Beautiful Bargello in Metallics!

As promised - a look at Inge Wooley's bargello ornaments, which I have had filed away in a box for about two years, intending to get them out and see if I could dissect and re-do them just for fun. Two of them appear to be prepared for making a top for one of her zippered moire' jewel cases. Anyway, her work, as always, astonishes me. When I met her, she was knitting gorgeous Aran sweaters for the Neiman Marcus downtown Trophy Room - but within a year of that meeting, she was buying my Imari canvases for her shop - and we soon started Creative Needle together for production and marketing of these things. I got lucky, as I tell people - as she has maintained the quality of the canvas design and preparation for 37 years. We still get together from time to time, and totally enjoy time spent brainstorming and exchanging ideas, etc. I think we have both slowed down a bit, but as she says, "What else would we be doing?"



The first set of ornaments is two that were done in the "4-way" style, and are quite striking done in metallics in Christmas colors. The second set shows just the regular "straight across" style with the little motifs across the center. Great fun - and probably the first I will start with to see if I can figure out what she did (lots of counting here).


The third set is, again, the Florentine style done in the 4-way format, which means it turns at the 45 degree angles and changes directions. Dorothy Kaestner did a wonderful and fascinating book on this subject in the 70's. Finishing the show and tell with one more of each style - the one on the right being a simple, traditional style design. Hopefully I can finish my present tasks and get to the fun part - trying to figure out what she did, so I can stitch them in different fibers for a different effect! These, incidentally, were stitched before either of us discovered the Kreinik metallic ribbon - wonderful stuff, as it lies completely flat and covers well as upright stitches - much prettier than the braid.