Felt for finishing and an unexpected use for metallic kid

Posted on 3rd June, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

I’m beginning to get quite a collection of finished Floral Laces – some with quite startling combinations of felt and stitching (wait till you see Fuchsia …) – here are two I finished while we were on holiday in the Outer Hebrides. One of the things I’m considering doing with them when I’ve got them all done is getting a square framed cork board, possibly paint it black, and then display them by rotation. Yes, felt is wonderful stuff, and not just for finishing Floral Lace – remember these hand-dyed felts I got at the Knitting & Stitching Show last year? I haven’t actually decided what to use them for yet, but they’re lovely even just to look at, and I think they’ll make a beautiful backing for something or other.

And backing is not the only thing you can do with felt, of course. Here is my recent purchase from Blooming Felt: gift tags and a purse. I’m not sure yet what designs to use them for; obviously they need to be quite small. Perhaps a shortened version of the smaller Window on the World for the purse? And I may have to design something new for the tags, although there are only so many things you can do in such a small space; or the little cross I’ve used for baptism bookmarks might make quite a pretty gift tag for a christening gift!

Remember the metallic kid I used for Treasure Trove? It came in very useful yesterday, though not for any needlework. One of my belts works really well with 2 or 3 of my dresses, but the snag is that the loose end won’t stay put. When I put the belt on first thing in the morning the end bit curls snugly enough around my waist, but as soon as I move, it does too. I tried sticking it to the belt with blutack, but that started affecting the surface of the belt. It obviously needed a loop of sorts to hold it in place, but what could I use that wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb? And then it struck me – the belt is made of metallic leather, in warm shades of copper and gold. So I dug out the left-over gold kid and it turned out to go with the belt perfectly. I was about to sew the leather together when my husband suggested contact adhesive; it proved to be a fortuitous suggestion, as I made the loop a little too wide the first time, and this way I could gently unpeel rather than laboriously unpick. So now I have a lovely fitting belt; I knew having lots of stash was practical!

Finishing florals, part 5; and a tale of two squissors

Posted on 15th May, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Yes, I have finally completed the buttonholing on one of the 18 “proper” Floral Laces! Using the more spacious of the two buttonhole versions worked well – having the buttonholing closer to the stitching than it is now would have looked rather cramped, I think. The back looks better than I’d expected, with the scalloping producing rather a decorative effect. All in all, I’m pleased with it and will, over time, finish the other 17 in the same way.

Floral Lace, with scalloped buttonhole edge

I’ve also been trying to get some more squissors, my former supplier having decided they wouldn’t do them any more. They very kindly put me in touch with their suppliers, and it all seemed to be going splendidly (apart from the complications of ordering from a country far, far away) until 100 pairs of squissors arrived. They looked just fine, all titanium-coated and colourful. But when I had a closer look at one and tried it out, it turned out that not all squissors are equal – these were far thicker and less pointy than the ones I had before!

Fortunately I’ve got enough stock left to be getting on with for the moment, and the new ones have now been returned to the supplier who will send out the correct ones this week, I’ve been told. So no need to panic quite yet, there may not be a global shortage of accurate, thin-bladed, fine-pointed squissors after all!

Kits, cards, and a missing colour

Posted on 8th May, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

It’s an excellent thing to get children interested in crafts for all sorts of reasons besides giving them an enjoyable hobby for the rest of their lives, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by producing some children’s kits and offer them for sale at our church’s mother & toddler group to raise money for the building fund. Having considered and rejected the mini peacock as not really being a children’s design, I remembered a kit I put together some years ago for some young friends of ours whom we were “babysitting”. It needed a serious rummage to unearth it, but I managed to dig up my Hot Air Balloon chart! Here is its first stitcher proudly displaying her work; a sneak peek at the chart; and the blue aida and perle cotton I’ve picked to make the kits with (I think the first one was done with coton a broder).

Talking of the building fund, the Art & Craft Fair went well, a good number of people came in and viewed, browsed and bought, although as usual the cake stall proved to be the most popular . Lots of people took flyers for the workshop, so I’m hoping for a full house and possibly a second workshop! But first I’ll be doing a sponsored cycle ride around the local reservoir this Saturday – and the weather forecast is not good …

The new Notebook Kits (just visible on the Craft Fair display above) are finally on the website – with pop-up pictures of all available colours, which is why it took a while for them to appear as I had to stitch the model in a further five colour combinations. As I didn’t want to use up any more of the notebooks, they’re not actually attached. Fortunately they work on cards too! It’s always good to have a further use for a kit, isn’t it?

Having finished the notebook models, and keeping the Floral Lace finishes as in-between and travel projects, I had to decide which of the Planned designs I’d stitch next. I went for Orpheus, a pair of designs based on Ukrainian whitework, although these will be stitched on two shades of Sparklies hand-dyed Lugana rather than on white. I do plan to use threads in the same shade as the fabric, though, and this is where I ran into an unexpected problem: I didn’t have perle #5 in the right shade. Originally I had planned one of the pair to be worked on Zweigart’s Moss Green with DMC perle 503, and the other on Burnt Orange with 722. But 722 is too dark, really, for Sparklies’ lovely muted orange Pumpkin Patch – it needs 402. And for some unfathomable reason I do not have 402 in perle #5! So a visit to Sew & So is called for, with possibly a few extra skeins of White perle thrown in (always useful) in order to make the most of the postage. For now I leave you with my colour dilemma:

Finishing florals, part 4; and a Craft Fair

Posted on 1st May, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Remember my finishing plans for Floral Lace? I’ve finally got round to picking felt colours for most of the designs from my stash, although for about four of them I may have to buy some new colours as nothing I’ve got quite sets them off the way I want it. Still, I have plenty to be getting on with, and so far my modifications to the method I tried with the Floral Lace Variation seem to be working. The main change so far is using an oversized square of felt, and trimming it after it has been attached with running stitch. As you can see, it doesn’t even matter if the felt is a bit lop-sided, as the excess gets cut off anyway . My little pointy embroidery scissors are really proving their worth with these projects, both in trimming the felt and in cutting very closely around the buttonhole edging – I doubt I could do it without them!

I am now attaching the felt to several of the squares and trimming it so that they are ready for buttonholing, because it struck me that these are ideal travel projects: all I need once they are at this stage is white perle #5, a needle, and a pair of scissors – and if I decide to leave the final cutting-round-the-buttonhole-edge until I get home, then any scissors will do as long as they’ll cut my working thread. So if I keep a pile of them and take one or two whenever we go away, I should get them all finished before they disintegrate with old age (or I do…)

One of them will serve me very well on Saturday, when I’ll have a table at the DBC Arts & Crafts Fair – one of the many activities our church is organising in aid of the building fund. It’s part exhibition, part sale, and there will be paintings, jewellery, vintage clothing and, oh yes, some Hardanger. I thought I really ought to demonstrate as well as simply saying “Here’s one I made earlier”, but I don’t relish the idea of trying to work some complicated bit of stitching while also chatting with viewers/customers, answering questions etc. So here’s the compromise: work on the buttonhole edge of one of the Floral Laces, but also have a hoop ready with some pre-stitched Kloster blocks so I can demonstrate cutting and, if pressed, some filling stitches. And just to show you how extremely organised I am about all this (ha!), here is what our dining room looks like at the moment. Can you spot the world premier Notebook kit?

A birthday and a new kit

Posted on 21st April, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

It’s Mabel’s Fancies’ birthday! Hard to believe I first opened the website on Easter Monday 2011 (and by the way, I hope you all had a lovely Easter). Even harder to believe that it was less than 18 months after I’d first tried my hand at Hardanger. But here we are, and a birthday calls for a celebration, so this week we have a special Three for Two offer: order any two charts from one section (except Sets & Series) and choose a third one for free.

Here is a colourful recent acquisition of mine: 30 foam notebooks. You may recognise them from the Gallery, where there are two embellished with designs from Snippets and Three of Diamonds. But what do you do with thirty of them? Why, make them into kits!

I try not to stock too many “physical” items; so far I’ve limited myself to squissors, mini matchbook kits for beginners and acrylic coasters to display finished projects. But as a small-project stitcher myself I felt that there might be a demand for more small Hardanger kits, this time for people who are not quite beginners. As I had embellished one of my own notebooks with a Snippet design, it seemed a natural decision to use that for the kit as well. A possible reason not to was the fact that Snippets have an unusual and slightly more difficult cutting pattern; should I re-chart it to be a bit more standard? In the end I decided to stick with the original design, but to provide much more detailed instructions than in the Snippets chart pack, so that the kit offers a manageable challenge.

One of the challenges in the design is to get from one stitch to another without trailing the thread behind parts that will be cut. But, I wondered, would it be possible to trail the thread behind parts that would be wrapped? So I tried. And it is. The thread does not interfere with the cutting, and afterwards gets incorporated into the wrapped bars. It’s really rather neat and I’m quite proud of the idea !

And just for a bit more cheerful colour, here are the threads I’ve chosen to go with the six notebook shades:

Back to basics, and back to tradition

Posted on 18th April, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Could you do without stitching? I would definitely feel a little deprived not to have my lovely, colourful, relaxing hobby, and fortunately it is not a question I really need to ask myself. It is one of the many things in my life that seem either an essential part of me, or too obvious to need any thought. Of course there is always a bit of needlework ready for me to pick up when I feel like it. And of course there is always a cup of tea to sip (often with a little something to nibble, too) whenever I want it. But last weekend I learnt that it is possible to do without an awful lot of things which once seemed essential or obvious, when I joined eight teenagers and four adults in our church’s Slum Survivor challenge. It’s remarkable, but you don’t really miss your stitching when most of your time is taken up by building a slum dwelling to live in, doing jobs to earn money, getting water, keeping warm, and trying to make something palatable for your family out of rice and lentils when all you have to add to it is a little garlic powder (no salt!)

We were lucky. After two nights we could go home, have a hot shower and any food and drink we liked, and look forward to a nice, warm, comfortable bed. Many millions can’t. The experience helped us all to look a bit more closely at what is essential to us and what we could do without in order to help others, and to appreciate all the more those wonderful non-essentials that make life so pleasant.

As for going back to tradition, this is about a design I finished some time ago. You could say that Wedgwood goes back to two different traditions. Its use of only one thread colour harks back to Hardanger’s origins when the Norwegian women of the region used only the white or cream threads they spun themselves, while the coloured fabrics echo the English pottery that the designs were named after. But what I especially like is the use of three thicknesses of one colour in these designs – the different ways in which they catch the light when you look at them at an angle is evidence that you do not need lots of colours to provide variation.

Does this mean that from now on I will forswear my lovely hand-dyed and other coloured threads, or beads, or other colourful additions? Uhm, no, as this sneak preview of Treasure Trove (finished! finally finally finished!) clearly shows .

Finishing florals, part 3; and postage

Posted on 9th April, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I’m not sure Lewis Carroll ever knew the delight of finally finishing a piece of needlework that you’ve been working on for yonks, but I’m sure that subliminally that’s what he was referring to in Jabberwocky. The Floral Lace Variation Felted Buttonhole Edge is finished, and I like the way it looks. One down, eighteen to go . And just to satisfy your curiosity as to how it eventually came out, here are the front, the back (a little less regular than I’d hoped, but it’ll have to do), and a close-up of those awkward wisps of burgundy felt that are peeping through the buttonhole stitches – though from a distance fortunately not too noticeably.

You may wonder how “postage” made it into this post’s title. Not because it has anything whatsoever to do with buttonholing, but because I’m getting rather fed up with constant increases in postage, especially when sending stuff abroad. My apologies especially to those of you living in Australia, as Royal Mail have made you more expensive to send to than anyone else, and so I’ve had to create a special postage category for you on the Squissors, Kits & more page.

On a more positive note: if all goes well a new addition will soon be coming to that page, as I’m putting to the finishing touches to a new set of kits. Watch this space!

Finishing florals, part 2

Posted on 3rd April, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that surely by now I must have buttonholed the whole Floral Lace series, but alas, I have not been nearly as productive as I would have liked. I’m still working on the Floral Lace variation which was my experimental finishing piece. I am making progress on that, though! The felt has been attached, it’s a bit lop-sided so I will definitely use a bigger square next time and then cut round it. BAs for the buttonholing: a sharp needle is needed! Trying to push a relatively large tapestry needle through felt is a frustrating process, and very hard on the fingers. But once switch to a crewel needle and it’s a doddle. One side effect I hadn’t foreseen is that the felt pulls through to the front a bit, so there are stray burgundy wisps mixed up in my pristine white buttonhole stitches. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Another things is that the buttonhole edge as I’m stitching it here is rather close to the design, especially as I want to use variable length buttonhole stitch (see the left-hand chart). I know the border won’t be quite so noticeable in white as it is in the charted grey, but perhaps it would look better further away, as in the right-hand chart? I will try the latter out on one of the “real” Floral Laces and report back.

By the way, the pearl purl idea for Treasure Trove is not going to happen; first of all I’m not at all sure where I could put it (and in what shape or outline) so that it doesn’t clutter up the design, and secondly my gold pearl purl is the wrong colour – it is far yellower than the kid and beads I’ve been using. Never mind, I’ll keep it for a future design.

Chocolate, a dress, and a golden idea

Posted on 27th March, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Oh dear – a Knitting & Stitching Show, some worrying family news and a severe cold and before you know it there hasn’t been a FoF for two weeks. Time for a few musings, however brief!

Let’s start with the Spring K&S Show, which like the autumn one at Alexandra Palace makes a great excuse for a few days in London, catching up with my sister-in-law, the odd friend, and London’s parks. You people who live in London, do you appreciate those parks enough? They are wonderful! Well, as my visit coincided with some gorgeous spring weather, there were plenty of people out there appreciating and enjoying them, especially in St James’ Park, which to my delighted surprise had some pelicans again, as well as swathes of colourful flower beds. Is it any wonder that embroiderers throughout history have tried to capture flowers in all their cheerful gorgeousness using threads, ribbons, yarns and what not?

The Show didn’t have that many needlework threads, unfortunately – the emphasis was definitely on dressmaking, quilting/patchwork and knitting/crochet, and home furnishing. But I did catch up with Mr X Stitch who had a wonderful display there, much of it created by young stitchers; and there were … chocolates! A bit dangerous, you would have thought. The last thing stitchers want anywhere near their projects is chocolate. On the other hand, after the umpteenth unpick, or a particularly tense bit of cutting, suddenly chocolate is beginning to look like an essential stitching accessory! And the truffle selection also made a very useful thank-you to my sister-in-law for having me to stay.

Did I mention there were a lot of dressmaking stalls? Well, some of them specialised in vintage dresses. And as it happens, my husband’s birthday present to me this year is a 1930s dress to go with our little vintage car. Strictly speaking it should be a 1920s dress, but I’m afraid I am simply not a 1920s shape (was anyone ever? I mean, naturally, without the aid of corsets?). And after all, who’s to say that a lady might not have bought a new dress when the car was seven years old? I got some really nice ideas from the vintage patterns that were for sale and the lovely fabrics available, so this summer when we have a week of vintage car activities I hope to be able to dress the part; all I need to do now is work out what sort of hat they’d have worn in 1932 or thereabouts.

Another thing I need to work out is whether to add more gold to Treasure Trove. Apart from the last bit of border all the surface work is now done, so just the cutting and then the bars and beaded filling stitches and it’ll be done according to the chart. But I’m thinking it may need a bit more goldwork. At the moment it’s got the four padded gold kid medallions, and some gold-coloured beads and perhaps that’s enough. But in my stash I have some lovely gold and silver wire with what I think is the best name for a needlework material – pearl purl. You couldn’t make it up .

I first got to use it at a RSN goldwork workshop that I attended at the 2012 Ally Pally show, where we worked a lovely 3D dragonfly. Pearl purl is the stuff used for the top wings, and its tail (or body). It’s a very tightly coiled wire which you pull ever so slightly and then couch down (only partially in the case of the body). I liked it so much I bought some at one of the goldwork stalls, but I’ve not had a good excuse to use it since. Those slightly empty-looking bits of Treasure Trove might be just the excuse I was looking for!

Sore fingers, two Jessicas and a new gadget

Posted on 12th March, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

More – slow – progress on Treasure Trove (I work on it mostly at my Monday afternoon stitching group) and I have learnt something new: leather is tough! Even lovely soft pliable kid. And as I have never been able to work with a thimble, my fingers got pretty sore; at one point I almost succeeded in giving myself a finger piercing. Perhaps I should have put a little silver stuf in it and started a trend…

Anyway, I have now attached all the gold kid, and it looks very pretty and shiny and padded. Next step: embellish the gold roundels with a border of Jessica stitch. Now many instructions for this stitch (for example in Papillon’s Around the World SAL) end with the final stitches lying on top of the first stitches, but that grates with my symmetry obsession. To look the same all the way round, the lest stitches need to be taken underneath the first ones! Having settled that, I worked the first of the Jessica borders, in perle #8. It looked rather chunky. I liked it, but I did wonder whether perle #12 would look better. I decided to do the next one in #12, and then unpick the one I liked least. Unfortunately perle #12 doesn’t come in nearly so many colours as perle #8, so I had to use a darker shade, but at least I could find one that would fit in. And here they are, #8 on the left, #12 on the right:

I like the lacier look of the #12, but it turned out to look too dark after all, and I didn’t like the gold showing through quite so clearly. I will use perle #12 Jessicas in future designs, I’m sure, but here I’m going with the original #8. (One lady at the stitching group suggested doing two in #8, and two in #12, placed diagonally; it would still have symmetry but would use both styles. Clever, but I went with the safer option of having them all the same.)

On a completely different subject, my husband gets these tool catalogues which he peruses with the same enthusiasm which I would accord a hand-dyed thread catalogue with coloured pictures, and occasionally he finds something weird and wonderful for 35p which he simply can’t resist. Sometimes he shares these treasured finds with me, so I am now the proud owner of a pair of magnifying tweezers. I haven’t used them yet, but they do actually look as though they could come in quite handy in Hardanger!

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Yearly Archives: 2014