Move It On Project – May

This month’s Move It on Project is a sample I started at a Casalguidi workshop for what was then Scunthorpe branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild back in May 2017. We ordered one of the Guild’s folios on the subject to have a look at some examples…

…and then started on our own samples which we could use to make the front of a little pouch or lavender bag. All traditional Casalguidi embroidery is worked on top of a background of four-sided stitch and that was my starting point. I have a bit of a mental block where this stitch is concerned. I have to really concentrate to work it with the stitches in the same order because if you don’t the stitches lay differently. But I persevered and from this, which is all I managed to stitch in the workshop:

…by the following August, eleven months later (!) I had finally managed to complete the background panel. Now time for the more interesting part of the design.

But in the end it took until April 2019 before I got round to adding some stem stitch bands.

Then I started the trailing overcast stitch, working over a bundle of stranded threads and simply meandering across the panel.

To say it’s effectively a very narrow padded satin stitch, it’s surprisingly difficult to keep neat and even.

So that’s where I am at the start of this month. I plan to finish the overcast trailing, add some needlewoven bars and picots for leaves and smaller flowers and perhaps make one of the big statement needlelace flowers if I can find some instructions. A quick look for online Casalguidi tutorials seems to mainly focus on the big raised stem stitch bands so that might be a bit more of a challenge.

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Bricks and Batik

The all day batik workshop/play day we had at Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild for our February meeting seems a lifetime ago now but I’ve been working on one of the pieces I created during the session.

With the Tattershall bricks in mind I used a tiny Polish kitska, usually used for creating fine wax resist designs on eggs, to draw a little brick design which I then overdyed with silk paints. 

 Not too many blobs, but I had plans for them anyway. Covered with masses of french knots, they become patches of moss.  Rough back stitch and odd straight stitches neaten up the batiked lines of mortar. 

But then it occurred to me that if I covered over all the batik lines there was really no point in the batik. It might as well be embroidery on hand dyed fabric.

So I decided to embroider part of it but let it fade off at the edges. Ripping the fabric helps too.

Second piece finished, but I’ve not finished with the bricks quite yet…

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One year on!

Last February we had a fantastic Print to Stitch workshop at the Guild with Jan Dowson. One of the pieces I created was based on the paisley stamps she had made for us.

Seeing my starting point now, after a year of covering it with stitch, it seems so bare!!

I started with some Pekinese stitch around some of the paisleys.

Then seeding around the paisleys in a variegated stranded cotton. Doing that amount of seeding is pretty mind-numbing so I mixed it up with more decoration on the paisleys – split stitch on the right.

It was a great project to take out and about, even making it to London with me last summer when the temperatures were through the roof and I was trying to keep cool in the Chinese galleries at the V&A.

More seeding in seed stitch and french knots with chain stitch accents and woven and back-stitched spiders’ web stitches in the middles.

Getting there… finished all the internal stitching on the paisleys and now just seeding at this point because I’m still not sure what stitch I want to outline the other paisleys. Something as bold as the Pekinese stitch but different.

It wasn’t until I began to explore Palestrina Stitch over Christmas prior to teaching it in a workshop that the penny dropped.

Palestrina in a heavy perle was just right to balance the Pekinese.

And the completed piece!

No idea what I’m going to do with it, but that’s not the point. I love the colours, shapes and stitches and it’s been a pleasure to work. That’s all you need, sometimes, isn’t it?

 

 

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Found objects and a dove.

This month’s Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild meeting was a talk given by the very talented Jessica Grady, whose vibrant work includes embellishments made from all sorts of upcycled materials.

In the summer, to link with this talk, our chair gave us all an identical pack of bits and pieces to create something. I did blog about the start of my piece back in September when I hadn’t read the instructions and thought it had to be done for October’s meeting!

My starting point was the pale green tubing and a huge metal ring, to which I added a copper coloured earring middle and a holed limpet shell.

There were more jump rings in the pack which I stitched down with random straight stitches to echo the big one…

…and I also found a broken agate slice pendant which was a good colour match for the copper earring.

Next I added turquoise coloured beads from the pack.

Using the same metallic gold thread for all the stitching helped to bring it together. A few more smaller jump rings from my tool box and some gifted flat beads completed it and I even manged to get it mounted three days before the meeting!

Needless to say, all the entries were amazing and incredibly different, give that we all had the same starting point.

The other finish for the meeting were the embroidered Folk Art doves that will decorate our Christmas tree at the local Festival of Trees. They were a lovely fun, relatively quick stitch. Mine looks like this:

And these are some of his friends:

Even though a few more arrived later, there isn’t enough here to fill a six foot tree, so the chair has been frantically stitching over the last couple of months to add extra additions to the flock!

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Teabags!

October’s Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild meeting was a brilliantly packed full day workshop with Fran Holmes based on teabags.

Fran brought along loads of samples she had stitched using a base of dyed, opened out and ironed teabags with added lace and hand and machine embroidery for inspiration.

 

Then it was our turn. We had been asked to bring some tea bags of our own, and I was quite pleased with the effect where a fruit tea bag had leaned up against an ordinary one and they two had bled into each other, but mine were nothing compared with the amazing patterns Fran had got on the ones she had done for us in our kits.

We experimented with all sorts of things, including various iron on products, foils, printing, inks, paints and stamps and so busy was the day that I didn’t actually add any stitching until the afternoon!

We ended up with four different bases for further stitching.

The first two were a mixture of lace, tea bags and net.

I added some watercolour detailing on the lace flowers of this one.

Then a base for stamping in acrylics.

And lastly one with a subtle shimmery foil underlay which I layered with torn silk ribbon and a stamp.

All four lovely backgrounds, ready for stitching.

I finally managed a few french knots…

Great workshop and lovely to do something outside my usual range.

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Show Stitching, Act 2

The applique for Lady Margolotta’s bat themed blouse is finished!

The biggest ones took 20-30 minutes each to stitch on and the smallest ones 10 to 15, so all twenty together have been quite a long job. Stitching with black thread on black felt has also limited when and where I can stitch, but in spite of that, it’s done with time to spare, thank goodness.

Baby leaf tailed dragon now has leaves sprouting from his lower tail.

He would have had another leaf completed but after a busy evening rehearsing and stitching, I went to put the couching stitches in and realised that I had put a whole leaf’s worth of laid stitches in vertically, instead of horizontally… He learned some new rude words that night.

Before the summer break, our ever-inventive Chair gave everyone who wanted to take part a pack of odd and interesting found objects to create a piece of found object embroidery. She included an instruction/guideline sheet as well, which I did refer to, noting that the finished piece should be no more than 7 inches by 5. However, I didn’t note that it was to be due in for November’s meeting. I assumed it was for the AGM last Saturday. Result – frantic stitching last week until a friend who had read the instructions properly, pointed out that I was two months too early. Moral of the story; don’t skim read and make the gaps up as you go along, Alex!

There was a load of thin plastic tubing in the pack and that suggested spirals to  me straight away.

It’s couched down with gold thread for some sparkle and then I played with widening some of the lines with more of the tubing to give the spirals a bit more weight.

Next to be added from the pack was a very large metal ring which I also couched down with gold thread in a starburst pattern. The broken earring front fitted perfectly in the middle of it and I love copper and green together.

Then I added a holed limpet shell from my own collection  to echo the shape of the loop of tubing.

At least I’ve made a start and hopefully won’t be rushing to complete it for November’s meeting!

 

 

 

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Hitomezashi samples

I missed almost all of the June meeting with Gilli Theokritoff at Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild as I was working that day, but I did make it through the door in time to lay my hands on the kit for the afternoon project which was stitching samples of hitomezashi sashiko, which are more like all over patterns than big designs. I didn’t manage to start the kit until I went down to London to visit my eldest a fortnight ago but it was perfect to stitch on the train.

The difference with Gilli’s method is that she has a piece of interfacing already marked out with a regular pattern of dots ironed onto the back of the fabric. You work from the wrong side and don’t have any marks on the front to get rid of.

The first sample starts as jujizashi (cross stitch). I used a variegated sashiko thread in lovely shades of blue.

Then you add one set of diagonal lines.

 And the second set gives you komezashi, or rice stitch.

The second sample was kikkozashi, or tortoise stitch. This starts with a foundation of yokogushi, which are staggered vertical rows. The horizontal rows are formed by weaving the thread under the opposite stitches to give an effect like the plates of a tortoise’s shell.

Finally I added some straight stitches in the middle of the ‘plates’.

They are going to become book covers, so I’ve laced them over some squares of greyboard.

And am probably going to line them with this gorgeous scrap of Japanese kimono fabric.

Just need to decide on fabric or paper pages.

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Bayeux Stitch

We’ve just had our final meeting of the year at Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild and it was a fantastic all day long affair, with a talk about the costumes and embroidery in ‘Game of Thrones’ in the morning followed by the opportunity to look at some of the incredible work some of our members have produced over the last year and were entering for the branch’s yearly hand embroidery prize.

Some pieces have come from past workshops, such as the paisley piece below which was started in Jan Dowson’s ‘Print to Stitch’ workshop back in February, or responses to objects in the local museum for our exhibition earlier in the summer, as with the Winterton mosaic piece at the top on the three circles.

Contemporary, modern, traditionally flat or 3D, like the stumpwork flowers and tiny embroidered houses.

Restrained and subtle or gloriously over the top and encrusted with bling.

 

Sometimes a visiting speaker chooses the winner but this time we did it in our usual way by voting in the blue and white saucers with beads. Thank goodness we get five beads each. And even then choosing five places to vote was an almost impossible decision! But after the counting, the winner was announced: Sue’s fabulous blue ammonite, one of the pieces for our museum exhibition.

Glad I didn’t put anything in as I would have been seriously outclassed!!

Then after lunch, a workshop on Bayeux Stitch. I’ve used this stitch on several projects, including Shy Bird,

…the sycamore leaves from Blackwell…

and of course, the Baby Leaf-tailed Dragon kit from Tanya at Opus Anglicanum which I bought and started a disgracefully long time ago!

I really enjoy working this stitch. It works up quickly, which is always a huge bonus and I love the textured effect the couching gives to it.

We had some lovely examples to inspire us, from medieval style designs to working it as an all over pattern to create a solid embroidered fabric as in the purse below and some very contemporary pieces.

 

Although I was very tempted to explore the contemporary design ideas, it was a good opportunity to get a bit more done on Baby Leaf-tailed Dragon.

Every little helps!

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Fabric Fair

Just a quick one to advertise Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild first ever Fabric Fair this Sunday the 9th of June.

A great opportunity for those of us tucked away in the wilds of North Lincolnshire to be able to buy all our stitching stuff in person instead of having to rely on the internet. Nothing beats actually being able to touch and see threads and fabric in person.

I will be having a stall selling a range of vintage buttons, beads, buckles etc. and jewellery components and will be joined by the following traders:

Unravel Crafts – Fabric including Indian and Nepalese fabrics and some vintage.  Haberdashery – vintage and from India.

Quilting with Shauna – Cotton fabrics

Sew Easie – Fabric, craft bags, stuffed toys to embroider, bundles of lace and ribbon

Wemyss Cottage Haberdashery – Haberdashery, fat quarters,ribbon braid, cottons, buttons, felt, Aida etc.

Precut Fabrics – Selling fabric in a variety of ways for further use. Haberdashery and craft products.

Arcadian Bliss – Japanese vintage gold threads,Goldwork supplies, Kimono silk fabric, Sari silk fabric,Leather, second hand craft books.

Pauline Heywood – Plain natural fibre fabrics in small pieces. Mostly cotton eg calico in different weights; some silks,scrims and felt. Small packs of needles in popular sizes. Some good quality second hand embroidery items and books.

Buttons Galore – Buttons, assorted sewing items.

Kate’s Cloths – Hand dyed threads and fabrics

RELOVED – Vintage /ecletic mix of embroidery and sewing stuff, all looking for someone to relove them.

Danuta Wiseniewska – Upholstery weight fabric pieces including velvets, linens, printed cottons, and wools.

Bagladybird – Learn to Sew– Dressmaking patterns, sew in labels for handmade clothes and dressmaking tools.

A really amazing array of stitching goodies and well worth a visit if you are even vaguely local!

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A Fish and an Elephant

The fish is my name badge for Embroiderers’ Guild and another quick finish. Well, quick is a relative term. Technically it was as long in the making as last post’s hedgerow pinwheel given that I’ve been a member of the Embroiderers’ Guild for ten years now and it’s taken me that long to finally getting round to stitching my name badge…

The fish was printed at a Sea themed workshop led by one of our talented members, Mary, in March 2018 and I actually did the vast majority of the stitching and beading in the workshop.

I finished split stitching my name and laced the fabric over two circles of pelmet vilene…

…but so close to the finish, it stalled and languished in my projects bag until Easter, when I finally found the time to finish it with a beaded ruff and a brooch pin.

I’ve just started working as a casual tutor for North Lincolnshire Adult Learning and taught my first full day workshop on kantha and boro stitching last month. The elephant was my sample kantha piece for the afternoon activity.

He’s cut from a scrap of Indian printed silk scarf and blanket stitched onto a piece of painted/dyed cotton that I acquired from somewhere. The background is then covered in running stitch using some softly variegated green and purple perle thread.

I love the way the kantha tones down and smooths out the colours of the fabric behind and it is so incredible tactile.

I also stitched a little modern kantha sample using some circles of Harris tweed in vibrant oranges and golds on a piece of heavy weight cotton.

Not my usual colour palette at all but it was interesting to move away from my blues and greens and also to stitch with Harris tweed, which is a new one for me.

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