Tamar Embroideries and more Orpheus

Posted on 9th December, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

In my continued search for threads to replace the perle cottons so inconsiderately discontinued by Dinky Dyes some time ago, I found a few likely looking shades at Tamar Embroideries. Most of their threads aren’t perles as such, but are perfectly usable for Hardanger, especially their Combed Cotton (also called Cotton Twist) and Fine Perle. I ordered the two shades I thought might do as substitutes for DD Jaffa and Daydream, the latter having proved particularly problematic to replace as it is used in combination with several shades of DMC (in Sunken Treasures).

I was quite pleased with the bottom shade; the Combed Cotton is a little on the pink side for Jaffa, but the Fine Perle is quite a close match (it’s quite surprising sometimes how different different threads look which have been dyed in the same shade), so it’s certainly one of the threads now suggested in the Citrus chart pack (perhaps the thicker thread could represent pink grapefruit…)

The top shade is not another example of how differently the dye takes on different threads – I had ordered the lighter shade in both thicknesses but the Fine Perle was out of stock. Very generously, Tamar Embroideries refunded me for that skein but sent me a complimentary skein of the darker version! (I would have liked the option of cancelling if one thickness of a pair is unavailable, but even so it is a very kind gesture and jolly good customer service.) Comparing the lighter shade to Daydream I was very pleased to see they are very much alike; the Tamar thread is a little paler, and the look is different because it is a much matter thread than perle cotton, but it’ll definitely work – yay!

Meanwhile, work continues on Orpheus. And as the pulled work needs more tension than my roller frame provides, a flexi-hoop was called for. Unfortunately, because of their quite fierce grip on the fabric, flexi-hoops cause rather severe creases; not usually a problem when the whole design is within its circle, but not good when the crease runs across a part where there will be stitching later on. So every evening (and this is definitely a first for me, even though it would be good practice whatever I stitch) I take the fabric out of the hoop, and in the morning I iron it to take out every suspicion of crease, only to put new ones in in the evening. I’m hoping that this way they won’t become permanent creases.

PS That smudge in the middle is what I’ve done so far, artistically blurred. Well, I don’t want to give too much away .

Working on Orpheus

Posted on 29th November, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

I’ve been using a frame – and my Lowery stand – again for the first time in many, many months. Well, I always use the Lowery in that it is by my side and holds my needles and scissors by means of some little disc magnets, but I am now using it for its prime purpose of holding a frame. Orpheus is just a little too large to sit comfortably in any of my hoops except the 12″ one, which is too large for my cut of hand-dyed fabric (square designs and round hoops are never an ideal combination when trying to be thrifty with fabric).

So into the Easy-Clip frame it went, and I must say, it really is an easy frame to use; not like lacing fabric onto a slate frame, which I’ve never done but looks like a day’s job in itself judging by some of the online tutorials I found. One consequence, however, of not having the sides of the fabric secured to the frame is that tension is OK North-South, but not so great East-West, and so the central motif looks a bit elongated. In fact, it’s 8cm wide and nearly 9cm high. I hope ironing and stretching when the whole thing is finished will correct that.

Now I’ve got to a part of the design that has pulled stitches and I’m worried the tension isn’t enough to stand up to all that pulling. I’ve decided to put the fabric into an 8″ flexi-hoop temporarily, do the stitches, then quickly take it out, iron it, and put it back on the frame for the rest of the work. Unfortunately there are four small pulled motifs which I don’t think will fit into the hoop, so they will just have to be done on the frame. It’ll be interesting to see if there is a visible difference.

While working on Orpheus I had a sudden thought that it might look better using #12 for some of the stitches; unfortunately DMC 402 doesn’t come in #12, nor does any closely-related shade, or any similar Anchor shade. Oh well. I may put a suggestion in the chart pack which stitches could look good in #12 if you happened to do it in a colour that comes in all three thicknesses. Actually, I think DMC 3813, which I’m doing the second Orpheus design in, does come in #12, so I might experiment there.

And finally, why I always stitch designs myself before putting them on the website – because sometimes it’s only when stitching a design that I realise a stitch or stitch combination which looked obvious and simple on paper actually needs a fair bit of thought when producing it with thread on fabric. The double cable stitch border surrounding the central motif will have to be done, not in the usual 2 start-wherever-you-like stages, but in 3 fairly carefully planned ones!

An unexpected gift, and some very thin Vilene

Posted on 1st November, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Do you like hand-dyed fabrics? If so you probably already know about Kate at Sparklies, one of my favourite suppliers. But there are others out there, like Sam at Chromatic Alchemy – visit her Facebook page to see some of the lovely colours and patterns she produces. I happen to know her in-laws and when I heard she was thinking of trying out sparkly materials I dug out some 28ct opalescent Lugana for her to try. She dyed it in blues and lilacs in striking swirls (the picture below doesn’t do justice to the colours but at least it shows the pattern) and then gave it to me! I feel I ought to warn her about being too generous and kind, although it seems a shame when there isn’t nearly enough of either going around in the world today.

Remember my note to self about getting some more thin black interfacing for the coasters? Well, I found a great bargain on eBay, but it’s a little different from the Vilene I had before – it works perfectly well but it’s so thin it needs to be covered with baking parchment when ironing because otherwise it sometimes crumples and sticks to the iron!

A belated Knitting and Stitching Show report

Posted on 28th October, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

It’s been a while since my last FoF, but for very pleasant reasons – first there was the Knitting & Stitching Show and my usual two-night stay in London (thank you kind sister-in-law for putting up with me once again), then my mother came to visit for a week which was lovely after her long and difficult treatment, and she was hardly on the plane back to Holland when we were off on a visit to my husband’s parents (stopping on the way to attend an auction). Now we’re back to what passes for normal here and I’ve got a little breathing space to catch up with my posting.

K&S was very enjoyable as usual; the workshop was fully booked, and in fact one lady asked if she could attend as number 13, but unfortunately I’d only brought 12 kits. Also, 12 people is really the most I can do in a workshop – even then it can be a bit of a struggle to make sure everyone gets enough attention. However, one person who’d booked didn’t turn up so the lady was able to join in after all. My favourite bit of the workshop has to be when we do the cutting, and suddenly there are gasps of surprise as the lacy look of the Hardanger almost miraculously emerges when the cut threads are pulled out – it’s always a great moment.

I had time to look around the stands as well, and had an interesting chat with the lady demonstrating goldwork at Golden Hinde where I got the gold and silver kid for Treasure Trove some time ago. I also took the opportunity of trying to find replacement threads for the discontinued Dinky Dyes perles. Stef Francis and Oliver Twists both had lovely threads, but none that would match the three DD ones. The Threadworx perles at West End Embroidery showed some promise, but still weren’t quite the thing. The people there were terribly helpful, though, going through the Weeks Dye Works threads with me and making suggestions. I noticed this at many a stand – needleworkers are quite simply a lovely helpful bunch of people! Nowhere more so than at the Calico Cat, where Carol went through all the Gloriana threads with me, and eventually gave me a skein each of stranded silk and stranded wool in the shade Monet’s Pond! If ever you need Gloriana or Valdani threads, or advice about them, do remember the Calico Cat – they haven’t got a website, but you can email them or call them at 07779 103280.

Another find was a Dutch lady selling Wonderfil threads. Most of them aren’t really suitable for Hardanger, but there was one which drew my attention: a 12wt Egyptian cotton called Fruitti (and yes, there is also a thread called Tutti. And Razzle. And Dazzle. I don’t like the names but you can’t have everything) which is similar in thickness to a perle #12. They had large bobbins which worked out cheaper but I picked a set of five small bobbins so I’d have more colours to experiment with. I’ll let you know how they stitch up. Anything else? Ah yes, five tiny wooden buttons. Remarkably restrained, don’t you think? You can see my entire haul in the picture (except for the delicious Linden Lady chocolates which had mysteriously disappeared by the time I took the photograph). By the way, isn’t the colour difference between Gloriana’s wool and silk enormous? And yet they are both given the same shade name. It makes me wonder what the silk perles of that shade are like; I may have to try them…

Kit assembly line (and one more bookmark)

Posted on 6th October, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Yay! My bulk purchase of felt tags has arrived, and very colourful it looks too. I’ve checked them all and although there are a few thin bits here and there they’ll probably all be usable; two are a bit doubtful, but if I use them myself for producing bookmarks rather than making them part of a kit I think they’ll be all right.

As you may have noticed from the picture above, there’s a new shade on the block. I included two Apple Green tags in my order, just to find out what colour it was in real life! It turns out to be a pleasantly bright shade, certainly not mossy like the photograph on Blooming Felt’s website but neither, fortunately, quite so lurid as the soft cotton picture that was said to match it. There is no suitable Anchor Multicolor shade for it though, so I won’t get any more but just stitch these two up for charity using Caron Wildflowers.

Putting kits together is a time-consuming activity, so the easier it can be made the better I like it. One effective time-saving strategy is to make lots rather than one at a time (“lots” in the context of Mabel’s Fancies meaning about two dozen). So I printed out 24 sets of instructions, attached 24 cover photographs, put 48 gold-plated needles into 24 pieces of felt, cut 24 squares of fabric and all the threads needed and here is my kit assembly line (well, assembly coffee table) before the felt tags had come in – doesn’t it look colourful? As you can see I had just started on cutting the threads for the bookmark tassels. Twelve of these kits are for next year’s Knitting & Stitching Show, the others will go on sale on the website after I’ve returned from this year’s show.

And finally one more felt tag bookmark – the first one with a cross instead of a square motif.

Congress cloth Hardanger and freedom to vary

Posted on 26th September, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Does Hardanger have to be stitched on Hardanger fabric? If you have ever browsed Mabel’s designs (or those of many other designers), you’ll know that the answer to that is “no”. In fact, when Hardanger embroidery started there was no Hardanger fabric. As long as the fabric is an evenweave, and as long as you can find threads in suitable thicknesses, you can use whatever you like, from 14ct afghan fabric to 55ct linen (I’ve seen the pictures to prove it, but haven’t been brave enough to try it myself). Even so, the fabric of choice of Nordic Needle’s Roz Watnemo has always struck me as unusual – Congress cloth.

Why unusual? It’s not the count; at 24 threads to the inch it’s perfect to use with perle #5 and #8. But it’s not a fabric – it’s a canvas. That means it’s very stiff and also quite open, both of which seemed to me unsympathetic to Hardanger. My main questions were: if the weave of the fabric is relatively open, will there be enough contrast between it and the cut parts? Won’t the stiffness make it harder to cut, and practically impossible to tuck in the cut ends? Will the stiffer threads have enough “give” when working bars, for example when pulled together in a wrapped bar? There was really only one way to find out. Try it.

To my surprise, it worked. Of course it shouldn’t really have surprised me – if an experienced Hardangerista like Roz Watnemo swears by it, it’s unlikely to be impossible. Even so, I hadn’t expected it to stitch up just as quickly as on my usual fabrics.

So how did the experience differ from my normal stitching? And will I use Congress cloth again? To begin with the first question, for one thing the material is much stiffer. You couldn’t use a hoop if you wanted to, I think. But then, you don’t need it, as tension is not really a problem with such a stable material. With a small snippet of a project like this, not having to use a hoop is quite an advantage, as it saves on material – you can stitch in hand on a little off-cut, rather than having to use a 5″ square to fit a 4″ hoop (note to self: must try a 3″ one to see if it will do; perhaps if I work “in the well”?). Not sure how I’d like to stitch anything big on this canvas, though I suppose a roller frame would work if you didn’t want to stitch a large project in hand.

Cutting was fine, the squissors coped beautifully with the stiffer threads, but as predicted, poking in the cut ends is more difficult on Congress cloth than on Hardanger fabric or Lugana (looking at pictures of Congress cloth Hardanger projects online I didn’t find any without visible cut ends). They do eventually bend back on themselves, but they are more likely to unbend again and poke their annoying little heads through the stitches. Working the bars was much easier than I’d expected: the canvas had enough “give” to allow me to pull the threads together. And finally, the look of it. That is to a great extent a matter of taste, but for me the weave is just too open – too much of the coloured backing shines through, making the contrast with the cut areas less striking.

The answer, then, is no, I won’t be using it again; at least not for Hardanger. But it was an interesting experiment to try, and I can see it would be a useful material for building up 3D Hardanger shapes such as Christmas ornaments.

As I was stitching the patch for the last of my sixteen bookmarks yesterday, I suddenly realised that I’ve completed the wrapped bar/sunburst models needed for potential kits (except for the pink and turquoise versions as I had only one tag of each and they’d already been made up with woven bar/dove’s eye patches). This means that I am now free to stitch any future felt-tag-bookmarks-for-charity with whatever backstitch motif & bar & filling combination I’d like to use. To celebrate I finished number sixteen with picots .

When I’ve ordered some more tags I’d like to try personalising one or two by stitching initials underneath the patch (chain stitch, probably). And stitch a few with the little baptism cross – being rectangular rather than square it would look good on the rectangular bookmark, and both good causes I am stitching for (Dunchurch Baptist Church‘s new building, and the Elijah Gambia foundation) are Christian, and likely to attract a fair number of fellow Christians to their charity sales. It looks like I’ll have plenty of enjoyable little projects to keep me occupied even if I don’t get round to my larger designs – and of course the annual Christmas Craft Event is looming, so I need to think up a project for that as well!

PS Two of the bookmarks are now in the hands of bibliophile friends who have promised to test-drive them ruthlessly. We’ll see how they stand up to the treatment…

Hand-made felt and the right surroundings for a sunburst

Posted on 20th September, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Would you believe it, I found I had six more tags than I thought – so I can do 16 bookmarks before having to think of ordering more! Here are the six different colours all made into bookmarks, and the first three bookmarks to use sunburst stitch instead of dove’s eye.

The first three bookmarks with sunbursts

More about the sunburst stitch later, but first the tags. It’s been really enjoyable making these bookmarks, and I’d love to make some more, but there are a few things to consider before I put my order in. First of all, much as I love these bookmarks, will other people love them enough to buy them? After all, they are meant to raise money for charity. Secondly, are all colours equal? Are the pink bookmarks going to appeal as widely as the dark blue or purple ones? And what about that unknown green? Thirdly, am I or am I not going to produce Felt Bookmark Kits? I’m tempted to put together at least one set of twelve, as my project for next year’s Knitting & Stitching Show – it would make a nice change from the needle books, which I will have used twice already by then. Fourthly, how many do I get? The difference between an order of 16 and an order of 60 is 8p per tag. And finally (and rather importantly), are the tags up to the task?

There is a reason for that last question. You may remember that one problem was that the little hole in the tag (or rather, the felt around the hole) wasn’t strong enough to hold the tassel; but that could be got round by trimming the tag and taking the tassel through with a large-eyed needle. A bigger worry is that, being hand-made, the felt isn’t equally thick throughout. In most of the sixteen tags that I have the irregularity isn’t big enough to matter, but in at least one it looks as though over time and with a fair bit of use it may start to come apart.

Now this was just one out of sixteen; and it will probably be all right. But if I were using these tags to make up kits, I’d probably choose to discard this one as not being up to scratch, which means the money spent on that tag has been wasted. So here’s what I’ll do: write to Blooming Felt (who have been very helpful in answering my previous questions) and ask whether there is a way of guaranteeing that I’ll get only usable tags, and then place an order for sixteen (the maximum number I can get at their lowest postage) including one Apple Green.

I promised you more about the sunburst stitch and here it is – my experiments with different bars. The easiest one to work is the sunburst in woven bars, and it looks great when the sunburst is worked in colour against white bars (1st picture). White on white it gets a bit cluttered, even though I pulled the woven bars quite tightly so they were thinner than usual (2nd picture). Working a sunburst in wrapped (3rd picture) and double wrapped bars (4th picture) is more fiddly, because the loops around the bars aren’t anchored (with woven bars the loops go through the bars rather than around them, so they stay put). This makes the double wrapped version more effort than it’s worth as it really isn’t any less cluttered than the woven bar version, which is much easier to work. That leaves the wrapped bar version, which is the one I will go for if these do make it into kits – a bit more work, but a nice open, airy look.

Good advice, gloves, and pretty threads

Posted on 30th August, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

First things first – three cheers for Serinde who mobilised her husband and his knowledge of printers and advised me to hoover mine. Hoovering not being one of my favourite activities, this solution to my printer problem hadn’t occurred to me, but it did the job: it no longer thinks it’s jammed, I can now use up the spare cartridges I had already bought, and just in case it decides to throw another wobbly I’ve printed out an emergency stock of Mini Kits and Notebook Kits. I feel terribly organised and prepared, and terribly grateful to Serinde and her other half!

Remember the hat I showed you, as an example of what I’d like to go with the 1930s dress I wore to the vintage car rally? Well, I haven’t found one yet, but I have found some rather nice gloves. They’re crocheted and beige rather than cream, but because of the beige bits in the handbag and shoes that’s actually quite all right. One of them needs a tiny bit of repair, and they only just fit, but they look lovely and they’ve got a dinky little button to fasten them at the wrist which is such a nice little detail.

Talking of dinky, you may remember that Dinky Dyes are discontinuing their cotton perles, some of which I used in my designs. I finally got round to ordering the Threadworx perles that I thought might work as substitutes, and they arrived today. I do love Threadworx, they have such briliant colours! Mosaic (the blue/green/purple) may be a little too bright to work instead of Daydream, but I’m sure I’ll find other uses for it even if it is. Wild Poppies (the bottom thread) is a little less bright than I’d expected, but Wild Fires I think will do very well instead of Jaffa; I’ll enjoy stitching some samples.

Other possible threads which I haven’t tried yet are produced by Tamar Embroideries; I’ve noted several shades which look as though they might be close enough to the Dinky Dyes ones. The one drawback is that they aren’t perles, but different threads of about the right thickness. So are the Treenway ones I’m considering, but because they are silk they do have that lovely shine, whereas most of the Tamar threads are a bit more matt. And then there is Stef Francis who has some possibles too – lots of pretty threads to play with before I make my decision .

A perle problem

Posted on 28th July, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

There are, of course, always problems about using hand-dyed perles. Problems inherent to the product, I mean. For one thing, dye lots can vary wildly so that a stitcher may find that her version of a particular design looks washed out compared to the stitched model, or on the contrary rather garishly bright, or much greener, or much less purple. There is the fact that they are often rather more expensive than standard perles, and (depending on the brand) not so widely available or easy to obtain. And then there is the risk of colours being discontinued.

Colours, or even whole collections. Earlier this year, Dinky Dyes was taken over by Kathy Filosi, and she decided to continue the trend towards concentrating on the silk threads at the expense of the cotton ones. This is not an insurmountable problem for the stranded cottons, as the DD stranded silks come in exactly the same shades, and those of my designs which use stranded DD (like Floral Tiles: Pansies and Patches) already specified silk rather than cotton – although it does mean that the less expensive alternative is no longer available.

The perles are a completely different story, however. Dinky Dyes do have a collection of silk perles, and very nice they are too, but the colours don’t match those of the now abandoned cotton perles. Again not too much of a problem for some designs – Round the World uses a shaded red, green, yellow and light blue which shouldn’t be too difficult to replace, perhaps with Weeks Dye Works; Citrus uses a yellow/orange/red which is not an unusual combination and might even have an Anchor or DMC near-equivalent. The difficult ones are going to be the colours used in Douglas & Heather, and especially in Sunken Treasures.

Why especially that last one? Because unlike in the other designs, where the Dinky Dyes perle is the only colour used, in Sunken Treasures it has to fit in with several shades of standard perle – blue, green and purple in dark and light. Oh well, time to trawl through my stash of hand-dyed threads to see what possible substitutes there are. For the first one, “Airlie” (the middle bobbin in the first picture), candidates are Caron’s shade Parfait (bobbin on the left; less yellow than Airlie, and cooler in shade), Threadworx’s Wildflowers (on the wooden ring; cooler in shade, and with turquoise instead of green) and Treenway’s Mandalay (bobbin on the right). The right-hand picture shows Mandalay used in another design; the colour is quite close to what I’m looking for, but it’s silk, so rather expensive, and not very easy to get. I may simply suggest all three in the chart pack and let the stitchers decide how much they are willing to spend and which colour they like best.

Finding a suitable substitute for “Daydream” (the middle bobbin in the picture below) in my stash is proving more challenging. The two closest I could find aren’t really very close at all – Caron’s Eggplant (bobbin on the left) is far too muted, and doesn’t really have any blue in it. Caron’s Appalachia (bobbin on the right) is too bright and the proportion of green is too large. Let down by my stash I looked into all those lovely threads out there which I haven’t got yet and found that my last hope is probably Threadworx’ Mosaic, which looks as though it may be a bit too dark and bold, and with a different purple, but which at least has a more “watery” look than Appalachia.

Next step? Stitch a motif from the designs using the various substitutes, and see which ones come out best (if I choose the motifs wisely they’ll do for cards or gift tags so the time, thread and effort won’t be wasted). But first it’s off to Sew & So to get Mosaic in perle #5 and #8. I wonder if there’s anything else I can order at the same time to make best use of the postage…

A confusing start to a new project

Posted on 10th June, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

One of my purchases at the Ally Pally Knitting & Stitching Show last year (and by the way, I’ll be teaching a workshop there again this year, on Friday 10th October) was a selection of hand-dyed silk organza squares.

They inspired me to two designs, or rather two sets of designs: Veiled Delight, which will have no cutting but be stitched on a square of organza on top of 25ct Lugana, and Extravorganza, which contains five variations on a theme, in sizes ranging from 84w x 84h to 148w x 148h. The idea for this design is to have relatively large cut areas through which the organza shows, with the Hardanger itself in white-on-white and surface stitching in a shade of Caron Wildflowers to match the organza.

I had actually planned to start on one of the Orpheus designs – I’ve ironed the fabric (a lovely Sparklies hand-dyed), got out the roller frame, bought the threads, but somehow I don’t seem to get round to it. Perhaps because it’s one of my larger designs, and I am, as you know, a small-project girl at heart. Whatever the reason, when the time came for my weekly stitching group I kitted up Extravorganza, picking five organza squares and spending a very pleasant quarter of an hour choosing five Wildflowers to go with them. The three smaller variations, 84w x 84h and 92w x 92h, should all fit into a 6″ hoop, the first one easily, the other two with a bit less room. I decided to start with the smallest. As I got to the end of the Kloster blocks it became clear that with the coloured surface stitching surrounding the Kloster blocks it was going to be, not tight, but definitely not as roomy as I’d expected in a 6″ hoop. Could it be I’d miscalculated? Or had I picked up the wrong hoop?

The answer was much simpler. I was stitching the wrong design. Somehow I’d managed to turn over the chart and stitch the one on the back, which was the slightly larger size. Oh well, no harm done, they all need to be stitched anyway, but it did make me scratch my head a bit until I realised!

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Materials & Equipment