A box of lilies

Posted on 31st August, 2024 by Flights of Fancy

Well, a box frame of lilies. Following Anita the tutor’s tip after last month’s shadow work class I got this frame from Hobbycraft – as they had a sale on, the discount almost covered the postage, which was a bonus. (Even better, when I told a friend from church who is an avid card maker, she said that any time I want something from Hobbycraft she’ll be happy to get it for me on one of her frequent trips there and save me paying any postage at all!)

I was a little nervous about mounting this project; the material it was stitched on, silk organza, meant it couldn’t be stretched around a foam or mat board backing. Instead, Anita had explained, it would need to be attached to the mat that came with the frame using double-sided tape, which sounded a risky proposition but necessary for the required float-on-air effect. In order to put off the scary moment I started by taking the box frame apart to examine all its constituent parts, to wit the black frame itself, the glass (or more likely perspex), a white mat, a white spacer frame about a centimetre high, and the backing board. I also played with some materials to cover the backing board with; Anita said she’d used silver card, and I remembered some silver lurex in my stash. As I dug that out, I found some golden yellow satin dupion as well. I tried the project against both backgrounds and decided I liked the gold better as it made the flowers stand out more.

Time to stop shilly-shallying and tackle the actual framing. But oh my goodness, the fabric is so sheer and looks so fragile!

First I glued the golden fabric to the backing board, less-shiny side up. While I waited for the glue to dry, I ironed the organza as carefully as I could, then attached double-sided tape to the mat. Peel off the backing, and carefully press the mat onto the fabric. I didn’t trim the organza right down to the mat, but left a border of about half an inch, on the grounds that it would give me something to hold on to should I need to reposition the fabric or pull it taut if it went slack. I then gently pushed it down into the frame, and inserted the spacer in such a way that the excess organza was caught between the frame and the spacer for extra security.

Double-sided tape on the back of the mat

The mat positioned on top of the embroidery

Fabric, mat and spacer inserted into the box frame

Now to add the fabric-covered backing board, the glue having had plenty of time to dry. But unfortunately, things had not quite gone to plan. Although it was the sort of white glue that dries clear, the only thing that was clear in this case was that that doesn’t mean it becomes invisible… On to Plan B – pull off the stained fabric, place double-sided sticky tape around the edges of the board, and stick on a new piece of fabric. Unlike the first time round I chose to trim it with a spare half inch around the edges, just in case it would come in useful. I wasn’t sure how it might, but you never know. I then placed the re-covered board in the frame and secured it with the little push-down clips. Done!

Or not. The surplus fabric surrounding the covered backing board came in useful when I had to pull it from the frame because I had not taken into account that a woven fabric placed behind a see-through woven fabric is going to cause a dizzyness-inducing moiré effect…

I looked at the framed embroidery through half-closed eyes, I squinted at it sideways – there was no help for it, the backing fabric would have to come out. I remembered that Anita had backed hers with silver card, not fabric. There had obviously been solid reasoning behind that choice (or she was just lucky ). Not having any card of the right colour I experimented with some pale golden-beige felt from my stash to see if a non-woven fabric might work as well. It did, but the piece of felt I had wouldn’t cover the whole backing board. Then DH suggested I ask one of my paper-crafty friends if she had any golden yellow card. She did, and brought it round immediately. It was rather darker and yellower than both the felt and the original satin dupion, but it was worth a try.

It worked, but my friend and I both felt it was on the dark side; the shadow work in the top and bottom leaves wasn’t quite so visible as with the lighter background. Another kind crafty friend (the one with the Hobbycraft habit in fact) to the rescue: she brought a box of card in various textures and shades of yellow to church, from which I picked three possibles to try out at home.

After all of which I decided that the darker card was the best option after all. Although the shadow work is a little less obvious, it is still visible; the warm shade sets off the whole design, and being that bit darker it does make the white lilies pop. So finally here it is, my framed shadow work, ready to be proudly displayed on top of the pianola!

A blooming brooch

Posted on 29th August, 2023 by Flights of Fancy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The finished flower ready for magnetising

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.

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 Drago(o)n Guard

Posted on 4th August, 2023 by Flights of Fancy

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 .

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!

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.

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.

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!

A sticky finish and a chaotic start

Posted on 2nd July, 2022 by Flights of Fancy

Last month I stitched a few rainbows with the excuse that they might become kits but really just because I like stitching these colourful little things and they’re a good opportunity to play with lovely silks . And although “What are you going to do with it?” is The Question That Must Not Be Asked, I do occasionally try and think of ways to finish bits of embroidery. For small designs like these that’s often cards or coasters. Well, with that frilly cloud there was no way it was going to fit into a coaster, and I didn’t want to do another card (I’m a bit low on aperture cards and I haven’t got round to reordering them), so I went for that other staple of embroidery finishes, an ornament.

Now there are people who create the most beautiful flatfolds, pincushions, stuffed ornaments and scissor fobs without breaking a sweat (Vonna Pfeiffer of the Twisted Stitcher springs to mind), but I know that my skills do not lie in that area. The closest I got was this Frosty Pine ornament, and even that should not be looked at too closely…

I do get on rather well with flexi-hoop framing! Felt backing, card backing, foam backing, or even no backing at all still make for a presentable front. But I’ve done a fair few of those, and I wanted to do something different. And then I remembered some 4″ bamboo hoops I bought for kits, thinking they came from the UK (search for UK-only items, seller marked as a UK seller, location of items something like Northampton). They didn’t. They arrived with Chinese customs labels all over the parcel. And they weren’t very good. Heigh-ho, chalk it up to experience, but after several of the outer hoops had snapped I was left with some inner hoops, i.e. bamboo rings. Could I perhaps do something with one of those?

Normally when you use a hoop to finish a piece of embroidery you clamp the fabric between the inner and outer hoop. That was obviously not going to work here. So what about glue? I tend not to like getting glue anywhere near my stitching, but as I was just experimenting I decided to give it a go. Draw a circle around the design on the back of the fabric using the bamboo ring, cut with an allowance of about twice the depth of the ring, glue the outside of the ring and pull the fabric taut over it, glue the inside of the ring and stick the excess fabric to it. So far so good, although I could have done with a little more fabric in places.

A little more fabric would have been good...

I could have left it like that and told anyone who looked at it not to pick it up and turn it over, but I decided to go for something a bit neater. Some nice thick wadding to give a bit of body to what is quite a thin fabric (if I used it in a kit I would definitely have supplied backing fabric to support the stitching), and then a circle of craft foam. Brown because that’s what I happened to have; not the most attractive look, but it’ll do. Using my trusty pointy scissors I trimmed the edges of the foam (aiming for a chamfer – not sure I quite got it) so it wouldn’t be visible from the front, and that was that.

The result is a little rustic looking, but I like it! It’s relatively quick and simple, if a bit messy if like me you tend to get glue everywhere, and as there is no frame it allows the embroidery to stand on its own and speak for itself. (Stand on its own metaphorically, of course; if you want it to stand up in the literal sense as well you’d have to glue some sort of prop to the back.)

Talking of rustic-looking projects, last Monday I had to go back to the hospital to have my eyes checked – good news fortunately, no retinal tears and just the advice to monitor but not worry – and although I had been assured that with an 8.30am appointment I’d be “in and out” I felt it might be a good idea to bring something to occupy me. As they were going to put those drops into my eyes that blur your vision a book or magazine wasn’t going to be much good. So I went for some embroidery.

Yes, yes, I know – bear with me . Reading very close up without my glasses is not really something I can do comfortably for any length of time, but I have often done close-up embroidery unbespectacled. And even with drops that should be possible. Nothing too precise, of course. But I was reminded of that hymn I quoted last time, and could see a project emerging; “Let there be” in light silk, and “LIGHT” in gold ribbon couched over the top of the words “chaos” and “darkness” in black silk, on a heavy denim background. It felt rather apt to be stitching black chaos and darkness while waiting to hear the verdict on my eyes, and by their very nature it wouldn’t matter if these words looked a bit rough! As it happens the wait wasn’t quite as long as I had feared (I was seen in a little over an hour), and the blurring did get too bad after a while to stitch, but I managed “chaos” plus the “ne” of darkness. And they didn’t come out too ragged after all.

I don’t know when I’m going to finish this – I’m not even sure if I will finish it. But it has served its purpose: while I was anxious it reminded me of the One who made the light, who made my eyes, and who holds me in His hands whatever happens.

The joys of curvaceousness

Posted on 28th December, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

No, this has nothing to do with the festive season or the fact that I inexplicably tend to acquire a few extra pounds at this time of year. It’s all about frames and needles! (Digression – my husband asked how the finishing of plunged goldwork threads was assessed as it would be covered up. I explained that, as far as I knew, if the metal threads on the front didn’t wobble and there were no unsightly bulges the assessors would assume the securing had been done properly. “Ah yes” he said, looking meaningfully at the various Christmas treats lying around, “wobbles and unsightly bulges can be quite a problem.” I ignored him.)

Remember the two SAL Trees of Life that went off for framing? Well, they came back looking rather beautiful in their shared accommodation! One of the things I really like about the finished look is those curvaceous apertures. Because the design for the Tree is just a little taller than it is wide, I made things a bit difficult for our poor local framers by asking the mount to be cut not with two perfect circles, but with two not-quite-circles-but-just-slightly-ovals. I think they came up trumps, don’t you?

Over the weekend we finally got round to hanging them on the wall. They join a painting I brought with me from the Netherlands when I moved here, and appropriately hang right next to my craft room door. This also means I look at them whenever I’m working on my Certificate or other serious projects at the dining room table – ideal!

More curves entered my life this month, this time in the form of needles. I mentioned the ones I ordered from Creative Quilting, but I also found a set of six semi-circular and curved needles at Restore Products. Because the website didn’t mention the diameter I rang them and asked what sort of thickness they were, and the gentleman told me they were surgical needles which they themselves used for box making and mounting. I took the plunge and ordered a set, and they too arrived a little over a week ago. They were a bit of a surprise, being much smaller than I expected; I obviously hadn’t visualised the measurements on the website quite accurately enough. The smallest one, I suspect, will need an implement of some sort to manipulate it through the fabric, much like you see surgeons do in medical programmes. Perhaps the nifty little pliers I got for Christmas… but more about that some other time.

Back to needles. The Creative Quilting ones look the most promising, being more or less the size I’m used to but (as Becky had said) finer than the RSN kit needles and sturdier than the beading needles, so the Restore Products needles have been put away in my needle box for the time being. I’m sure they’ll come in handy at some point; tools and bits of equipment usually do, don’t they? The picture, by the way, shows both sizes of John James curved needles but I’ve only ever used the smaller of the two; I have no idea what I’ll ever use the larger one for, if anything. It doesn’t show a curved beading needle because I broke my last one while waiting for the new needles to arrive…

And here is the result of me plying one of my new Creative Quilting needles: Bruce’s back is properly and fairly neatly secured! I still managed to pick up a bit of the main fabric once, but fortunately I noticed before pulling the needle through so I could remedy that quite easily. In the not too distant future I’ll show you what the front of this tamed spaghetti looks like .

And now we wait…

Posted on 13th October, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Those of you who follow Mabel’s Facebook page will know that last week I finished mounting my Jacobean Certificate piece and handed it in for assessment. Definitely a Proud Picture moment, and Angela kindly obliged. Yay me! And now we wait for the assessment to come back, probably some time in January. Patience is a virtue, they say, and I will be getting a lot of practice…

But how did we get to that point? You may remember that at the start of my last Jacobean class I had the twill all herringbone-stitched to the calico, and the sateen cut to size and ironed. As it happens I’d misunderstood Angela and cut a 10cm excess all around, instead of 10cm in total (5cm all around) so some cropping was needed, but then the sateen could be folded to the right size and pinned to the twill in the four corners.

Then it was a matter of slip stitching the twill and sateen together. It’s a bit like a ladder stitch really, except with ladder stitch you have two folds that need sewing together and you scoop a bit of both folds alternately. Here the sateen got scooped in the fold, but the twill just got picked up as close to the sateen as possible. Boy do you need a curved needle for this! I hate them with a vengeance because they have a will of their own and are a pain to work with, but I will admit that this sewing would be well-nigh impossible without one.

You work several slip stitches before firmly pulling the thread (a sturdy buttonhole) to make the stitches disappear into the fabric. In the picture I’m getting near to a corner and am about to pull, so the stitches further away are already neatly tightened away but the ones near the corner are still visible. Which brings me to the invisible even stitches mentioned in the brief – I asked Angela and she explained that although if properly done the actual stitches are invisible, the tension on the fabric shows where they are so you can see whether they are evenly done even if you can’t see the stitches themselves! What do you think, in the second picture – are they even?

The sateen all attached, pins still to be removed

The final step was to take out all the pins, and then get rid of 140 or so pin holes. Quite a satisfying task, it was rather fun to see them disappear when gently rubbing the edge of the fabric.

And here it is, fully mounted, front and back view.

Irrelevant picture: while pinning I found these two entangled pins in the box. I thought they looked rather sweet .

Tomorrow will be my first proper class for the Goldwork module, and I’m hoping to frame up the new, small slate frame and finalise the design. Yes, I have a design – not either of the ones I started out with as ideas, but that’s what happens. It’ll change a bit more over the next few weeks I don’t wonder, but I’ve got the general idea plus a personal twist, which I think is very important to have in a project you’ll be working on for many months. I’ve also got my doodle cloth hooped up: one of the silk dupions I got from the Silk Route turned out to be an olive green I am unlikely ever to use for a proper project, so it may as well be put to work in this way.

Incidentally, I finally unlaced the SAL Tree on my Millennium frame – quite a difference in tension, isn’t it! Perhaps slate frames do have the right idea after all .

The Millennium frame all laced up for the SAL

Unlacing the Millennium frame at completion of the SAL

The home stretch

Posted on 5th October, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Early last February, Wednesday 5th to be precise, I attended my 6th class for the Jacobean module of the RSN Certificate. My next class was originally going to be 14th March, but for reasons I can’t quite remember now I changed that to Wednesday 22nd April, with the 8th and final class on 25th April. Both those classes were going to be mostly dedicated to getting my completed project mounted, always assuming that it was completed by 22nd April.

Well, you saw what was coming the moment I mentioned April, didn’t you? Yes, if I hadn’t changed dates I might just have snuck that 7th class in, but it was not to be. At that point no-one had any idea how long this was going to go on for, but even so I decided to try and finish the stitching by the date the class would have been. And I did. The mounting, which I was not going to attempt by means of a Zoom tutorial, would have to wait.

It had to wait until late last month, when the Rugby satellite location opened its doors once again to the Certificate & Diploma students. I was lucky enough to have Angela as a tutor again, both for this class and for the next one I booked at the same time for 7th October. There were four students in total, and everything had been so well arranged that it felt completely safe, while at the same time being very familiar in that we all had a good chat, and even managed to see each other’s work by being careful to switch places with plenty of distance between us.

Angela had asked me to bring my threads in case of any tweaking necessary, so before I could get on with the mounting process she scrutinised my poor tree from all sides (including the back) before handing it back to me saying that was fine, no need for tweaks. I was very pleased about that – I hadn’t touched the embroidery since I finished the stitching last April, and I hadn’t relished the thought of having to get back into it.

Now I could really get started. To begin with I had to decide what size the mounted work was going to be. I was handed two right-angled “half mats” to play with, and after a bit of indecision I worked out what I thought looked best.

Next was cutting two pieces of mount board to size (measuring them very carefully first, at least twice). These were then glued together and left under a pile of books to set.

While waiting for the glue to set, it was time to take the embroidery off the slate frame. Before cutting the mount board, while the work was still under tension, I had put tacking stitches in the fabric exactly where the centres of the four sides were going to be. Now I took out the lacing threads which provide the horizontal tension and the split pins which provide the vertical tension, and cut the fabric off the bars.

The two glued pieces of mount board were then covered with calico by glueing round the edge of the back board and pulling the calico tight before sticking the edges down; the glue was not quite on the edge because a “channel” of unglued calico is needed for the twill to be attached. Here is the covered board and the upside down embroidery (giving you a rare look at the back of the work) ready to be folded around it.

Next, pins. Lots of pins. Far more pins than I’d expected. At a guess, approximately 140 of them by the time I’d pinned as far towards the corners as I could get. The tricky bit was making sure I pinned exactly on the grain; this was definitely a glasses-off close-up job.

I’d been quite prepared to do a second round, as I’d been told at the beginning of the course that it was rarely tight enough after the first pinning, and generally needed another round of pull-and-pin to get it properly stretched, but Angela had a good look at the result of round one, and said I could go straight on to sewing the twill to the calico and mitring the corners. With hindsight, I think I would have preferred a second round after all, but not enough to undo all the sewing I’ve done since!

The twill is attached to the calico using herringbone stitch, pulling the fabric taut while stitching. What with pushing in 140 or so pins, stretching the fabric and pulling the buttonhole sewing thread tightly at every stitch, after a while my fingers were becoming quite sore (I’d been warned about this). By the end of the class, this is how far I’d got, with Angela having demonstrated how to ladder stitch the corner when moving from one side to the next. Homework: finish the herringbone stitching and the mitred corners, and cut and iron the cotton sateen which will be the final backing.

I definitely improved with practice: my first ladder stitch was not quite parallel (although fortunately the corner came out quite nicely even so), but the second definitely looked more even.

And here it is, ready for my 8th Jacobean class this coming Wednesday, when I hope to finish the process by attaching the cotton sateen with, as the brief phrases it, “even slip stitches” which are “not visible”. How they assess whether my slip stitches are even or uneven if they’re not visible I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps you get marked down less if your slip stitches are visible but even ?

Shortly after this class I booked another for 14th October (also with Angela), on the grounds that it would keep the momentum going and get me started on that goldwork project – I figured that as long as I could get framed up and with a bit of luck even get the design transferred (this is a teeny weeny bit ambitious as I have yet to decide what exactly the design is going to be…) I would be willing to try some online classes for this particular module. But since then they’ve opened up the November and December classes for booking, and I’ve added two November face-to-face dates – fingers crossed they’ll actually happen!

An eventful flower and a mounted rabbit

Posted on 18th August, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Half of August has gone and Flights of Fancy have been thin on the ground. So has stitching. And if you ask me why I’m not altogether sure, except that the days seem to fly past rather more quickly than I would like. Still, some embroidery-related things have been happening in the Figworthy household, so I thought I’d fill you in.

One thing you already know about is the Nurge semi-deep hoops; they are now all bound and I’ve been using the 13cm one a couple of times. So is the “grip” better than on a bound shallow hoop? For this size there probably isn’t that much in it – the shallow hoop keeps the fabric about as taut as you can get it without tearing it, so it’s hard to improve on that. But the larger the hoop, the more difficult it is to get and above all to keep the tension, so it will be interesting to see whether I notice the difference on, say, the 19cm hoop. On this smaller one I do find it’s easier to hold in my non-stitching hand if I’m not using a clamp or stand; the fact that it’s got just that bit more body to it makes it more comfortable on the fingers.

I used my smallest semi-deep hoop for yet another last-minute card, this time for a niece who, besides being a whizz with accounts, is a linocut artist (you can see her designs in her Etsy shop Woah There Pickle). Some time ago she gave me permission to use one of her lino designs to turn into an embroidery. So far it hasn’t made it onto fabric, but I decided to use one flower from it to stitch for her as a birthday card. I chose a blue and white chambray linen for the background, which has a slightly mottled effect (not really visible in the picture) caused by being woven with a white weft and a coloured warp; I thought this would make a nice contrast with the deliberately flat colours of the flower. From a stitching point of view this turned out to be a bad idea as the not-solid colour made my eyes go funny after a while! Still, it does look good so on the whole it was worth it (but it did slow me down).

The picture above shows my progress at the end of day one, a Thursday. The card had to be sent on Saturday morning at the latest, and normally I’d have expected to complete the thing in a fairly leisurely fashion on Friday evening, but that evening we were going to Meet Friends In A Pub Garden, a red-letter event that hadn’t happened since lockdown started way back in March. “I’ll finish the stitching off when we get back”, I said to Mr Mabel, “and then I can put it in a card tomorrow morning before going on my Ladies’ Walk and you can take it to the Post Office” (he goes every day to send off the business parcels, and on Saturday the cut-off point is quarter to eleven, just when our walking group’s walk tends to end).

Do you know that saying about “best laid plans”? The meeting at the pub garden was very pleasant, but on the way back a road closure signposted at the very last moment got us swept off onto the motorway. Not a problem normally, but we were in a 90-year-old Austin Seven, and the motorway at that point is on a slight incline. Modern cars don’t even notice it, but the Austin gets slowed down to about 30 mph, with lighting that isn’t nearly so bright as in modern cars, and lorries thundering past at 60mph. Mr Mabel decided it was not safe, so we pulled into a lay-by and contacted the Highway Authorities, who eventually sent a well-lit vehicle that escorted us to the nearest exit. We got home safe and sound. At a quarter to midnight. No, I wasn’t going to finish the card then . But with some intense stitching early the next morning I fortunately did manage to get it sent off in time. Phew.

Another bit of stitched nature was a lot less eventful, but it was instructive. Remember the crewelwork Rabbit With Carnations I did some time ago?

Well, I decided to use it for a bit of an experiment. My two SAL Trees of Life are still in a hoop (the wool version) and on a frame (the silk/gold version), waiting to be laced and then framed. Now I usually lace over foam core board, but as the RSN Certificate pieces have to be laced over mount board I thought this might be a good opportunity to practice. I contacted Fosse House Gallery, our local framer who did such a great (and quick!) job on my mother-in-law’s 90th birthday present, and they very kindly gave me some offcuts to have a go with. The lady mentioned that she used T-pins when lacing over mount board so I looked those up online and lo and behold, they were available from Toft Alpacas, who like the framer are within walking distance from where I live!

One of the things I like about foam core board is that at 5mm thick it gives you plenty of edge to stick your pins into! Standard mount board or mat board tends to be about 2mm thick, so it’s all a bit more cramped and your aim has to be rather more precise. It’s also a lot easier on the fingers to push pins into foam core board because, well, it’s foam instead of solid cardboard . There is one drawback of foam core board which is very visible in the second picture: its corners and edges get squashed much more easily that mount board, so you have to be careful when storing it or be prepared to trim edges before cutting the board to size.

There’s definitely no such problem with the mount board which in spite of being an offcut was in perfect condition. The sample of board was cut to the right size for the rabbit embroidery and I set to work. As I expected, it was quite fiddly getting the pins to go centrally into the edge of the board, and several times I was definitely just underneath the outer layer so you could see the contours of the pin. It is interesting that for the RSN mounting process you are instructed to glue together two layers of standard mount board to end up with a thicker piece of board which is then covered in calico – I haven’t got to that part of the module yet, but I can’t help thinking the pins will all end up in the glue layer. I’ll find out when classes start again in Rugby!

The mount board being more solid in texture than the foam core board I predictably found it difficult to push the pins right in, but that may have been at least in part because the T-pins I got were quite long. I’ll see if I can find some shorter, thinner ones. As I was lacing, the board seemed to bend and flex a little more than the foam core I tend to use, and this was on a relatively small piece of about 5½” square – I wonder how much it would flex if I was lacing something the size of the Trees.

The end result looks respectable enough, but you won’t be surprised to hear that the two Trees will be laced over foam core. I contacted Fosse House Gallery and they say they may have some in stock, so time to walk over there and support the local economy. Once they’re laced I’m hoping to get the two Trees framed together in a single tall frame with two circular apertures in the mount. Now for a colour that will work with both…

A sheep, a SAL, a mag, and a trio of kits

Posted on 29th May, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

First of all apologies for the long radio silence here at Flights of Fancies. This was partly to do with the final wrap-up of the Tree of Life Stitch-Along, partly with new tasks and obligations which have sprung up during lockdown, partly with a small project I wanted to do for a friend which took longer than I expected, partly with an article I need to write by mid-June, and partly with me somehow having more trouble than usual to work up the motivation and energy for anything that requires the least mental effort. Comments from friends and family tell me I am not alone in this; perhaps it’s the effects of nine weeks of lockdown.

Fortunately our hobby is one that can be enjoyed even when we don’t get round to stitching much – surely it’s not just me who enjoys looking at, playing with and rearranging threads, fabrics, stitch books and all the other paraphernalia of embroidery!

But as I said I did actually get some stitching done, and it took longer than expected because it was a sheep whose fleece was made up of several thousand French knots. No, I didn’t actually count them, but that’s definitely what it felt like. Still, I was pleased with the resulting fluffy sheep, which you may recognise as the stranded cotton twin to Trina’s silverwork Sheep.

Finishing all the stitching and blog writing for the Stitch-Along felt almost on a par with finishing the stitching on my RSN Jacobean module . It’s been great to see people’s different trees growing leaf by leaf and creature by creature, and a few stitchers have already sent in pictures of their finished trees. Some have even stitched two trees, using different materials for each one – impressive!

Incidentally, although all ten parts of the SAL are now out (you can see my own two completed trees below), you can still sign up until midnight 31st May for immediate access to all parts and the SAL blog with its stitch pictures and extra tips & tricks – after that the Tree of Life will be on the website as a stand-alone design with optional blog access.

Tree of Life in Heathway Milano crewel wool on linen twill

Tree of Life in Silk Mill stranded silk and goldwork threads on close-weave linen

Another exciting thing that happened this month (yesterday, in fact) was the publication of Stitch Magazine issue 125, which contains a little willow that may be familiar to regular readers of FoF… It’s odd to think that when I submitted the article to the editor in mid-February we were all still happily going about our business, and that even a month later the Knitting & Stitching Show organisers were sending out their usual request for workshop proposals. I’m delighted to say four of mine were accepted, but whether I’ll actually get to teach them is anybody’s guess!

Still, it keeps me off the streets . As will my lockdown resolution of supporting independent designers and embroidery suppliers – you may have seen the spoils in a previous FoF, and to that impressive pile were added these three Bluebird Embroidery silk shading kits. My excuse is that they will be good practice for the RSN Certificate Silk Shading module.

The kits are well presented, each with the design printed on the fabric (which, together with a piece of backing fabric, comes wrapped in tissue paper) in crisp thin lines, and a detailed and richly illustrated instruction booklet.

The silk shading Fox ready to go (after a few other projects)

The only area where there is room for improvement in these kits (and it is a fairly minor niggle) is that the blue envelope which holds the materials is very difficult to open neatly, and once it is open it is very difficult to get the tissue-wrapped fabric out without it sticking to the envelope’s extremely sticky flap. With the other two kits I decided to slit open the envelopes with a letter opener.

The kits with one of the envelopes containg the materials

But as I said, a minor niggle only, and I look forward at having a go at this cheeky fox. First, however, it’s the goldwork racehorse to finish – and if I can resist the temptation to spend all my free time this weekend in the garden with a book, I’ll post an update next week!

An experimental coaster, bear and printing

Posted on 4th May, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Recently I’ve been stitching several little Quatrefoils as trial pieces, such as this one in Splendor silk on dark red dupion (where I transferred the outline using the Quaker Tapestry method).

I did another one, you may remember, to try out Empress Mills’ Mountmellick fabric, and although generally I am quite happy to keep experiments like these in a folder for future reference, occasionally the urge to Do Something With Them does grab me. In this case it did so because I was getting some coasters to send out, and putting aside one which had a few small blemishes and which therefore I can’t sell. Hmmm, I thought – could you put the Quatrefoil, with its dense stitching and couched goldwork thread, into a coaster?

Well, the answer turns out to be “yes you can, but it’s probably better not to” . What makes this little flower work well in a card is the padding behind it, which hides the lumps and bumps at the back of the work and makes the embroidery stand proud. The top of the coaster, on the other hand, pushes the stitching down and makes it very difficult to even out the fabric around it, although in the end I managed a just-about-acceptable look with the judicious addition of a little light wadding.

The finished coaster, with uneven fabric

Back to stitching. Several of my projects, like the Ottoman Tulip, Llandrindod and Hengest, have now been going (very slowly) for quite some time, but one new project had a bit of a built-in deadline: I bought a light blue bodysuit for our grandson Teddy to be embellished with, yes, a teddy, and it obviously had to be finished while it still fits him, which considering the rate he is growing at would not be very long!

I got the teddy design from one of the small Anchor stitch guides (the same series that Percy the Parrot came from), but of course I couldn’t possibly stitch it as it came… a T-shirt was added to the denim dungarees and around the bear I charted the words “Oma’s favourite Teddy” (Oma being the Dutch word for Granny). The threads had to be easily washable so I went for coton à broder.

The colours of coton a broder I picked for the project

I’ve not done an awful lot of stitching on clothing or other made-up items so it wasn’t until I got the romper suit home that I realised something a bit shorter and/or more open at the bottom would have been rather easier to work on – but as it turned out the real challenge was to keep the stitch tension even while working in hand on stretchy fabric! I don’t think I’ve produced anything quite this wonky and puckered for several decades, but as it was definitely out of my comfort zone I’m pretty pleased with it nonetheless .

One puzzling thing about this project was the fact that lines which I stitched absolutely parallel somehow managed to be definitely not parallel when finished. Stem stitch at the front produces backstitch at the back, and the lilac and yellow backstitch lines forming the T-shirt’s neckline look just fine on the inside of the bodysuit (I’m afraid I forgot to take a picture of this before I wrapped it up). But the two stem stitch lines showing at the front of the suit get closer to each other from left to right – how does that happen? Oh well, I’m sure Teddy won’t mind; he’ll only see it upside down when looking down his chest and that distorts the perspective anyway!

The final experiment is in production as you read this, and by someone else, so I can’t show it yet. But I’m very excited about getting samples printed for workshop & kit fabrics! At the moment any transfers are done by me by hand, aided by my trusty light box and some very fine technical drawing pens. I’ve looked into screen printing but I was rather put off that by a number of kits I bought (from different sources) which had such thick lines that I had to add stitches to make sure everything was covered; if anyone knows of screen printers who will produce nice thin lines I’d be delighted to know! Anyway, I’m waiting for the arrival of one sample of plain cotton, one of calico and one of duchess satin, each with a different design; they should be here next week. Watch this space…

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Finishes