Buying and trying at the K&S Show

Posted on 16th October, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Well, I’m back from the Knitting & Stitching Show (have been for some days now, in fact) and I had a lovely time. Quite a bit of my London visit was actually spent outside Ally Pally, walking in all sorts of places both familiar and new; on Friday I decided to get off the train at Hampstead Heath and walk from there to the Show, which turned out to be a wonderful walk showing me lots of bits of London I hadn’t seen before, as well as giving me rather sore feet by the time I arrived at Alexandra Palace two and a half hours later. And then I was on those feet for another 90 minutes teaching the Shisha workshop. Possibly not the best way of organising the day…

Besides teaching I did get to do some shopping as well (now there’s a surprise) – some pearl purl #2 in gold, silver and copper, and a lovely wire check in silver, as well as some very striking copper kid leather from Golden Hinde, where I also had a look at some materials that so far I had only seen online. A very useful exercise as it showed me that one thread I was considering was far too thin, and a certain braid was much too heavy, so I could cross them off my wish list. At Calico Cat I got a skein of golden yellow Gloriana Lorikeet wool which I intend to use for couching, to contrast with a couched gold thread (whether real metal or just a metallic-looking one). And finally I got some closely-woven cotton fabric for freestyle embroidery.

That I got at Rowandean‘s stand, where I had a much-needed and very relaxing sit-down, and made grateful use of the opportunity to do some impromptu stitching. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name of the kind lady who hosted it and who does all Rowandean’s designs as I thought I would remember, which predictably I didn’t. Something like Katrina or Kristina and a last name beginning with Wi, I think. On one side of their stand there was a table covered in thread, pins and bits of organza, and surrounded by very comfortable and happy looking stitchers. I joined the throng, was handed a needle and a hoop with fabric that had some lines and dots on it, told how to create a floral picture by pinning bits of organza to the ground fabric and then stitching over them, and then just got on with it, putting a purple French knot here and a bright red lazy daisy there, until I felt it was done. The idea was to use only basic stitches like the ones I mentioned just now plus some long straight stitches, but I will admit to adding some fly stitches secured with French knots – I wanted to depict the sort of lavender that has flowers with bits sticking out, or possibly something like a wild orchid.

I liked the ground fabric so much I bought a fat quarter of it, and I remembered the hand-dyed organza I bought some years ago and some of which I’ve used for Extravorganza; there is still a fair amount left in various colours, so I will have a go at some more of this style of embroidery – it’s very relaxing to do and the finished projects will make great cards. While I was unearthing the organza I also came across some hand-dyed felt I’d bought at the same time, and that might work as well as the basis for simple floral designs like these. I can feel some experimenting coming on!

The Stitchmaster seat stand

Posted on 5th October, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Well, last Friday my Stitchmaster Seatstand (one word, which looks a little odd I must say) arrived, and although I had expected it to need assembling, I was a bit taken aback by how flat and in bits it looked! Still, I have been known to put together a flat-pack bookcase virtually single-handedly with only a few screws left over, so I figured that as long as I took my time and didn’t rush things (especially as it would need to be pristine should I decide to return it) I should be fine.

You may feel that the “should I decide to return it” was a little pessimistic. The reviews on Sew & So’s website are almost entirely positive, and even the one person who didn’t like it seemed to blame herself rather than the stand. Even so, I bore the possibility in mind.

The first step was to unpack everything and read the instructions to see if all the bits were there. They were, but what immediately struck me was that they didn’t look particularly well finished. Not that there were big splinters or anything, but several of the slots were rather rough on the inside and one of them looked as though the movement of the securing screw when adjusting the part’s position might well take a thin strip of the wood off. I also found that the holes for the long screw that kept the upright to the base didn’t quite line up. This was a bit of a problem because forcing the screw in would probably make the thing unreturnable, something which I was now seriously beginning to consider. I decided to leave that part for the moment and to assemble all the other parts first. Oddly enough the instructions showed some of the bolts going in one way, while the picture on the box clearly showed them going in the other way round. The bolts all had a “shoulder”, a slightly thicker part just underneath the head, which wouldn’t go into the holes. My husband assured me that this was fine, they would sink into the wood when tightened sufficiently, but again I didn’t really want to try that for fear of damaging the wood.

Bearing all this in mind, the stand I put together was undoubtedly not as stable as it would have been if I had forcefully tightened all the nuts and done up the bottom screw right into the wood. Even so, I wasn’t convinced. The Millennium is not the lightest of frames, and needs something pretty solid to support it. And notwithstanding my husband’s reassurances about the bolts he did think it would probably need a shim to keep the horizontal bar from drooping a little – even without the frame on it. Then there was the wedge that supports the slanting arm which is attached to the upright. From the pictures I had expected a much gentler angle, but this was very steep, and when I tried the stand (very carefully, what with the various nuts and bolts not having been done up at their tightest) the frame had very little tilt backwards – almost like having it on a fairly upright easel.

Finally, there were the supporting arms. I realise that the Millennium is not an everyday frame, and that it is quite chunky compared to others (though not much more so than, say, Q-snaps), so I wasn’t too surprised that the little dowels on which the frame or hoop sits were a bit on the short side for it. What did surprise me was that the frame seemed to stick out rather on the right-hand side. The box says that the seat stand will accommodate frames up to 53cm, which is about 21″, and I’ve got 16″ bars, so it should really have room to spare, but it didn’t.

It won’t surprise you that the seat stand has by now been disassembled and neatly put back into its box. When Sew & So let me know how they would like me to return it it will be on its way back to Stroud. But that leaves me with the problem I had before – how to handle frequent flips on the Millennium frame.

The obvious answer is to go for Needle Needs’ Aristo lap stand after all. But the noticeable on-the-lap wobble in Nicola Parkman’s excellent demonstration video worries me. I rang Needle Needs to ask whether they would be bringing one to the Knitting & Stitching Show, and if so whether I could try it out there, but they told me they don’t do shows any more as they are practically overwhelmed with orders anyway. I could, however, come and see (and try) one in their workshop if I wanted, and if I gave them a few days’ notice. And would you believe it, when we next visit my husband’s sister and parents, we’ll be more or less passing by Needle Needs’ front door. So I’ll have my Millennium frame with me, ready for a bit of lap stand stitching.

For now I have set the Lowery slightly higher, and my husband very kindly cut a bit of superfluous thread off the lever that controls the flip, so that it doesn’t quarrel with the arm of the chair any longer. If in action the Aristo’s lap wobble turns out to be too noticeable for me, this set-up will work quite well (if a little laboriously with undoing and re-tightening, and managing the Meccano prop). And if the lap stand turns out to be ideal, I’ve got my Christmas and birthday list sorted .

Relaxation or challenge?

Posted on 2nd October, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

At the moment I’m working on the stitched model for Join The Band, and finding it very enjoyable – a band sampler with alternate bands of Hardanger and guilloche stitch, it has enough repetition to be soothing and relaxing, and enough variation to remain interesting. But this post mentions “challenge” rather than “interest”. So do I ever want my stitching to be challenging? Yes, within reason. I love learning new stitches and new techniques, and that surely is a challenge, doing something you haven’t done before and trying to do it well. But if it becomes a struggle, and puts me off my stitching, then I am quite happy to decide that this particular stitch or technique is simply not my cup of tea. After all, when it comes down to it embroidery is my hobby, and I mean to enjoy it!

Fortunately Join The Band is giving me just the right amount of challenge; and working with a lovely palette of purple, blue and green just adds to the pleasure (although I must say I’m also looking forward to working the alternative version in three shades of coral red).

Incidentally, there is quite a bit of frame flipping while working this design, which with the Millennium frame on the Lowery isn’t very easy; because of the width of the frame the mechanism for flipping it gets stuck on the arm of the chair, and anyway it’s a bother having to undo and fasten screws every time, not to mention having to push my purpose-built Meccano prop out of the way. So I’ve been looking at the Stitchmaster Seatstand which is like Needle Needs’ floor and lap stands in that the frame rests on it rather than being clamped to it in some way, but has the advantage of being smaller than the floor stand, and I suspect less wobbly than the lap stand (because you sit on the paddle rather than perching the whole thing precariously on your lap). My one concern was that the frame wouldn’t sit high enough, as I couldn’t quite gauge the size and height from the pictures. So I rang Sew & So and asked them whether they knew what height the upright post is. The very helpful lady called Claire whom I spoke to said she would measure it and call me back. She did, I did a bit of experimenting with a 12″ ruler, and I’ve just ordered my seat stand – expect pictures soon!

Scissors

Posted on 29th September, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

I love my squissors, as you all know. Especially for Hardanger, but they can be used quite effectively as all-round embroidery scissors as well, snipping threads and waste knots with as much ease and accuracy as cutting fabric threads surrounded by Kloster blocks. There is, however, one thing that they aren’t very good at – cutting very closely around a buttonhole edging or other type of hem. For that I’ve got the small, very sharp, very pointy scissors I mentioned a few years ago, and I love them nearly as much as my squissors. So sharp and pointy are they that they could probably be used for Hardanger as well, although I haven’t tried it. And they look attractive with their coloured finger holes and protective cover. Together, this pretty pair of rainbow-coloured squissors and transparently coloured scissors are all I need as far as cutting is concerned. (When stitching, I mean; I don’t count the scissors needed for cutting the fabric to size beforehand, although these scissors could probably do the job perfectly well for small to medium-sized projects.)

Because I like to have spares of any tool that I find really useful (as you never know when these things may get discontinued or changed or “improved” or whatever) and because I always like to have spare scissors around, preferably one per project (and I am, as you may have realised by now, a multiple-project girl) I decided to see if I could find some more of these. I did, but unfortunately postage for one or two pairs was rather prohibitive. Postage for sixteen pairs, however, was quite reasonable, so I said to myself, “if I like them that much, mightn’t other stitchers like them too? And if so, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have them on Mabel’s Fancies?” Myself thought this was a spiffing idea, and so here they are for your delight: useful, accurate and pretty embroidery scissors!

Notes on toadstools and a robin

Posted on 4th August, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

I’m having great fun with my toadstools! Of my several plans I decided to start with the medium-sized, insectless version, simply outlined in stem stitch throughout. At this point I had ideas as to what I wanted the fungi to look like, but nothing set in stone – probably golden yellow for the right-hand toadstool, cream with blue or purple spots for the left-hand one, and the middle one the traditional red-with-white-spots (the only thing that is non-negotiable!). An enjoyable hour or so with my boxes of DMC and an LED light (invaluable when selecting and matching colours in the evening) produced a nice collection of bobbins, but as any stitcher knows, colours on bobbins don’t necessarily look like those same colours stitched onto fabric!

By the way, I used the black iron-on pen to do the transferring. It worked beautifully, but there are a few things to keep in mind for future transfers; not criticisms exactly, just notes-to-self. First, although the line drawn with the pen is quite fine, the ironed-on line on the fabric is a little thicker. On small designs where a single strand is used this may cause the line to remain visible. Second, the ironed-on line is much lighter than the pen line looks on the transfer paper. On the fabric, the “black” pen looks a pale blue-grey. This is not a problem in itself – the lines are perfectly visible as they are and it might even be a drawback if they were any darker, as it would be more difficult to cover them up. Finally, I have the feeling that the lines fade a little over time. I transferred two copies of the robin (more of him below), and the second one, which hasn’t been stitched yet, is a very pale blue now – still visible, still workable, but paler than it was when I’d just ironed it on. I think. It’s very difficult to remember accurately the exact darkness or lightness of a line two weeks later!

Back to the toadstools. They were worked in standard DMC stranded cotton, using two strands for the two outer toadstools, and three strands for the middle one and the grass. The grass is worked in two strands of dark green and one of light green.

I quite like the look of it as it is, but I feel it needs a few tweaks. My ideas so far:

I like the contrast between the slightly heavier middle toadstool and the lighter outside ones. However, the outlines of the outer two toadstools aren’t as clear as I’d like, and the spots are a bit too heavy. Next time try 4 strands and 3 strands respectively for the outlines, 3 and 2 for the spots. The grass is OK at 3 strands (2 dark, 1 light).
The red is too orange and too bright; try tweeding a darker red into it. The line forming the underside of the cap is a bit dark; would it look better in a very dark red? Then fill in the under-cap area with gills in brown – either straight stitch, or stem stitch in one strand.
The ecru toadstool is rather light, probably even with an extra strand. Think of a different colour. Spots in blue rather than purple?
The outline-only version looks a bit empty (as does the no-insect bit). Try seed stitch (in 3 strands for the middle one, 2 for the outer two) of diminishing density top down (start at the top of the cap with dense stitching and become more scattered downwards, stopping at about the half-way point). Same principle for the stems, and the frill on the middle one.
Is there a blueish fungus of the left-hand shape? If so this might look better than the yellow. (Then the insect can be done in a warm shade.)

So there’s my homework for the coming time: experiment a bit more with the toadstools, both as regards colours and stitches. Incidentally, did you spot the addition to the design? Serinde suggested in a comment that a snail would be a good alternative to an insect, and I thought that was a spiffing idea, so I drew a snail version and also added it to the project in progress, as you can see above. It took me a while to decide on colours and number of strands for him, but eventually I settled on the dark brown used in the middle toadstool, and the purple used in the right-hand one, both in one strand. As this is a trial piece I’m afraid he wasn’t stitched as carefully as he should have been (the shape of his body is too much of a smooth arc, it should have some bends in it) but it gives an idea.

The toadstools with a little snail added

The little stylised robin inspired by a 1920s starch advert has been played about with as well. As with the toadstools, I decided to do one simply outlined in stem stitch to begin with. Well, apart from its eye, which is a black, round Rhodes stitch, to make it nice and beady (using that word makes me think I could just have used a bead; still, I like this look and a bead might have been a bit too shiny compared to the rest). For this one I used Rainbow Gallery Splendor silk, which is lovely and soft to work with. Just so that it wouldn’t look too “flat”, I tweeded quite a few of the colours, using one strand each of a darker and a lighter shade – it’s a simple way of adding a bit of instant shading.

On the whole I’m quite happy with this little chap, although I will do the legs differently next time – either outlined in one strand, or in two or three strands but as single lines. As they are here (outlined in two strands) they look too heavy compared to the rest of the bird. I was also thinking of stitching one filled in with long & short stitch, but on second thoughts I’m not sure that naturalistic shading won’t look out of place on such a stylised design. Perhaps using tweeded stem stitch as a relatively blocky filling would suit his look better.

Getting to grips with cats

Posted on 25th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Some time ago I set out to transfer Kelly Fletcher’s Cats on a Wall design to my chosen fabric, a piece of 40ct Zweigart Newcastle linen in the colour Flax, a stony sort of shade. Unfortunately this was before I had received or even ordered my lovely iron-on pens, or the promising-looking carbon transfer paper I got from Sublime stitching at the same time. Other, more traditional methods were called for.

Tracing against a well-lit window (the poor stitcher’s version of a lightbox) turned out to be difficult because of the colour of the fabric – even with the sun right behind it, the lines of the design didn’t show up very clearly. Moreover, both the pencil and the micron pen I tried using sometimes got caught in the holes and skipped. This may be because at 40ct the Newcastle is a relatively low count compared to the Gander and Kingston linens, or possibly because it’s a fabric meant for counted thread work; there are linens specifically intended for freestyle embroidery which have a lower count but plumper fabric threads so that they present a nice full surface instead of visible holes to trap pencils.

Would prick & pounce have worked? It may have been lack of courage that kept me from trying (I have all the wherewithal for it – pricking pen & pad, pounce powder, little round felt pouncy thing – but as yet haven’t used it), but I like to think it was because I could see it wouldn’t work very well on this relatively open weave. I did try covering the back of the printed design with 2B pencil, then placing it over the fabric and tracing along the lines at the front (a sort of make-shift carbon paper which I’m sure most people have used at some time or other to copy things), but it left no clear line. Perhaps it’s simply not the right fabric for these sort of transfer methods!

In a last-ditch attempt I went over the filling stitches on the printed design in black pen to make them thicker, so they would be easier to see through the fabric as I went back to the well-lit window method. It was better, but still not altogether successful. Finally I had to ink in some of the filling stitches “free hand” by looking at the printed design and copying the lines by eye, so they are not quite as regular as intended by the designer. I also managed to get the outline of one of the stones in the wall wrong – I may have to cover that up with a single strand of silk in the colour of the linen! Even so, at least it’s been transferred and is now ready to go.

And then I decided that I really want to do the Tree of Life first. Or the Leaves. Or the Toadstools. Or the Daisy-and-Bumblebee…

Wool again – back to Pearsall’s

Posted on 19th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Some time ago I treated myself to Pearsall’s starter pack, 30 skeins of their Heathway Merino crewel wool plus two pieces of twill.

Of course they needed to be tried out, and for ease of comparison I used the same design as for the Renaissance Dyeing experiment. Originally I intended to use the same stitches as well, but then I came across the raised chain stitch band which, having worked it in perle cotton and loved the result, I simply had to try out in wool. As it happens, it’s not quite so successful in wool as in perle, although it still has an interesting look. The two wide pink/red bands on the flower cone (what do you call that thing?) are raised chain stitch band, with intentionally varied spacing (just so you don’t think it looks sloppy by accident…).

The main thing I noticed about Pearsall’s is that it feels and looks a little heavier than the Renaissance Dyeing wool. It’s not a big difference, in fact I sometimes wondered whether I was imagining it, but on the whole I do think there is a difference. It’s most noticeable on the three lines of stem stitch in the stem, and the little lines of stem stitch around the tiny satin stitch leaves. Talking of which, they are very irregular. I know. I was getting a little impatient to finish this because I really want to work on the Shisha Mini and the SAL, and so I wasn’t as careful over my stitching as I would have been if this had been a proper project. (That’s not to say these two Jacobean flowers are improper projects – just that they are more in the nature of samplers, or to hark back to the previous FoF, doodle cloths. Pictorial doodle cloths. I might do more of those, actually! Perhaps I could use some of those leaf outlines I’ve been drawing for one.)

Apart from the slight difference in thickness, Pearsall’s crewel wool is really very much like Renaissance Dyeing’s. They work up very nicely, they don’t pill, and they are both so much better than Appleton’s! I like the feel of the Pearsall’s a little better, but on the other hand the RD makes really nice fine lines in stem stitch. Mind you, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t mix them.

Finally, just a few close-ups to show the various stitches used in this project. In the flower cone: raised chain stitch band, seed stitch, French knots (using two different colours in the needle which unfortunately doesn’t show up at all) and long-and-short stitch worked over a split stitch border which is now invisible. In the bluey-green petals: stem stitch (the vein), Portuguese knotted stem stitch (the outline) and bullion knots. In the stem: stem stitch in three shades of green, and French knots with two shades in the needle – here the colours were sufficiently different to show up. In the leaf: stem stitch, Palestrina stitch (the outline) and satin stitch (the little leaves-within-a-leaf).

raised chain stitch band, seed stitch, French knots and long-and-short stitch

stem stitch, knotted stem stitch and bullion knots

stem stitch, Palestrina stitch and satin stitch

And now I can go and play with Shisha minis and SAL doodle cloths – yay!

Undesirable effects of ironing

Posted on 14th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Sometimes finished projects need ironing. Hoop marks that would be visible when framing the piece need to be removed, or perhaps the whole thing would just look that little bit crisper and neater after a go with the iron. And most of the time, that’s not a problem. Just remember to iron from the back, and to put the stitched piece face down on a thick towel (or even several towels) to make sure it doesn’t get flattened. Take care that the iron is set to a temperature that the fabric and threads can take, and if they are different, take your cue from the most vulnerable one – linen fabric worked with silks gets ironed at silk temperature. Bearing all that in mind, what could possibly go wrong?

Well…

You might just forget that the project contains sequins.

This is what silver cup sequins are meant to look like. Pretty, aren’t they? Sparkly. Bright. Picking up the colour of the bead and reflecting it.

And this is what silver cup sequins look like when ironed, ever so carefully, from the back, cushioned and protected by several layers of towel.

And it didn’t even really need ironing *sigh*.

Unexpected storage

Posted on 8th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

It is a sad fact of life that Mabel’s Fancies is not my day job. My day job involves accounts, web maintenance, and talking to people on the phone about bits of pre-war automobile in several languages (though not at the same time, obviously). It doesn’t involve needlework, alas, but it’s a nice job. I like it. And sometimes it throws up pleasant surprises. Like answering the phone this afternoon and being greeted with “hello princess!” by an elderly gentleman I didn’t know (I’ve been called “petal” as well, and “ducks” – this royal treatment is definitely a step up).

Another surprise came when I was asked to put together assorted grommet packs. Until we started this business I had no idea what a grommet was, and I am still a little hazy as to what you use them for, although I can see the larger ones making quite a good foundation for Dorset buttons. Putting together packs of them, however, I can do. I opened the two boxes of grommets and… looked at the boxes. They clipped close. They had moveable dividers. They looked remarkably like smaller versions of the large craft storage box I got for my goldwork materials some time back. Not quite such good quality, but perfectly usable. And just the right size for a project box when the project needs rather more threads and bits and bobs than will fit into my usual, small project boxes.

Soon the bags were full and the boxes empty. Now all I need to do is fill them with threads! My Leaves project, perhaps, or the Tree of Life, or…

Unknown silks and a Mexican bird

Posted on 7th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Recently we were staying with my in-laws where one of the challenges was finding a way for my mother-in-law, a keen needlewoman, to embroider with one hand as her left arm has been fitted with some impressive looking metal scaffolding following a fall. We took my Lowery stand to see whether that would work. Unfortunately it didn’t, or at least not with the embroidery she was working on before the fall. If anyone has any ideas, or experience with this sort of problem, I’d be grateful for your suggestions.

There were some more successful stitch-related moments during our stay, however (quite apart from a good bit of work on the Shisha Mini) – my MIL had been given a box of cones of silk which she said I could have if they were of any use to me. She hadn’t been told what brand the silks were, or what type, or what they had originally been used for. They certainly have a lovely sheen, and the blue-purple-green end of the box immediately made me think of peacocks. I haven’t had a close look at them yet so don’t know whether they are all the same weight/thickness, or even if they are all silk (I have my suspicions about the light blue, which looks like cotton), but aren’t they a pretty collection?

Whether it was thinking of peacocks, or whether I was just looking at their kitchen in more detail now that I was doing the cooking, I suddenly noticed a print that has been there for as long as I’ve visited the house, but which so far had been no more than rather colourful background noise. MIL told me that it came from Mexico and had been a present to herself. With its bold lines and colours it struck me as particularly suitable for embroidery, so I asked if I could copy it. We couldn’t find any tracing paper, but some grease-proof baking parchment did the trick. It’s rather thicker than tracing paper so I couldn’t go for absolute accuracy, but then that didn’t matter particularly as I don’t intend to create an exact copy. When we got home I scanned the drawing and started cleaning it up; it’ll need quite a lot of work, so it won’t be stitched any time soon, but when it does perhaps the silk cones could be incorporated into it – that would be rather appropriate.

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Materials & Equipment