I had an issue this week with my embroidery. The red thread was some I got in a lot at the thrift shop and it was not DMC. I was trying to get out a spot of blood and the red dye ran. This is after using peroxide and soap & water! I may try being creative and try to get it to draw upwards so it looks planned....we'll see. I don't want to use bleach. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm listening.
The outlines are stem stitched and the half chevron was used to fill in the coke bottle (this is the original bottle shape). I didn't use the straight line on this so maybe it is technically not a half chevron. Oh, well, not a favorite stitch for me anyway.
The subject is Coca~Cola, specifically John Pemberton patenting it on May 8, 1886 as a medicine. John was a wounded soldier from the Civil War and got hooked on morphine as did many. He tried to find something that would help those that were addicted and yes, his original formula did call for cocaine.
It was only sold as medicine while it contained cocaine, once the formula was sold to another it was changed and became the soda drink. The main difference between the old soda pop formula and what you can drink now is that they now use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar....proven to be just as addicting as cocaine and morphine!
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Remember this page from a couple of weeks ago? I posted it to Sue Grafton's facebook page and got nice comments from several people including this one from Sue herself:
"That is still the coolest piece I've seen in ages. I have two or three 'alphabets' in cross stitch and an 'A' IS FOR ALIBI paperback cover replica in needlepoint. I'm so impressed with the time and energy you put into these projects."
As a UK blogger I read says, I am dead chuffed!
14 comments:
Interesting tidbit on Coke. I had heard the original formula had cocaine in it but did not know the rest. I like your representation of the bottle. How exciting to hear such nice feedback from Sue Grafton! Kudos to you! Another great week for you.
Oh dear Angela, sorry you had trouble with that red dye running where you don't want it. If you can't get rid of it on the fabric, or if you can't get it to 'flow' upwards a bit more, you could always add more colours and dye more of the background to make it look intentional.
Love the subject of today's history lesson from you. I had no idea of it's origins as that sort of medicine, lol. And I'm a Coca Cola drinker.
Your stitched 'bubbles' are great. I had to smile at your creativeness on this. Your stitchery make me smile a lot. And I must congratulate you on the logo stitching too. Fabulous.
Cocaine or not, I am addicted to Diet Coke. I was off it for about a year and now I am right back where I was drinking it.
I think I might try to add more red to the background behind the words as though that section of the cloth was red. I don't have a problem with the color especially since it is part of the original color of the product's logo.
So cool that Sue Grafton responded to your book cover! Nice!!
You do know that aspartame is bad for you right?
I don't know how to get the red out, but it would look cool having the red over the whole of the piece if no one has a cure. Just laying down some more of the red thread on the fabric and spritzing with water should do the trick.
I enjoyed my history lesson today. :-) I didn't realize that the original was made as a medicine. I've had my fair share of coke over the years, but seldom have any anymore.
Neat idea to use the half chevron to indicate the pop. It has a nice effect, and I'm reminded of the old stockings, and the tiny lace pattern they had.
Cool idea!
I'm with the coke drinkers. Again, another wonderful original idea. When I first saw your embrodiery thought the red shading was planned - so there you go. Like Suz, I am reminded of black lace stockings, straight seam, short skirt, high heels!
A tip for removing blood from your work is to cut a small piece of white cotton thread, roll it into a ball, put it in your mouth to gather saliva and then rub this over the stain. Sounds awful I know, but it really works!
Your work well deserved a response, but how wonderful Sue Grafton took the trouble to reply.
Neat that Sue Grafton recognizes excellent work when she sees it! I, too, thought you'd planned the red, but your story makes me nervous about washing my blocks to get rid of the blue lines. I'd heard about real coke in Coca Cola but didn't realize that it dates back so far. You sure stitched a dead ringer of their logo! I always look forward to your history tidbits! Oh, and maybe you could call your stitch a one-fourth chevron? Love the bubble effect!
Judy, just wad them up in your mouth first and I am sure they will be OK. (LOL!!)
I'm doing a half cross stitch for the background of the coke logo and that seems to be looking pretty good at masking the pink dye run. Thanks everyone!
Love the coke bottle, and as far as the red is concerned, I wouldn't do a thing. There are so many hand-dyed pieces these days, it could easily be one! What a nice thing for Sue to comment on your stitchery!
Yep. Aspartame = very bad for me. I second that!
Agreed-- saliva is the best way to remove blood spots from fabric. It works best if the spot is small and fresh.
Cocaine an ingredient for maybe the first ten years of Coca-cola history: the bad publicity because of that lives on for more than a century. Doh!
Your A is for Alibi piece is really nice! So sad that the thread color-bled and changed your original plan. (I do like how you fixed it, though! Adversity is often our best ally.)
If I get thread that I don't know for certain is color-fast, I lay it on a paper towel or coffee filter and spritz it with water to see if it will bleed. If it does, I either wash it well to make sure that the color excess is removed before using it on a project that I care about, or I put it into a special box of color-bleed flosses for times when I WANT that kind of transfer. (Hey, it can be fun to experiment with if you know it's going to happen!)
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