stitched the wrong--uh-- different than I stitch, so I don't know if I need to stitch this
upside down in order to keep the threads going the same way,
it's like the reverse way of stitching, and I think that's what I'm gonna have to do.
I'm gonna have to stitch it upside down. is that what you do? I again here I love
it partially completed. another way to be a sustainable stitcher if you want to if
you want to stitch a project you can look on ebay, you can look on online, and
the destash sites and see if there are patterns that are started that you can
maybe finish, and you might be able to pick up the pattern with the floss and
the fabric for less than it would cost you to kit it up individually yourself.
again not the rule, but just an idea. I don't know I
will preface by saying I don't know what this has any flaws or mistakes, I just
cleaned it and tried to use that roller mount frame which I can't figure out.
anywho, let's move on. I'm really thirsty. though I mean we're gonna move on and
we're going to talk about another full-coverage piece I got. mmm and that
is the Greg Olson piece that you all so wonderfully identified for me. this piece
I purchased and it was I paid quite a bit for it, but I
recognized the skill, and the time, and the artistry of this piece. even though
it is not my design aesthetic, I still saw the beauty in it and I I purchased
it specifically to clean it, restore it, and to resell it. full transparency I am
going to sell this piece. I am so proud with how this turned out in the cleaning.
here is the back of it. there are some bits and errors to it, it's not perfect,
it's handmade, and that's I think what makes it so wonderful. this piece was it
was gnarly. I it looked like a painting when I purchased it, and I feel like it
looks even more vibrant and more of a painting now than ever. the fuchsia is
brighter. everything about it is brighter. this piece took me over two hours to
clean, but I wasn't standing there the whole time I actually lit let it sit in
the tepid water and changed out the water several times before I started
doing up and down and rinsing. just it was it was difficult and with the full
coverage, it took a long time to rinse. this piece to get all of the detergent
out of the Aida and the fabric and the cloth. this piece I originally probably
wouldn't have cleaned it if I hadn't noticed how wonky the piece was sitting.
it was so off center from the tension being different that I was I felt that it
needed to be cleaned to just to adjust the tension. the person stitched this and
put it directly into a frame with no stretching, which meant that one side was a
good three quarters of an inch longer than the other. I mean it was wonky. I
cleaned this then I took this baking sheet here one of the industrial baking
sheets and it took me close to two hours sitting and I used my sewing clips and I
pulled it and tightened and pulled and tightened and I did it while it was wet
I completely stretched it and evened out the tension on the piece and then I let
it set for two days drying in order to make it come out straight. where there is
a barely any there's just a little bit of a discrepancy here at the bottom, I
think you can see that it doesn't line up, but it took a lot, and I just have to
say that I admire all of the framers and artisans that stitch and stretch and
finish these full-coverage pieces. I am in awe. this was quite a learning
experience for me, and I hope that this piece goes to a good home and it's
finished beautifully. it is clean. I washed my hands before doing this
episode. it is clean and I'm just so happy that I got to make it even more
beautiful than it was when I purchased it.
okay we're gonna move on to a couple two more pieces. two more of my save the
stitches that I cleaned, and I forgot to grab the sticky board for this one so
please bear with me. I posted this piece on Instagram last year, and I've posted
little bits of it in the past, and I'm going to insert a video--no pictures.
I'm going to insert pictures here.
okay so the pictures show all of the staples that got removed and the rust.
and the it was mounted on a board not sticky board I'm sorry it was mounted on
a board that was not acid-free full acid foam core board. it had been stapled down.
the staples had rust. this had received water damage, so the sticky board was
actually rippled, and despite the long time cleaning this piece it is
officially acid burned. if you can see here the entitle the line here of yellow
that's that is acid burn all along all this whole piece is got this yellow hue
to it, and that is the acid burn from not using acid free. I cannot speak to how
this piece was stored before it came into my possession. I purchased this
piece via donation. I actually donated a dollar. they would not take more than a
dollar. I tried. They were about to throw this in
the dumpster and I purchased it for $1 donation. they were going to throw it
away because it was dirty and again there was
water damage to the foam core board it had since dried, but because it had the
ripple they weren't gonna put it out on in the charity shop floor, so for a
dollar donation this is my piece. this is one of the first pieces that I ever
rescued. I love the celestial nature of it with
the sunflowers, the Sun, the kiss in the Sun. I just love everything about
it, and I think that and I would love your feedback my stitchy friends if I
should coffee/tea dye this in order to hide the acid burn staining. I don't want to
degrade this piece anymore, but I also don't want
the full-coverage acid. let me know. comment below what you think I should do.
again this one of the first pieces that I got and I really like it. alright and
finally I have a video. I will insert here.
this is my "today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday." I made a
donation for this piece they were going to throw it away. the frame was broken
when I got it. I made a donation. I don't remember what I paid for this. this was
filthy, and it was mounted on sticky board. this is the back of the sticky
board and here is the front. this is what the sticky board looks like. if you can
see the fibers. I spent a long time trying to carefully remove this piece
from the sticky board, and in the video the time lapse video again I sped it up
considerably, but here is what the sticky board looks like. I all of the fibers and
despite my best efforts I fibers got ripped up off this piece, and I am I feel
sick about it I really do I the last thing I wanted to
do was destroy a piece. I did my best, but the sticky board got the better of me.
and there are broken stitches now in this piece.
there is also staining and acid burn from the sticky board that is not acid
free.
I think I am going to coffee tea dye this one and make it into a little
pillow. that is my plan for this" today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday."
that my friends is my counted cross stitch save the stitches. thank you so
much for watching it. I have even more save the stitches I'm gonna tilt in the
camera a little bit I have all of this hanging to show you and I'm hoping that
next week we can continue the saving the stitches
and I can show you my other goodies and textiles that I have saved but this
parade has gone on for a while I gotta leave you wanting more. alright, I want to
share two library books, two of my books for my personal collection, and a pattern
release. should we do pattern release first? I feel like we should do pattern
release. okay here we go. as many of you know I absolutely love
Valentine's Day. love it! and I decided to do a reproduction style Valentine
pattern. this is a mixed-media altered art piece that I did based on an 18th
century vellum Valentine housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. this is the
this is the altered art, which means that the original and then I added to it
through digital art. I turned this 18th century
piece into a counted cross stitch pattern, and I'm so excited about it. it
is a 14 page PDF that you can get and I'm gonna put the link below of
the Vellum Valentine pattern. this is the original Valentine hand-painted on
vellum it's by an anonymous French artist and it has carnations and roses
that signify love and friendship it's got inside a medieval town there's a
church with a steeple some very fun trees there's an aqueduct a house on a
hill the cool trees so I converted that Valentine into the pattern here. it has
13 colors ,and I charted them all in the variegated colors by DMC. and it's bright
it is a bright it will be a bright stitch if you decide to stitch it with
the colorway that I have chosen for this piece. I stitched I I created it in two
styles. I created it with the full I'm gonna just do it quick that's the one
page view of it where it has the inside motif of the medieval village, and I also
did it there we go where I did just charted the border and
removed the medieval village, and I think it would be so cool to do it and
maybe Stitch your own letters your own alphabet your own message or insert like
stitch it as a frame kind of like mixed-media and then put a picture or
something inside of it like the Victorian
art. I have the chart on one page for just the border, and then the full page, the
full pattern, and then I have it broken up and the chart so that it's in a
bigger form in color for you to see and I'm just I'm really excited about it.
I've spent a long time on this piece, and I love it. I really wanted to translate a
historic piece of art into contemporary needle art and I would just love it if
anybody would like to stitch it. if you want to switch out the colorway, if you
want more prim colors, or you want to use fancy floss, or you're like, "I'm not using
variegated," that's quite mean I just love Valentine's Day, and why not turn an 18th
century hand painting into cross stitch? so again here's my new release, and I
have another new release and it's exclusively on Kindle, and it's a full
coverage piece. and it's called "Love Shines Through," and I'm gonna put that
below and a picture here:
and I'm so excited about that! and I just wanted to dip my toe in. I love watching
everybody doing their Heaven and Earth Designs (HAED) and I decided to translate one
of my watercolor paintings into a full coverage piece. it's got 200 it's charted
for 227 different DMC colors, and I charted it with thread counts for a 25
count easy mesh, and I just loved it, and I'm so excited. oh I have the library
books to do now, and I've got Natural Color. I checked this book out vibrant
plant dye and in honor of this book I dyed some Aida fabric. 18 count Peach aida.
I dyed it. I have as you see I have not pressed it. I dyed it using blackberries!
and it came out pretty cool, and the funny thing is though this book doesn't
tell me how to die with blackberries [laughs]! everything else
of course I chose the one project that I didn't have in the book, but this is a
lovely book and I have been reading a lot and I want to learn how to dye with
plant based stuff. learn all the things! make all the things! and in that vein, I
also have the "make and mend" book and this isn't gonna inspire me with some of
these projects over here that need to be mended or maybe made into something new.
again make and mend. it is this "Sishiko inspired embroidery projects
to customize and repair textiles and decorate your home." and it's got the the
very awesome we're the contemplative slow stitching method that you all know
I started. and then books from my own collection
because I love books! I have my and it's even got coffee marks on it! oopsie. it
really is a coffee table book. my Norwegian folk art book. wonderful.
gorgeous a beautiful inspiration here. just the artistry is - I love it.
and then I have Elizabeth Bradley's decorative Victorian needlework book. now
Elizabeth Bradley has her own website she's still selling kits. she's based in
the UK. and Wow I think I was blown away by her stuff. she's got over 40 patterns
in this book. there's a parrot that I want to do I mean like all these really
beautiful things. she's got flowers like you know make all the things. now they're
charted for wool, but look at this the parrot and the squirrel and I'm like oh
gorgeous. I purchased this book because of Toby the Pug right here. you all know
I feel that you got to "put a pug on it" right? Toby the Pug. I purchased this book
well Toby the Pug is not in this book. it's available for a hundred and thirty
pounds as a kit. anyway I found one of my unicorn my unicorn charts is Elizabeth
Bradley's Toby the Pug and with that I want to say thank you all so much for
tuning in this week. happy January. I hope that if you are in
the United States on the East Coast that you are surviving this arctic blast. if
you are down in Australia, I hope that you are surviving in the heatwave that I
heard you all are having. I send my good thoughts to all of you. I hope you have a
beautiful week stitching. comment below if you have any questions
me. again I'm gonna have a list of resources and articles down below. thank
you for staying with me for my save the stiches parade, and I'll see you next
week. take care.
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