A blooming brooch

Remember Esmee’s Unicorn? From the start I had ideas about using the pelmet-weight interfacing which it was stitched on for a couple of other, more or less experimental projects. One is a goldwork brooch, but as there are a few challenges there (the sturdier metals generally need plunging and cause a bulky back, the metals that conveniently stay completely on the front tend to be more fragile and prone to being squashed) I decided to leave that for now. But this material is also very suitable for introducing young ones to stitching: it’s stiff enough to stitch in hand without needing a hoop, if pre-pricked it can be stitched with a blunt needle, and it can be cut into shapes without fraying. So I started with a simple project that could be finished as a brooch or a fridge magnet (or, I suppose, a needle minder, except the stitching might get in the way).

The first thing was to pick a design; ideally one with bold, simple lines and not too many colours. Was there anything in my collection that would fit the bill? Yes there was – an as yet unstitched floral design based on a print by Vicky, my extremely talented niece-in-law-in-law (my husband is her husband’s uncle) who is artistically known as Woah There Pickle. The whole thing would be too big for this purpose, but I did once extract a single daisy from it to stitch as a birthday card for Vicky. What if I used that, slightly smaller, with only one pair of leaves, and done as a forget-me-not? Although for a children’s kit I’d probably use standard DMC, I figured that for this trial version I could use up some discontinued hand-dyed Carrie’s Creations threads, so I picked some suitable colours and set about tracing the flower.

A pickled daisy The start of a flower brooch

Next up was pricking the design onto the interfacing. I varied the depth of the pricking to see what size holes I could make, and which size would be best. The jury’s out on that one; bigger holes make it easier to find them with the needle for inexperienced stitchers, but smaller ones can be closed up if you decide you want to put the stitch in a slightly different place. One thing is certain, if the intention is for the stitcher to use the existing holes they need to be pricked more accurately than I did here, as the evenness of the stitch length will be determined by the pricking.

Ready to prick the design All the lines have been pricked The design outlined in holes on the interfacing

To add a bit of extra colour without having to do more stitching, I first lightly shaded the various parts using colouring pencils. I tried applying more pressure on a bit of spare interfacing to see if you could create brighter colours, and you can – good to know for future projects.

Picking pencil colours to go with the threads A little colour added to the interfacing

My original idea was to do the whole thing in backstitch, on the grounds that that would be easier for young stitchers than stem stitch, and you can always add interest by whipping some of it. In fact you could make it even easier by using whipped running stitch. But I like the look of stem stitch, so for this model that’s what I went with. And as the model is experimental anyway, I even tried some split stitch and satin stitch. The former works fine, although if that is the intended stitch from the outset it would be better to put the holes a little closer together; satin stitch, however, is not ideal on this background. The stitches need to be very close together and in doing so you are in danger of creating a perforated line that will tear. Still, with plenty of strands in the needle that spread a bit, it doesn’t look too bad. Initially I meant to whip the petals, but it would be tricky in the sharp turns where the petals meet, so I confined whipping to the short lines inside the petals.

Starting to stitch Trying out split stitch The finished flower

The stitching was finished – now for the final finishing! As with Esmee’s Unicorn I cut very closely around the stitching, and soon realised that youngsters will probably need some assistance with that; I’m fairly handy with my favourite small pointy scissors, but even so I managed to nick a stitch at the back, which threatened to unravel one of the leaves! PVA glue to the rescue. It is often dabbed around the edges of stumpwork before cutting, and in this case it did the job equally well afterwards.

A nicked stitch PVA glue to the rescue

Meanwhile I had ordered some very thin neodymium magnets, half of them adhesive and half of them plain, from a company Mr Figworthy uses for magnets to stick into sump drain plugs (as you do). When the glue on the flower had completely dried, I stuck one magnet to the back, and paired it with a non-sticky magnet, held apart by a sort of plastic washer that came with them which makes it easier to separate them.

Magnets sticky and plain The finished flower ready for magnetising The magnet stuck on The arrangement of two magnets and a washer

And then it’s just a matter of placing the non-sticky magnet behind the fabric of your blouse or shirt or coat, and the flower on the outside, and hey presto, a brooch that doesn’t damage your clothes! Modelled here by Mr Figworthy, it proved easy to put on and take off, but strongly enough attached not to fall off when accidentally nudged. If you prefer to display it on your fridge just leave off the backing magnet.

The brooch stuck to a coat

What next with heavy-weight interfacing? You may remember that years ago our church used to organise an annual Christmas Craft Event at the local Junior school for the children in the village and the surrounding area. Unfortunately for various reasons we had to give up doing this, but now that we have our lovely new building we felt it might be time to revive the event. And wouldn’t this sort of stitching be just the thing? I’m going to have a little play with a Christmas angel based on some calligraphy I did back in the dark ages – made a bit more chunky, so he’ll be easier to cut out, and outline only, so he’s relatively quick to stitch. I’ll let you know how I get on!

The original calligraphy A stitchable outline

Tuck in and smell the tulips

My last update on the RSN Canvaswork module stopped at a slimmed-down tulip, with the promise of leaves to come before class. Well, somewhat to my own surprise they did! Two of them, both in satin stitch. The first one I was going to stitch exactly as sampled, with the two halves of the leaf in vertical and horizontal satin stitch. In order to have no canvas showing I made sure to tuck the stitches in the second half neatly underneath the stitches in the first half, which also made for a rather effective leaf vein. Unfortunately horizontal and vertical stitches do create a different edge, and I was slightly worried whether the bump caused by the transition from one to the other would be frowned on. Fortunately the tutor, Kathryn, said that I was ending everything in the same line of holes, as I should, and the bump is the natural consequence of the nature of the stitches, which the assessors allow for.

Tucking under the stitches to create the leaf vein Horizontal and vertical stitches along the edge

The next leaf, or rather two leaves that sort of blend into each other, had a stem to contend with. As instructed I had stitched the stem first as it is further towards the front in the design; and I quickly found that working the diagonal satin stitch into the holes directly next to the stem would not do. There was canvas showing, so that meant more tucking, a lot of it, and in some awkward positions! On the left-hand side it meant coming up at an angle from underneath the big pink tulip, trying not to disturb its stitches, and going down at an angle underneath the short and therefore rather tight stitches of the stem. All this while juggling three or four needles holding different thread blends.

Too short a stitch Leaf stitches tucked underneath the stem Coming up from underneath the pink tulip

Still, the end result was worth it I think, especially once I’d added a thin hightlight on the right. I asked Kathryn about that and she said although generally shading and colour changes had to be achieved within the canvas stitches, an occasional outline stitched over the top was fine, especially when the width of the colour in question is so small that any stitch over a canvas thread would be too wide. I also remarked to her that although I realised the reasoning behind the back-to-front rule, it would have been so much easier to have done this the other way round! To which she replied that sometimes there were exceptions to the rule… Hmm, I could have done with that insight a bit earlier!

The satin stitch leaves completed A stem stitch highlight added

To be fair, that usually applies to things like ribbon stitches done over the surface of previous stitches, which is how the very small tulips overlapping the paving in my photograph will be done. But it’s good to know one can occasionally interpret the rules creatively.

Another thing I’d managed before class was a tiny bud. I did get slightly carried away with the possibilities of blending, ending up with four blends of five shades of Madeira silk in four stitches. Still, it makes for a nice bud smiley.

A tiny bud Four blends for four stitches

Finally I sampled two variations of rose leaf stitch, a complicated one involving a crochet hook and a simpler one, both worked over a piece of stiff paper, both interesting, and neither in the least usable in my design. The combination of blue silk and green chenille thread I sampled in class for the lacy tree against the sky didn’t even have the distinction of looking interesting – the chenille was too bulky and just looked messy, besides shredding like mad. Oh well, you don’t know unless you try.

Starting a rose leaf stitch Manipulating the stitches with a crochet hook The two rose leaf variations Messy chenille

In class it was interesting to get Kathryn’s fresh view of my project, as she hadn’t seen it before. It was decided I would tackle some green stuff in the afternoon, but first I would work the pointy tulip. Split gobelin in three directions because two of the petals in the photograph have quite strong diagonal lines, with no splitting along the petal edges. Two petals which in the picture blend into each other were to be treated as one petal. Kathryn wasn’t sure I’d be able to get in the very thin light edge on the left-hand petal, but I thought if I started the stitching from that edge in a light shade and then split into it with a darker shade, it would produce something nearly narrow enough so that it wouldn’t need another outline stitch. I didn’t sample this tulip but worked it straight onto the main canvas, blending five shades of Silk Mill silk and one of Madeira as I went. The last two pictures show the finished tulip under different lighting conditions; what a difference that can make in a photograph!

Six shades for blending Diagonal split gobelin The finished tulip The finished tulip

I will get to the green stuff, but first let’s talk stems for a bit. When stitching the most prominent tulip stems, one had got overlooked – or perhaps I’d temporarily ignored it because unlike the others it was at an angle. Time to remedy that, as with a bit of compensation the brick stitch used for the other stems would work here as well. I started out with the same blend of five strands of dark green with one burgundy and one dark flesh, but that was too red compared to the photograph, so I took out the dark flesh and put in another green. Much better. Unfortunately this did show up the stem of the large bud on the left; it’s quite a different colour, which is fine because that reflects the photograph, but the long satin stitches don’t quite fit in. They are, as Kathryn pointed out, rather too long to be approved of without couching, but couching would break up the long lines I was after. And if those long lines were going to be broken up anyway, I might as well do this stem in the same brick stitch as the other stems and create what is known as a “stitch language” for stems throughout the piece. So one of my homework assignments is to unpick that stem and redo it it, possibly in the perle cotton used for the satin stitch, possibly in something stranded; we’ll see.

Too much red A slanted stem A stem that's for the chop

Right, leafy stuff. Having been on this particular module for some time now, Kathryn is the fourth tutor I’ve had, and she offered a fourth view (after Angela’s and the two Helens’) on the jumble of green among the tulips. Sigh. She said she quite understood I was beginning to get sampling fatigue, but she was worried that the double upright cross which I’d sampled as the largest of the three jumble patterns (as suggested by one of the Helens) would be too bulky, and would look as though it was in front of the large leaves it was surrounding instead of retreating into the background. She also felt that three different stitches was too much of a good thing. There was a stitch she couldn’t remember the name of that was really good for grasses and so on, and which could possibly be stitched on two different scales – then I would be able to do the whole jumble in what was effectively one stitch, giving coherence to it, while varying the colours to add highlights to the texture. While I stitched my pointy tulip and stem, Kathryn leafed (pun intended) through various canvas stitch books, and finally came up with the rather splendidly named Triple Cross Encroaching.

Triple Cross Encroaching

I sampled this in some variegated shashiko thread, at the original size and smaller. The shashiko thread was too thick for the smaller version, which incidentally is relatively narrower than the original size because although the foundation cross stitch can be reduced from over-four to over-two, the slanted stitches only stick out beyond the cross by one canvas thread in the original, which can’t be reduced any further. Still, they both make interesting patterns. I then sampled them in one ply of Caron Watercolours (original size) and one thread of Caron Wildflowers (reduced version), with lighter stitches worked in to see whether that could be used to create highlights. These light stitches will need to be placed a bit more randomly and I can also play with working the stitch upside down, but it looks promising; and the idea of doing the whole green chaos in variations of one stitch definitely appeals!

The leafy jumble stitch in two sizes using variegated shashiko thread The original size worked in Watercolours The smaller size worked in Wildflowers

And that’s where I am at the moment. My next class is at the end of September, but with several busy weekends coming up I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do. Kathryn went through various of my samples for large leaves with me and we decided on the ones that would likely work best, so I will at least try to get the big leaves in the foreground stitched. And I might sneak in a bit of mill, just for a change…

The project after class

Hengest gets company

Once upon a time there was a dopey looking horse on a medieval cope who got turned into a dopey looking unicorn: Hengest. As he took about four and a half years from start to finish you would think he had abundantly scratched any unicorn itch I might have had. And then I came across some paper I bought in the Netherlands years ago for wrapping St Nicholas presents. It was covered in colourful cartoonish representations of the various people and things associated with that festival, among them St Nicholas’ horse. But I did not see a horse. I saw a unicorn. It’s what happens when you have recently become grandmother to a sweet baby girl. Your thoughts go pink and lilac and unicorny. And so I played around with this little horse, added a horn, rearranged his mane, tweaked his saddle blanket to have room for an initial, changed the colour palette from primary to pastel, and there was Esmee’s Unicorn!

Esmee Esmee's Unicorn

But what to do with it? Well, babies use bibs. Why not find a nice plain white bib and unicornify it? Unfortunately our local supermarket had a wide array of coloured and pre-decorated bibs, but nothing plain and white. The closest thing I could find, tucked away on the last-season’s-things rail, was a small white broderie anglaise bib and cap. I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to make a baby’s bib out of broderie anglaise, and I seriously doubt that the person who decided on the size of it has ever fed a baby, but one has to work with what is available.

A small white bib

At first I considered stitching on the back of the bib, which is a plain fabric – it could then be used double-sided. It would mean very careful stitching, taking the needle in a sewing motion through one layer of fabric only, and fastening on and off would be tricky (although I had done something similar when embellishing the foot of a memory bear). More problematically, the colours would probably shine through to the front. I dismissed this approach. My next idea was to simply stitch over the broderie anglaise, but I worried that the unevenness of the fabric would make it difficult to keep the lines neat. A patch, then? And preferably something that doesn’t fray, so it doesn’t have to be hemmed or oversewn. I decided on some pelmet-weight non-woven interfacing which I originally bought for a stumpwork butterfly, then traced the design, pricked it, and poked a pencil through the holes to create a connect-the-dots unicorn. Pick the required shades of DMC, and we’re ready to go.

The design transferred, and the colours chosen

By the way, seeing the way my needle marked the interfacing I had a thought: it had been quite difficult to mark the dots with my mechanical pencil going through the holes in the pricked tracing paper, so why not just prick the tracing paper while it sits on top of the interfacing? A quick try showed that this was perfectly feasible, and if you prick with a bit of thought, placing the holes closer together on tight curves, you could actually use these holes for your stitches! In fact I might try this for a workshop or children’s kit – you could pre-prick a small design and let them create a brooch or a fridge magnet. The stitching could be done in hand, no need for a hoop as the fabric is so stiff.

Pricking on heavy-weight Vilene The resulting dots, ready for connecting

I filed that little idea away and set to work on the unicorn. Fasten on with a knot at the front (pink arrow) and a few small stab stitches (blue arrow; neither of them very easy to see because I chose to photograph it while using light grey thread on a white background…) and then just stem stitch over all the lines – it was quite relaxing! The only bits which were not stem stitched were the nostril (satin stitch) and the eye (straight stitches with a doubled single strand fastened on with a loop start).

Fastening on with stab stitches Stem stitch all the way A loop start for the eye

When the whole unicorn had been stitched it was time to attach him (her?) to the bib. First I cut around the outline of the unicorn, as close to the stitching as I dared. I didn’t cut the bit between the head and the blanket, as the background it would be stitched onto was white anyway; if the background had been a different colour, I would reluctantly have attempted to cut that part too. Then I backstitched around the outline using a polyester sewing thread, tucking the stitches underneath the stem stitches as much as possible. And here it is: one unicorned bib.

Cutting around the stitched unicorn Stitching around the stitching The finished bib

But even as I was getting things together for Esmee’s bib, somewhere in the goldwork-loving recesses of my mind an idea stirred. The sort of unicorns that appeal to little girls are, unlike woolly Hengest, sparkly and blingy. Should there be bling in Esmee’s unicorn? But no, a bib needs to be washable. Still, there is nothing to stop me from stitching a metalwork unicorn purely for my own enjoyment, right? There would be gold and silver passing, there might be shiny metallic kid leather for the blanket, there could be spangles…

Esmee's Unicorn with spangles on its blanket Esmee's Unicorn with spangles and an initial

… and there could be colour! Although goldwork suggests, well, gold, and possibly silver and copper, modern metal embroidery materials come in all sorts of pretty shades. How is this for some unicorn-appropriate twist? And I’ve got the same colours in a thinner passing thread.

Colourful bling for a unicorn

Still, although my stash of goldwork materials is fairly extensive (and about to become even more so – watch this space) I don’t have much in the way of coloured metallics for couching; no pink twist or passing, for example, and no coloured metallic kid either. So I paid a little visit to Sarah Homfray’s excellent shop and some colourful shiny goodies are making their way Figworthy-wards! We’ll soon be all set for a blingy unicorn smiley.

The Drago(o)n Guard

Last June I mentioned that because of a fellow stitcher’s chew-happy puppy I’d got myself kitted up to stitch Teresa Wentzler’s Needle Guardian. One of my reasons for choosing this as my after-dinner-watching-telly project was that I really wanted something that took absolutely no design input or decisions on my part, but was still challenging enough to keep my interest. The Needle Guardian, with its blended colours, variegated silk, pulled thread work, rainbow metallic thread and beads ticked all the boxes. Quite apart from the fact that this dragon has character, and makes me smile whenever I look at it smiley.

Blending colours Variegated silk Pulled thread work Beads and rainbow metallics as the final touch

Which brings me to the question: is this a boy dragon or a girl dragon? Throughout the stitching process I mostly referred to him as, well, him. But then a fellow stitcher commented that she realised it was a personalised design but Mabel was in fact the perfect name for this dragon. Hmm, perhaps she had a point – the dragon’s posture (not to mention the hairdo, strangely reminiscent of curlers) suddenly made me think of the battleaxes in vintage British soaps and sitcoms. And if a Nora or an Ena, why not a Mabel? Mabels have attitude!

Battleaxes

Once all the stitching was finished, there remained the question of What To Do With It. I generally feel that if I enjoyed stitching it, then it doesn’t have to be useful in any other way, but it seemed a shame to consign this characterful reptilian to my folder of finished-but-not-“finished” projects. Originally the design was intended as a needle book, folded in the middle so the dragon’s tail and the name of the owner were on the back, and the main bit of the dragon on the front. But it would make quite a large needle book, and I knew it wouldn’t get used; the needle books which I use from day to day and which are dotted around the house are smaller and undecorated versions of my Hardanger mini kits.

Convenient little needle books

However, I do have a box in which I keep my stock of needles, both for kits and for my own use. It is made of sturdy cardboard and is covered in a rather startling pattern of coloured dots on a black ground. It’s useful, but it isn’t pretty. So why not make it pretty by adding a blingy dragon to it?

I didn’t want to have to do any sewing if I could help it, so everything was going to be attached with double-sided sticky tape. It may not be conservation-grade finishing, but then it’s not meant to be an heirloom to be handed down the generations – it’s a cardboard needle box that I’m making look a bit nicer. If I have to restick things every now and then, that’s fine by me. After considering various options from my stash I decided that black felt covering the entire top of the box would make a good neutral background and also show up the pulled thread work, and the addition of a bit of padding would, I hope, make it look more luxurious for only a little extra effort.

Getting ready to prettify my box

First up was cutting roughly around the stitching to get it down to a manageable size, covering the top of the box with tape, and sticking a rectangle of wadding slightly smaller than the stitching in the centre of the lid. Note to self: do not cut wadding with your sticky-tape scissors – it gets messy! Next, stick a layer of black felt over the wadding and trim to the size of the lid. Then trim the embroidery as close as possible to the nun’s stitch edging and put sticky tape around the edges on the back.

Wadding cut and stuck, and fabric trimmed down Black felt covers the wadding and the rest of the lid Trimming the embroidery and applying sticky tape to the back

And finally, stick the embroidery onto the padded part of the black felt, pushing the edges down to create a nicely curved look. Voilà, a dragon-guarded needle box!

The finished box A padded dragon