Carole Lake

Carole Lake

Anasazi Song

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Class Length: 2 days
Proficiency Level: Intermediate
Targeted Audience: This class is intended for the student who loves to combine threads and stitches, who likes to count, who likes using variations and who wants a seminar piece that can be finished in a reasonable amount of time after class.
Description of Project: The deep canyons, rock palisades, high mesas, and open desert of the Four Corners area were home to a remarkable group of agricultural people we today refer to as the Anasazi -- the ancient ones.  Dotted across the southwestern landscape are the dramatic remains of tens of thousands of dwellings made of rock and mud. These, along with bits of broken pottery and scattered fragments of tools, provide silent testimony that humans lived and worked and played here long ago. My song in stitches celebrates their lives, their world and the traces they have left for us.

Essentially a stitch sampler, this piece is inspired by the idea of the Anasazi, with a mystical feel and colors of the rocks and desert that are all we have left of their long-ago lives. It includes a variety of composite and pattern stitches, beginning with the central star, worked in a multiple cross pattern within a star of stepped oblong crosses. Other geometric stitches include Burden, Altered Byzantine and double fan doubled. Borders of complex crosses complete the piece, which is outlined with a combination of sprat's head motifs reminiscent of Anasazi motifs.

Threads used reflect the unique colors of the Four Corners area, where the mesas and canyons reflect the clear desert southwest colors in my palette. Stitched on Tudor rose 18-count canvas, Anasazi Song is stitched with Watercolours, Kreinik #8 braid, overdyed floss, Impressions, Flair, Grandeur and Elegance.
Course Objectives: Do-able, finish-able, fun projects are attractive to many seminar attendees, from the new learner to the student who has been to every seminar since the beginning. In this class, the student will learn handling techniques for various threads in unusual places, compensation, creating the illusion of depth and wonderful twisty Jean Hilton-inspired stitches.
Kit Cost: $70, includes canvas, threads, instructions, full-size color photocopy, and postage to mail pre-stitching to students.
Student to Supply: Stretcher bars and usual stitching supplies
Teacher Will Need Some type of marker board and markers
Pre-Class Work: Cross-stitch-over-one outline of center motif, about 10 hours
Anasazi

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