Stocking up

It’s that time of year again… To be fair, it’s been ‘that time of year’ since the summer, as around everything else, I have been trying to make more of my upcycled jewellery for assorted markets and stockists. But I have created a few pieces that also tick the embroidery box. First, I’ve finally turned two of the Victorian buttons I bought back in January…

…into a pair of earrings by teaming them with some onyx and silver sections from a broken necklace. The needlelace is exquisite and in fantastic condition and they are available here in my Etsy shop. Two down, lots to go!

Then I came across a broken brooch with a missing middle – my favourite type of broken piece to use as a frame for embroidery. I removed the remains of the broken catch, reset the empty settings with tiny green diamantes and as I’ve been asked to provide some new festive stock for 20-21, I stitched a poinsettia in silk ribbon onto a piece of hand dyed pelmet vilene to set in the centre. The loops which were already part of the edging made it easy to turn into a pendant.

Next up was this amazing pewter (I think) setting which had had a button rather crudely stuck inside it but the back is gorgeous.

I removed the button and decided to replace it with a snowflake shaped silver tone stamping which fitted almost perfectly. I stitched it onto some midnight blue silk dupion, enhanced it with stitches and a bead and set it in the middle.

Finally, jellyfish! Silk cocoons and scraps of chain make lovely jellyfish pendants and I’ve managed to build up enough of a stock of scraps to make four – two silver tone, one antiqued brass coloured and one gold tone. I use tiny connectors, often beaded, to join bit of chain which are not long enough and pop little beads and dangles on the ends of some of the chains for extra interest.

Like a lot of things, they look quite simple, but take ages to do, balancing the different types and weights of chain and judging how many beaded accents are enough. The cocoons need strengthening too, so I make a hole for the head pin and then put a layer of super glue on the top inside and out to stabilise it and hide the patch under a bead cap.

Four more stock items and even better, a good clear out of my scrap chain box. Win win!

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Leaves and Domes

So I stitched another one of the blanket stitch/needlelace leaves in six strands of stranded cotton and very interesting it was too, as it was the only thread of the three that properly highlighted the twisted, almost braided pattern of the inner needlelace section.

The twist of the perle made the twists of the needlelace much less obvious.

I much prefer the contrast between the almost feathery outer section and the more tightly braided inner section that the stranded gives, although it is harder to control all six strands and despite my best efforts, there are some areas where some of the strands have gone a little astray. I also think the interlaced centre works better and is more integrated than the other leaves, although that may just be me getting better at the stitch!

One of my ladies at In The Stitch Zone worked her leaf in white on a darker fabric and it was very effective indeed – it would have looked completely at home in a piece of Mountmellick or Ayrshire work.

I also think that based on the outside texture on the stranded cotton leaf, the stitch would make some rather effective feathers. All in all, a very useful addition to my own personal stitch library.

I’ve also moved the Blackwork Palace on a little by finishing the two towers. I’m going to go over the edges of the central stepped shapes in the sections under the domes to make them look a bit more like windows.

I’m really pleased with the pattern I chose for the domes. The little individual elements really echo the shape of the dome and I like the touch of magenta in this particular thread too.

It’s getting there!

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YouTube leaves

I don’t imagine I’m the only one to get regular YouTube notifications about wild and wonderful ‘sewing hacks’ and embroidery stitches worked with cotton buds, hair clips, combs and other unusual implements. I’m quite sceptical about how well some of these work in real life, but occasionally something will come up which I think is worth a proper look, such as this video by SahinaArts for a sort of blanket stitch/needlelace leaf. So I had a play!

The half of the stitch on the left is a straightforward blanket stitch through the fabric, although I found it helpful to add in a line half way between the edge and the midline to keep the stitches even.

The other half of the stitch is a blanket stitch almost worked in mid air like needlelace, using one of the two long central stitches as an anchor point.

It creates an interesting pattern up the middle where the two halves of the stitch intersect.

Then you do the same but in mirror image on the other side, which feels very strange for a start as you’ve got used to working it on one direction. Last is the filling for the middle. I worked this sample in two strands of 21st Century Yarns stranded cotton and decided to do the middle in a contrast colour to show how it works.

I changed to a canvas needle as the middle is just a zig zag of interlaced thread, picking up alternate threads on the inside edge of the stitching you’ve already worked. It would also work to put a piece of fabric or leather in the space as it would slip nicely under the stitching.

And a finish.

I felt two strands was a little thin coverage-wise, so I stitched another one in heavy perle without the contrast centre. I also didn’t pull the outside rows as tight, so I had less space to fill in the middle. I definitely prefer this level of coverage.

The original on YouTube is worked in six strands of ordinary stranded cotton so I’m going to try that out as well, just to complete the trio and see how it compares. A good find, methinks!

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Silk Cocoons part two.

I mentioned last week that I was thinking of adding needle lace to another of the cocoons. I’d already given it a blanket stitched edging and so it was easy enough to add a second layer of larger blanket stitches in every other one of the base stitches and then turn them into simple scallops by packing more blanket stitches into each large loop.

Having successfully used steam to ease one of the previous cocoons back into shape, I wanted to know whether I could steam the cocoons flat to make a flatter flower. I cut another cocoon into strips, like basic petals, leaving a small area at the top of the cocoon uncut, grabbed it between a pair of barbecue tongs to hold it flat and keep my hands away from the heat, and boiled the kettle. I literally only used the amount of steam that comes out of the spout at the end of a normal boil which was perfect. It was hot and wet enough to soften the cocoon and allow it to relax into a different shape, but not enough to actually wet the cocoon. I was able to handle it as soon as I took it away from the kettle and it held its shape perfectly.

Then I cut the petals to shape and stitched the top of another cocoon that I already had cut on top to form the centre of the flower. A scattering of seed beads gives a bit of sparkle to the centre and I held down the petals with whipped back stitch.

You might possibly recognise the background fabric…

You should never throw offcuts away and the scraps I’d kept from that project worked really well as a contrast background to the orange of the cocoon. I’m happy that I’ve explored plenty of different things to do with silk cocoons so they can be packed away while I move onto other stitching.

I’ve also managed to finish my encrusted initial, which was another of the projects we stitched at In The Stitch Zone this Winter/Spring session. I did one a few years ago as a sample for a workshop I was going to teach at a local sewing shop which never came to pass and have always liked the way the tightly packed flowers and leaves create the outline of the letter.

This time I went for a different vibe, with a background of my own rust dyed cotton and a variegated rusty red-brown thread for the flowers.

I let the variegations in the thread change the colour of the flowers and French knots this time rather than using different coloured threads.

Finished off with lots of lazy daisy stitch leaves and French knot centres for the flowers.

Lots of new things to prepare for the Spring/Summer Session at In The Stitch Zone – all will be revealed soon!

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Courgettes, Cabbages and Casalguidi

Well, the lonely courgette now has some friends and as they are almost big enough to be called marrows, I left the flowers off.

I used the same interfacing backed painted cotton for the leaves as I did for the original stumpwork garden and the same method, which has scaled up very satisfactorily.

Next, I added big blowsy cabbages in a 1cm wide bluey-green silk ribbon. I made sure I worked the woven spider’s web stitches nice and loosely and let the ribbon twist and bend to give a more natural look to the leaves.

Lastly, a patch of radishes. As this garden is about three times the size of the original I needed to enlarge the original tiny line of detached chain stitch pairs. This time I gave the radishes at least four leaves each and increased the weight of the leaves by using a thicker thread and nesting one detached chain stitch inside another. I gave each one a little pink base to the leaf stalk to hint at the crunchy pink radish growing just under the surface.

To give an idea of how much bigger I’m working, here is the garden so far side by side with the original version. The hoop is 6 inches in diameter – this is practically enormous for me!

As it’s the end of the month, time for the update on May’s Move It On Project. Unfortunately I didn’t get as far as I had hoped with the Casalguidi work, although for a nice reason this time. Last week was half term, so we’ve had a lovely family holiday in Northumberland and all the stitching I did was to go in my holiday journal. But the overcast trailing is finished and more importantly, I have a book I can use for the flowers when I pick it up again.

June’s Move It On project is well out of my comfort zone. I’ve seen and admired a lot of Ruskin Lace during our holidays in the Lake District and for our holiday in 2015 I created a very ambitious altered book/holiday journal which I still haven’t finished! One of the things I wanted to stitch for it was a Ruskin lace sample.

I bought myself a Ruskin Lace book but after reading the first chapter, I bottled out big time. I hate the thought of cutting, withdrawing and weaving threads back into a piece of stitching and these are core skills for this type of embroidery. But I also hate the thought that it’s getting the better of me and recently managed to get as far as hemming a piece of linen following the instructions in the book before I gave up again. I’m determined to move the 2015 journal on and I’m hoping that once I’ve got my head round the cutting threads bit, the needlelace element should be more enjoyable.

This is where I am at the moment, cutting threads to form an internal border.

I’m using some of the linen I usually use for pulled thread work and am a bit worried that it’s going to be too open, but that’s what the Move It On Project is designed for. If it works, then that’s great – if it doesn’t, I’ll have learned useful lessons. Fingers crossed.

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Acorns.

I’m leading our S.E.A.T.A. meeting at the end of this month and challenging our members to visit or revisit a stitching book from their shelves and use a technique or project from it to make a small item – a brooch, key fob, scissor keep etc. So I’ve been working some samples, including a pair of acorns based on a project in Beginner’s Guide to Stumpwork by Kay Dennis, published by Search Press.

I decided to follow the instructions to the letter which included stitching down the felt padding with stab stitches that run perpendicular to the edge of the felt shape. I was initially unsure about whether this would be any better than doing a line of stitches parallel to the edge but it works much better, giving a smoother transition from the flat fabric, so I was pleased to have learned something new.

Then I covered the shapes with satin stitch.

Next I ran two long stitches across the middle of the acorn and used them as a foundation line for the needlelace cup. I did say I was going to follow the instructions to the letter but it suggested Ceylon stitch for the cups and due to some recent experience with that stitch, I decided against it. Ceylon stitch looks beautiful but is not very forgiving when you need to increase or decrease, which I would have had to with the cap and also I really struggle with the tension to stop it wandering. So I gave up the idea of sticking to the project and worked the cup in good old Corded Brussels.

Same for the other acorn but in green. The variegated brown was a stranded cotton and although I prefer the satin stitch coverage, I like the needlelace cup better on the green one which was stitched in a random unlabelled thread which feels like a cross between crewel wool and mercerised cotton.

Next I satin stitched a twig over three long padding stitches, trying to vary the thickness so it looked like a naturally knobbly twig and mounted it over a sandwich of thick cardboard and felt.

Last of all, I added a beaded fringe.

A straightforward little project but I enjoyed learning new things from it and it’s good to have one sample completed.

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Move It On Project – March

March’s Move It On Project actually has a chance of being finished. I chose a sample I started stitching on our 2019 holiday to the Lake District based on an Arts and Crafts style table runner with a sycamore key design I saw at Blackwell, The House of Arts and Crafts, near Windermere.

By the end of the holiday I’d got as far as here:

I’m only doing one element of the pattern but I’d stalled on the odd curved shape underneath the keys. I couldn’t work out from the photo what stitch was used as it appears to be quite raised on the top edge and then it just got put to one side.

I chose it as March’s Move It On Project as it’s the last thing I need to finish to complete my holiday journal for 2019 and there wasn’t a lot to do to complete it. Then looking at it next to the photo, I realised that as I’d deliberately chosen not to stitch an exact copy of the original anyway, getting the stitch ‘right’ for that curved bit was irrelevant! So I’ve done it in the same thread and used Satin Stitch over a back stitch edging as I did for the edge of the keys.

The final stage is the grid of background stitches. I think from the photo that they are pairs of vertical straight stitches, but they are perfectly placed in relation to the weave of the fabric, so I think a ruler, a sharp pencil and very good light are my next requirements!

In other news, Dylan the Psychedelic Snail has a friend! Over the last two weeks I’ve run him as a workshop for the In The Stitch Zone group I teach at Scunthorpe Central Library (details in the Stitch Zone tab on the header) on a Monday afternoon. The first week we created the Raised Stem Stitch Band spiral for the shell.

And the second week we added the needlelace body.

I wanted a purple body for my new snail but could only find this very light variegated lilac in quite a stiff mercerised cotton or similar. I still think it’s a bit too pale but I love the way the firmer thread really shows up the texture of the Corded Brussels Stitch. Someone on Instagram actually thought the body was knitted!

So, meet Ermintrude! And of course, the obligatory photo to show just how small she actually is!

I always worry about repeating a design in case it doesn’t stitch up as well as the original, but despite the centre of her shell being less neat than Dylan’s I’m very pleased both with my second snail and also how the workshop went overall. A win-win!

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Dylan the Psychedelic Snail.

The other day I wondered to myself, as you do; what if I worked Raised Stem Stitch Band in a spiral? I think this came from something I’d seen on Instagram but when I went looking I couldn’t find anything so it was time to experiment. I’m sure there are probably a handful of tutorials on YouTube but it was good to work something out independently. I started with a sketched spiral and a thick bundle of grey perle a little longer than the spiral to give me room to plunge and finish off the ends.

I used the same grey perle to couch the bundle down.

So far, so good. The thread was rather wavy from having been in a plait for donkey’s years but the couching controlled it effectively. At this point I was quite surprised at how easily and neatly it formed the spiral and even plunging all the ends in the centre wasn’t as difficult as I expected.

For the stem stitch, I chose a Stef Francis coton a broder thread in subtly variegated shades of orange.

I love the way stem band works up and the slightly corded coton a broder gives a beautiful texture to the stitches.

I was pleased with the coverage of the grey as well, having remembered a bit too late that the padding sometimes can show through, and the way the edges of the spiral have become three-dimensional.

It started out as a ‘what if’ experiment but now there was only one way to go… Meet Dylan the Psychedelic Snail.

His body is outlined in back stitch which was the foundation for his Corded Brussels stitch needlelace body in this fabulous rainbow thread.

Couched down green chenille gave him a bit of grass to slither over and his antennae are short lines of split stitch topped with French knots.

He’s adorable, even if I do say so myself, and a really nice project on which to practise some fairly straightforward stumpwork and needle lace stitches so I’ve added him to the workshops I offer – just click on the Workshops tab at the top to see the full list.

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Starting the Persian Chandelier

I was very tempted to get straight into the fun bits of needle lace and crochet, but realistically it was more important to work out the background first to make sure all the little twiddly bits were to scale. I chose this photo:

because the lines of the Temperate House glazing form an interesting but not overpowering background. I turned it into greyscale as I did with the bollock purse from the Tattershall Journal so I could focus on the lines and patterns and then transferred the design onto a piece of indigo dyed cotton.

My white pen is obviously running out but as it’s one that develops over time, I can’t tell that at the point I’m tracing the design! At least there was enough of the design marked up for me to start stitching. I decided to use very fine ribbon for the thicker bars to contrast with whatever line stitch I choose for the thinner bars and have blanket stitched the first one down with fine sewing cotton.

Unfortunately further stitching was curtailed by two and a half days supply teaching followed by my first Covid jab and 24 hours lost to feeling rough from the after effects. Looking at it again, I like the width and solidity of the ribbon but I’m not sure about using blanket stitch to attach it. It looks a bit too raised and I’m wondering if I might try stitching the next one down with tiny stab stitches to keep the ribbon smoother.

I did manage to do a bit of playing with a sample of Hungarian Braided Chain Stitch at the weekend. I’d seen someone using it on Instagram and was rather taken with the result. Mary Corbet came up trumps as usual with an excellent tutorial which you can find here and this is the result of my experiments.

I’m really pleased with the weighty, corded effect it gives and the colour changes in the variegated perle thread.

I love stitches that looks as impressive as this one but are in fact very straightforward to work. Another new one for the repertoire!

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Rows

With the outlining done on the medieval tiles piece it was time to make a decision about how to fill the space surrounding them. Seeding was a bit of an obvious go to and something I used in the last print to stitch piece, but I wanted something different. I toyed with seeding in a more distinctive stitch, like a tete de boeuf, fly stitch or detached chain stitch, but they all looked too heavy, so I fell back on an idea I had a while ago of a kantha spiral based on the centre of the motif. Typically, I chose one to start off where the motif wasn’t in the middle of the ’tile’ so I couldn’t quite see whether it was going to work as I hoped – mainly, I think, because the initial rows of single stitches were quite overpowering – until I got to the outside rows.

Stitching in circles and skipping the printed areas has pulled it up into a bit of a dome! I think there will definitely have to be something couched along the motif to try and flatten it. I think I like it. I might need to play with the couched lines before I can be certain one way or another.

I’ve finished the little needlelace sampler. Goodness knows why I thought it would be a good idea to work in wedge shapes and have to decrease as well as working the stitch. It’s not a huge problem with the Single and Corded Brussels, but created some interesting effects with the Double Corded Brussels (DCB) and the Ceylon Stitch.

I really like what happens to the lace as the stitch spacings get smaller on the DCB. The early rows have a lovely open trellis effect with the cord taking centre stage, whereas in the later ones it is much less obvious, becoming a pattern of double stitches and holes. It’s useful to see how different spacings can give you different effects.

The Ceylon Stitch loops were tiny from the start and as the spacing got smaller, I had to decrease in the middle of the pattern as that was where it was the mostly tightly packed.

It is such a lovely looking but incredibly unforgiving stitch that you can see every single place where it isn’t absolutely perfect. It also took forever and so I am not redoing it – it can stand as an useful object lesson!

I intend to carry on stitching some more needlelace but the next sampler is going to be based on rectangles. However, I might work another sample of the Ceylon stitch in a rectangle just to prove I can do it perfectly when I don’t have to keep decreasing!

I’ve not made much jewellery for a while as I’ve been trying to list a backlog of vintage jewellery on Etsy, but when an odd earring I was cleaning came to pieces, leaving me with a rather nice silver mount, I was inspired! I set it with a lovely and very unusual piece of beachcombed Victorian pottery and added a 16″ silver chain to make a unique pendant.

It’s available here in the Beachcombing section of my Etsy shop.

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