The Mulberry Tree (Vincent Van Gogh) – latch hook project
I love Van Gogh’s work . . . I love latch hooking . . . here’s what I did, with progress shown in 12 stages and musings along the way 🙂
March 8th, 2021: I began planning this project. Using pic2pat.com, I uploaded a good quality photo of Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree in Autumn” to the site, which converts it to a cross stitch pattern. It allows you to choose from a large selection of color palettes, from 150 down to 2 (a silhouette). The more colors, the better the “resolution”, and the more it looks like the original picture. There are about 500 shades of DMC floss, but only 84 shades of precut latch hook yarn from the only supplier I could find. So I selected the closest approximations for 30 colors in Herrschners’ precut yarn ($1.19 for a package with 320 strands of a single color – sometimes they are on sale for $0.89 per package). The pic2pat site tells you exactly how many stitches for each color, which is a huge help in calculating how much latch hook yarn to purchase. You could buy yarn less expensively if you decided to cut it all yourself, but with a large project like this (32,185 stitches), you would need to consider how much time you wanted to spend doing that. I invested several hours in the planning side of the process, before placing my order and waiting for it to arrive. I also ordered my canvas – 100% cotton rug hooking mesh canvas, 3.75 mesh, 60 x 44 inches (150 x 110 cm). I already had a latch hook tool from an earlier project. (The formula for calculating what size to choose on your pattern is – choose the canvas size you would like for your finished piece. The smallest number of stitches per inch on pic2pat is 8, so choose that option. Now divide each dimension of your desired canvas size by 8 and then multiply by the mesh size of the canvas you would like to use, which for me was 3.75. For my 60 x 44 canvas, this calculation comes to 28.1 x 20.6, so I chose for my pattern the nearest size on pic2pat that was not more than that, which was 28 x 19.3)
April 19th, 2021: Stage 1 of 12 of “The Mulberry Tree” . . . A couple of weeks ago, I decided to start making a * huge * latch hook rendition of a Van Gogh painting (he’s my favorite!) – I enjoy super complicated craft projects, so this is perfect & very relaxing for me to do just a couple of rows at the end of each day.
April 24th, 2021: Stage 2 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” . . . I think I’ve started on 28 of the 30 colors now . . . I’ve been reflecting on colors as a metaphor for the ups and downs of life – some of the hues are cheerful, others hint of a storm or sadness, some I really enjoy, others seem quite drab . . . together they combine to give depth and beauty and over time grows to be a work of art . . . we never know what hues a day will bring . . . each life is infinitely precious and beautiful . . . Saturday morning musings
May 1st, 2021: Stage 3 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” . . . just found this description on a site dedicated to Van Gogh – “Van Gogh painted The Mulberry Tree in October of 1889 less than a year before he would die. Like most of his art, it was done during a period of highs and lows painted during a time of great self-awareness and yet surrounded by chaos.” I’m encouraged and inspired by the incredible beauty of his work in spite of (or perhaps because of) the highs, lows, and chaos he experienced.
May 12th, 2021: Stage 4 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” – slightly less than 1/3 completed!
May 29th, 2021: Stage 5 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” – the tree trunk has begun!
June 23rd, 2021: Stage 6 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” – halfway there! I’m very much enjoying the process, one stitch at a time, watching the beauty of the designer’s work emerge (a metaphor for life, for sure!)
July 18th, 2021: Stage 7 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” – you can see I decided to save the middle section for last
It’s getting quite heavy already (I fold it several times to make it lap-sized) . . . really enjoying the slow process and beautiful color palette
July 31st, 2021: Stage 8 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” – two-thirds of the way now! Did you know that Van Gogh painted this beautiful work after a stay at an asylum and considered it a technical success? This is so inspiring, especially considering that in his lifetime he only sold one or two paintings of the 860+ he produced in his lifetime. Would that we had more of that kind of grit and perseverance and commitment to excellence in the face of adversity! Life is complicated, but beauty, truth, and goodness are always worth it!
August 14th, 2021: Stage 9 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” . . . hoping I’ll get to see the original one day at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California
September 8th, 2021: Stage 10 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” . . . from description at the Museum where this hangs – “Here the flaming foliage of the mulberry tree, the rushing sky and hillside are so richly painted that the picture’s surface becomes a kind of bas-relief sculpture. Van Gogh was particularly pleased with this painting, remarking in letters to his siblings that he considered it his most successful treatment of its theme.”
September 26th, 2021: Stage 11 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” . . . so far I’ve done 29,410 of the 32,185 stitches . . . almost there!
November 3rd, 2021: Finished! Stage 12 of 12 in my latch hook project for Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree” . . . thank you, Paul, for figuring out how to display it
(technical detail – before hanging it, I edged the entire canvas with thick black yarn – this prevents fraying, neatens it up, and gives a strong edge upon which to attach curtain clip rings)
Finally, here is a short video showing the progression of the project. Music: “Ecos de Oiz” (Valentin Zubiaurre) – I chose this because it was composed the same year that Van Gogh painted this masterpiece (1889).
