Monthly Archives: June 2012

Mini kits

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A small new venture on the website this week – I’ve added a set of mini kits to the Specials page. When setting up Mabel’s Fancies I decided against kits on the grounds that so many of my designs can be stitched on a variety of fabrics using a variety of threads and colours, and that chart packs give each stitcher the opportunity to pick and choose from the various suggestions, or even to go for something altogether different.

On the other hand, if you’re a beginner you might like to get a small, simple kit so that you can try and see if Hardanger is your cup of tea without having to buy all the materials.

So I got to thinking; what would my requirements for such a mini kit be?

  • The design should be small, simple and relatively quick to stitch
  • The instructions would have to be more detailed than for a regular chart pack, with notes on starting with a waste knot and so on
  • It should include the most common stitches in Hardanger
  • It must not look like a "practice piece" – it should be something that you’d want to stitch in its own right
  • It would be great if the project could be turned into something useful
  • It wouldn’t be practical to include scissors or a hoop, but apart from that it should contain everything needed both for stitching and for finishing
  • And it must come with a decent-sized piece of fabric! None of those little scraps you sometimes get which you can’t possibly get into a hoop
  • Ideally it would also appeal to experienced stitchers, for example as a "quick stitch" between larger projects

Well, one project that I’ve been using as part of my teaching fitted the bill beautifully – the needle matchbook!

Matchbook needle keeper

I charted three versions of the design, so that the three kits cover most of the basic stitches in Hardanger: Kloster blocks; woven, wrapped and double wrapped bars; dove’s eye, square filet and spider’s web. Then I adapted the stitch descriptions to be as explicit as possible about every step in the stitching process. I worked out how much perle cotton would be needed, and what size fabric would be comfortable to work with. And finally I wrote extra instructions for turning the three designs into a bookmark – no reason why you should stitch them only once!

So if you’ve never tried Hardanger before but would like to give it a go, here’s your chance – and remember, in the unlikely event that you get stuck, I’m only an email away.

Playing with stitches

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As I was going through my notes for the Song of the Weather SAL, looking at the lists of possible stitches to include, I thought it might be rather fun to include some Shisha glass. I picked some up in the tiny needlework section of a shop somewhere in Yorkshire some time ago, and hadn’t done much with it yet. Now Shisha stitch is usually worked on non-count fabric, so if I was to add it to the SAL I’d have to see if I could chart it for counted fabric. The first step was to work out how many fabric threads the little mirror would cover, how far apart the base stitches should be, and whether I could work a regular circle around the glass using stitches of roughly equal length.

Shisha stitch

It turns out the base stitches need to be much closer together than you would expect! They are pulled towards the edge of the glass by the later stitches, which are a sort of twiddly buttonhole variation, and I actually had to re-do the base stitches twice before I got them right. Then I started wondering – would it be possible to have the Shisha stitch without the glass? You’d have to create a sort of "inner circle" or more likely an octagon of straight stitches, and work into those. Well, I tried, and it’s possible, but it looks a bit flat. There’s definitely a good reason for having the glass inside the Shisha stitch!

Shisha circle

Finally I thought I’d try Shisha stitch in a straight line; make a sort of braid. A base of backstitch, more buttonhole twiddles and voilà, Shisha braid. I like the look of this one, and it’s definitely staying in my repertoire of stitches.

Shisha braid

In case you think I’ve given away part of the mystery in the Mystery SAL, don’t worry – I decided that adding Shisha glass would add another complication to the materials list (not to mention having to chart different versions for different counts of fabric), and I didn’t need another "band" stitch so the Shisha braid has been stored for some future design. I did think up another stitch, though, or rather a combination of two familiar stitches, which may very well make it into the final SAL design – so that one is staying a secret for the moment …

Mabel spreads her wings

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One of the challenges for any beginning designer is getting your designs out there, where people can see them and hopefully like them and possibly even buy them. From the start of Mabel’s Fancies I’ve been very lucky in getting "exposure"; Caron chose to put me in their Designer Spotlight, and Stitch magazine bought a number of designs, two of which have so far been published. My friends and fellow-stitchers at the Cross Stitch Forum have been incredibly supportive and have spread the word in blogs etc. And for my own part I try make sure that Mabel has a web presence that is easy to find if people Google things like "Hardanger designs", and easy to share if they find something they like.

But there are always more opportunities, and anyway it’s interesting to try new things – or in some cases, familiar things in new surroundings! I enjoy teaching, and this autumn I’ll be offering a five-week "mixed needlework" course at my old haunt, the Percival Guildhouse in Rugby. But as I was buying workshop tickets for this year’s Knitting & Stitching Show I thought, "I wonder where they get their teachers from?" So I asked them, told them a bit about what I did myself, and got added to their database, so you may well see Mabel teaching a workshop at Alexandra Palace in 2013. Come and say hello if you happen to be there!

Also this autumn I’ll be joining the Counted Wishes Festival for the first time. This is an online stitching show which has the advantage that you do not have to travel there or set up a stand. Most designers there specialise in various styles of cross stitch, but it is for all counted work, so a Hardanger presence may prove an interesting addition! One of the things they recommend is to have a new design especially for the Festival, which will be available to Festival visitors before anyone else. I could use one of my Planned designs, of course, but it would be more fun to offer something that hasn’t been seen even on the Planned page; so far I have some vague ideas, a few doodles, and a name – Rainbow Wings. Any ideas what it might be?

A bad workman blames his tools…

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… but a good needlewoman praises hers – credit where credit is due! Mind you, having seen some of the gorgeous work that 17th and 18th-century embroiderers produced with never a daylight lamp, bead nabber or magnetic chart holder in sight I suppose a really good needlewoman will produce beautiful results whatever her tools are like, but I certainly find that some tools make my stitching life a lot easier and more comfortable.

Those of you who keep an occasional eye on my page of Planned projects may have noticed that Fruit of the Spirit has disappeared from there, but has not yet appeared anywhere else on the site. This is because it was originally meant to come out in May, and I did in fact start working on it then. However, it is now past the middle of June and it is not yet finished. And why? Because of a scroll frame.

Well, that’s not really fair on the scroll frame, which is a perfectly good one. It’s just rather bigger than anything I usually work with. At 12" it may seem small enough to some of you, but it simply doesn’t work for me; I find it cumbersome and heavy and uncomfortable, and consequently I only really worked on Fruit at my weekly stitching group (where I can lean the frame against the table) or during rare daytime stitching moments at the weekend when I seat myself at the dining room table. But in the evening in my usual comfy armchair? No.

Perhaps a workstand might make a difference? I looked into what was available and of course also asked my fellow members at the Cross Stitch Forum. Many of them were full of enthusiasm for their Lowery workstands, and it did have one great advantage over most of the other stands I had seen: it grips the frame by the side bar rather than by the top scroll bar. With a top grip I’d always worry about damaging the fabric. Some of the other stands did have accessories to get round that, but why add an extra complication? I also liked the fact that it looks very simple and relatively unobtrusive, and that it stands by your side rather than in front of you.

But would it really make a difference? And would I be able to work with the frame floating, as it were, in front of me? My husband agreed to act as stand-in stand, holding my frame the way the workstand would, and I found that apart from a slight wobble which I attributed to the fact that my husband comes with hands rather than metal clamps it really seemed the ideal solution. So I decided to take the plunge and order it – only to be asked whether I would like it for an anniversary present! I’m sure you can guess my answer …

And so I am now the proud owner of a Lowery workstand, and I love it. It is stable, easily adjustable, simple to swing out of the way when I need to get up, and the frame just sits there in front of me without my having to support it in any way – brilliant! I also made as much progress on Fruit of the Spirit in one evening as I had in the previous two weeks, so expect it at Mabel’s Fancies very soon.

Lowery stand

Drawing stitch diagrams

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If you’ve ever tried to explain a new stitch to a fellow stitcher using only words, you’ll realise that stitch diagrams are indispensible in chart packs. Dove’s eyes, woven bars, chain stitch – you could describe them without illustrations, I suppose, but generally I think stitch diagrams are the next best thing to actually having a fellow stitcher with you to show you how it’s done.

And so I create stitch diagrams for each and every stitch used in my designs, from the humble backstitch to the complicated round eyelet networks that crop up in my Ukrainian-inspired designs (like Odessa, which I’m hoping to start this month).

One of the problems when drawing a stitch diagram is that quite a few stitches can actually be worked in several different ways, none of which is inherently more "right" or "wrong" than the others. Which do I pick? Very selfishly I tend to choose the one that works best for me, partly because it means I can describe that method best. Another problem in drawing stitch diagrams is just that, the drawing. Ideally all the diagrams would be created on the computer, and come out sharing the same look, with every needle looking the same, and the fabric threads being very uniform and so on. Like the diagrams in magazines, and books.

There is software which will do all that. Unfortunately, it costs hundreds of dollars. And that’s before import duty and Royal Mail handling fees.

And so I draw my own – some on the computer with the help of my stitching program and a good photo editor, some (mostly the ones that require the needle to be shown) by hand on paper. Would you like to see how they’re done?

First I work the stitch myself several times, looking very closely at what I do and in what order, and noting the actions of needle and fingers. (I don’t usually photograph this stage, but this is what it looks like; you can see several other trial stitches on that scrap of fabric.)

Stitch diagram step 1

Then I draw a representation of it in pencil on squared paper. At this stage I don’t worry about accurately showing which thread goes behind which, or whether the needle is in front or behind the working thread. In fact, the thread can be seen through the finger!

Stitch diagram step 2

Finally I go over the pencil lines in black ink, making sure that this time it is clear from the drawing whether the working thread goes over or under the needle. I also add letters or numbers to refer to in the description.

Stitch diagram step 3

And there you have it, a stitch diagram. Not as uniform and regular as the ones in magazines, but I hope and trust that it does the job and shows clearly how a stitch is worked. And that, after all, is the main thing!

More Mulberry silk

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Last week I tried out some Mulberry silks which I’d had in my stash for some time, to see how well they were suited to Hardanger. The Thick and Medium silks I tried first were both a little on the chunky side compared to #5 and #8 perle cottons. I don’t mind that so much for the Kloster blocks, where good solid coverage is a bit of a bonus to my mind, but if you’re going to use the thinner thread for backstitch as well as worked bars and filling stitches it can look better when it’s a bit thinner than a #8. On the other hand, too thin and you end up having to work an endless amount of weaves or wraps to give your worked bars decent coverage.

I intended to try out Mulberry’s Thin silk as a substitute for Medium, but just looking at it on the bobbin made it quite clear that it was going to be far too thin. Mulberry give the thickness of their threads in the x/y format which I’m still trying to get my head round. It means, as far as I’ve been able to work out, that the thread consists of y number of plies, and each ply has the thickness x, where a higher x means a thinner thread. Apparently it’s all based on the number of 840-yard hanks you get from a pound of thread. I assume that’s an imperial rather than a metric pound, but whichever it is, after about ten seconds of trying to work this out my eyes start to glaze over and I decide that I can spend the time much more enjoyably stitching.

It boils down to this – as with perle cottons, the higher the number the thinner the thread. And a 30/3 thread is equivalent in thickness to a 20/2 thread, although I’m sure it makes a difference whether it is, for example, very tightly twisted. Anyway, Mulberry Silks’ Thick silk is a 10/3, Medium is a 30/3 and Fine a 100/3. So the trick would be to find something between 30 and 100. Enter their Quilting silk, which is a 70/3.

The Quilting silk is lovely for the little backstitch motifs, with a very nice shine and crisp detail,and it makes a beautifully lacy square filet, but it is quite thin for the woven bars and takes a lot of weaving to get good coverage. Probably the best solution would be to use Thick for Kloster blocks, Medium for bars, and Quilting for filling stitches and backstitch.

Mulberry silks

Yesterday the postman brought me some lovely Treenway silks to add to my collection – watch this space for a further silk Hardanger experiment!

Solved!

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The sun has come out, bunting and flags are flapping festively in an invigorating breeze (or a freezing gale, if you ask my husband), and "Fruit" has been saved – what more could a girl want?

It worked pretty much as I’d planned (makes a nice change …). First I unpicked the two affected Kloster blocks; this was made easier by the fact that one of them was actually where I’d finished off a thread anyway.

Repairs step 1

I then re-worked the Kloster blocks, making sure I didn’t pull too much. This was really exactly like the experiment in which I worked double-sided Kloster blocks as though they were thick wrapped bars. And they came out looking quite good! The back is a bit bulky with all the extra finishing on and off, and if you look really closely, and you know which blocks they are, you can see they look slightly different in the corner where they meet, but I doubt anyone will notice once it’s hanging on a wall.

Repairs step 2

By the way, I think I worked out why the snip happened in the first place: looking closely at some of the Kloster blocks, I saw that where two stitches go into the same hole (on a corner, where the two Kloster blocks share a hole) the second stitch had sometimes pierced the first one. This means that some of the first stitch (perhaps a single ply) is not pulled away from the "cutting edge", and so gets snipped more easily – and if it doen’t get snipped, it will show up in the corner of the cut area. Something to bear in mind when I’m stitching corners!

Another thing I noticed was that the cut ends didn’t show up at all in the re-stitched Kloster blocks. Makes me wonder whether it might not be possible to use the "cut first, then work Kloster blocks" method by default, especially in smaller pieces. Hmm, I feel another experiment coming on …

Not a crisis

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Sometimes you say or write something and suddenly you realise that you’ve been using terribly overblown language. I’d started by calling this post "Crisis!" but looking at it a bit more soberly, and bearing in mind all the real crises going on in the world, it is of course nothing more than an annoying inconvenience.

Having said that, it is a very annoying inconvenience, which at worst would mean discarding a more than half-finished "Fruit of the Spirit" and having to stitch it again. And all because of a careless snip of the squissors.

I’d finished stitching all the Kloster blocks and cross stitch on the top two-thirds of the design, which is as much as I can do without moving it on the scroll frame. There were still some decorative stitches to do in Petite Treasure Braid, but when I’d done three in the whitish Pearl colour I’d chosen, I wasn’t sure about the effect. Perhaps a dull gold would be better? But I was at my weekly stitching group at the time, and didn’t have the dull gold Treasure Braid with me, so I decided to start cutting. As I was poking in my cut ends, I realised that I’d snipped a stitch in one of the Kloster blocks. (The left-hand picture shows the front, the right-hand one the back of the work.)

Snipped thread front Snipped thread back

In fact as you can see I’d only caught one of the plies with my squissors, not the complete perle thread, so at first I thought I might be able to push the cut ply to the back and make do with what was left of the thread. But unfortunately no amount of poking and stroking and judicious cutting has yet produced a result that I would be happy for other people to see – especially as I hope to give it to our church when it is finished, and a gift for the house of the Lord should be as good as I can make it.

So tomorrow afternoon I will very carefully take out the two Kloster blocks that are affected, and very very carefully try to stitch them again around the cut area. I am encouraged by the experiments I did some time ago with the double-sided Kloster blocks, which involved a similar exercise (only planned). With a bit of luck the process won’t be too frustrating and infuriating! But it may be just as well that this happened while stitching "Fruit", with its gentle reminder of Patience and Self-control …