Holiday finds and shades of black

Posted on 31st August, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Last week we had the opportunity to stay at the seaside flat of friends of ours in Norfolk and despite some changeable weather – including the tail end of storm Francis – we had a very relaxing and enjoyable time. Flat countryside, windmills and the North Sea, what more could a Dutch girl wish for .

I even managed to pick up a few stitch-related goodies! The local charity shop provided me with a book about blackwork for a mere 50p, and at a nearby art & craft centre I found a very pretty ceramic magnet and a little jewellery dish made by Wilton Road Ceramics. Sue, the lady who is Wilton Road Ceramics, was working on some story stones while we were there, which was interesting to watch. The magnet is now serving as a needle minder on my Lowery stand; the little tray could be used for odds and ends while stitching, I suppose, but has instead been designated my tea bag dish – an almost equally important task.

While on holiday I did some work on the Ottoman Tulip. I had hoped to bring a different travel project, one which I’d done some sketches for, but unfortunately I ran out of time to finish drawing the design properly, let alone choose the threads, iron the fabric, transfer the design and hoop up. The Ottoman Tulip sits undisturbed in one of my document boxes most of the time, but there is no denying it comes into its own when the need for a travel project arises: it’s small, uses only a few colours, and is made up of areas to be filled in using mainly split stitch and stem stitch, so I hardly need to look at my notes.

In the course of stitching this design (which I started in October last year) there have been a few dilemmas about colour. I’m using Carrie’s Creation overdyed stranded cotton, which with hindsight was not ideal as I’ve since found out they have been discontinued. Still, the slight variegation in them does work very well in capturing the not-quite-solid shades of the original medieval tile, and unless I decide to turn this design into a chart pack it doesn’t matter that my stitched model can’t be replicated exactly.

The original tile uses only two blues, but I realised a bit too late that the darker of my blues was going to make the whole piece look very dark indeed if I used it for the two outer areas as well as for the main tulip. I decided to bring in a third blue, which does not go with the other two quite as well as I’d hoped, but at least will contrast better with the surrounding black lines. Which brings me to the other change.

For the black lines I’d picked Raven, which lives up to its name being a very deep black. But the black in the original tile is not actually a pure black – it is slightly washed out. I looked through my box of Carrie’s Creation to see if there was anything else that might work. There were two: Double Shot and Soot. Double Shot, as the name suggests, is a very very dark coffee colour; practically black, but a warm black. Soot is a purer grey but looking at it on the bobbin I felt it might be too light.

In the end I decided I’d try them both, working each of the two thin black leaves on either side of the flower in a different shade. For some reason I’d brought only Double Shot with me to Norfolk, so I started with that. And I liked it so much that I won’t bother with Soot! (It’s difficult to get it to show up in the photograph, but it is a rich, dark colour that is not quite black.)

And that’s where I leave the Ottoman Tulip until I next need a travel project – which under the current circumstances may well be a while… Meanwhile I have plenty of other projects to occupy myself with; not just the existing bunch (which is quite large enough) but a few new ones as well. Watch out for Hope, and a Russian inspired design which has yet to find a name.

Another book and some deepish hoops

Posted on 31st July, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

My embroidery library is growing apace (there’s another book in the post as we speak) and this week a very exciting addition arrived: Alison Cole’s Goldwork Masterclass. I’ve not had a chance to read it in great detail, but even a quick leaf-through is enough to show me this was a Good Buy!

Mind you, I was pretty sure it would be. I was seduced into buying it by the very thorough and richly-illustrated review on Mary Corbet’s blog. She has the book in her shop, so if you’re in North America that’s you sorted; stitchers in Australia and New Zealand can buy it straight from the author. However, if like me you’re in the UK I highly recommend getting it from Sarah at Golden Hinde, who is Alison Cole’s official UK distributor – it saves on postage, and it supports a local business that always gives great customer service.

Another exciting parcel contained not one but four additions to my collection of hoops. Yes, I managed to find a UK source of deep Nurge/Prym hoops! Well, sort of.

I was really hoping to try Nurge’s 24mm deep hoops, and so I emailed the company in Turkey, asking whether they sold direct to customers or preferably whether they had a UK distributor. They very promptly replied with the name and email address of their UK wholesaler. I’d found them on the internet before, but didn’t think I’d qualify for a wholesale account; still, I wrote to them and asked whether they knew of anyone selling the deep hoops retail. They did, and referred me to Katie Symonds at Crafty Imaginations. I had a very informative email conversation with her, in which she explained that she didn’t stock the 24mm hoops because postage was so expensive that no-one would buy them, but that she did have the whole range of 16mm hoops. I’m sure you’re not surprised that I bought several to try them out .

Like the shallow hoops they feel smooth and sturdy, and for these relatively small sizes (I got the four from 13cm to 22cm) 16mm is actually quite deep enough. The larger quilting hoops I have are 20mm deep, so 24mm may well be too much of a good thing; also, although the Lowery’s clamp could accommodate them, I’m not sure either of my other clamps (table and seat) could take something that deep.

Anyway, for now I have the medium-deep ones to try, and of course they will need binding. Unfortunately I only had about two-and-a-half metres of my usual 20mm herringbone tape left, so I ordered some more, and in the meantime decided to bind at least one of them. I picked up the 16cm one first, then for no reason whatsoever switched to the 19cm one. Bad move. I didn’t take a photograph, but suffice it to say that I came to the end of the tape with about 2cm of bare hoop still showing. Sigh. Still, that meant it would amply cover the 16cm hoop, which indeed it did.

And now that it’s bound I want to use it! So I’ve hooped up a card project I need for tomorrow (yes, it’s a bit last-minute…) for the 50th anniversary of a lovely couple of friends. Excuse me if I rush off, won’t you – I need to get stitching!

Next day PS: Got the stitching done in time – three cheers for embroidery which allows us to create something simple yet festive in an evening!

Prym and proper

Posted on 18th July, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Do you have any favourite brands? I love Dutch apple butter (we call it “appelstroop”, literally apple syrup), which comes in quite a few brands, but Timson is the one for me. Is it really better than the others? Perhaps, although it would be difficult to prove – but it’s the brand I grew up with, and to me the others are just not quite the right thing.

In the same way I have favourite brands in stitching equipment, and more particularly a favourite brand of needles and hoops. As with apple butter, it’s terribly difficult to prove that they are better than other brands – so much is a matter of personal taste and preference. But as you will know if you are a regular FoF reader, I could actually tell the difference between my favourite needles and other brands in what was in effect a blind test (long story, but it revolved around discarded packaging, and thinking I was using one brand while actually using another – and not liking it). My favourites, in case you didn’t read about that particular comparison, are Prym’s between needles (or “halblang”, “half long”, as they call them).

My only gripe (and it is a minor one) with Prym’s between needles is that the no. 5 and no. 3 sizes, which I find just right for crewel embroidery and which I’ve been using on my RSN Jacobean piece instead of the John James chenille and embroidery needles they put in the starter pack, are not available separately – you can only get them in a mixed pack with no. 7s, of which I have a lot already. Still, the surplus no. 7s can be used up in kits, so not a major problem.

Sometimes you might like to try a brand, only to run into unexpected difficulties. One of these difficulties is what I would like to call the American conundrum. There are certain things which are for sale in America, such as a particular brand of lovely dense linens and extra deep Hardwicke Manor hoops, recommended as the ultimate in hoops by many a respected source. These linens and hoops are imported from Europe. “Oh goody,” you think as a European embroiderer, “I’ll get them from Europe and save on the postage”. And then you find that they are actually extremely difficult if not impossible to find in any European shop. The only Hardwicke Manor hoops I managed to find in the UK were standard depth square ones (rounded squares, really), which I didn’t want.

I did have some larger deep hoops from the RSN’s shop, and they are perfectly good – I’d just heard so much about the Hardwicke Manor hoops I really wanted to try one. Oh well. However, what I did discover while trying to find these particular hoops was that Prym, my favourite needle brand, did hoops too!

Interestingly, their sizes don’t go up in inches. As Prym is a German brand it wasn’t too surprising to find that they are metric rather than imperial, increasing by 3cm at a time – at Jaycott’s, where I got mine, they come in 13cm, 16cm, 19cm, 22cm and 25cm. I tried out two of the smaller ones first, and I was impressed: the hoops come with reassuringly solid brass fittings, the beech wood is beautifully smooth and they are quite sturdy compared to other hoops I had in my stash. In the picture below the orange arrows point to the Prym hoops, the blue arrow to an unbranded hoop from my stash (outer hoops only). I soon got all the other sizes Jaycott’s offered as well.

When I got the hoops, I noticed that the metal fittings all carried a number, from no. 2 on the smallest hoop to no. 6 on the largest. This suggested there was at least one other size, a no. 1, probably 10cm in diameter. Then, although the tags on the hoops carried the name Prym and had a lot of German on them, a different name was branded into the wood: Nurge. More research was obviously called for.

The no. 1 hypothesis was soon confirmed when I found the 10cm hoop on Sarah Homfray’s website. Some further Googling revealed Nurge to be a Turkish brand, and excitingly their hoops come in three different depths (8mm, 16mm and 24mm) as well as eight different diameters (up to 31cm). They only problem is that so far I haven’t been able to find the deeper ones for sale anywhere. But the search continues!

For now I enjoy using the hoops I’ve got, whether Prym or Nurge or both. As Shakespeare would have said if he’d been a stitcher, what’s in a name? That which we call a Prym hoop by any other name would work as well. They may not strictly speaking be Prym, but they are certainly proper .

Another trial fabric to use with another book

Posted on 22nd June, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Some time ago now I got Thread Painting and Silk Shading by Margaret Dier (from the same series as the Lizzy Pye and Becky Quine books). It’s got lots of interesting information and some pretty projects (must try felt padded stitching some time – I’ve used it in goldwork of course, under metallic kid, chipping and cutwork but never under other types of embroidery).

One of them, a small part-padded Japanese flower (there are also some interesting Chinese ones) struck me as perfect to try out two new Empress Mills samples: their Egyptian cotton. They sent me white and natural, and I tried one without and one with backing fabric. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the samples when they arrived, so I can only show them with the stitching!

These two little projects also offered a nice opportunity to use different types of silk: a spun silk, overdyed Soie d’Alger (Chameleon Threads’ Shades of Africa), for the un-backed version on natural cotton, and a discontinued flat reeled silk called Eterna on the backed version on white. Spun silk is generally easier to work with than reeled silk, which is made from the continuous silk filament as it comes off the silk worm’s cocoon (and is therefore also known as filament silk); filament silk, especially when it’s a flat silk, will snag on thin air but it has an incredible sheen, whereas the lustre of spun silk is a little more muted.

Chameleon Threads' Shades of Africa overdyed Soie d'Alger

The version without any backing stood up remarkably well to some serious stitching, especially the padding which is worked with 6 strands in the needle, which means that where it doubles up around the eye I was pulling 12 strands through the fabric. In spite of this rough treatment, there were no obvious holes or distortions in the fabric. Thumbs up!

The design drawn onto the natural cotton

On the version with backing I decided I could try an extra layer of padding, as the petals weren’t quite as rounded as I’d hoped and expected with a single layer. Even though the unbacked fabric had taken the full six strands for the padding surprisingly well, I felt that two layers of six strands might be inflicting a bit too much of a challenge on the fabric in spite of the strengthening layer of muslin behind it; on the other hand, adding an extra layer of padding but making both layers less voluminous would rather defeat the purpose. I compromised by using three strands doubled in the needle – I’d still be stitching with six strands, but there wouldn’t be the extra bulk of the tail going through the eye.

Six strands in the needle, twelve strands by the eye

Three doubles dtrands in the needle, six strands by the eye

The extra padding definitely worked to make the outside of the petals more curvaceous and the difference in height towards the centre more noticeable, and with the sheen of the flat silk that shows up even more (although unfortunately it seems to be impossible to capture the effect satisfactorily in a photograph if you’re an amateur). And the fabric behaved beautifully – not surprisingly, as apart from the colour it is exactly the same as the one used for the other flower and it had the added advantage of a backing fabric. The pure white is a bit stark for my taste, so I would probably have the natural-coloured cotton as my default choice.

The first row of long and short stitch in shiny flat silk

A successful experiment then, both because I enjoyed trying out this part-padded embroidery and seeing how it gave a more subtle lift to the petals than complete padding, and because I’ve got another fabric to add to my list of Useful Embroidery Fabrics!

In the pink

Posted on 4th June, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Nearly eight years ago I tried some embroidery scissors at a Knitting & Stitching Show workshop (before I started teaching there) and I was so impressed with them that I put them on my Christmas wish list. Small, sharp, manoeuvrable, and with very pointy blades, they were the perfect complement to the squissors I mostly used for Hardanger. I was given two pairs, in two different colours so I could keep one for goldwork and one for general embroidery. They turned out to be particularly effective for cutting around the buttonhole edging of projects like Windows on the World; that they came with a useful protective cap and in pretty colours was a bonus!

Buttonhole edging on a pair of bookmarks

Three years later I wanted some spares and for various reasons ended up stocking them in Mabel’s Fancies’ shop. When the order came in I was pleasantly surprised to see that the new scissors came with pretty floral caps! No blue ones, though – the only ones I could get were purple and turquoise (or what the supplier called “green”).

Fast-forward several years and suddenly the company I always ordered these from no longer supplies them. I got the last few pairs they had, including some blue ones with plain caps, but then the search was on for a new supplier. Unfortunately I could only find retailers in America and Australia, and with the postage and import duty they were simply not an affordable option. I decided to try the manufacturer, hoping that they would be willing to stretch the definition of “wholesale” for a small outfit like mine. Their initial suggestion of a minimum order of 600 pairs nearly made me lose heart, but after a week’s email correspondence we managed to find a quantity we were both happy with.

But no turquoise. Which is a shame because it really is a very pretty colour. No blue either. Purple, yes. And pink. Any orders placed would be half purple, half pink.

Now I know Mabel’s logo is pale pink and turquoise, but oddly enough I’m not really a pink girl myself. Still, that was the only option and I did want to keep stocking these useful little scissors, so the order was placed and late last week there arrived on our doorstep a box full of purple and pink floral snippers. And the pink turned out to be quite a robust fuchsia colour which is definitely growing on me!

Which means that if you want to get yourself a pair of these pretty 4″ embroidery scissors, for the time being you’ve got a choice of no fewer than four colours. Of the floral-capped ones we have purple and pink in quantity, and a limited number of turquoise; plus a small number of blue with plain caps.

And they all cut equally well .

Enjoying new stitching goodies

Posted on 20th April, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

I’ve had an embarrassing number of lovely parcels arrive on my doorstep in the course of March and April – another book from the same series as the Lizzy Pye goldwork one, Crewelwork Embroidery by Becky Quine; floche from Needle in a Haystack in the US (a special treat as you can’t easily get it here in the UK, but unfortunately paid for just when the pound was at its weakest); coton à broder from Spinning Jenny; doodle canvas and some Splendor silks from West End Embroidery (who got it to me the very next day, with second class postage!); Heathway Milano crewel wool from Catkin Crown Textile Studio, whose dangerous website went live two weeks ago today; a lovely goldwork monogram kit (now discontinued, I bagged one of the last two) by Lizzy Pye of Laurelin; and (courtesy of my mother-in-law’s birthday present) two crewel kits from Melbury Hill. Now these are things to keep your spirits up!

I spent some happy hours bobbinating my new threads and rearranging some of my storage boxes to take the new acquisistions – aren’t they like beautiful jewel caskets?

As for the kits, taking a peek inside the plain, unmarked box from Laurelin Embroidery was a treat in itself. A beautifully presented instruction booklet, full skeins of DMC and bobbins of sewing thread as well as plenty of goldwork materials, and the fabric with its calico backing neatly wrapped in tissue paper. As for the colours, Lizzy had very kindly substituted a turquoise for the usual green to match the colours of the Mabel’s Fancies logo; and would you believe it, in my stash I happened to have a wire check in a light turquoise that goes with it perfectly! I’ll enjoy working out where to incorporate it into that gloriously blingy and colourful M.

The instruction booklet and the transfer pattern

Wire check in two colours to go with the DMC threads

The Melbury Hill kits, though understandably a bit short on the sparkly wow-factor by comparison and with a little less in the way of instructions, are nevertheless very enjoyable to open and explore. The first is Strawberry Fair – the picture on their website shows it with the strawberry sticking up, but I think it looks more natural (in as far as Jacobean-style crewelwork ever does) with the fruit hanging down. By the way, I love the way they use the Bayeux couching stitches to represent the strawberry pips – I wish I’d thought of that!

The second kit is the Heritage Cat & Tulip Tile. Now I would not normally have bought this – for one thing it includes a hoop I don’t need, but more importantly it uses a single stitch throughout in a monochrome design and is therefore unlikely to “stretch” me. However, a few things made me reconsider. To start with the most altruistic of my reasons, in this time of lockdown I try to support independent businesses and designers. The second reason is that with the present situation being so unpredictable, unsettling and worrying I really like the thought of a relaxing project; sometimes you don’t need stretching, you need soothing! Thirdly, my mother-in-law had given me a birthday present and it felt right to spend this on something that was not necessarily useful to Mabel’s Fancies but just fun. And finally, I am a Dutch ex-pat who loves cats. How could I not buy a blue & white tile with a cat and a tulip on it? The perfect project for Koningsdag (the Dutch King’s birthday, on 27th April)!

And I haven’t finished last year’s Queen’s Silks yet, or even started on 30s Revisited…

A manageable frame

Posted on 30th March, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

If you’ve been following my RSN Certificate progress you may have picked up a hint or two (or three, or four…) that I do not like working with the slate frame. Well, that’s not absolutely true, I do greatly appreciate the excellent tension you get on a slate frame, and I rather enjoy doing embroidery in a way that connects me with stitchers from many centuries ago; what I do not like was its size, which means you have to use it with trestles, which in turn means that even with considerable added tilt, the work is still at a near-horizontal angle.

This seems to work for some, maybe even most people (although I have heard from at least one RSN graduate that she hardly ever uses a slate frame anymore because it “did her back in”) but I am hampered by my eyesight. Not only am I very short-sighted, I have protein deposits in one eye which cause blurring. Together they make it impossible for me to see the whole slate frame in focus when it is positioned on the trestles. I could reasonably comfortable work on the bottom third of the design, and also on the top third by the simple expedient of turning the frame round. It was when working on a particularly challenging part right in the middle of the design that I found the only way I could see well enough to do the stitching with the required level of accuracy was to stand up and bend over the frame. Doing my back in? I’ll say!

It was very clear to me that I needed a smaller slate frame. The RSN don’t do anything smaller than my present 18″ one, but several other people do, among them Jenny Adin-Christie, a former tutor and studio embroiderer at the RSN and therefore well-acquainted with what is required of a slate frame. It just remained to convince the RSN that I could, in fact, do the next three modules on a 12″ slate frame as the size requirements were so much smaller than for the Jacobean module (A5 max instead of A4). Initially they were not happy with the idea; it took a fair few emails (including mentioning that I would not be able to continue with the Certificate in the present set-up) and a promise that I would discuss it with my tutors, but in the end they did agree and the very next day I ordered my smaller frame.

It’s difficult to tell the size when seeing it in isolation, so here it is (with pinned lengths of herringbone band to help it keep its shape) on top of the old one – once on top of the covers and once showing my Jacobean piece, which actually very nearly fits!

The smaller frame would almost accommodate the Tree!

The main thing about getting this smaller slate frame was that I could dispense with the trestle set-up. But it’s obviously too big to hold – it needs a stand of some sort. On her site, Jenny Adin-Christie says this size can be used with a Lowery, although it will need support on the unclamped side. Well, that’s not going to be a problem – remember this?

But the Lowery is not ideal from a portability perspective. To use this frame at my classes it would be really helpful if it worked with the Aristo lap stand, the arms of which in their natural state are not quite long enough to support the slate frame at full stretch.

Once again, Meccano and Mr Mabel’s engineering expertise to the rescue! (He has modestly requested I show only his hands, not his face.)

And here it is, ready for use when I start my Canvaswork module (whenever that may be…)

PS By the way, the conversations with my tutors about the slate frame were interesting. One said that it was unusual but she had no doubt I’d manage as long as I could find a stand to use it with in class (sorted, see above); with the other, the conversation went as follows: “I’ve been allowed to work on a smaller frame.” “Yeah, that’s fine.” “No, but a much smaller frame.” “Yes, OK.” “I mean, 12-inch small”. “Yes, fine.” Well, that was obviously a big problem .

Pretty threads and a parrot project

Posted on 21st February, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

In my search for inspiration threads for canvaswork I came across a job lot of Rainbow Gallery Silk Lamé on eBay. Will they be used in the RSN Canvaswork module? Perhaps. Certainly not all of them. But they are very, very pretty, and they came to less than half price. I succumbed.

These threads are for future projects, however, so we will put them aside for now and move on to the exciting topic of Travel Projects! I need a travel project for when we go and visit my mother-in-law. I don’t actually need a new travel project because there are at least four small existing ones, ranging from itty bitty (the Quatrefoil I started in order to try out the Quaker Tapestry transfer method and a padded rose about which I will write more in a future FoF) to a little bit larger but still fitting a 5″ hoop (the Ottoman Tulip and the kaleidoscope design I got from Oh Sew Bootiful). But you know how it is…

Some time ago I found one of those small Anchor embroidery books in a charity shop – there’s a whole series of them, introductory guides about 6″ not-quite-square. This one was about crewelwork, and besides stitch descriptions it also has photographs of projects worked using these stitches (although as quite a few of them are worked in stranded cotton or perle they aren’t strictly speaking crewelwork), as well as transfers for most of these designs in the back of the book.

One design that caught my eye was a parrot on a branch. True, because of the way the big circle around his eye had been stitched he looked rather grumpy, and the colours (purples and blues and pinks on a blue background) were not what I would have chosen, but in spite of all that he had that indefinable quality of Potential. This parrot could go places!

And so he will – to Devon, when we visit my mother-in-law . I wanted him to be a relatively small and simple project, so I left out quite a bit of the foliage when I transferred him onto a spare piece of Essex linen I had lying around. As for threads, I’m doing quite a lot of things in crewel wool at the moment so he is not going to be a proper crewel parrot; instead, I’m going to use some of the DMC floche I got from America several years ago. Because it’s so difficult to find here I’ve never felt able to use it in any of my own designs, as it would be difficult for customers from the UK and Europe to get the threads. But Percy Parrot here is just for my own enjoyment, so I can use whatever I like. I’ve put my whole (admittedly not extensive) collection of floche in the travel box so I can decide what colours to use as I stitch, and I haven’t got a stitch plan – he is going to be very free freestyle.

By the way, that little blue bird shape in the project box is a hummingbird needle threader – Mary Corbet wrote about it on Needle ‘n Thread and I found it was available in the UK as well for only a couple of pounds; it looks like a good one for threading the smaller needles, which isn’t always easy with regular needle threaders. The trick in using it appear to be that after you’ve pushed the little hook through the needle’s eye and hooked the thread you move the needle along the threader to slip it off rather than pulling the threader through. I haven’t used it yet, but I’ll let you know how I get on with it!

Trying out fabrics

Posted on 24th January, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Although choosing threads (both the type and the colours) is, to me at least, by far the most enjoyable part of getting materials together for a design, the fabric is also very important – not just because of its contribution to the final look of the piece, but also because the pleasure I get from working on a project can be seriously marred or enhanced by the fabric I’m stitching on. I have a few favourites (like that lovely dense linen I’m doing one of the SAL models on) but I’m always on the lookout for nice fabrics to add to my collection.

A week or two ago I contacted Empress Mills about the weight (gsm) of their lightweight and heavyweight Mountmellick fabrics and they very generously sent me a couple of samples. It’s a cotton sateen, and that type of weave means it looks different back and front, because the weft goes over several warp threads in one leap instead of going over one, under one. The picture shows one side of the heavyweight and the other of the lightweight.

The samples were just big enough to fit into a 3″ hoop, so I decided to try them with my little Quatrefoil flower to see what they are like to work on.

Both allowed for a well-lit-window transfer (I couldn’t easily get at my lightbox) and both of them have a nice “feel”, but from first impressions I thought the heavyweight would be more suitable for use in kits as it’s nice and sturdy; and would the two weights stand up differently to the goldwork threads being plunged, I wondered?

Holding the design and the fabric in place

The lightweight, which I tried first, took it quite well, although the strain put on it by plunging the Jap threads did seem to distort it a bit. It was absolutely fine for the crewel part. It’s quite a dense weave so it’s easy to place the needle just where you want it, and in fact it would be perfectly good fabric for any kits bar the goldwork one, especially with the light calico backing I usually include.

The heavyweight was next. As they are both Mountmellick fabric/cotton sateen I’d rather expected them to look exactly alike with the only difference being the weight, but the heavyweight somehow looks a little more even and this sample at least is also somewhat straighter on the grain. But would the difference be noticeable in practice?

Yes it was, but really only the difference in weight. The weave on both samples is more or less equally dense, and placing the needle was therefore equally easy. The weight of this sample, however, did sometimes make it slightly more difficult to pull the needle through, especially where there was a lot of previous stitching to get through. On the other hand, it stood up much better to plunging and having the gold threads secured at the back without distorting the front. I think this fabric would work particularly well if you’ve got a project that needs a solid ground but for whatever reason you’d prefer not to use an extra backing fabric. I’d have to try it on a bigger design, but I’d expect it to work just fine with a moderate amount of goldwork, and certainly with anything lighter.

So I ordered some of the heavyweight, as well as half a metre of another fabric they do which is simply called “cotton sateen”, and which is available in all sorts of interesting colours. As Mountmellick is a type of cotton sateen I wondered what the difference was, and when I rang Empress Mills the lady told me it was mostly the weight. The fabrics arrived last week (I showed a picture of them in the previous FoF) and the cotton sateen does indeed feel much like the lightweight Mountmellick fabric. I may get a few more colours, as it looks like a useful kit fabric!

Certificate decisions

Posted on 4th January, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Last week I wrote about a significant set of four RSN Stitch Guides and ideas for the Canvaswork module of the RSN Certificate and this means, doesn’t it, surely it must, that I’ve decided to do The Whole Thing after all. As you may remember I set out on this course with the clear intention of doing the Jacobean and Goldwork modules, and then stopping. Several people (including tutors, my very supportive husband and a fellow student) have since encouraged me to do the whole Certificate, and I’ve been keeping this in the back of my mind throughout the first module. The ideas are there – my canvas scribbles and pictures-for-inspiration are fairly obvious indications of that. And yet.

Having stitched for quite a few hours now using the trestle-and-slate-frame combination, I think I can confidently say it is simply not my cup of tea. I find the stitching position uncomfortable and the nearly horizontal orientation of the frame (even after putting the rear of the trestles up another notch to give it extra tilt) puts a strain on my eyes – with my ordinary glasses I can see the further end of the embroidery, but I can’t see the details nearby, while with my stitching glasses I can’t see far enough without things going blurry. When stitching the tree trunk, which covers quite a bit of the height of the design, neither of my glasses allowed me to work an entire row of chain stitch in focus while keeping a comfortable (and healthy!) posture.

But the slate frame is obligatory when doing the Certificate (and the other “big” RSN courses like the Diploma and the Future Tutor programme), and I don’t think it is negotiable. Not for the Canvaswork and Goldwork modules, with A5-sized projects, and not even for the Silk Shading module, where the brief specifies that “overall the piece should be no bigger than 8×8 centimeters (3in x 3in)”. Leaving aside for the moment that 3 inches is even less than 8 centimetres, does this really need a slate frame, even my “small” 18-inch one? I fear that it probably does if it’s part of the Certificate, and that no amount of coin-bouncing off my laced Millennium frame will convince them otherwise. But just possibly the Bling SAL Tree may sneak into my frame bag, come to my February class and show off its drum-taut tension, and then who knows?

PS Depending on the outcome, would anyone be interested in taking over a hardly-used slate frame in a year or so? With trestles?

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Materials & Equipment