Last month I received a very interesting birthday present from a friend in Kenya: a set of six beautiful leather coasters painted with African animals.

They look really good dotted around our coffee table and side tables, but what caught my attention, slightly unexpectedly, was the strip of leather that held them together (blue arrow above). Stretched out, it looks remarkable like bark. And, well…

I bounced the idea of using it for my Canvaswork project off the RSN tutor at my class last Saturday (FoF about that still to be written) and she liked it! The leather will need a bit of trimming, but sewn down using a beige thread it should resemble the tree trunk in the picture quite nicely.

Another bit of birthday inspiration came from a friend’s 70th. Obviously the occasion called for a hand-made card – but what to stitch? Well, she is a keen gardener, so something floral would be good. And I wanted to get the 70 in there somehow. Rummaging through my stash drawers I came across a beautiful hand-dyed green fabric which I got from Paintbox Threads at the Knitting & Stitching show some years ago, and a floral quilting cotton. How about some appliqué? With decorative stitching to make the numbers stand out. Two shades of Caron Watercolours suggested themselves, so I took a little time to see which one seemed more suitable, the green matching the background, or the pastel variegated one echoing the floral colours of the appliqué fabric.

There was some preparation to do anyway, so no rush to decide on a colour. First I drew a nice plump 70 on the paper side of a bit of Bondaweb. This correctly mirrored 70 is my second attempt; I’d forgotten to draw the numbers back to front first time round, but fortunately noticed before actually ironing it onto the back of the floral fabric. Then it was a matter of cutting them out and positioning them on the fabric (I chose an off-set layout), peeling off the paper backing and ironing them in place. You can attach the cut pieces with little stab stitches, but as I was going to work decorative stitches over the edges anyway I felt I could take this little shortcut.

Mr Mabel having been consulted as well, we decided that colourful is good! The green thread was returned to the thread box, and I set about stitching with the floral thread. One of my favourite stitches for this sort of project is raised chain stitch, but for this project it would be a little too chunky, and too difficult to manipulate around the angles on the 7, so I went with plain chain stitch.

Then it was just a matter of mounting it into a card with some wadding behind it, and voilà!

The de-stashing came about because I was looking for a project to take on holiday to the Netherlands. As we will be seeing family and friends as well as participating in a rally with our 1933 Austin Seven, there won’t be that much opportunity for stitching, and I wanted any stitching that did get done to be relaxing rather than challenging. It would also help if I didn’t have to take notes or think about writing instructions for the designs. Which meant that ideally, I’d take something that wasn’t my own design. Now I do have a fair few kits lying around waiting to be stitched, but complicated goldwork with lots of pearls or beetle wings (courtesy of Alison Cole) or intricate silk shading (by Bluebird Embroidery) didn’t quite fit the bill.

But I did dig out some other kits recently, when I was trying to create more space in the cupboard where I keep Mabel’s stock of kits. I must have bought them well over a decade ago, and they come from The Victoria Sampler’s Beyond Cross Stitch range. Those are all smallish designs using cross stitch plus something else, in the case of these two kits ribbonwork and Hardanger. The fabric that came with the kits wasn’t quite large enough to fit comfortably into a hoop, so I cut two new pieces to take. Add my faithful squissors and we’re good to go!

Like so many stitchers I always take far too many projects because of FORO – Fear Of Running Out. So two small kits didn’t seem quite enough. What about Heather Lewis’ Elizabethan Beauty? It contains a goldwork stitch I’ve not done before, Elizabethan plaited braid stitch worked in gold passing, which I would definitely not attempt on holiday, but it also has some not-too-intricate shading which should be doable. So the passing and spangles get left behind, the mounted fabric (silk dupion with the design drawn on and already attached to a calico backing – this is a very good kit!) and cotton threads come with us to the Netherlands. I’ll let you know when we’re back whether any of it actually got stitched…

Uhm, hello. Belated happy new year.

Yes, I’m still around. Long Covid (getting better but not quite there yet) and Life In General have kept me from doing much stitching, or writing FoFs. The ideas are there in both cases, but the inclination and energy are missing.

Still, some short FoFs should be manageable! And after such a long silence, there is plenty to tell you, even if a lot of it is stash rather than stitching (but fortunately very few needleworkers object to talking or reading about stash), or stitching that was done a while ago. So over the next few weeks and months I hope to tell you about Bayeux peacocks, goldwork classes, inexplicable damage to an embroidery, trees, silk fabric, and my return to the Canvaswork module of the RSN Certificate, among other things. It’s good to be back!

We’ve been rather busy lately with various things, among them preparing for the Austin Seven Centenary (the inspiration for the Bayeux Austins), and stitching has been thin on the ground. Still, life has not been a completely embroidery-free zone – that would never do!

One of the things I’ve been working on is getting fabrics printed for kits. A little over two years ago I mentioned this, said “watch this space”, and then forgot to write anything about it until a year later, when I discussed the three samples I’d had printed. Another year passed and I still hadn’t done anything with the samples (Whoo Me on organic calico, the Little Wildflower Garden on plain cotton, and Forever Frosty on Duchesse satin). Well, that’s not quite true. I’ve ironed them…

I was pleased with how they had turned out but there was the question of size. The fabric is 140cm wide, so it would be really convenient if I could print 14cm squares; but I usually cut the kit fabric to about 15cm, as I like to make sure there is enough to use comfortably with a 4″ hoop. I cut Whoo Me to size and tried it. Fortunately it works.

One of the things I hadn’t thought through properly before getting the samples printed was the design lines. These need to be black and relatively thick when I’m printing paper templates for transfers using the lightbox, but they look far too stark on the fabric – any lines not completely covered in stitching would show up quite clearly. More samples were needed, with grey lines this time. I went for a Butterfly Wreath on calico, another Wildflower garden (with a slightly darker background) on plain cotton, and as an experiment a small Hope rainbow with design lines in white on a printed denim background.

The grey lines definitely looked much better than the stark black – that is obviously the way to go. But there were two snags, one of my own making, one not. The one of my own making was the denim background. As I described in the previous fabric sample FoF, the fabrics are all either natural or white so any background colour has to be printed as well. I had photographed the fabric I’ve been using for the mini Hopes and used that as a background, but clearly the lighting had not been equal across the fabric when I took the picture – you can see that the bottom of the square is much darker than the top. The other snag was this:

There must have been something on the fabric, a little bit of loose fibre perhaps, which took the dye and then came off. It’s not a large fleck of white, but it is noticeable, and I would not be able to use this fabric in a kit. I wrote to the company to ask how common an occurrence this was; after all, if it happens once on a printed metre I could just use that square for demonstration purposes. But if it is more likely and I’d have to discard several squares, the average coast of the usable squares would get rather too high. They wrote back and explained that it was more likely to occur on some fabrics than others, and suggested a different fabric. So now another set of samples is being printed. Another Wildflower Garden with yet another slightly different background blue, a Hope rainbow using a new denim photograph as a background, and (because they had a 3-for-2 offer on swatches) a Shisha Tile on printed light yellow, all on this recommended fabric. I can’t show you the result yet, but below are small versions of the files they will be printed from. I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

Another development I am considering for our range of kits is to present all of them in boxes. At the moment it is only the Goldwork Flowers & Bee, the Quatrefoil and the appliqué Mug That Cheers which come in a box; all the others come in a grip seal bag. These are lighter to send, but not as sturdy. However, as I will need to completely redesign the layout of the instructions (in booklet form rather than on loose A4 pages) this will have to wait until time is not in quite such short supply. But I’m excited about getting our kits to look their very best !

Quite a lot of new stash has been making its way through the Figworthy letterbox lately, of various kinds. For the purposes of this FoF I’ve divided these new acquisitions into the three categories mentioned in the title, and I’ll start with the Dull. Now you may well disagree with my classification; and it is true that although this particular parcel wasn’t very exciting to unwrap, any parcel containing some new thread or other essentials is cause for a modest squeal of pleasure at least. Still, let’s just say that soft cotton in neutral shades isn’t the most Instagrammable stash.

But though it may be a little dull, it is destined to become an essential part of my Canvaswork project, which came about in a rather serendipitous way. You see, when doing my sampling I looked for some threads that I could use which I had a lot of, which didn’t have an immediate purpose, and which would be relatively cheap and easy to replace should I need to. Rummaging through the various boxes of threads I found a bag of brightly coloured DMC Soft Cotton which I bought years ago for making finger-woven friendship bracelets with our church’s Youth Group. There was quite a lot left over, and it’s a nice chunky thread which would cover the canvas well. Ideal! But as I was sampling with this thread, it occurred to me that its texture would also be perfect for the tower and brick base of the windmill which stands right in the centre of the design – and as purple or bright red wouldn’t do for those, I had to get these more muted, subdued colours.

Unfortunately I fell victim to false economy while ordering. For the windmill’s tower I will need four shades of grey, so four shades of grey is what I put in the shopping basket. I did wonder just a moment whether to pop in a fifth, darker shade just to be on the safe side, but then decided against it on the grounds that the darkest shade in my shopping basket looked quite dark enough on the screen. Alas, it didn’t in real life. Which meant I had to order a single skein, with postage that would be more than the skein itself. So I added a metre of Normandie fabric to qualify for free shipping. In my defence, it will come in handy for kits and workshops…

The next bit of embroidery-related post was definitely Delightful: Hazel Everett’s book Goldwork and Silk Shading Inspired by Nature. Another of Mary Corbet’s dangerous reviews. I already have Hazel’s earlier book Goldwork: Techniques, Projects and Pure Inspiration which is an absolute gem, so I didn’t need a lot of convincing. As with many of these embroidery books, although I would love to do all sorts of projects from them it doesn’t really matter if that never happens – they are a joy to read and study, and are always an education and an inspiration. But if there is one project from this book which stands a very good chance of one day being stitched, it is the 3D butterfly, which is just incredibly lovely. Well, Hazel’s version is, and if mine turns out half as beautiful I’ll be quite content.

And finally the Decadent. Like the soft cottons this came about because of my Canvaswork sampling. You see, for the paving by the windmill I wanted something matt to contrast with the silk sky and the tulips and greenery which will probably be done in shiny perle cottons and the like. And as I tried out the most likely stitch for that paving in four different types of thread (more about that in a future FoF) the one that stood out was Danish flower thread, also known as Blomstergarn. Unlike stranded cotton, cotton floche, coton à broder and most other embroidery cottons it is unmercerised, so it lacks the sheen which that process imparts. Now the flower threads I used for sampling came from a small collection of five skeins that I was given many years ago, and which live in a box with my floche threads because there aren’t enough to warrant their own box. And none of the five were the right shade for the paving. Off I went in search of a supplier.

I found this in the shape of the Danish Handcraft Guild; and having learnt from my trying-to-judge-colours-on-the-screen failure with the soft cottons I emailed them with the photograph that is the basis of my design to ask whether they could advise which of their colours were likely to be most suitable. Quite understandably they declined to make the decision for me (why should I expect them to judge colours on screen when I am not prepared to), and advised me to get the shade card (which contains samples of the actual threads). But by then I had found out that they do a complete set of flower threads at what amounts to about a 25% discount compared to buying them all individually. And as the shade card would be £9 on its own, well… not too decadent after all, perhaps.

Aren’t they beautiful? I think I’m looking forward to finding the right storage for them and arranging them by colour as much as I am to actually stitching with them

That feeling of expectation when you know there is something nice on its way to you and then one day the postman hands you the day’s post and among it is a parcel which is obviously That Parcel and you are about to unwrap it – don’t you just love it? I’ve had several such parcels recently, and as they were all stitch-related I thought you might like to see them.

Remember the Filoselle silks I inherited from my mother-in-law? Three shades of rose, a golden yellow and a lot of green. Well, some time ago I was contacted by Sara, who had acquired a selection of Filoselle silks herself and, doing some research, came across my 2015 post in which Pearsall’s unfortunately discontinued silks are mentioned. After a few emails back and forth we agreed a swap, and a little later the pastel beauties on the right arrived. As I said to Sara, because they are discontinued I won’t be able to use them in any designs that will be published, and so I have no idea yet what I’ll do with them, but they are lovely colours to have.

Around about the same time I spotted a day class at Hampton Court Palace in my RSN e-newsletter: a stumpwork bumblebee. Yes, I know, stumpwork isn’t really my thing; but since the two butterflies I did (one a Sarah Homfray kit, the other off my own bat for a friend) I’ve rather taken a liking to stumpwork insects. And I happen to have a friend who is a beekeeper. Perfect. Well, almost perfect, as beekeepers don’t actually keep bumblebees, but close enough.

Unfortunately the class was on a day that I couldn’t do; and even if the date had been convenient, travelling to Hampton Court Palace for the day is quite an undertaking, as well as adding to the strain on the budget. I reluctantly decided it was not to be. But when I mentioned this on the RSN Certificate & Diploma Facebook group, someone who had taken the class in the past suggested I contact the tutor, Rachel Doyle, to see if she had any surplus kits which she might be willing to sell separately. I did, and she had, and here it is!

And my final treat (final for the moment anyway) – a new slate frame bag. I had one made for my original, humongous slate frame but then I was allowed to use a 12″ frame instead and the bag was ridiculously oversized for that (as you can tell from the picture below it was on the large side even for the original frame). Fortunately it has now found a new home with my middle sister-in-law who uses it to transport her paintings, but it did mean I was left without a bag. Well, not literally, I have plenty of cotton and canvas bags of various sizes, some of them embellished with embroidery, but nothing padded and none that accomodated the frame comfortably. Enter Liz at LoobysBayBags.

Liz was brilliant. The bags she usually makes were not quite the right size for my slate frame (which in spite of being called a 12″ frame is actually a little over 17″ square) so she agreed to make a bespoke one. She found all sorts of fabrics for me to have a look at and hunted out a new fabric for the lining which would go with the patterned ones I picked; she was great at going by what I wanted, not what she thought I should have (she was a little worried that I picked very light colours for what she called “a working bag”). When I explained what it would be used for she reinforced the handles and padded the bottom. And it came out just perfect – it looks beautiful (those ducks are adorable), it’s comfortable to carry, and it is a comfortably snug fit for the frame. As you can tell from the last picture, I’m really pleased with it!

With my 6th class coming up, there was work to be done – but not all work on Bruce involves putting gold on him, or even on the sampling cloth. There are what you might call the theoretical bits as well. I don’t mean that I will be quizzed on how pearl purl is made or when to use a double waxed thread, but preparatory work as well as decisions, possibly even dilemmas to navigate. At this point in Bruce’s development (desperately trying not to call it a “journey”) it’s a scale drawing of the cutwork that will cover his tail, and a decision about S-ing.

S-ing (pronounced “essing”) is a technique for applying hollow purl in such a way that the resulting line looks like stem stitch. As you can’t take purl through the fabric this is achieved by manipulating short pieces of purl (chips) so that they deceive the eye into thinking it’s one long piece which has been taken through the fabric to create that cord-like look that stem stitch has. I first tried it on the goldwork racehorse, and when deciding on what materials and techniques to use for the sun’s rays in the Certificate design, S-ing was very much my first choice.

What was in my mind were drawings I’d seen of suns with pointy wavy rays, and I thought that if I didn’t put in the usual compensating half-length chip at the end furthest away from the sun, that would be really effective. Unfortunately all three tutors were distinctly unenthusiastic about this, with their reactions ranging from “don’t do it, it’s not allowed in the Certificate, it’s a Diploma technique” through “well, it’s your call” to “the assessors won’t like it”.

So I scrutinised the brief and found absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t be allowed. The brief is very clear about the materials: it says about the threads and wires (in underlined bold print) “The following are the only gold threads that will be used in this basic Goldwork project.” But about the techniques it says: “You MUST include the following”, which to my mind means that you can include other techniques as long as they use allowable materials. On the other hand, do I want to risk being marked down for something I’ve been warned by the tutors that the assessors won’t like (even though I believe they have no reason to)?

There is an alternative – a double line of rococco, one a little shorter than the other. It would be wavy. It would be safe. But it’s not the look I had in mind, for one thing because I’ve already used rococco to represent the billowy outline of the cloud and for another because I like the idea of the sun’s rays having no visible couching threads to detract from their shine. I’m hoping to have Bruce on my wall for a long time and seeing rococco in the sun’s rays instead of the S-ing I envisaged there would niggle me every time I saw it. So I’ve decided to go with my original design decision, and take the consequences.

Right, enough soul-searching; on to something a bit more practical. Bruce’s tail will be covered in cutwork, shorts lengths of hollow purl snugly fitted over the soft string padding with the cut ends just touching the fabric. Well, that’s what we’re aiming for anyway! I’ll be using two types of purl, smooth (a shiny round shape) and bright check (a shiny angular shape). I knew I had plenty of the smooth, but the bright check is used for chipping as well (it’s the stuff used in the sun) and there wasn’t quite so much of it in the little bag in my project box. Fortunately I remembered I had another bag of the right size in my stash, but when I got it out I also remembered that there was a reason why I hadn’t put both in the same bag:

That’s right, they look different. As you can tell from the bags they both come from the same supplier, but one is noticeably shinier than the other. As I want to make sure there is enough of the less shiny one for the tail, I decided to do the chipping on Bruce’s haunch in the shinier one. The difference between two fairly far apart areas of chipping won’t be nearly so noticeable as it would be to change chips halfway through the tail!

There was more measuring to be done. For homework Helen McC had asked me to draw the chips onto a print-out of the tail at full scale, to show the changes in direction as well as the transition from smooth purl to bright check. To do this I needed to know exactly how wide both purls are. Mr Figworthy to the rescue with his trusty calipers! And what he found was another surprise: although the two purls (smooth and bright check) have the same size number (no.6), the outer diameters came out differently, at 1.0mm vs 1.4mm wide. I wrote to the supplier, Lizzy Pye at Laurelin, and she very quickly replied, “in my experience there has always been some variation between the types of purl. The check is usually a little larger. If you think of how it is made, wrapping the wire around a core – it makes sense that the inside width is the same, but the corners stick out.” Good point. And in fact a re-measure showed that the bright check was actually about 1.2mm wide, so not too much difference. I was ready to start drawing.

It took quite a bit of measuring, drawing, rubbing out, re-measuring and re-drawing, but it turned out to be a very useful exercise indeed. As I mentioned, one of the key things the drawing needs to show is the transition from smooth purl (at the tip) to bright check (by Bruce’s backside). My idea was to use the sort of transition that you see in satin stitch, the shortest version of which is “all A, 1 B, 1 A, all B”. More often it’s the slightly longer one which runs “All A, 1 B, 2 A, 2 B, 1 A, all B”. Although my aim was the next longer version after that, I wasn’t sure whether there would be room for it, as the brief specifies a continuous stretch of smooth purl cutwork that is at least 5cm long. But because all this is drawn to scale, it showed that there is in fact enough space, so it will be a very gradual transition using “All A, 1 B, 3 A, 2B, 2 A, 3 B, 1 A, all B”.

And finally, some actual stitching : the chipping on the haunch. Chipping, while not as daunting as all that spaghetti I’ve been dealing with, poses its own challenges – mostly the fact that the chips are tiny (and this is not even the smallest size they could be…) and that they jump around like fleas on acid at the smallest provocation (or none).

Does it sound silly to say that I felt rather emotional seeing the whole thing filled in and complete? That hind leg has been quite an undertaking, and now it is done. I glow with a sense of achievement! And fortunately the difference between the shinier and the not-so-shiny chipping doesn’t seem too obvious.

The chipping had gone a bit more quickly than I’d expected and I was on a roll so I got on with the long smooth chips on Bruce’s ears, and the mixed cutwork on her pouch. Not as challenging as the cutwork on the tail will be, but good practice! They may, of course, turn out to be no more than practice – I’m not sure they are quite to the standard I’d like to see, so it may be another Echternach moment. On the other hand, Angela may look at them and say I’m being too fussy; now that would be a lovely outcome! But whatever happens tomorrow, all in all I’m very pleased with where I’ve got to before my 6th class.