Support your LNS

Posted on 19th November, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

I haven’t written in absolute ages, for which my apologies. In my defence I will say that we’ve been away for a week, visiting the Lake District, and that the time before and after a week away tends to be taken up with "getting everything done before we leave" and "dealing with the backlog".

We made the most of the beautiful scenery by going for plenty of walks (the friends we were with have a dog, which makes walkies even more of a joy), and we joined the local church for a very moving Remembrance Day service. We also found the most gorgeous pub which did very good food indeed (check out the Kirkstile Inn when you’re next in Loweswater), and if it wasn’t for the many walks we’d have gained at least a stone. Each.

You may wonder what all this has to do with the topic of this post; you may even wonder what an LNS is (it took me some time to find out when I first saw it mentioned on stitching forums!) Well, LNS stands for Local Needlework Shop, and there are precious few of them left, so if you’re lucky enough to have one, please use it! I realise that the prices of these independent shops may be a bit higher than those of online shops, and that if you want something special they may have to order it in and you won’t be able to HAVE IT NOW! but there is something about being able to see threads and fabrics in the flesh (or should that be "in the fibre"?), chatting about your next project while choosing materials, and asking advice from a fellow enthusiast which you just don’t get online.

Unfortunately there is no LNS where I live (although there is a fabric shop which does stranded cotton and the like) so I am reduced to supporting other people’s LNS. Smuggler’s Needlecraft in Ilfracombe springs to mind, and Stitches Coven in Shanklin, Isle of Wight. This time it was The Silver Beaded Needle in Cockermouth.

My husband will tell you that whenever I spot an as yet unknown needlework shop my eyes start to sparkle and there is a distinct spring in my step as I walk to look at the shop window before going in. Often it turns out to be mostly sewing machines or knitting wool or quilting fabrics. Occasionally it surpasses my wildest expectations. As it did here.

Stranded cotton, yes. Aida, yes. But also beads, sparkly fabrics, Caron threads, Thread Gatherer threads, Sweetheart Tree kits, Pearsall’s silks! I was beginning to feel quite giddy, and then the lady behind the counter, who saw me looking at the Pearsall’s silk perles, said "the Pearsall’s stranded silk is on offer, there’s a whole basket of it over there". You will not be surprised to know that it took me about a second and a half to get "over there", where a treasure trove of pretty silks at a 40% discount was waiting for me. In the end I got six (3 pairs of shades), which I hope to use for Hardanger on 28ct or 32ct fabric.

What better souvenir of your holiday than threads you will be using later? You can enjoy the threads and remember the holiday at the same time! But I did get another souvenir as well. I have two (three if you count a broken one) Victorian stereoscopes, with which you view stereoscopic photos; these consist of two photos next to each other, and seen through the viewer they become three-dimensional. I had hoped for a local view – the Lakes must surely have attracted many stereo-photographers over the years – but unfortunately I didn’t find any. I did find a souvenir, though; of my own country. It shows the Dutch fishing village of Marken, showing people in traditional costume. Who would have thought I’d find that in the Lake District!

The Knitting & Stitching Show

Posted on 16th October, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

Last week I went on my annual gallivant (as my husband calls it) to London to visit the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. Well, I did some other things as well – I attended an opera lecture about L’Elisir d’Amore with my sister-in-law (and managed not to embarrass her by singing along), went for a lovely contemplative walk in Brompton cemetery, saw beautiful jewellery (including some that is typical of regional Dutch costume) at the V&A, and had lunch at my favourite Lebanese restaurant Le Comptoir Libanais. But the main reason or excuse was the K&S show, and I had a wonderful time there.

Some of the things I did there were Mabel-related; distributing flyers about the forthcoming SAL, delivering a sample kit to the lady who organises their workshops, and scouting out new threads and other materials. I found some lovely shades of hand-dyed fabric at Sparklies, but as Kate usually doesn’t bring any 25ct I tend to just make notes and order later. This time she did have one new shade with her, though, so I snapped it up. It’s called Caribbean and is a lovely light purply turquoisy blue. I also couldn’t resist a pair of Oliver Twists silks, although they are really too thick to use on my usual fabric. I may try them on 18ct and see how that works. Then there were some Miyuki seed beads – I usually use Mill Hill, but for some time now I have wanted to try Miyuki beads to compare them, and I found a lovely shade which happened to tone beautifully with the silks. How is that for serendipity! Some gold and silver pearl purl (wonderful name), a Japanese braiding implement, two tiny scissor charms and two strong magnets completed my purchases. Quite restrained, I thought!

You may have noticed that the magnets aren’t in the photograph. That’s because they were already in use when I took it, stuck to my Lowery workstand and holding on to my scissors and needles. They really are remarkably strong and keep everything quite secure. The only problem is that my scissors have gone slightly magnetic and keep picking up the needle I’m working with …

I always try to do at least one workshop when visiting the show, and if I do more than one I like to have at least one which is completely new to me. This year I did two, one on goldwork and one on bobbin lace. I did a RSN goldwork workshop two years ago (and must shamefacedly admit that I still haven’t finished the bee project) and thought this might refresh my memory. The bobbin lace workshop was going to be my big challenge, as I have never done anything like it and the thought of all those pins and bobbins makes my head spin. As it was it turned out to be easier and much more enjoyable than I’d expected, at least in part because the tutors had come up with a simple project that was not too scary for a complete novice, and that could actually be finished within the 1-hour slot! With the rather thick threads and no added twists it looks remarkably like weaving, which I suppose it is in a way. We turned it into a sort of flower or rosette which could be stuck to a birthday card. The goldwork dragonfly, as you can see, did not get finished on the day.

However, I didn’t want the dragonfly to languish like the bee, so I took it to my stitching group and finished it there. I’m really quite pleased with it and am now determined to finish the RSN bee as well some time this year!

January has been charted and stitched!

Posted on 3rd October, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

General rejoicing and all-round jubilation! Having had a stack of pencil sketches and scribbled notes stare at me accusingly from my desk for the past few months I have finally got the first of the SAL designs charted and even *gasp* stitched – only 11 more to go …

I was slightly hampered by the fact that I have lent my only 6" hoop to one of the students at the Guildhouse course, and it’s the 6" hoop I need for these 12 small designs. Fortunately I remembered that somewhere in the back of a drawer of my stash cabinet there were a few Siesta bar frames which I picked up at the Knitting & Stitching Show a couple of years ago, and one of them was a 6" one. They work by slotting the four sides together and stapling the fabric to it; doesn’t do the edges of the fabric much good but it’s fine for projects that are small enough not to have to be moved around.

You will notice the fabric in the picture is empty. I’d have liked to show you the finished January project, but as it’s supposed to be a Mystery SAL that will have to wait until next year. However, it’s beginning to look like I will be able to put up the complete materials list on 1st November as planned, which is encouraging!

Model stitching for the Guildhouse course (III)

Posted on 1st October, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

The models for week 3 (Hardanger/ribbon) and week 2 (silk) were stitched out of sequence, but I’m back on track with week 4 which will be miniature work on silk gauze. I’ve chosen a 40ct gauze, so 40 stitches to the inch. That sounds impossibly fine, but because of the open weave it is actually a lot more "visible" than you’d expect. Another advantage of silk gauze is that the weave is interlocking, so the fabric threads don’t move. This means you can work petit point on it without having to worry about your working thread slipping between the fabric threads.

The open weave does mean that you cannot trail threads across parts that won’t be stitched, because they will be very visible indeed from the front. And on this small scale it is definitely difficult to keep your stitches regular; especially if you choose to do full cross stitch rather than petit point, as I did because I like the coverage better. And even more when there are only one or two stitches of a colour which you need to squeeze in among other colours, as in the "eyes" on the tail! But fortunately that is only really noticeable in close-up, especially in close-up photographs. So I hope you appreciate my courage in showing you just that, a close-up photograph of a mini peacock:

And just to give you a sense of scale, here it is with a standard-sized match. I am offering students the option of going for a 28ct evenweave or a 20ct aida if they find the silk gauze a bit too much of a challenge …

PS for those who would like to try miniature work on silk gauze: it is available in a range of counts, from 32ct to 112ct (no, I haven’t tried that one yet). It tends to be sold in small pieces, sometimes mounted in a card frame, but occasonally you find a shop which sells it in larger cuts. Janet Grainger and Nicola Mascall are good for small to medium-sized cuts, Willow Fabrics stock 13" square cuts in four different counts, and the Dutch shop Kunst & Vliegwerk sells a large piece (about 10" x 20") of 40ct at a ridiculously low price.

Model stitching for the Guildhouse course (II)

Posted on 29th September, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

Two more models for the course have been completed, and neither of them changed very much! But before I tell you a bit more about one of them, here is some work the students did in the first week:

On to week 2, when they were going to get to grips with silks. I love silks, and I’m always happy to point people in the direction of stash they didn’t know they needed. So the project was a proper, old-fashioned sampler – a piece of stitching that shows samples of threads or stitches or patterns that the stitchers wants to keep for future reference. Six different stitches (Rhodes heart, leaf stitch, colonial knot, satin stitch motif, chain stitch and cross stitch in two sizes) and six different silks, yielding 36 possible combinations. And having all those combinations in one piece will show very effectively which silks look best in which type of stitch.

The silks used are Carrie’s Creation stranded silk (red), Vinyard Silk Classic (blue), Caron Soie Cristale (yellow), Eterna stranded silk (green), Thredfairy silk cord (cream) and Midori Matsushima Japanese flat silk, 10 suga (purple). I thought all these threads were still available but have just found out that Eterna silk, that affordable flat stranded silk which came in about 500 colours, is no longer available. A sad day for silk lovers. Here, however, it is "in action" with its five fellow-silks.

It was lovely to stitch this sampler and feel all the different textures; Carrie’s is a twisted silk, Vineyard consists of two flat and slightly fuzzy plies, Caron is very lightly twisted and has a bit more body than Carrie’s, Eterna is a 12-stranded silk whose strands are practically flat, Thredfairy is a tightly twisted perle thread, and the Japanese silk is so soft and flat and beautiful that just stroking it is a pleasure! It snags on absolutely everything, but a few gentle strokes with finger or needle and it’s ready to go again. The difference between the six silks show up more clearly in real life, I’m afraid, but photographing the sampler with flash helps a bit to show the different textures and the way they catch the light.

So were there no changes at all to this design before it got used in class? No, but there are two things I will probably change if I ever use it again. First of all I would probably use a soft silk like Crescent Colour Belle Soie or Gloriana Silk Floss instead of the Caron thread, which doesn’t contrast enough with Carrie’s silk. Secondly I would replace the chain stitch with a flower made up of lazy daisy stitches, as I found that this section was very challenging for a number of the students. And there will have to be a third change as well – I’ll need to find a good substitute for Eterna!

Another two silks – Vineyard and Dinky Dyes

Posted on 14th August, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

Sometimes you come across threads that are irresistible, even though you’re not absolutely sure what you’ll do with them. Some Vineyard Silks I bought a number of years ago are a case in point. They were gorgeous, with a beautiful, slightly fuzzy lustre which reminded me of the silks you see on very old embroideries, or on those very ornate 18th century waistcoats and dresses. They were also far too thick for anything I was doing at that time, which was mainly cross stitch.

And yet I got several of their standard silks (in four shades of lavendery blue) and one of their Shimmer silks, which have a metallic thread running through them. I might not use them in stitching, but I could look at them and (yes, I’ll admit it) occasionally stroke them. Petting silk threads is a singularly satisfying thing to do, and very therapeutic; try it if you don’t believe me!

But let’s get back to stitching. I realised that it was possible to separate the 3 plies that make up the thread, and that separately they worked rather well as a thickish flat silk. Petit point on 18ct gave lovely coverage and a beautiful sheen. Unfortunately, I do very little petit point on 18ct.

But then I started doing hardanger. Hardanger uses far thicker threads than cross stitch. Could I perhaps use the Vineyard silks instead of #5 perle? Some sources suggested it was more like a #3, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. What to combine them with, though? I happened to have three silk perles by Dinky Dyes as well, a #5, #8 and #12, in three different shades of blue. Why not kill two birds with one stone and try out the Vineyard and Dinky Dyes together?

I began with unsplit Vineyard Classic combined with DD silk perle #8. Coverage in the Kloster blocks is good, and the silk perle has a lovely strong and textured sheen, but it is perhaps a little bulky in the backstitch.

The next combination was another of the Vineyard Classic shades with DD silk perle #12. I like that much better than the #8 – it has the same strong sheen but it shows more detail in the backstitch, and also in the square filet; it would be even more noticeable, I think, if I’d used a dove’s eye.

Then there was the Vineyard Shimmer. This was a golden shade and I had no DD perles that would go with it. But I did have some Kanagawa 1000. This is a 1000 denier silk cord which is used by Gloriana as the base for their princess Perle Petite, which I love.

I was not disappointed. The Vineyard Shimmer with its single metallic thread among the silk has a subtle sparkle, and the Kanagawa makes for crisp backstitch and a well-defined square filet. The only drawback is that Vineyard Shimmer can sometimes be a little awkward to work with, and the metallic strand occasionally bunches up, but most of the time it’s well-behaved, and the effect is definitely worth it.

Stash: the stitcher’s hermit crab

Posted on 8th August, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

Hermit crabs have no shell of their own, and so they use empty, left-over shells to protect themselves. The trouble with using someone else’s shell, however, is that when you grow, it doesn’t grow with you. And so every now and again the hermit crab will find that it is getting rather cramped in its present abode, and that it needs to look for a new, larger shell.

Isn’t it remarkable just how reminiscent this is of stash?

You start stitching. It doesn’t take much – a piece of fabric, a needle, scissors and some thread. At first, it all fits into a small plastic bag, with room to spare. Then you get some more fabric; different counts, perhaps, and in several colours. Possibly you even venture into pretty hand-dyeds and opalescents. And of course for every new project colours are needed that you haven’t got yet. They get added, as well as speciality threads, metallics, perle cottons, silks, for that special touch. Talking of special touches, how about beads? And charms? The original plastic bag is now only just big enough for the fabrics, and all the threads and beads and other thingummybobs need their own boxes.

So you’ve got everything in neat boxes and bags, either sorted by number or colour, and doesn’t it all look wonderful! Then you buy one more colour – will it squeeze into the box? Just! But the next colour doesn’t have a hope …

That’s what happened with my perle cottons. They were housed in two boxes: the #12 perles in the drawer of my Dragonfly box, which also holds my Caron threads and silk perles, and the #8 and #5 perles in a wooden box I was given by a kind friend. The #5 perles live on hinged metal rings, and were draped on top of the balls of #8. But what with Rainbow Wings and the SAL and Gingham Gems my collection was rapidly outgrowing its comfortable "shell"! So I started looking for shallow boxes to hold the #8. I found some in laminated cardboard, which looked quite useful but came to about £15 each which seemed a bit much for cardboard; I looked into wooden boxes with drawers but they were either not the right size, or beautiful antiques several hundred pounds beyond my budget.

Then we went to Holland on our holiday and in one of those useful shops which sell anything from underwear to baking trays to camping gas I found these, at €1.99 each:

Not particularly attractive, but the right size, stackable, and cheap. And once I’d put my threads in, they suddenly looked quite pretty!

And just to demonstrate the way in which stash simply keeps growing – while in Holland I bought a few more things; some useful, some just very pretty and very moreish. A metre each of White and Antique White 25ct Lugana falls into the first category. These lovely Au Ver à Soie silk ribbons definitely come in the second. One of them will be used in the speciality thread version of the Song of the Weather SAL; I haven’t decided yet which one, but I can’t wait to stitch something with the coffee/chocolate ribbon!

The sad demise of titanium squissors

Posted on 19th July, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

December 15, 2012 – Note: Since writing this post I found a supplier so titanium-coated squissors are now once again available!

Some time ago I wrote about a workman’s (or needlewoman’s) tools, and in particular about my new toy, the Lowery stand. Today I’d like to tell you about another piece of equipment I use for pretty much all my projects: squissors.

As you can see, squissors are a cross between scissors and tweezers. Unlike scissors, they are open by default – this means they can be a bit difficult to store. I keep mine two of mine in the packaging they came in, which has a card back that slides in and out of the plastic front; the third one came with a handy little flexible plastic widget that fits over the tips, keeping them safely together. Squissors come with straight or curved blades; I use the straight-bladed ones, having once tried curved blade scissors with a singular lack of success.

The squissors shown above are the ones you’re most likely to find in shops or online. They are my third pair, and I keep them for back-up. They are fine to work with, and I’d be perfectly happy with them if it wasn’t for the fact that my first pair of squissors are even better. I didn’t know they were anything special when I bought them; in fact, I wasn’t sure squissors were really going to be my thing. But the shop that I was buying some supplies from at the time happened to sell this particular brand: Dobra Craft titanium squissors.

They are gorgeous! I mean, they’re very pretty to look at with that sort of oil-on-water look, but that’s not their main claim to gorgeousness. It’s the fact that they are sharp to the tips, and (according to the information I found about them) self-sharpening, so they should last pretty much forever. They are also very, very accurate. Well, that partly depends on the hand that holds them, obviously … but I found that if I tried to do the same thing once with my stork scissors and once with squissors, it was always easier, quicker and more accurate with the squissors.

But before you all run out to your local needlework shop (if you are lucky enought to have one) or fire up the browser for some online shopping, I have to tell you some sad news. Dobra Craft are no longer Dobra Craft, they do surgical instruments only now, and the people who took over from them appear to have discontinued the line. Shops which according to Google sell titanium squissors turn out not to, or not anymore. One shop had just one left, which I immediately snapped up. Should you find a pair anywhere, grab them and hang on to them! Should you find a shop that has a dozen or so left, let me know and I’ll get the lot for Mabel’s Fancies.

So what if you can’t find titanium squissors for love or money? I’d still advise any Hardanger stitcher to get a pair of the widely available ones – as I said, they are good in their own right, and will make cutwork a lot easier. And how do you use squissors? Well, it has to be said that you have to get used to them, and a few practice snips on some left-over scraps of fabric are definitely a good idea, but once you’ve got the hang of it it soon becomes second nature.

One thing to bear in mind is that, as with so many things in stitching, there are often several "right" ways of doing things. Some people prefer to keep the scissors parallel to the fabric and cut all four threads bordered by a Kloster block in one go. Personally I always advise people to hold the scissors/squissors at right angles to the fabric, and snip the threads one by one. I also find it helpful to turn the work so that the Kloster block sits to the right of where I’m cutting, but again, others will not turn the work at all. The thing to do is to try out several ways, and see which works for you. Below are some pictures which show how I do the cutting; they also show how to hold the squissors. Why not get a pair, have a try, and let me know how you get on!

Hold the squissors at right angles to the fabric

Keep the Kloster block to the right of the squissors

Three more new silks – Treenway

Posted on 4th July, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

Some years ago I bought a grab bag of odds and ends from Treenway Silks, a Canadian company selling hand-dyed silks. They have since changed owners and moved to America, but the silks are still gorgeous, and the people are very helpful.

In their range of silks there are three which are of interest to any Hardangerers out there (a lovely term coined by Midge of the Cross Stitch Forum) – from thin to thick they are Fine Cord Reeled Silk, 20/2 Spun Silk and 8/2 Reeled Silk. Should you wonder, reeled or filament silk is taken from the cocoon in one unbroken thread, which can be combined and twisted to make a thicker thread; spun silk is made from shorter fibres, for example the ones from cocoons from which the moth has emerged, or from the leftovers of reeled silk. Reeled silk is stronger, less prone to fuzziness and fraying (so longer threads can be used), and generally shinier (although that depends also on whether it is flat or twisted).

Treenway describe these three types of thread as being equivalent to a buttonhole twist, #8 perle and #3 perle. I’ve not yet worked out what exactly a buttonhole twist is, but the few threads I’ve seen which go by that name seem to be tightly twisted perle threads somewhere between #8 and #12. Treenway’s #3 thread is interesting in that at first glance it is not very perle-like as it doesn’t have a very strong twist, and it doesn’t look nearly as thick as a #3; in fact, it looks more like a very slightly more chunky #5. So I decided to try it for Kloster blocks, with the 20/2 silk for the other stitches.

Like some other thick silks and also Caron Watercolours, the effect of the Kloster blocks is less textural than with a perle cotton, or a tightly twisted silk perle like Gloriana, but I rather like the look of these blocks with their five stitches almost blending into each other. Coverage is great, as you would expect from a thicker-than-#5 thread, and not too bulky. The 20/2 works well as a #8 substitute, but feels a little thicker. I didn’t stitch the little backstitch motifs in this experiment, but I think the thread would have been a little too thick for them to be well-defined.

Would the Fine Cord perhaps work better? At this point I only had the grab-bag threads, so it wasn’t easy to find pairs of threads that would go together, but I managed to find a green 20/2 and a variegated green Fine Cord which made a usable combination. Having to use the thinner of the "perles" for the Kloster blocks meant using a finer fabric, so I tried this combination on 28ct.

As you can see, the 20/2 is not quite thick enough to give good coverage in the Kloster blocks, even on 28ct. It’s just about acceptable, but cut ends keep poking out. The Fine Cord is gorgeous – easy to work with and what a lovely shine!

Ideally, then, I’d use the 8/2 silk and the Fine Cord together on 25ct (and they’d probably work fine on 22ct as well). There was one problem: the grab bag had not contained any of these that would go together. Oh dear. It looked like I’d have to buy a few colours just to experiment with …

I did (bet that didn’t surprise you). I got two sets of 8/2 and Fine Cord, plus a single Fine Cord in their delectable shade Tangiers to use on one of the Round Dozen. And here is the result (this shade is St Thomas):

Like most silks, especially hand-dyed ones, these threads aren’t cheap. But for a special project, or as a treat to yourself, they are just perfect.

A bad workman blames his tools…

Posted on 20th June, 2012 by Flights of Fancy

… but a good needlewoman praises hers – credit where credit is due! Mind you, having seen some of the gorgeous work that 17th and 18th-century embroiderers produced with never a daylight lamp, bead nabber or magnetic chart holder in sight I suppose a really good needlewoman will produce beautiful results whatever her tools are like, but I certainly find that some tools make my stitching life a lot easier and more comfortable.

Those of you who keep an occasional eye on my page of Planned projects may have noticed that Fruit of the Spirit has disappeared from there, but has not yet appeared anywhere else on the site. This is because it was originally meant to come out in May, and I did in fact start working on it then. However, it is now past the middle of June and it is not yet finished. And why? Because of a scroll frame.

Well, that’s not really fair on the scroll frame, which is a perfectly good one. It’s just rather bigger than anything I usually work with. At 12" it may seem small enough to some of you, but it simply doesn’t work for me; I find it cumbersome and heavy and uncomfortable, and consequently I only really worked on Fruit at my weekly stitching group (where I can lean the frame against the table) or during rare daytime stitching moments at the weekend when I seat myself at the dining room table. But in the evening in my usual comfy arm chair? No.

Perhaps a workstand might make a difference? I looked into what was available and of course also asked my fellow members at the Cross Stitch Forum. Many of them were full of enthusiasm for their Lowery workstands, and it did have one great advantage over most of the other stands I had seen: it grips the frame by the side bar rather than by the top scroll bar. With a top grip I’d always worry about damaging the fabric. Some of the other stands did have accessories to get round that, but why add an extra complication? I also like the fact that it looks very simple and relatively unobtrusive, and that it stands by your side rather than in front of you.

But would it really make a difference? And would I be able to work with the frame floating, as it were, in front of me? My husband agreed to act as stand-in stand, holding my frame the way the workstand would, and I found that apart from a slight wobble which I attributed to the fact that my husband comes with hands rather than metal clamps it really seemed the ideal solution. So I decided to take the plunge and order it – only to be asked whether I would like it for an anniversary present! I’m sure you can guess my answer …

And so I am now the proud owner of a Lowery workstand, and I love it. It is stable, easily adjustable, simple to swing out of the way when I need to get up, and the frame just sits there in front of me without my having to support it in any way – brilliant! I also made as much progress on Fruit of the Spirit in one evening as I had in the previous two weeks, so expect it in Mabel’s shop very soon.

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Materials & Equipment