Category: General Embroidery
The Circles Skirt
You may recall that I bought some rather gorgeous Donegal tweed at the Harrogate Knitting And Stitching Show, with the intention of embellishing a skirt. I decided that this time I would use simple circles, and cut some paper patterns in circles of different sizes, to decide on placement. Here is the result. Most of the drama is at the front, where the skirt is a simple A-line shape. The back of the skirt flares out a little in the centre, so the patterning tails out there, but the pattern is asymmetrical, which is why I’ve chosen to show you a sort of all-round view.
It seemed to me that the easiest way to decide what went where was to sneak up on it. I stared at the layout for a while, picked a fabric for a particular placement, cut it out, pinned it on in place of the paper circle, and then stared again. Repeat…
I’ve needlefelted the circles to the fabric – that seemed the best way to attach them more or less permanently so I won’t be stabbed with pins when I’m adding the embroidery. Now there will be a lot more cycles of staring at it and doing something, staring at it and doing some more.
And since the circles are firmly attached, I can in fact wear it now if I decide to!
Another Course From Thistle Threads!
There was another clatter of the letterbox and a gentle thunk on the carpet recently. It was soon followed by some excited squeaks and a dash upstairs to print out Month 1 of the History and Instructions.
This time, instead of a clear distinction between metal thread stitching and silkwork, as in the Floral Glove Needlecase, the Tudor and Stuart Goldwork Masterclass, or the Glittering Gentleman’s Nightcap, the aim of the course is to show how the metal and silk threads were combined within stitches and motifs.
I’m hoping that this will give me some new ideas and techniques to apply to my Dreams of Amarna panels. However, I intend to be a good girl. I won’t actually start this until I’ve done the Glittering Gentleman’s Nightcap, which is still “going slow” owing to a combination of end-of-year exhaustion and fugitive winter light. With a bit of luck, I may be able to get started in the spring.
Progress on the Azorean Cutwork
You may recall that when we visited the Azores, I found an embroidery shop, and bought myself some fabric and thread, and a book of patterns.
I’ve now finished the outside edge of the piece, which means that I can stop worrying about the potential for the piece to fray. My buttonhole stitch isn’t entirely consistent in width, but now I’ve pinned it out to look at it, I suspect that isn’t going to matter very much when the piece is finished.
I haven’t damp-stretched it (with apologies to Karen!) because I’m not entirely confident that the drawn line will survive washing, and I really don’t want to have to draw it yet again!
I’m continuing to work around the perimeter, rather than working each flower individually. I’ve commented before that I don’t much enjoy repetition, so as I go around the perimeter I alternate between curved and straight lines, no buttonhole bars and adding buttonhole bars, which keeps me a bit more interested. Not least of the (underrated!) skills involved in embroidery is managing longer-timescale projects in order to make sure that they do in fact get finished. I’m pleased that – in spite of the fact that this is essentially my embroidery project for when I don’t have good enough light for my big projects! – I’m making slow but steady progress with it.
However, my next task is to write my shopping list for my visit to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show. Over the years, I’ve often bought things with a project in mind, and then found the project changing when I come to think about it seriously, so I am trying to be a bit more organised and disciplined this time – while still leaving some leeway for the odd enthusiastic impulse purchase!
Kai Lung of the Golden Hours
This wonderfully contorted Imperial Dragon was another Needlewoman Magazine design (March 1934), and he got his name from the Golden Hours of Kai Lung, by Ernest Bramah, which I was reading at the time, because it had been mentioned in one of Dorothy L Sayer’s books (“Strong Poison”).
The pearl cotton I used was really too heavy for the base fabric – another old piece of linen – but it gave a fantastic lustre to his scales, which were worked using nested fly stitches (not my idea – I followed instructions on this piece!).
The tongue is closely-set stem stitch, the claws are fly stitch (so are the teeth – I think the designer liked fly stitch!) and the mane is made of interlocking blanket stitch. I worked very hard on this piece, to keep the stitches neat and even, and I used to take it with me to visit Grandmama when she was in hospital. There’d probably be a riot now if I sat at a hospital bedside, embroidery in hand, but Grandmama enjoyed watching me work and made a lot of useful and encouraging comments as well.
The magazine no longer had its transfer of the Dragon, which was intended as a Firescreen (other suggestions included the back of a bridge coat, a footstool, a cocktail tray, a cushion…), so I worked it at the size of the diagram in the magazine, on the back of a dress. Had I worked him full size, he’d have been too big for the dress.
I was thrilled when the wife of one of my father’s friends recognised it, told me that she had worked it herself when the magazine came out, and fished out the firescreen she had made using the design the next time we went to see them. She was the person who told me that you can tell he’s an Imperial Dragon, because he has five claws. She’d worked it in pastel shades to go with their drawing room of the time, and it was absolutely stunning. She and her husband are both dead now. I do hope that that screen found a happy home!
A Pulled Work Sampler – Second Installment
There are so many pulled work stitches that I was in more danger of running out of patience than of running out of stitches.
Star Stitches in the heavier thread create a strong horizontal divider, with the colour change rippling across the fabric.
Then I worked two pulled work stitches each at two different scales. One of the patterns creates something a little like festooned curtains, another creates the effect of a tiled roof. Although I worked this many years ago, this playing with scale is something that, when I was doing the Tudor and Stuart Goldwork Masterclass, I came to realise was a very important element of stitch choice and effect.
Again the heavier thread made a good divider, this time a dagged edge straight out of medieval heraldry, and then Wave Stitch ( the right- hand picture – possibly not pulled tightly enough!) and a brick pattern follow on.
I still cannot recall what I had in mind when I started this piece, except, perhaps, that I wanted to use the citrus-coloured thread for something. I think that if I were to start this again, I would work a narrower sampler and start by working the pulled stitches in a fine self-coloured thread. It seems to me now tht the pattern of spaces might be more interesting, in fact, than the stitches themselves.
A Pulled Work Sampler – First Installment
All my regular readers will know that while I’m very keen on experimenting with techniques that are new to me, I’m not so good at finishing what I’ve started.
I found this panel when I opened a box in the office that I’ve been ignoring for a while. I can’t even remember how long ago I started it, and you can see that although I worked it on a frame, it’s got somewhat out of shape while it’s been rolled up, because of the varying tension up and down the length of it. There’s less variation across the width, which strikes me as strange since I’m sure I used a roller frame, and didn’t tension the weftwise direction!
The sampler is worked using another pair of Caron Collection threads, the fine Wildflowers, and heavier Watercolours, in a bright orange and green overdye. I love the texture and colours of these threads, and they highlight the stitches beautifully. The fabric itself is Jobelan, which is a regular even-weave fabric, perhaps not quite sufficiently widely-sett for pulled work to show to its best advantage.
It occurs to me as I look at the photos that pulled work can be done with two different effects in mind – one using the pattern of stitches to create the effect, and the other using a much finer, self-coloured thread, creating the effect with the pattern of holes left by pulling the fabric threads together. Something else to try!
After beginning with a row of Star Stitches in the heavier thread, the first corner of the square panel is in Four Sided Stitch. What puzzles me about this is that the second section seems to be in the same stitch, whereas the two lower corners differ. It seems to me that this was a genuine sampler – I was making it up as I went along!