Getting to grips with cats

Posted on 25th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

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

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

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

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

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

Goldwork balloon – felt padding

Posted on 12th July, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

After a long interval, a small update on the Benton & Johnson goldwork balloon. Let me start with a bit about the instruction booklet. Besides list of what’s in the kit, there is a very comprehensive list of what else you need, in great detail.

Slightly puzzling from reading just the list: there is a gold thread in the kit marked “for couching”, but the list of “Additional Requirements” also lists “Yellow couching thread which matches the gold”, with suggestions for suitable threads. Will some things be couched using the gold thread that comes with the kit, and others using a yellow sewing thread? The answer to that turns out to be “yes” – the gold thread will be used to attach the metallic leather. Not quite couching, but close enough.

This shows that it can be very helpful and illuminating to read through the whole instruction booklet in a kit before starting (as they advise at the beginning of the instructions). From long experience I’d say it is hardly ever disastrous if you don’t, but it can save a lot of trouble and confusion and running out of threads, so it’s time well spent (even though what you really want to do is get stitching!).

The booklet also contains very detailed preparation instructions, about ironing and framing the fabric. Several methods of transferring the design are mentioned, with one (tacking stitches worked through tracing paper) described in more detail. The instructions also state explicitly that the balloon outline is all that needs to be transferred. Beginning stitchers who feel that surely there ought to be more on the fabric before they start stitching will be reassured by this, and hopefully deterred from adding additional lines that might remain visible when the project is completed.

The next section gives tips for starting and finishing, and then it’s on to instructions about attaching the various bits of felt. It was nice to get some actual needlework done on this project at last !

The first layer of felt padding attached to the silk

The second layer of felt padding attached

Things I noticed about this part of the project:

The instructions are very detailed and helpful. It’s difficult for me to read them as though I’d never done any goldwork at all, but I think someone new to goldwork but with a bit of other needlework experience shouldn’t have any problems.
the felt shapes don’t appear to fit quite accurately inside the design transfer, and I can’t get the whole balloon to line up with the two half balloons. The first mismatch may be because I stretched the silk fabric after transferring the design, so the outline is probably a bit bigger than it should be. As for the second, could it be because I ironed the tracings on? That could have pulled the felt slightly out of shape, I suppose. I must check the drawings in the instruction booklet; perhaps photocopy them and then cut them out to see whether everything lines up.

When I next get round to this project, I’ll be attaching some of the gold bits – the gold kid leather, to be exact. Shiny…

FREEstyle embroidery

Posted on 15th June, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Although it is unlikely to make me abandon Hardanger, I’m finding all this freestyle embroidery tremendous fun, and rather liberating. Instead of starting with a detailed chart with every part of the design mapped out, I draw this:

And end up with this:

I love it .

Finishing an elephant, 2nd attempt

Posted on 9th June, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

The Wedding Elephant. It got finished in time. Just. And not quite the way I wanted. But I liked the stitching, and the card looked fine in spite of its rocky history, so I wanted one for myself as well – and as a model for Mabel’s Fancies in case anyone else thinks an elephant with a date is rather a nice way of commemorating a special occasion. As with the first Wedding Elephant, the stitching went well. I used Chameleon’s Shades of Africa silks this time, in rather pleasing apple green, coral pink and buttery yellow shades, and being overdyed Soie d’Alger, they are extremely nice to stitch with. But now for the finishing.

I’m going for a slightly different approach this time: I’ve sandwiched together the Normandie-fabric-with-elephant and a green felt backing in a nice roomy hoop, and will work a rectangle of stitches around the elephant. The next step is to add buttons. Unfortunately I have only one of those nice wooden flower buttons left, and I can’t remember where I bought them (well, at the K&S show, but I can’t remember the company), so I had a rummage through my stash and through the button collection of our local fabric shop. I came up with three possibles, all floral: shiny green sequins, largish light yellow pearlescent buttons, and small and fairly plain yellow-shading-into-a-white-centre buttons. Trying them all out with the stitching the sequins were rather too blingy and overpowering, and the pearlescent buttons just that bit too large and noticeable, so I’ll be using the self-effacing little flowers on the right.

The second Wedding Elephant with its felt backing

Having attached the buttons I will then take the sandwich out of the hoop, cut the Normandie about ¼” outside the stitched border, and fray it. Unlike the first elephant it should not fall apart whatever stitch I use, as it will be attached to the felt. I like that sort of safety net! Then cut the felt with pinking shears about ½” outside the edge of the fabric, and we should have a Presentable Elephant. Fingers crossed…

A workshop and too many projects

Posted on 27th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

The weekend before last I taught the first of my three shisha workshops in aid of our church’s building fund. As one of the ladies attending brought cake for everyone, we can safely say it was a great success .

But even ignoring the cake (not easy – there was chocolate cake, carrot cake, coffee & walnut…) it went very well, with ten ladies practising their needle skills and producing their very first piece of shisha embroidery. Would you like to see how they did?

That last, rather abstract version is my doodle cloth (yes, that sequin is very purple), which I use to demonstrate stitches. The next workshop will be on 13th June, and the last one, which still has places available, on 11th July.

My preparatory stitching for these workshops has long been done, but there is plenty more on my Would Like To Stitch list; and being a bit of a serial starter I now have five projects on the go with several waiting in the wings. Actually being stitched at the moment (on a sort of rota basis): the goldwork balloon, my Pearsall’s wool experiment, the second Wedding Elephant, a set of birthday coasters for my mother, and Join the Band, a Hardanger and surface stitch band sampler. Nagging to be started: the Tree of Life, several Kelly Fletcher designs, and the little goldwork project whose design I’m using for my wool experiments. Waiting to be charted: a goldwork toadstool, flower & seahorse (not all in one design, I hasten to say), several “outline” designs to be worked in stem stitch, and the Round in Circles SAL.

Could someone please leave me a fortune so I can retire?

More wools – Renaissance Dyeing

Posted on 25th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Serinde very kindly sent me some Renaissance Dyeing crewel wools so now I’ve got two types to try out! You may recognise the design I chose for my comparison – yes, it’s the goldwork pincushion design from Samplers & Antique Needlework. It’s nicely Jacobean looking, so why shouldn’t it work in wools as well as gold? A brief aside – judging the colour of threads by what they look like on websites is very unsatisfactory; the Pale Apple (far right in the picture) is clearly green on the RD website but in real life it is more like a slightly green-tinged pale yellow.

The RD wool is quite fine, and some threads have very occasional thinnish patches. To some extent this may be caused by part of the thread untwisting as I’m using it – as you can see, the thicker part of the thread looks much more loosely twined. However, even straight off the skein there seems to be some unevenness here and there. Still, it is very infrequent and otherwise the thread is beautifully even, and lovely to work with. As for the stitches used in this project, although I’d scribbled a few ideas on the design I’ve been changing things as I go along; one line of stem stitch looked far too spindly for the stem (perhaps I should have used a smaller version of the design) so I added another line, plus a line in yellow – good practice for my Tree of Life trunk! The leaf is outlined in Palestrina stitch (I told you I was going to play with that). I added two-coloured French and colonial knots roughly where spangles were in the original, and a thin yellow stem stitch line to one side of the satin stitch leaves. As for the decoration inside the blue Portuguese knotted stem stitch petals, fairly last-minute (just before starting the lazy daisies specified by the design, in fact) I substituted bullion knots in two colours so I could include the dark navy blue. The red outline on the flower is heavy chain stitch, and the wool behaved very well on that.

Stems and leaves in a variety of stitches

The orange inner line is Hungarian braided chain stitch, and with hindsight I don’t think wool is particularly suited to it. Its slight fuzziness makes it difficult to pick up the inner stitches without catching the outer ones. It doesn’t look too bad but the braided appearance isn’t as distinct as it would be with a smoother thread. Long & short stitch isn’t my forte but it did create the flame-like look I was aiming for. The three yellow French knots on the tip of the flower were added because there was a little dot of ink there which hadn’t been covered by the chain stitch…

The Renaissance Dyeing experiment, finished

I like this type of project – I can do pretty much whatever I like, change my mind half-way through, and add things and change things as the fancy takes me. It’s as close to anarchy as I am ever likely to get; very liberating .

Finally getting started on the goldwork balloon

Posted on 23rd May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

It’s a good thing the kind gentleman at Benton & Johnson didn’t give me a deadline to work to – in fact, I may come to regret my tongue-in-cheek remark, when he said there wasn’t a deadline because this design had been on the backburner for two years, that at least I’d make sure it wouldn’t take another two years. At the rate I’m going, two years is beginning to look distinctly optimistic. I was sent the kit at the end of March, and nearly two months later where are we? Well, the silk fabric is on the Millennium frame…

In my defence, getting it mounted was a bit of a saga on account of the calico backing which turned out to be anything but rectangular. But with the help of the Millennium frame and a spray bottle of water, I got that sorted out and last time you saw the project it looked like this:

The silk pinned onto the now much straighter calico

I hadn’t quite decided yet whether to attach only the top and bottom of the silk, or all four sides, but I thought I’d start with the top and bottom and then see how well that worked. It worked quite well, but not perfectly – the silk obviously needed a little sideward pull. I had worked the top and bottom herringbone with the fabric on a slightly slack tension, but for the sides I stretched it a bit more; not quite taut as a drum with the Millennium frame stretched to its maximum reach, but definitely tight. The result: a perfectly flat piece of silk to work on.

Attaching the silk to the calico with herringbone stitch

To attach the silk I had to use the frame’s side bars at their maximum extension, but for the actual goldwork embroidery I could do with a smaller area; and I much prefer that if it’s possible because I don’t like using the frame at its full 10 inches, for fear of overstretching and damaging the mechanism. So I repositioned the calico on the rollers, cut off the excess fabric, put on the roller guards and my needle minder, and collected my faithful helper. I was ready to roll.

So have I done any stitching at all? Well, no. But I’ve done some more preparatory work! There are a number of felt shapes to be cut out for padding. As I find it very difficult to draw on felt, I decided to make use of some thin Vilene. I traced the outlines of the felt shapes on to the glue side of the Vilene, so that when it was ironed on to the felt they would be back-to-front. This meant that the cut-out shapes, non-Vilene side up, would be the right way round. The design is not quite symmetrical, so this is important.

Tracing the felt outlines onto the back of the Vilene, right way round

The Vilene ironed on to the felt, back to front

The felt shapes cut out, right way round

There is some leather to cut as well, but I will leave that until it’s needed. First I’d like to get some proper stitching done on this balloon, even if it is only attaching the padding.

Finally, a few remarks on the kit so far.

The crease in the silk that worried me, and which I couldn’t get out completely with ironing, is a lot less noticeable when the fabric is stretched, so it should be all right.
The silk is generously cut, with a 2½” margin all around the design.
The felt, too, has plenty of room for all the parts.
The felt outlines are numbered, and the instructions very clearly explain in which order they need to be attached. They explicitly point out that it is unusual for the small shape to be sewn on top of the larger one, so that stitchers who have done some padding before won’t get confused by this.
According to the instructions, the two “half-balloon” shapes go underneath the full balloon shape. Although this is the usual order (smaller underneath larger) in this case I didn’t expect it, as the gap between the two half shapes is there to accommodate a line of pearl purl, and I’m not sure how this will work with the full balloon shape on top. It’ll be interesting to see it develop.

Now stretch up that frame, it’s time to start stitching!

Pearsall’s, and disappearing silks

Posted on 11th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Some years ago I picked up a small collection of vintage silks made by Pearsall’s Embroidery, called Filofloss. They were stranded, flattish silks with a lovely sheen, made during the 1920s and 30s as far as I can remember. Lovely, and unfortunately discontinued. But Pearsall’s continued with a different stranded silk, Filoselle, which I used for the stems and the blue flower in Mary Corbett’s small cross design. It has more twist than Filofloss, and is a little more springy, but it has the same lovely sheen. Unfortunately, despite the label shown on Pearsall’s home page, Filoselle is no more. When I spoke to Carol at Pearsall’s to ask whether they would be at the Knitting & Stitching Show she explained that the silks had been very much the domain of her business partner John, who sadly died in 2012. Since then, all their silks apart from surgical silks have been phased out.

What they do still do is crewel wool. After my recent re-acquaintance with Appleton’s (about which more when I post about my twill experiments) I felt I would really like to try a crewel wool that doesn’t have thin bits which make one’s stitching look more irregular than it needs to, that doesn’t pill, or fluff, or untwist. Serinde over at the Cross Stitch Forum suggested either Renaissance Dyeing or Pearsall’s Heathway Milano crewel wool.

There is a lot to be said for Renaissance Dyeing’s wool. For one thing, it’s a lot cheaper than Pearsall’s. But Pearsall’s has a wider range of colours, and these are much more conveniently laid out on their website. I’m finding it almost impossible to work out from RD’s page of wools how to put together a set of three or four matching shades of any one colour. For example, presumably Light Orange #0302 goes with Pale Orange #0301, but they are several rows apart, their pictures separated by seven completely unrelated colours; in some cases shades that are probably related are so far apart that you need to scroll from one to the other so you can’t see them together. Another thing, do you go by name or by proximity of number? Does Dark Apricot #1205 go with Light Peach #1203? I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and this confuses me. I will try and work it out because anything Serinde recommends is likely to be lovely to work with, but for now I decided to concentrate on Pearsall’s.

Because Pearsall’s have a Crewel Starter Pack – 30 skeins of wool plus two good-sized pieces of twill at a considerable discount to what it would cost to buy all the bits separately. True, you don’t get to choose the colours, but the picture seemed to indicate that there would be four shades of seven different colour families, plus black and white, which is a useful start to a collection but also varied enough to be useful without having to add to it. I decided to ring them and spoke to Carol, who was incredibly helpful. She actually went through several of the packs she had in stock to tell me what combinations they contained! Determined not to impulse-buy I said I’d go away and think about it. I did. For at least 10 minutes. Then I called back and ordered one of the starter packs. This was about three o’ clock on Friday afternoon; on Saturday the postwoman delivered this:

Aren’t they gorgeous? And the picture can’t tell you how beautifully soft they are – I was fondling them for at least five minutes before putting them away for the moment. When the Wedding Elephant is done, I’ll do a Kelly Fletcher flower with some of them to see how they are to work with.

Talking of KF, I finished Bloomin’ Marvellous 7 (yes, it was on hold; but for various reasons I didn’t get round to setting up the Elephant on Saturday, so I finished this while watching the VE Day concert). Besides some Chameleon Shades of Africa silks (the two yellows) it uses some of Vikki Clayton’s Hand-Dyed Fibers premium stranded silk. A little chunkier than standard strands, and lovely to work with, but it seems Hand-Dyed Fibers is yet another brand that has ceased to exist – the website is down and although I can find references to Vikki Clayton online, I can’t find anything to indicate that she is still producing these silks. I hope not too many silks go the same route or we won’t have anything to stitch with but DMC and Anchor! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen beautiful projects created with stranded cotton, but there is just something about working with silks that is a little bit special, not to mention their place in the long history of embroidery – it would be a shame if they all went.

Threads, satin stitch and a Wedding Elephant

Posted on 8th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

The other night I had some stitching time in the evening. But *gasp* I did not stitch. Or not all the time, anyway. Instead I indulged in one of my other favourite needlework pastimes: playing with stash! Well, not playing really – re-arranging so that they are logically distributed among the various storage boxes. Useful, and very enjoyable at the same time. Not only that, but handling the threads and looking at them is a great way of getting ideas for their use.

I did get some stitching done, starting on another Kelly Fletcher flower. Bloomin’ Marvellous #7 this time. For the centre I wanted padded satin stitch, but with something else added. Having considered a few options I decided not to do a split stitch outline first, but work the satin stitch by eye, staying inside the pencil line of the central circle, and then outline it afterwards in stem stitch in a lighter colour using four strands. On the whole, I’m pleased with the effect, although I think I’ll have to fit in a retrospective satin stitch where the orange arrow is in the second picture.

But for now, this project is on hold. It seems a bit silly to put something this small on hold – after all, how long can it take to finish? But something else came up: a wedding! Next Thursday! Well, yes, I’ll admit I knew about it a while ago, but I hadn’t really thought of anything to stitch. Until last night. The bride is my husband’s niece, and she is a wiz with fabrics and interior decorating and all that. She also makes adorable cuddly elephants, all sewn by hand and each one unique. Elephants. Now, there is something about elephants not forgetting, or in other words, remembering… Some furious scribbling later I had a small elephant with initials, a date, a motto or saying, colour suggestions (purple, green and yellow) and ideas for a filling pattern (lattice work with lazy daisy flowers). I like my Wedding Elephant!

The Wedding Elephant with the appropriate date and initials

The Wedding Elephant, ready for any occasion

Now all I need to do is stitch it .

Hurrah! Oh dear…

Posted on 5th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Sounds of rejoicing throughout the Figworthy home: I’ve finished Orpheus II! It is essentially a re-arranged and elongated Orpheus I, which is why I’m treating them as two variations of one design. Doesn’t the choice of colour make a difference though! And I love the subtle variegations in the Sparklies fabrics – they bring out the best in the standard DMC perles. Orpheus will go on sale tomorrow, both on its own and as part of the Ukrainian Collection together with Odessa and Lviv.

Finishing Orpheus meant that I was now allowed to start a new project. Or perhaps even projectS – one on the Millennium frame and a few tiddly ones in hoops. The choice of project for the Millennium frame was easy: the Benton & Johnson goldwork balloon. My first step there was to attach the blue silk to a calico backing, and this proved to be more challenging than expected.

I’d done my research, studying both in books and online how various experienced stitchers attached smaller pieces of fabric to larger pieces of backing before mounting the sandwich on a frame. There were some individual variations, but on the whole it seemed to amount to this: Pin fabric to calico. Sew fabric to calico using either herringbone stitch or long and short stitches, starting from the centre of each side. Mount calico on frame. Start stitching.

Having remembered just in time first to transfer the design on to the silk, I began with step one (I’m a traditionalist at heart) and pinned the silk to the calico, making sure that the grain of both fabrics lined up. Not easy as the calico appeared to be a little crooked, and the silk hadn’t been cut straight on all sides, but I did the best I could manage. That was my first mistake – I should have straightened up the fabric before starting.

It looked terribly bumpy even before I got all the pins in, so I removed quite a few of them and made do with about four a side, equally spaced. That was very likely my second mistake. (Can you see a pattern emerging here?) Third mistake: I made my herringbones far too large, especially when I changed from the stabbing method to the sewing method halfway through.

Perhaps if I just put it on the Millennium frame and tighten it up, it’ll miraculously go flat and taut? Alas, no.

At that point I decided to give up and unpick the whole thing. My husband reminded me that there were daffodils to be dead-headed in the front garden, and that I had declared an intention to attack the virulent ground elder that threatens to smother everything else in the back garden, so I went out into the sunshine and got myself some virtuously aching muscles. Then I came back in and did what I should have done in the first place, tidied up the edges of my fabrics. You do this by pulling out threads until you’ve got a straight edge, then trimming the superfluous fringe. And boy, was there a lot of superfluous fringe!

So now that I’ve got two straightened pieces of fabric my troubles are over, right? Well, not quite – the calico really is rather crooked; I mean that the warp and weft threads are not at right angles to each other, so even with neatened edges it is not a true rectangle. And the silk, though by no means as wonky as the calico, is half a centimetre longer on one vertical side than on the other, even though all four sides have been straightened. So I’m taking a while to think this through. I can get the vertical grain of the two fabrics to line up quite well. Perhaps if I attach the silk along the top and bottom only, it’ll work better. I might try this out with a spare piece of satin dupion first.

For now I’ll relax with some of the Kelly Fletcher flowers, trying out my two twills and some other fabric and thread combinations. But I’ll get back to that balloon in time – promise!

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

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