A box of lilies

Well, a box frame of lilies. Following Anita the tutor’s tip after last month’s shadow work class I got this frame from Hobbycraft – as they had a sale on, the discount almost covered the postage, which was a bonus. (Even better, when I told a friend from church who is an avid card maker, she said that any time I want something from Hobbycraft she’ll be happy to get it for me on one of her frequent trips there and save me paying any postage at all!)

The box frame from Hobbycraft

I was a little nervous about mounting this project; the material it was stitched on, silk organza, meant it couldn’t be stretched around a foam or mat board backing. Instead, Anita had explained, it would need to be attached to the mat that came with the frame using double-sided tape, which sounded a risky proposition but necessary for the required float-on-air effect. In order to put off the scary moment I started by taking the box frame apart to examine all its constituent parts, to wit the black frame itself, the glass (or more likely perspex), a white mat, a white spacer frame about a centimetre high, and the backing board. I also played with some materials to cover the backing board with; Anita said she’d used silver card, and I remembered some silver lurex in my stash. As I dug that out, I found some golden yellow satin dupion as well. I tried the project against both backgrounds and decided I liked the gold better as it made the flowers stand out more.

Dismantling the box frame Gold or silver as a background?

Time to stop shilly-shallying and tackle the actual framing. But oh my goodness, the fabric is so sheer and looks so fragile!

Very sheer fabric

First I glued the golden fabric to the backing board, less-shiny side up. While I waited for the glue to dry, I ironed the organza as carefully as I could, then attached double-sided tape to the mat. Peel off the backing, and carefully press the mat onto the fabric. I didn’t trim the organza right down to the mat, but left a border of about half an inch, on the grounds that it would give me something to hold on to should I need to reposition the fabric or pull it taut if it went slack. I then gently pushed it down into the frame, and inserted the spacer in such a way that the excess organza was caught between the frame and the spacer for extra security.

Double-sided tape on the back of the mat The mat positioned on top of the embroidery Fabric, mat and spacer inserted into the box frame

Now to add the fabric-covered backing board, the glue having had plenty of time to dry. But unfortunately, things had not quite gone to plan. Although it was the sort of white glue that dries clear, the only thing that was clear in this case was that that doesn’t mean it becomes invisible… On to Plan B – pull off the stained fabric, place double-sided sticky tape around the edges of the board, and stick on a new piece of fabric. Unlike the first time round I chose to trim it with a spare half inch around the edges, just in case it would come in useful. I wasn’t sure how it might, but you never know. I then placed the re-covered board in the frame and secured it with the little push-down clips. Done!

The glue-stained fabric Plan B: double-sided tape The re-covered board The frame completely assembled

Or not. The surplus fabric surrounding the covered backing board came in useful when I had to pull it from the frame because I had not taken into account that a woven fabric placed behind a see-through woven fabric is going to cause a dizzyness-inducing moiré effect…

An unforeseen moiré effect

I looked at the framed embroidery through half-closed eyes, I squinted at it sideways – there was no help for it, the backing fabric would have to come out. I remembered that Anita had backed hers with silver card, not fabric. There had obviously been solid reasoning behind that choice (or she was just lucky smiley). Not having any card of the right colour I experimented with some pale golden-beige felt from my stash to see if a non-woven fabric might work as well. It did, but the piece of felt I had wouldn’t cover the whole backing board. Then DH suggested I ask one of my paper-crafty friends if she had any golden yellow card. She did, and brought it round immediately. It was rather darker and yellower than both the felt and the original satin dupion, but it was worth a try.

Felt does not cause a moiré effect Felt, satin and card options

It worked, but my friend and I both felt it was on the dark side; the shadow work in the top and bottom leaves wasn’t quite so visible as with the lighter background. Another kind crafty friend (the one with the Hobbycraft habit in fact) to the rescue: she brought a box of card in various textures and shades of yellow to church, from which I picked three possibles to try out at home.

After all of which I decided that the darker card was the best option after all. Although the shadow work is a little less obvious, it is still visible; the warm shade sets off the whole design, and being that bit darker it does make the white lilies pop. So finally here it is, my framed shadow work, ready to be proudly displayed on top of the pianola!

The finished, framed piece

Green, green, green, and BEIGE!

And, to be fair, quite a few other colours as well, eventually. But as I was labouriously working my way through the dreaded Green Jumble in my RSN Canvaswork, some beige paving was the first thing to offer relief from the relentless succession of greens and more greens – green silk, green stranded cotton, green wool, green perlé; plain green, variegated green and blended green. Not quite 40 Shades of Green, but pretty close. With quite a lot of jumble still to fill in, I felt I needed a break. Some nice simple paving in a nice simple stitch would just fit the bill!

Sampling the paving stitch

I mentioned that paving in my last update, but mostly as it touched upon the tulips near it, so I thought I’d describe it in a bit more detail. As it happens, the paving turned out not to be as simple as I had imagined. For one thing, in my mind it was, well, paving-coloured. Beige. But closer inspection of my source picture showed it to be a mix of beiges, greys and blues, with a touch of white here and there. In order to achieve the matt texture I wanted I’d chosen Danish Blomstergarn (also called flower threads), an unmercerised cotton; the stitch I’d decided on was Oblique Slav worked in three threads, which offered scope for blending. When I first considered the paving I’d picked six shades of the Blomstergarn, but as I started stitching I realised that range wasn’t nearly wide enough to replicate the colours with any amount of accuracy. Back to my box of Danish delights to add a light blue, a light grey and another couple of beiges. Which turned out still not to be enough, so two more greys were added, bringing the number of shades to twelve. With up to eight needles on the go at any one time it wasn’t what you would call straightforward, but at least it wasn’t green smiley.

Twelve shades of Blomstergarn Eight needles in play

Along the way there was some unpicking because of an incorrectly worked stitch, straight compensating stitches added along the top of the paving to create a nice level edge, and a bit of overstitched shading, but in a lot less time than the green had been taking the paving was done! (OK, full disclosure – it wasn’t. As I continued with the green and the small tulips furthest towards the back I kept adding more bits of paving where I felt it should shine through the greenery and flowers. But most of it was done by this time.)

An incorrectly worked paving stitch Compensating stitches to neaten the edge Most of the paving done

After that, it was back to the green. Suffice it to say that it took a long time, and a lot of different blends (some including reds, pinks and yellows – the excitement!), and occasionally I saved my sanity by working on some more tulips, but eventually all the areas around the large tulips and leaves were filled. Although with the tutor I’d identified a few places where stems had to be added on top of the stitching, the green jumble was pretty much finished.

Green with a bit of pink! More tulips Red blended into the greens, and some stems needed The green jumble finished

You may have noticed in that last photograph that I had played around with ribbon to create two small tulips and a bud on the edges of the design, but the big ribbon-tulip finale would have to wait a bit while I started on a tree and a hedge. The tree, or more accurately clump of trees, on the right is going to be done in rice stitch – a cross stitch with four small diagonal stitches over the arms. This means that you can in theory get 6 colours or blends into any one stitch, making it a great choice for the airy look needed, as it could combine my sky threads with my tree threads. After sampling several options (including one with the crosses worked in different directions, which was voted down by Kathryn as too fussy) I’d agreed with the various tutors that I would do all the foundation crosses first, in blends that would set out the basic shape of the tree and the distribution of greens and blues; then create two trunks by means of wrapped wire over the top; and finally add the top stitches to create the fine detail. I would also work the hedge at the bottom of the trees, extended up to the mill. Well, I managed the tree foundation (in several blends of blue Caron Soie Cristale with white Madeira Lana and five shades of green Heathway Milano crewel wool) and the hedge (French knots in three blends of green) before I was seduced by the idea of really finishing the bottom half of the design for good and all, and getting on with the tulips!

Sampling rice stitch and trunks The foundation of the rice stitches that will make up the clump of trees A French knot hedge

This was the fun part: rummaging through my stash of silk ribbons, working out how to use the variegated ones to such an effect that it needed less fastening on and off, and “painting” the little flowers with one eye on the source picture and an Impressionist mindset.

Fastening on ribbons Lots of colours Adding some green as well The finished tulips

Before my floral extravaganza, I’d made a start on the mill in class, trying to recreate the grey upper part with its stark shadows in soft cottons, using several variations of gobelin stitch; and I’d also worked the door in dark green silk, but because of the way the top edge of the paving is stitched, it turned out to be impossible to make a smooth edge between it and the bottom of the door. I discussed it with Helen J, who suggested using stitches that stop just short of the paving and working a stitch over the top. Having done the shorter stitches I’m not sure I like the look of it so that may get unpicked.

The upper part of the mill Mill door, first try

And finally, the tree trunks. Two gauges of wire, which in the end unfortunately didn’t make that much of a difference, wrapped in a doubled strand of variegated brown. Secured at the beginning and end, and with an occasional stitch-through-the-canvas along the length of the wire.

Anchoring the first bit of wire at the back of the canvas Starting the wrapping Taking the wrapped wire through to the back The finished trunks

And that’s where I’ve got to. Now it will have to be put away for a bit while I concentrate on stitched models for classes and instructions for magazine articles. But I’m really pleased that after all this time, the bottom half is complete and I’ve made a good start on the top half. I’ll finish this module yet smiley!

Overview of the whole piece

Shadowy lilies

My RSN Certificate Canvaswork has been dragging on for three years and counting, I have three workshops and a six-week course to prepare for, and a magazine deadline is looming, so obviously what I urgently needed to do was go on a two-day class to learn shadow work!

When the RSN’s International Summer School programme went up on their website, I had a lovely browse without any intention of actually going on one of these courses. For one thing, they don’t teach these at their Rugby branch anymore and I don’t really like online classes (except for the self-paced ones), so it would mean travel and accommodation on top of the not inconsiderable cost of the class itself. Moreover, although some of the projects were gorgeous and I would have loved to stitched them, the ones I liked were all in techniques that I’ve had a good bit of experience in already. But them I came across Anita Harrison’s shadow work class, which was illustrated with a rather tantalisingly incomplete picture of the project and a sketch-plus-materials. I’d never done shadow work before. And I like lilies of the valley. I succumbed.

The shadow work class design

Mr Mabel and I decided to make a little holiday of it – I would go down on the Monday, do the course on Tuesday and Wednesday when he would join me at the end of class, and then we’d have another couple of days there to explore the area. I had found a lovely AirBnB just across the river in Thames Ditton with a riverside garden, I was going to be stitching in one of the most spectacular settings you can think of, and nearby was Bushy Park where you can see deer closer up than anywhere else I’ve ever been. On top of all that, the sun shone most of the time. Bliss!

A riverside garden to relax in Hampton Court Palace is a spectacular setting for a stitching class Deer galore in Bushy Park

To my surprise there were only two others besides me in the class, a lady from the Yorkshire Dales who had taken RSN classes before and a young textile student from America who had come for a week with her mother, two aunts and two grandmothers (they were exploring London while she was doing her embroidery). A nice transatlantic touch to our part of the International Summer School, and in case we were in danger of forgetting that that was what we were part of, there was a goody bag with a themed notebook, pencils, pin cushion and small padded project bag.

My two fellow students and the trainee tutor The contents of the goody bag

Having had a look in the goody bag, we got round to the Real Stuff: opening our kits and hooping up. The beautifully presented kit contained DeVere stranded cotton in two greens, white stranded cotton, a reel of blue sewing thread, needles and pins, a needle threader, a glassine envelope with transparent sequins and a green bead, and the fabric. This was an etheral-looking silk organza with the design already transferred onto it; it looked impossibly fragile but like most silk fabrics was actually remarkably sturdy, although it was rather prone to fraying around the edges. Our first task was to line up two small rectangles of organza and baste them behind the middle leaves; the picture shows just how sheer the fabric is.

The class kit Contents of the kit (minus fabric) Hooped up and a double layer of organza basted on

The essence of shadow work is that the stitching at the back of the work shines through and is as much part of the design as the stitching at the front; hence the translucent fabric. This also means, however, that everything you do at the back of the work will be visible at the front unless covered by other stitching. And that means that moving from one element to another is pretty much impossible – everything that is not immediately connected to something else has to be self-contained in its stitching – and that fastening on and off has to be done extremely carefully. You will notice that in some places the stitching looks a little heavier than the stitching around it; that is where a few tiny backstitches have been worked underneath the main stitching in order to secure it. Here you can see the first stage of the project, with the middle leaves fully stitched using fly stitch, stem stitch and whipped blanket stitch. The next step was going to be some rather scary cutting…

The middle leaves stitched

The two basted-on layers of organza had to be trimmed as close as possible to the blanket stitch outline of the leaves; challenging as the hoop made it difficult to get the scissors flat against the fabric, but taking the fabric out of the hoop would slacken the tension and present its own problems. At least with the main fabric held taut you could pull back the extra layers to give a clearer view of where you were cutting. Still rather nerve-racking though. After that, we were told to work the longest of the three stems before adding yet another layer of organza, this time behind the top leaves. Having one stem done meant that we’d be able to add at least one of the flowers while in class even if we didn’t manage to complete the stitching and trimming on the top leaves. Because the organza is a mesh a bit like silk gauze, I found it tricky to get a perfectly smooth curve on the stem stitch, but I was reassured by seeing that same effect in the tutor’s stitched model – seemingly that’s just how stitching behaves on this sort of fabric.

Trimming the extra layers of organza Adding a stem

The top leaves were outlined in blanket stitch (unwhipped this time) and the central part was worked in a stitch that is characteristic of shadow work, reverse closed herringbone (also known as double backstitch because of how it looks at the front of the work). It forms an outline of the shape at the front, with the herringbone filling showing through from the back. Depending on the size of the backstitches it can be airy or dense, and you can vary this along the shape, but Anita advised us to work it regularly on these leaves so that we got used to the stitch, and to do any varying on the two small leaves at the bottom of the design. She then demonstrated how to do the sequin flowers, and we all stitched one so she could see that we understood the process. And that was the end of the class! The rest would have to be finished at home.

Leaves in reverse closed herringbone stitch Anita demonstrates how to stitch the sequin flowers Hooped up at home to finish the project

Back home the first thing was some more scary cutting, trying to get the scissors as close as possible to the stitching without accidentally snipping anything, followed by stitching the remaining two stems.

Some of the extra organza layer trimmed Trying to get the scissors close to the stitching Stems in stem stitch

This, by the way, is how we were taught to fasten on: take the knotted thread down into the fabric about half a centimetre away from your starting point, work three teeny-weeny backstitches, snip the knot off and make sure your stitching covers the backstitches. Unfortunately it seems to be well-nigh impossible for them not to show a little bit, making those parts of the line look slightly heavier. It is particularly visible in the start of the small leaf, although it’s less noticeable at a normal viewing distance. In the small leaves I tried varying the length of the backstitches so that the herringbone is denser in the tips and lighter in the middle, and I like the effect.

Fastening on Varying the herringbone density

With all the leaves finished and everything that needed trimming trimmed, all that was left was the central sequin held on with a bead, and eight more sequin flowers. As all the sequins were transparent, fastening on and off had to be done as carefully here as everywhere else in the piece.

The central sequin and bead

When I say “all that was left”, I make it sounds quicker than it was. The pretty white flowers proved to be surprisingly fiddly and labour-intensive to work in such a way that nothing shows through that shouldn’t! Here’s how they are done. First, thread a sequin onto the end of a single strand of white cotton. Then tie a double knot around the sequin, and push the knot away from the edge. Position the sequin where you want it at the back of the work with the knot sitting at the back of the sequin, and holding it in place with your finger, bring the needle up through the centre. Work four stitches over the top half of the sequin, making sure that one of them covers the line made by the thread where you tied it to the sequin.

Thread the sequin onto the end of the thread Knot the thread around the sequin Postion the sequin and come up through the centre Work four stitches, making sure the tying-on line is covered

Next are the stamens. They look like pistil stitches, but they aren’t – they are worked in two parts. First a straight stitch starting from the centre of the sequin, then a French knot started about two fabric threads away, and taken down through the very end of the straight stitch. Then back to the centre to come up for the next straight stitch. After the third stamen, back to the centre to fasten off by going behind some of the stitches and making a knot as close to the centre as possible. Voilà, one lily-of-the-valley flower with no (or at least very little) thread showing through from the back!

The French knot pierces the straight stitch Fastening off The finished flower

And here is the finished project; I really enjoyed my first foray into shadow work, and although I can see the bits that could be improved I’m pleased with the result.

The finished project

Anita had mounted her model in a black box frame which made it look lovely and floaty, and she said it was actually quite a cheap one she’d happened to find at Hobbycraft smiley. When I checked whether they still did that frame, it turned out to be on sale at half price, which meant that even with the postage it was a very affordable way of showing off my shadow work. As I’ve only just finished the stitching I haven’t got round to the mounting yet, and I really should be doing a bit more Canvas homework first, but I’ll try and remember to show you my lily of the valley when it’s framed and ready to be displayed!

Minimal but meaningful

After a few false starts, could this short scribble be the re-ignition of FoF? If so, the title of this particular flight will turn out to be doubly appropriate. But I intended it to refer to the stitching I did today on my RSN Canvaswork. It wasn’t much, and in fact part of it was unpicking, but it has got me back into the project, and so however minimal my progress is, its significance is great – to me at least smiley. I will write in more detail about the interminable third module of my Certificate in a future FoF, but for now I present to you an extended tulip, and some modified paving.

Let’s begin by having a look at what needed modifying. The small picture shows part of the printed photograph I’m working from; it’s what I’m aiming to represent in canvas stitches. This means a lot of simplifying and stylising – canvaswork is not photo-realistic. Still, you don’t want to oversimplify, and that is rather what had happened on the left-hand side of the paving (orange arrows). In the photograph it is mottled, on the canvas it is a uniform brown blob, all the more noticeable because all the rest of the paving uses blended threads. And how I managed to squash that orangy-red tulip (light blue arrows) to about half its height I do not know, but it obviously needed extending. Finally, the bit of paving between that tulip and the one above it needed unpicking because I’d failed to keep the stitch pattern going (yellow arrow); the bottom three stitches had to be split in two to continue the diagonal line where the stitches meet.

The photo to aim for Things that need changing

For the brown blob the options were: unpicking and restitching with a blend instead of three threads of the same brown, or adding a few random stitches in a single thread of grey. The latter would mean that some of the stitches would consist of four threads instead of three. Would that be very noticeable? I suspected it wouldn’t. I was right. If you look very closely, you can tell (orange arrow). The assessors may well look closely enough to tell. But I am not going to unpick a perfectly good bit of paving just for that. I have learnt something important: I am not as much of a perfectionist as I thought!

Random grey stitches added to the brown paving

Next was the combination of the squashed tulip and the paving that didn’t have the right stitch pattern. Here I was lucky, not once but twice. First of all, the bit of paving that needed unpicking turned out to be at the start of a thread, which made it much easier to take out what needed taking out without disturbing the remaining stitches. The second bit of luck was the way the tulip worked out. When I’d pointed it out in class, the tutor had suggested first restitching the paving with the correct pattern and then extending the tulip over the top. I decided to go rogue and extend the tulip first. This turned out to fill almost the entire unpicked space, with only a very small bit of canvas still bare (blue arrow).

The tulip extended

Not only that, but a closer inspection of the photograph showed that some of the narrow space between the extended tulip and the one above it was actually leaf and stem rather then paving. A few green stitches, some of them partly over the top of the paving, sorted that. Finally I filled in a small area between the two largish pink tulips with paving in two blends (green arrow), and that was the end of my stitching session.

One more bit of paving

Judged by the number of stitches worked, or the area of canvas covered, it’s not much. But I sat down and worked on it, and when I got up I liked the look of it better than at the beginning. That will do me just fine.

The whole box of tricks

When, in the previous FoF, I showed you the RSN online course Mr Mabel got me for Christmas, it reminded me that I hadn’t actually let you know how I far I’d got with the RSN online course I succumbed to last summer: box making. Well, I finished it! (Don’t look so surprised…)

My one and only update on this project (other than showing you the kit when it arrived) consisted of some of the card parts covered in yellow fabric using sticky tape, and one of the false floor supports attached using ladder stitch. In a bid to improve the neatness of my ladder stitching, as well as the curved needle that came with the kit I tried two different ones from my stash (one larger & thinner, one the same thickness but smaller), but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect. The kit needle was marginally more comfortable to use than the others, so I stuck with that as I attached the other false floor supports.

Trying a larger, thinner needle Trying a smaller needle Not much difference...

The next step was attaching the parts that form the inner box. First two sides, then the bottom (which I started to attach the wrong way round – the inner box has all the messy sides on the outside and the nice covered sides on the inside, which got me muddled; fortunately I noticed in time). Fitting those first parts together is very fiddly, as they all flap about and you need about three hands to keep everything in position while sewing them to each other. Fastening the sewing thread on in the corners was tricky, too: the needle gets sticky from the tape underneath the fabric and sometimes the corners come undone when pulling the needle through! But with a lot of patience I eventually had the inner box assembled.

The first two sides Adding the bottom A fiddly business The inner box complete

Finally I got to the flowered fabric! This time, because I wanted to try both techniques shown in the course videos, I chose to lace the fabric around the card pieces instead of using sticky tape. Using my mellor (a laying tool or really big blunt needle would work as well) to tighten up the stitches helped to get the fabric nice and taut, but once again I found it very difficult to get it folded round the card on the grain.

Lacing the flowered fabric to the card pieces Tightening the lacing using a mellor Fully laced, back Fully laced, front

In between the lacing and subsequent assembling I felt I needed the occasional change, so I worked on the embroidery that would decorate the top of the lid. It is the word Threads in stem stitch, embellished with a little sprig of greenery using lazy daisies. In the original it is done entirely in dark green, but because that looked a little bit dull I added some highlights in bright yellow to echo the inside of the box.

Getting ready to embroider the word Threads Threads embroidered in green only Yellow highlights added

Once all the bits for the outer box had been laced, it was on to assembly. As with the inner box, you start with two sides and then add the bottom. Then the process differs, because you assemble the rest of the outer box around the inner box. They are meant to be such a snug fit that if you completed the outer box first, you wouldn’t be able to get the inner box inside it.

Starting the assembly of the outer box Three parts attached Fitting the inner box inside the three connected outer parts

Well, it was snug all right. Whether because I had wrapped the yellow fabric around the card too bulkily, or whether my sewing together hadn’t been quite accurate enough, it was a squash to attach the remaining two sides. Still, I got the thing together fairly tidily, in spite of cat hair trying to inveigle itself into the seams. I was particularly pleased with the look of the bottom, with all the bits fitting rather neatly together!

A squash to attach the remaining sides Ladder stitching the outer box together (with cat hair) The inner box inside the outer box The bits all fitting together on the bottom

But that was not the end of it – the tops of the inner and outer box had to be ladder stitched together all round. For extra strength I used shorter stitches near the corners, as they seemed a bit strained, but otherwise I tried to get the stitches as equal as possible. As you can see that didn’t always work; if I’d been really committed I suppose I would have unpicked and re-stitched, but by then I had done such an awful lot of ladder stitching that I didn’t.

Ladder stitching the tops together Uneven ladder stitches The inner and outer boxes sewn together

Then came the false floor, which included the new challenge of incorporating ribbon tabs with which to lift it out of the box. These tabs were first held in place with some double sided tape, and then more securely attached by ladder stitching through them when sewing both halves of the floor together. And then it was time to see whether the floor fitted. Fortunately it did smiley.

Ribbon tabs temporarily stuck on to the false floor Ladder stitching through the tabs Ladder stitching through the tabs The false floor fitted

Time to put the lid together. More ladder stitching! The smaller inner lid and the larger outer lid are attached wrong sides together (forming a lip which holds the lid on securely), and the embroidery (laced over padded card) is sewn onto the top of the outer lid. I tried to place everything as symmetrically as possible, but I’m sure there is a bit of variation in the width of the various borders. Still, people are unlikely to take a tape measure out when I show them the box…

Attaching the two lid halves Pinning the embroidery ready for lacing Attaching the embroidery The sandwich The inside of the lid

And here it is, the completed box; lid on, lid off, floor in, floor out, and with cat.

Box with the lid on Box with the lid off, showing the bottom of the lid, floor in Box with the lid off, showing the top of the lid, floor out Box inspected by cat

So what’s the final verdict? About the course – great fun, good informative videos, and a well-presented kit. About the box? Well, let’s say I’m not unhappy with it smiley. Measured against the Diploma assessment criteria a fellow RSN student kindly let me have a look at, it’s rubbish. The fabric grain is all over the place, the sticky tape came undone too quickly and frequent re-pulling caused fraying and grubbiness, and it was such a squash getting the inner box sewn into the outer one that the card bent a little in one place, making the fabric go slightly slack (fortunately right in a corner and not very noticeable in the finished box). There is some not-quite-exact placement of the support bits, uneven ladder stitches, and visible stitching on the exposed part of one of the corners of the lid. On the other hand, the stitching definitely got better over time, and I have got a sturdy and quite attractive box. On the whole it was a great learning process, but oh boy was it a good decision not to go for the complicated curved box I was so tempted by!

New year’s resolutions

Happy New Year

The fact that I am wishing you this on 3rd January tells you all you need to know about my success rate with new year’s resolutions. I had fully intended to get FoF back on track after its long hiatus on the first day of the year, but it didn’t happen. Oh well. Better late than never, as they say, and I hope to catch up on all the things that would normally have been posted in the dry spell between the end of last August and now, when instead life and Covid got in the way. This means some of it wont’t be as topical as it might have been, but fortunately goldwork materials, course pictures and Certificate updates don’t really have best before dates. So on with the show, and one resolution that I have kept!

It concerns what some would call UFOs but I prefer to think of as long-term WIPs. My resolution was, not necessarily to finish them, but at least to occasionally put some stitches in. Well, I didn’t want to be too ambitious. And rather to my own surprise, I have actually done some of this occasional stitching! One of the projects to benefit from this is Llandrindod. True, the difference between the progress picture taken in November 2021 and today’s picture is not massive, but it is noticeable – that must count towards the resolution score.

Llandrindod in 2021 Llandrindod in 2024

Another design you may remember is my quartet of Hannah Dunnet-inspired trees that became a trio because I simply couldn’t make one of the trees work. I had also got stuck on the third of the remaining trees, as the padded satin stitch used for the autumnal swirls in its foliage was not doing what I wanted it to do. After unpicking and restitching the red swirl twice I’d decided to leave it and work on things that were more fun. But as I was tidying my craft room I came across the trees and decided to have another go. And what do you know, it worked! The satin stitch slanted nicely around the curves, and I’m happy with the way it looks. Just the other three swirls to go, plus some green French knots in the background, and it will be a WIP no longer.

Where I left the tree Progress!

On the grounds that there is no absolute law which states that new year’s resolutions have to be onerous, I made my second resolution a very easy one to keep: improving my skills by practicing with new projects, and enjoying the process a lot! Although I haven’t put a stitch in yet, I have hooped up the fabric and set out the materials for this lovely RSN online goldwork & silk shading course which Mr Mabel gave me for Christmas. Just looking at it and handling the materials brings me great pleasure! I’m sure I will enjoy it as much as the box making course I did last year (an update on which is one of the FoFs-to-come).

Ready to start the RSN silk shading and goldwork course

I hope all your resolutions are pleasant ones, and that you will have a great time keeping them in 2024!

Tuck in and smell the tulips

My last update on the RSN Canvaswork module stopped at a slimmed-down tulip, with the promise of leaves to come before class. Well, somewhat to my own surprise they did! Two of them, both in satin stitch. The first one I was going to stitch exactly as sampled, with the two halves of the leaf in vertical and horizontal satin stitch. In order to have no canvas showing I made sure to tuck the stitches in the second half neatly underneath the stitches in the first half, which also made for a rather effective leaf vein. Unfortunately horizontal and vertical stitches do create a different edge, and I was slightly worried whether the bump caused by the transition from one to the other would be frowned on. Fortunately the tutor, Kathryn, said that I was ending everything in the same line of holes, as I should, and the bump is the natural consequence of the nature of the stitches, which the assessors allow for.

Tucking under the stitches to create the leaf vein Horizontal and vertical stitches along the edge

The next leaf, or rather two leaves that sort of blend into each other, had a stem to contend with. As instructed I had stitched the stem first as it is further towards the front in the design; and I quickly found that working the diagonal satin stitch into the holes directly next to the stem would not do. There was canvas showing, so that meant more tucking, a lot of it, and in some awkward positions! On the left-hand side it meant coming up at an angle from underneath the big pink tulip, trying not to disturb its stitches, and going down at an angle underneath the short and therefore rather tight stitches of the stem. All this while juggling three or four needles holding different thread blends.

Too short a stitch Leaf stitches tucked underneath the stem Coming up from underneath the pink tulip

Still, the end result was worth it I think, especially once I’d added a thin hightlight on the right. I asked Kathryn about that and she said although generally shading and colour changes had to be achieved within the canvas stitches, an occasional outline stitched over the top was fine, especially when the width of the colour in question is so small that any stitch over a canvas thread would be too wide. I also remarked to her that although I realised the reasoning behind the back-to-front rule, it would have been so much easier to have done this the other way round! To which she replied that sometimes there were exceptions to the rule… Hmm, I could have done with that insight a bit earlier!

The satin stitch leaves completed A stem stitch highlight added

To be fair, that usually applies to things like ribbon stitches done over the surface of previous stitches, which is how the very small tulips overlapping the paving in my photograph will be done. But it’s good to know one can occasionally interpret the rules creatively.

Another thing I’d managed before class was a tiny bud. I did get slightly carried away with the possibilities of blending, ending up with four blends of five shades of Madeira silk in four stitches. Still, it makes for a nice bud smiley.

A tiny bud Four blends for four stitches

Finally I sampled two variations of rose leaf stitch, a complicated one involving a crochet hook and a simpler one, both worked over a piece of stiff paper, both interesting, and neither in the least usable in my design. The combination of blue silk and green chenille thread I sampled in class for the lacy tree against the sky didn’t even have the distinction of looking interesting – the chenille was too bulky and just looked messy, besides shredding like mad. Oh well, you don’t know unless you try.

Starting a rose leaf stitch Manipulating the stitches with a crochet hook The two rose leaf variations Messy chenille

In class it was interesting to get Kathryn’s fresh view of my project, as she hadn’t seen it before. It was decided I would tackle some green stuff in the afternoon, but first I would work the pointy tulip. Split gobelin in three directions because two of the petals in the photograph have quite strong diagonal lines, with no splitting along the petal edges. Two petals which in the picture blend into each other were to be treated as one petal. Kathryn wasn’t sure I’d be able to get in the very thin light edge on the left-hand petal, but I thought if I started the stitching from that edge in a light shade and then split into it with a darker shade, it would produce something nearly narrow enough so that it wouldn’t need another outline stitch. I didn’t sample this tulip but worked it straight onto the main canvas, blending five shades of Silk Mill silk and one of Madeira as I went. The last two pictures show the finished tulip under different lighting conditions; what a difference that can make in a photograph!

Six shades for blending Diagonal split gobelin The finished tulip The finished tulip

I will get to the green stuff, but first let’s talk stems for a bit. When stitching the most prominent tulip stems, one had got overlooked – or perhaps I’d temporarily ignored it because unlike the others it was at an angle. Time to remedy that, as with a bit of compensation the brick stitch used for the other stems would work here as well. I started out with the same blend of five strands of dark green with one burgundy and one dark flesh, but that was too red compared to the photograph, so I took out the dark flesh and put in another green. Much better. Unfortunately this did show up the stem of the large bud on the left; it’s quite a different colour, which is fine because that reflects the photograph, but the long satin stitches don’t quite fit in. They are, as Kathryn pointed out, rather too long to be approved of without couching, but couching would break up the long lines I was after. And if those long lines were going to be broken up anyway, I might as well do this stem in the same brick stitch as the other stems and create what is known as a “stitch language” for stems throughout the piece. So one of my homework assignments is to unpick that stem and redo it it, possibly in the perle cotton used for the satin stitch, possibly in something stranded; we’ll see.

Too much red A slanted stem A stem that's for the chop

Right, leafy stuff. Having been on this particular module for some time now, Kathryn is the fourth tutor I’ve had, and she offered a fourth view (after Angela’s and the two Helens’) on the jumble of green among the tulips. Sigh. She said she quite understood I was beginning to get sampling fatigue, but she was worried that the double upright cross which I’d sampled as the largest of the three jumble patterns (as suggested by one of the Helens) would be too bulky, and would look as though it was in front of the large leaves it was surrounding instead of retreating into the background. She also felt that three different stitches was too much of a good thing. There was a stitch she couldn’t remember the name of that was really good for grasses and so on, and which could possibly be stitched on two different scales – then I would be able to do the whole jumble in what was effectively one stitch, giving coherence to it, while varying the colours to add highlights to the texture. While I stitched my pointy tulip and stem, Kathryn leafed (pun intended) through various canvas stitch books, and finally came up with the rather splendidly named Triple Cross Encroaching.

Triple Cross Encroaching

I sampled this in some variegated shashiko thread, at the original size and smaller. The shashiko thread was too thick for the smaller version, which incidentally is relatively narrower than the original size because although the foundation cross stitch can be reduced from over-four to over-two, the slanted stitches only stick out beyond the cross by one canvas thread in the original, which can’t be reduced any further. Still, they both make interesting patterns. I then sampled them in one ply of Caron Watercolours (original size) and one thread of Caron Wildflowers (reduced version), with lighter stitches worked in to see whether that could be used to create highlights. These light stitches will need to be placed a bit more randomly and I can also play with working the stitch upside down, but it looks promising; and the idea of doing the whole green chaos in variations of one stitch definitely appeals!

The leafy jumble stitch in two sizes using variegated shashiko thread The original size worked in Watercolours The smaller size worked in Wildflowers

And that’s where I am at the moment. My next class is at the end of September, but with several busy weekends coming up I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do. Kathryn went through various of my samples for large leaves with me and we decided on the ones that would likely work best, so I will at least try to get the big leaves in the foreground stitched. And I might sneak in a bit of mill, just for a change…

The project after class

Boxing not-very-clever-yet

Well, I’ve started. In between tulips and leaves (and a dragon – more of that some other time) I’ve taken time out to work on the kit that came with the RSN Introduction to Box Making course. The pre-cut mountboard pieces (and oh my goodness am I glad they are pre-cut; Heather Lewis’ book puts a lot of emphasis on how accurate the cutting has to be, a challenge I am happy to postpone) are to be covered with fabric using two methods: lacing (expected) and double-sided sticky tape (very much not expected). The latter method feels remarkably like cheating, but as fellow C&D students pointed out on our FB group, the tape is not what holds the box together; it just attaches the fabric to the card for long enough to be able to sew the various parts together. If after sewing things together the sticky tape stops sticking or even disintegrates entirely, it doesn’t matter. It is only if the fabric has embroidery on it that lacing is a better option because of the added weight.

As I want to practice both methods I’ve decided to stick the yellow fabric (which will cover all the inner bits) and lace the patterned green fabric (for the outer bits). And I started with four of the larger yellow pieces, trimming and pinching corners but still not getting them quite as neat as I’d like (Marlous – her of the Stitching Sheep – suggested an additonal small piece of tape to aid corner neatness which I will try next time).

A covered piece of card A slightly too bulky corner

Things I learnt from those four pieces: 1) don’t cut the fabric too large, it leaves flappy unattached bits at the back; 2) even though you’ve pulled the fabric taut, sometimes there are small bulges along the edge, but when using sticky tape you can reposition these; and 3) it is very, very tricky to get the fabric folded around the card on the grain! One of the difficulties is that when you have stuck down two opposing sides and you move on to the other two, their corners are already fixed so when you pull to get the fabric taut you only pull the middle, leading to the grain curving rather than sitting tidily and neatly on the edge of the card. My trusty fellow students on the FB group, especially those who have already done the Creative Box module of the Diploma, suggested starting with the shorter sides rather than the longer ones as I had done, so I’ll try that next time, together with pulling the first two sides out towards the corners (i.e. along the edge of the card) as well as out at right angles to the card.

Fabric cut too large flaps about on the back Small bulges on the edge A curved grain

Now I was planning to take this course at a leisurely, not to say glacial, pace. Cover a few bits of card, put them away, cover a few more a couple of days or a week later, and then when all 19 bits are covered start assembling. But Marlous advised a cover-and-stitch approach because the sticky tape does allow the fabric to relax after a while (lacing presumably not so much). Having read Heather’s book about box making I knew that generally you start by attaching two sides and a bottom; I’d covered two long sides plus the bottom and top, so just cover a short side and get started, right? Wrong. This particular box has a false floor, and the supports for it have to be attached to the insides first. So I quickly covered one of the long supports (too quickly – I pulled the fabric too much one way, resulting in a fraying corner; tchk!), measured out 2mm from the bottom and sides of the larger piece to pinpoint the position of the support, and set about attaching them to each other. Fortunately the frayed corner could be put right at the bottom where it will eventually be snuggled up against two other corners so the fraying can be neatly tucked away.

A fraying corner Measuring out the support's position

All sewing together on boxes like these is done using slip stitch, also known as ladder stitch – I prefer the latter name because it is so descriptive of what the stitch looks like before you pull it together (shown below mitring a corner on my RSN Jacobean piece). As I mentioned above, on a basic box you start by sewing two sides together, but on this one the first thing is to attach the false floor supports to the four interior sides of the box. This means attaching one bit flat on top of another, and I suspect this is more challenging than stitching two edges together at right angles – at least I hope it is, because I found it quite challenging to get neat! Generally I am quite good at ladder stitch, but on this first piece the stitching is much more visible than I had expected/intended/hoped, even though I tried to get my stitches as low on the support edge as possible, and as far in on the main fabric as possible. Oh well, as long as I see improvement on the next three supports, I’ll be satisfied – this is after all my very first attempt at this particular discipline, and as I always impress on my own students, if everyone produced a perfect piece the very first time they had a go, what would happen to the teachers smiley?

Ladder stitch Stitching as close to the bottom of the support as possible The first support attached

The videos that form the main part of the course are very informative and helpful, but I do find that I miss not having written instructions. To some extend Heather’s box making book fills that gap, but that doesn’t, of course, mention this particular box. However, underneath every video there is a summary of what is covered in it, and I’ve copied and pasted that into a document, tidied it up and printed it out, so that as I am stitching away I can have a quick look at what I’m supposed to do next and how to do it without having to fire up the laptop. Most of those next steps will be yellow and not very exciting to look at – apologies for some rather monochrome updates! But I hope to get on to the floral fabric in the not too distant future.

Printed instructions and a lot of yellow

Stitching, unstitching, restitching and just one more stitch…

Looking back on my Canvaswork posts I realise I never updated you on my last class on 29th April. By 28th April nothing much had happened since the February class, but as I really couldn’t attend with nothing done at all I decided on some sampling. Helen McC had asked me to sample another background texture for the leafy jumble between the tulips, as she felt it needed three sizes rather than the two I’d done so far. She liked the staggered crosses, so I tried those using two plies of Caron Watercolours for the large crosses and one strand each of dark green and dark blue DMC for the small ones (the photograph shows only some of the small crosses done). By mistake I reversed the large crosses in the top row and found that I actually like the effect of that better with the other background (upright crosses) next to it, so that was a lucky error!

Sampling staggered crosses

I also sampled the smallest of the three textures, lazy kalem, using one ply of Caron Watercolours only (orange arrow), then adding a strand of very dark green DMC (green arrow), then adding a strand of very dark blue to that (blue arrow). I couldn’t see any difference that wasn’t accounted for by the Caron variegation. Nor could Helen J who taught the April class. So one ply of Watercolour it is.

Sampling lazy kalem

In class I played around with the medium-sized tulips behind the two very big ones, sampling split gobelin in Madeira silk which I liked apart from the colours (not enough blending) and a vertical herringbone variation in vintage silk originally intended for the pointy-petalled tulip which turned out not to work for any of them. A shame, because I did like the texture of the stitch. Perhaps I can use it somewhere else.

Sampling a split gobelin tulip The sampled tulip Sampling a vertical herringbone tulip

My homework for the next class, on 24th June, was to be the second hut and bush, the middle medium tulip and some more sampling for the pointy-petalled one. I managed one roof. Then the class was cancelled because too few people had signed up, and I cancelled one in early July because of a walk in memory of a church friend who had died suddenly and far too young. I was offered a replacement class for the one cancelled by the RSN on 22nd July, and decided to do some homework in preparation for that.

Looking at the roof I’d stitched, I didn’t like it. It’s a slanted buttonhole stitch with the ridge on the top, and the ridge was slightly irregular. I unpicked and restitched it. It was still slightly irregular, so I think I’ll just have to live with that! I also worked the rest of the hut, in horizontal satin stitches to depict the wooden planks, in two shades to show the shadow on the wood, and added two white lines to the roof because they are there in the photograph although I have no idea what they are. Finally the second bush, like the first one in Turkey rug stitch in a number of blends using crewel wool, vintage silk, flat silk and an anonymous matt twisted thread. I do dislike the fact that I’m not allowed to cut them until right at the end, because I can foresee that they will get horribly in the way! Still, it was progress. And then the RSN cancelled the 22nd July class as the tutors wouldn’t be able to get to Rugby because of the planned railway strikes. Oh well, at least it had spurred me on to do some work.

The re-stitched roof The rest of the hut The second bush

The cancellation meant that my next class won’t be until 19th August, a little under four months after the last one. Really, I should be able to show the tutor more than one hut and one bush! As we had extensively discussed the medium-sized tulips and some of the greenery, I decided to have a go at that. First the middle one of the three tulips; using Madeira silk as in the sampling, but more blended. In split gobelin, except where I wanted to indicate the line between petals, where the stitches would abut each other. I was quite pleased with how that turned out, apart from a little too much of the lightest shade (blue arrow). Still, I didn’t dislike it enough to unpick it smiley.

The stitched middle tulip next to the photograph The stitched middle tulip close-up

On to the left-hand tulip. I’d got some lovely Au Ver à Soie flat silk (Soie Ovale) for this tulip, but on reflection the shade was too peachy, so I went with some Eterna flat silk combined with one dark red Silk Mill silk. It uses the same split gobelin approach with abutting stitches for the petal line, and because I wanted that line to be quite clear, I found I had to work a tiny extra stitch before fastening off the lightest blend so the final stitch pulled in the right direction. The things you have to think of when doing canvaswork!

An extra little stitch to pull the previous stitch in the right direction

And then the tulip was finished. And I liked the colour and the blending. But. There were coverage issues, and more importantly, the shape was wrong. Somehow the tulip had got rather bloated, and compared to its intended outline it was too wide.

The left-hand tulip finished The left-hand tulip compared to its intended outline

The next day I bit the bullet and decided that it would have to come out. I printed the comparison photograph and marked it up to show which stitches needed to go. I also outlined the areas for the different blends, chucked the Silk Mill silk which has a slightly different texture from the Eternas, put new blends together and did as much prep as I could possibly do. Then some careful snipping and tweezering and the tulip was a fluffy pile of thread bits.

Marking up the tulip Getting ready to unpick Tweezering away the cut threads A pile of fluff

With twelve instead of ten strands in my needle (or rather, needles), I set to work; Eterna silk has been discontinued but fortunately I had enough left for this revamp! In marking up the tulip I’d also done some remedial work on the petal line, and fortunately I did much prefer the look of the restitched version (on the left in the comparison picture below). On consideration I should perhaps have kept that darker Silk Mill shade, but on the whole it is definitely an improvement, and much more like the intended outline. Phew! There are still some gaps, but I’m afraid they’ll just have to stay – more than twelve strands simply gets too bulky, and a major cause of the gaps is the fact that the stitches are split, which I can’t do anything about.

The restitched tulip

And finally, back to the middle tulip. Or rather, what I noticed when I started stitching it. The right-hand petal of my pride and joy, the big red tulip, was not as pointy as it should be!

A too blunt tulip petal

It was very, very fiddly fitting in one short diagonal stitch in Caron Watercolours, and even more fiddly getting the couching stitches over it. By doubling a single ply of Watercolours I could start with a loop start, which was one less end to secure at the back – a good thing as the stitching is so densely packed there that it is difficult to get a needle through to fasten off. For the two couching stitches I really needed two blends, because one had to be redder than the other, but I got around that by manipulating the four strands in the blend so that the darker strands were more prominent at the very tip (blue arrow), and the lighter ones at the stitch further in (green arrow). Was this tweak really necessary? Probably not; I doubt if anyone else would notice if I hadn’t added the extra stitch. But it was worth it for me, which is what counts in cases like these. If it doesn’t bother you, leave it. If it will irk you whenever you look at it, take it out and re-do it. You’ll be much happier for it smiley.

The diagonal stitch has been added The couching is in place

And that’s where it stands at the moment! Leafy stuff is my task for next weekend – after all the reds and pinks it’s going to be green, green, green. But all in silks and cottons, and not a trowel or pair of seccateurs in sight; very much my sort of gardening!

What the project looks like at the moment

Ticking all the boxes

I get the RSN newsletter. It tells me about exhibitions which I rarely if ever manage to go to, the Certificate & Diploma programme which I’m already on, the Degree and Future Tutors programmes which I will never do, and, slightly more dangerous, new classes and kits. Generally I am well able to resist both the kits (because I know the size of the pile of kits in my craft room) and the classes (because they are either at Hampton Court Palace which is impractical, or online which I don’t like), so I can safely take an interest in all the things the RSN do and organise without being overly tempted. But in the latest newsletter there was a link to a new self-paced course – online, true, but with the various instruction videos watched at your own convenience, as often as you like, at whatever pace you like. Almost like learning from a book, which has long been one of my favourite ways of tackling a new skill, but with the added bonus of having things demonstrated by a tutor over and over again if you need it. And unlike most of the other self-paced courses which I’d idly had a look at before, this one covered something which I have never had a go at before: box making.

The box that you will learn to make

Oddly enough I’d been thinking about box making only a little earlier because one of my fellow C & D students (Marlous, known as the Stitching Sheep) had posted a picture of her project for the Diploma Box Making module. And so this new course was definitely tempting. It got complicated when I went on the RSN website to find it, only to come across another box which immediately took my fancy and which was available as a kit. The curves, the tassle, the little goldwork bird on top – so much more attractive than the nice-but-plain box of the course. But also, very obviously, much much more advanced. Did I really want to risk getting what is without question a very expensive kit only to mess it up and end up with a wonky box?

An attractive bird box

I contacted the designer to ask her about the level of skill needed, and found out that although this particular RSN-themed version of the box was exclusive to the RSN, she was hoping to make the box available with a different theme (colour scheme, decoration) on her own website next year. Plenty of time for me to order and read through box-making course tutor Heather Lewis’ excellent book on the subject, do the beginners’ course and have a go at the curved box some time next year (or the year after – no rush), and so on to the Box Making module of the Diploma if I ever get that far.

Heather Lewis' book on box making

So I signed up for the Introduction to Box Making, and had a look at the first couple of videos which go through the materials and the course programme. Very informative and interesting, so I watched the one about two ways of covering the box pieces in fabric as well. Two days later both the book shown above and the course kit arrived – I hadn’t expected them to get here so quickly but it meant I could leaf through the book and have a leisurely look at the kit materials over the weekend. My very first look at the kit materials was a bit more rushed, as the box it arrived in was quite worryingly battered and our friendly postwoman waited patiently for me to open it and see if anything had been damaged so I could refuse to accept the parcel if that was the case.

A rather battered box

Fortunately all was well, except for a slight crease on the surface of one of the cut pieces of card, but as it wasn’t actually bent I don’t think it will be a problem. Mind you, I didn’t see the crease immediately as all the bits and pieces in the box came wrapped, either in a cardboard tube, a padded envelope or some pretty purple tissue paper, and I’d only checked to see those wrappings looked reasonably intact; well, I didn’t want to keep our kind postie waiting any longer than was necessary!

The box-making parcels that were inside the postal box

Then came the fun of properly unwrapping. The cardboard tube contained the two coloured fabrics for the inside and outside of the box, and white fabric with the word Threads printed on it for the embroidered lid, as well as some yellow ribbon. The padded envelope held the cut mountboard parts, one of them with the aforementioned crease. The purple tissue paper revealed double-sided sticky tape (yes, one of the methods for attaching fabric to the mountboard is sticky tape!), two tiny curved needles, embroidery needles, buttonhole thread, two colours of sewing thread and a skein of stranded cotton. There was also a welcome letter in the thin envelope with the picture of the box on it.

Fabrics Cut mountboard parts Sticky tape, needles and threads

All in all a satisfying collection of bits and bobs, but where to store them for the moment? I decided that the fabric would best be kept in the tube they came in, and all the other elements turned out to fit very nicely into the small purple bag that once held my RSN Certificate Welcome Pack; very appropriate smiley.

The bits and bobs fit nicely into my small purple RSN bag

Tempting though it is to have a go Right Away, there is Canvaswork to be done first. Several of my classes have been cancelled, either because too few people signed up for a particular session or because of rail strikes. Disappointing, but on the other hand I hadn’t managed to do much in the way of homework, so it may be just as well to have more time in which to get a reasonable amount done and have something substantial to discuss with the tutor. Since my last update here I have managed a small roof, a small bush and a medium-sized tulip – not much, perhaps, but it’s progress!