Chottie's Plaid

Come near, children, and hear the story of my adventure with Chottie's Plaid.


As a member of the Baldy View EGA chapter, Chottie Alderson's name comes up occasionally. She founded our chapter and was a pretty famous teacher in the 1970's. In fact, the EGA Pacific Southwest Region has a special charm to honor Chottie. Yup, it's the plaid one. And then a member of my chapter mentioned that Chottie had a stitch named after her in Jo Ippolito Christensen's book "The Needlepoint Book." Oddly enough it's called Chottie's Plaid. Hmmm, interesting, maybe I'll try it someday. THEN Pat C. mentioned that you could make a plaid out of any date. WHAT? COOL! Back to the internet and I found this. Okay, I need to try out this stitch.

I decided to start at the beginning:  buying some interlock mesh to try a plaid since I want to do this in a needlepoint style. I thumbtacked it to some stretcher bars and decided to make my own plaid using green, blue, black, and red.

 First you stitch EVERY OTHER thread in a single color until you have the stripe thickness you like. I made 5 rows of green, 2 black, 3 red, 2 black, 6 blue, and repeated it ending with green. You stagger the stitches so the colors are interwoven just like they appear on a woven plaid.

Next turn the piece 90 degrees. Notice my TWO red stripes? On the first photo they are horizontal. In the second photo they are vertical. Then begin repeating the exact same sequence up in the corner: 5 rows green, 2 black, 3 red, 2 black, 6 blue, 5 green, etc., filling in the open spaces. In the beginning there was stripes, then there was plaid!





I discovered a few things in trying this out:
     1.  I used a roll of M.C.G. Textiles 14-count mesh I picked up at Hobby Lobby. This stuff is awful, completely twisted up on the roll. I considered blocking it first before I put it on stretcher bars but for just trying out a little patch it was just too much work. If I do this on interlock, I will invest in a better quality material.
     2.  A full length of 6-stranded floss does not fill 14-count mesh well. I plan on trying some of my different pearl cotton sizes to see if something is better. The traditional wool may work best but I don't have any wool and am not planning to get any for a little project. I may try this on an 18-count mesh but that would take longer to stitch.
     3.  Stitching the foundation of this stitch (the initial stripes) is a little boring, but watching the plaid come together on the last half is fun.


Then last is this plaid from a Michele Roberts ANG correspondence course. She is using Chottie's Plaid as a striking base for her goldwork design. A plaid would make a great base for initials or a couched beaded design. I can see this as a nice gift for a man. To see more needlepoint plaids, do an online search (aka google) "needlepoint plaids" and click on the image option. To see some information on tartans and check if there's one for your family, try this search in the scottish government tartan registry.

As for the date plaid, I'll try to work out that system and attempt one in the future.

Soldier Kissing Pillows

Because I've been mostly on my back with my foot up, I've been working on simple projects like the Soldier Kissing Pillows. It takes 2 hours to stitch each pillow top and I've completed twenty-three with another ten in process for a total of at least fifty hours of work. Assuming my speed is fairly average, the 4000+ pillows already collected by my chapter comes to 8000+ hours. That's 333 days of solid stitching! Baldy View EGA members are happy to do this to honor our service members and help encourage their families

Sewing and stuffing each little pillow will have to wait until after I am back on my feet. I had planned to make one pillow each week for 2011 but had made a whopping zero before October and wasn't likely to make many before the year's end. So, this is one good thing that came out of my accident.

Got my Personalized Sampler!

I ordered a personalized sampler from Nouveau Encore Designs. Stephanie made the process very simple. I love it! Can you find my family members names hidden in it? There's a frog for my stitching things (it's a stitcher's joke: control the frog or he'll make you rippit, rippit). You can see my home state of California, a stitched sampler 'cause I like them, a cake for cake decorating, an ichthys for my faith that's just like the one on my car, and on the lower left a little "symbol" for my Bachelor's Degree in Accounting. My favorite part is the scene she designed in the bottom left. It's for the times we've spent at Lake Tahoe for July 4th. See the fireworks over the lake? The sampler is about 400 stitches square, so it will be about 24 inches square stitched over 28 or 32 count fabric.

In the meantime, I've finished Ghoul School by Glendon Place. I'll post a photo when I can manage the good camera. I've been doing a lot of crochet, especially dishcloths, because they are fast and fairly easy, I can make them up in a variety of stitches, and I can crochet even if I'm laying back with my foot up. My ankle is healing but I won't be able to put weight on it until the end of November so just getting the camera out is a challenge, let alone taking a picture.

I've also stitched up several more Soldier's Kissing Pillows, an Embroiderer's Guild of America community service project. Here's a link to read more about them. My local EGA chapter, Baldy View, has completed over 4000 pillows in the last few years. Pam R. has stitched hundreds and Georgette B. has sewn and stuffed a good portion of the 4000. Of course we produced so many because Pat C. got her many friends from around the world to stitch them too but our local stitchers have done a bunch. We really want the troops to know that someone cares for them and their families.

Soon I hope to be back to Flower Power by Crossed Wing Collection. Again, I'll post pictures when I'm able.