Old Stuff for New Beginnings

I’ve just started teaching a monthly embroidery class at Jaylaurs, a fabulous fabric and sewing shop in the nearby small market town of Brigg. I worked with three lovely ladies at the end of last month, all of whom enjoyed experimenting with some new stitches and I hope that they and some others will come along to the next one on the 30th of November. I created some more Stitch Play samples using more basic stitches, mainly based round running stitch, chain stitch and split stitch…

…but it was the more complex stitches like knotted buttonhole stitch, Pekingese Stitch and feather stitch that they wanted to try out!

Jayne, who runs Jaylaurs, asked me to create some purse flyers to give to people who expressed an interest in the classes and while looking for some suitable images and ideas I found some work I had done as examples of lessons I taught to Y5s and 6s a few years ago based on couching and whipped and threaded variants of running stitch.

They had been doing some batik and I wanted to get them to embellish some of their test pieces. This one is my sample piece with simple leaf shapes.

I had just bought a load of fancy threads for textile work and threaded and whipped running stitches were great ways of using threads that were far too thick and slubby to be used to stitch with themselves. The chenille thread on the left works particularly well.

The other sample was again to use the fancy threads, but this time couching them down in various patterns.

The thread with the fluffy ‘flags’ was very fine, so I remember couching it down backwards and forwards along the line to build up a thicker layer and seeing where the ‘flags’ fell as I worked along the thread. I hadn’t planned it, but they seemed to always end up together in clumps!

And then I found this: an early bit of found object work, using various bits and pieces that I had picked up around school. It includes an odd stud earring (flanked by two short screws) that was never claimed after PE and finally found its way into the school piano and a broken trouser fastener (centre) kindly donated for use in the piece by the lad in my class at the time. His trousers had suffered a catastrophic fail as a result of an overenthusiastic tackle in football at break and he spent the rest of the day in his PE shorts. The fastener was recovered from the playground following the incident.

A bit of fun and some good memories of some of the amazing children I have taught over the years.

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Little Bits.

The little free cross stitch of the rhododendrons at Stagshaw Gardens from our Lake District holiday in May is completed, as is the journal itself, something of a super-quick finish given that I’ve only just completed my journal for our last family holiday in Dorset last July!

The bluework has crawled on from this:

To this:

Not much change, apart from the beginning of some umbellifer-type flowers in split stitch, free cross stitch and french knots near the foot of the bowl.

And as I went down to London at the end of last week to see my foster daughter get her PhD at the Barbican, I needed something small and easy to transport and work on. The result was some not blackwork.

I had some oddments of blue Aida and decided that gold on blue would be nice. The patterns were freebies from the internet which I stitched as a repeat rather than single motifs. Sometimes it’s nice just to do little odds and ends.

 

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Blue Ribbon Rose brooch

I’ve been restocking and updating my Etsy shop with that December thing coming up fast on the horizon and although a lot of my pieces have involved sea glass, sea washed china and found objects, I did get inspired by another vintage brooch without a central stone.

So I gathered some supplies and started to stitch a ribbon rose on some scraps of hand dyed silk.

With a woven rose in the middle, split stitch curling stems either side and some french knot buds, it stitched up quite quickly.

Then I layered three pieces of pelmet vilene, each slightly smaller than the other to create a domed shape, gathered the silk around the dome and pulled it up tight. A piece of the rust coloured background silk covered the gathering at the back and then I set it in the brooch.

You can find it here.

I also created this flotsam assemblage pendant…

 

…from a piece of wave worn aluminium…

…which I beachcombed ages ago and just love; a piece of tactile driftwood and a long nugget of sea glass which sat in the groove of that grain perfectly.

A treasured oval piece of multicoloured Seaham sea glass went into a vintage pendant.

And rich green oval nugget of sea glass went into another vintage pendant.

In fact I managed to find and nearly match so many lovely green pieces that I was able to add a pair of upcycled vintage clip on earrings…

..and a bracelet.

It’s lovely to be able to reuse some of these gorgeous pieces and bring broken jewellery back to life again.

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Bluework update

The bluework is coming along slowly. I’ve added a centre to the lighter coloured flower on the right hand side.

However, that part of the design has lapsed as I need to redraw the rest of it and I never seem to have my fabric marker handy when I’m working on it, so I went for another section altogether. My first attempt at this type of bullion knot roses with my favourite fly stitch leaves and stem stitch stem.

That was a relatively quick stitch, so I thought I’d stay with bullions and create some lavender.

It looked a bit sparse, so I used a variegated perle thread in a similar colour to create some more heads in the background with nested lazy daisy stitch leaves and split stitch stems on the lavender in the foreground.

I might use some fine silk to put the suggestion of another row in even further away when I’ve finished the perle.

And the bluework so far…

I do believe I’m over half way!

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Bluework allium

I love spiky allium heads. After having done some ‘long shots’ on a couple of the sections in my bluework bowl, I decided that I wanted the next section to be a closer view and I chose an allium head for that.

First, the main stem in herringbone stitch and the stems which carry the flower heads radiating from a central point.

Then a solid couple of hours stitching through a committee meeting got the six petalled individual florets in lazy daisy stitch added.

I used the same variegated silk to outline the stem in split stitch and then built up adjoining rows of split stitch to form the leaf.

As all the other sections are in Victorian china style blue and white, I wanted to introduce other shades of blue, but I’m not entirely convinced now…

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New stitches

I’ve had flu for the first time in years and it’s been a bugger to shift, so my involvement at last Saturday’s Scunthorpe Embroiderers’ Guild meeting was limited to sneaking in half way through the afternoon to hand over Val’s Travelling Book and pick up Sandra’s, staying by the door and keeping my germs well out of the way. Everyone looked like they were happily stitching though, so I hope a good time was had by all.

For Val’s book page I worked a piece inspired by the work of Sue Spargo. I bought some gorgeous heavyweight pure wool felt before Christmas and cut simple leaf shapes in a soft green to go on a cream ground. I wanted to use the uncluttered shapes to showcase the embroidery, particularly new stitches.

Then I got out a whole pile of books on embroidery stitches and started to stitch! The blanket stitch round the outside of the first leaf is actually called Berwick Stitch in the book I used and is a blanket stitch with a sort of added french knot where the needle enters the background fabric. Very nice to work and the knot gives a lovely finish. Then a row of running stitch and the dark green is twisted chain.

After I’d worked the line of twisted chain I felt the gap was too big between it and the running stitch, so I added a row of split stitch in variegated perle. Inside the twisted chain I stitched a row of whipped running stitch before finishing it off with a row of closed fly stitch.

Leaf two was held down with Knotted Buttonhole Stitch. It’s a lovely looking stitch but working the knots at the start took a bit of practise. Then a neat row of chain inside that.

I wasn’t happy with the lone line of running stitch on the first leaf so at this point I went back and whipped it. Much better.

Back to leaf two and courtesy of Mary Thomas, Portuguese Knotted Stem Stitch. Another new stitch to me and a gorgeous one (once I’d got the hang of the tension). I really like the way this sits on the fabric.

The inside was finished with stem stitch, back stitch and Pekinese stitch.

I mounted it up into the book and added my inspiration page which included a printout of a photo of the leaves labelled with the different stitches.

This was a complete joy to stitch and a lot of fun finding new and interesting stitches to add to the old favourites.

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Small finishes

It’s reading for a new show time again and so I have managed to sit and stitch through a number of small finishes. Firstly, one of the designs Ruth produced for us at November’s Embroiderers’ Guild meeting, made up into a card.

The border is in feather stitch, the centre in a spiral of split stitch, the main oval parts of the petals in Corded Brussels stitch (needlelace) and the ends in satin stitch.

Then I decided to make up a little magazine kit I bought from eBay in 2009. Simple stem stitch and lazy daisy stitch for the wheel barrow and the flowers/leaves.

Then french knot middles to the flowers and my first ever attempt at a Dorset Button for the wheel.

I was fairly pleased with it until I put the kit picture next to it for comparison…

Obviously a technique I need to work on but it has made a nice little card.

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