Proper padding and a little bit of gold

Posted on 1st December, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

After all the preparations I talked about in last week’s FoF, it was time for the third class in my Goldwork module. The first thing I did there was not concerned with the prep at all, but involved a little tweak to my sampled grass. Helen Jones, the tutor, suggested gently pinching the tips of the blades of grass with tweezers to make a sharper point, and it did make a difference. I still have to sample invisibly couched tips though! I also learnt that twist is always couched using the invisible in-between-the-plies method unless it is part of mixed couching, so both the grass and the kangaroo outline will have to be done in this way.

On to discuss the soft string padding. Helen hadn’t seen the design or the extra bit of tail padding before, so we talked about possibly using thicker string or more strands as a documented design decision (as discussed with Angela last time), but when I remarked that I had sampled a blunt ending and moved the tail felt because the tail had to gradually get down to the level of Bruce’s rump, she suggested I cut 20 short lengths of my slightly thicker soft string, wax them, outline the tail on my sample cloth and see whether splayed out the twenty strings might not be enough to cover the base of the tail after all. They were. Helen said the sample I’d done at home was fine so she suggested I move straight on to the real thing. Away with the sampling cloth and out comes the slate frame!

It took several goes and a fair bit of unpicking, because I wanted to get this absolutely right. The cutwork tail is going to be quite an eyecatcher, and having the proper foundation will make it much easier to get the cutwork even. So the tapering had to be gradual, and the securing stitches not stick out. It took most of the class, but then I did have a tail to be proud of! Well, Bruce did .

The tapered end done, now for the chisel end

Actually, it was rather nice to be able to spend such a long time just getting an important part of the project done just right. It’s not something you can easily manage at home, but in class, well, there’s nothing else to do but concentrate on your stitching!

And finally, I did manage to get on a little bit of actual gold thread that would be seen – but not without a design change. I was going to use a pair of rococco and Jap for the outline of the cloud, but the Jap looked dwarfed by the chunky medium rococco, so I changed it to a single line of rococco with a pair of Jap couched next to it. I got the rococco on ib class and later that weekend added the Jap and the pearl purl outline of the sun at home.

So the first gold is on – yay! Although… I’m not at all sure the bricking on the Jap and the rococco is up to scratch. The irregular nature of rococco when couched in curves makes it difficult to space the couching stitches evenly, which in turn makes it difficult to know where to place the couching stitches on the Jap; bricking based on the rococco will simply make the spacing on the Jap uneven as well, while spacing the couching on the Jap evenly upsets the bricking pattern. For now I will leave plunging and fastening off on the cloud, in case I decide to take it all out after discussing it with Angela. If a thing is worth doing…

Stabbing and padding and a soft string sample

Posted on 26th November, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Sometimes embroidery can sound quite aggressive, or just plain weird – stabbing, waxing, plunging… Never mind, we know what we mean! Before there can be any plunging at all, however, there is the very extensive prep stage to get through. Tempting to rush through it or skip bits, as it will all be covered up, but I know from experience that it does make a difference to the look of the end product, so I’m being a good little embroiderer and completing all the steps.

So the first thing was to finish stab stitching the silk and the calico together (to avoid any puckering when the embroidery is taken off the slate frame), just inside paint lines which enclose areas that will be covered, and exactly on the paint lines of areas that will only be outlined. Encouragingly, when I had finished this it was very difficult to see where the stitches were, but the picture taken with the light at an angle will show you the general effect.

The stab stitching finished and not very visible

Then it was time to put some near-golden colour on: the felt padding. I recut the front leg as the original felt piece simply would not fit properly inside the paint lines, and I lowered the bit of padding in the tail, having just in time realised that the tail would need to flatten towards the rump in order to prevent an ugly step in height.

All the bits of felt in position, except the hind leg

By that time the light was getting bad. Should I leave hind leg with its four layers and intricately shaped top? After some consideration I decided to attach the first three layers; after all, the fourth layer is the only one that will be seen, and even that only temporarily! Now to position them correctly. My Bohin chalk pencil proved invaluable in making sure that the outlines of all layers were more or less equidistant on the part of the haunch where all four pile up.

The next day, when the light was better, I added the last layer. And boy was it fiddly! Still, I managed to fit that sizeable and awkwardfoot snugly within the paint lines, so a good result.

On with the string padding. My homework was to get that finished too, but I was having second thoughts. I have done string padding before, once at a one-on-one RSN class and once at Helen McCook’s goldwork racehorse class, but in both cases the padding was tapered at both ends. Here I needed to have one end (the top of the tail where it attaches to Bruce’s rump) gradually decreasing in height but increasing in width – a sort of chisel edge rather than a fine point. Out of my entire collection of goldwork books (admittedly only about five, but these include the RSN guide and Alison Cole’s excellent volume) there was only one that described this process: Lizzie Pye’s. Her pictures were very helpful and informative but even so I decided to sample this method first – I wanted to bounce it off the tutor before applying it to the real project.

Besides all this foundation work I also did some grass sampling (well, I wanted to do some shiny embroidery). There are two methods of couching twist: taking the needle down in between the plies and making stitches that lie in the direction of the twist, so the couching thread “disappears”, or taking the needle over the top at right angles just as all other metal threads are couched. I tried both, the disappearing version on the left and the visible version on the right. I prefer the invisible method, but it is more fiddly, and it’s very difficult to make the pointy turns work so I had to use a few auxiliary stitches. More sampling needed to learn how to couch the points invisibly too. Nothing like a bit of a challenge to keep things interesting!

The perils of painting a kangaroo

Posted on 17th November, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

In preparation for my class on the 7th I did some more sampling – bricking rococco. I found that by twisting or untwisting individual rococco threads I could manipulate them so that they fitted together better, both within the pairs and the pairs side by side. There are a few gaps, especially in the strongly curved bits, but on the whole I’m not unhappy with this! I used a lighter weight of rococco here from the one I used in the mixed pairs to see the different effects, and I think I will use the heavier weight (Medium) in the couching on the cloud outline, while using the lighter, slightly easier to manipulate weight (Very Fine) in the more solid area of mixed couching.

Incidentally, I learnt something about mixed couching in class (well, that’s what I’m there for ) – the mixing doesn’t have to be within the pair, it can also refer to pairs made up of two the same threads, as long as other pairs in the area are made up from other types of threads. So you could alternate pairs of Jap with pairs of twist or pairs of rococco. Angela also suggested that if I did use mixed pairs which included rococco, I should reverse the pairs when couching them next to each other; in other words, if the first pair is Jap/rococco, couch the next pair as rococco/Jap, so the two wavy threads lie together. All very useful stuff.

Next was sewing on the silk dupion. Because I’m working with the smaller slate frame and we wanted to keep the silk as large as possible, this was a bit fiddly, but it worked. You have to leave the calico fairly slack while doing this, which makes it even more fiddly but which is apparently essential, then you put full tension on the fabric ready for getting the design on. Things were getting exciting!

I’d done the pricking, now for the pouncing. Positioning the tracing paper with the pricked design was a bit awkward as the back (which is rough because the holes are pricked from the front and so sharp bits of tracing paper stick out at the back) kept catching on the silk. When I removed the tracing paper there was in fact some fluffing up here and there, but I hope most of that will be covered up. Anyway, having rubbed in the pounce, it was time to see how the tracing had come out.

Doesn’t look too bad does it? But before long most of the kangaroo’s head, all of Haasje and the left-hand side of the grass were a ghostly blur. Probably partly because of the rough texture of the silk, and partly because I had to tilt the frame while painting to be able to see the dots because of the way the silk catches the light – and so the pounce moved. (Unfortunately I didn’t take a pic of the blurry mess, but I was working Haasje in particular mostly by referring continually to the printed design.) I just had to make the best of it, and most of the lines are, I think, pretty close to the original design.

By the way, as we were looking through the brief for something else I found that I should have used a power-woven (i.e. much smoother) silk dupion, not the rather slubby (though very attractive) hand-woven one I did pick; Angela was surprised at this as she thought it just specified silk dupion, so we’ve agreed she’ll put a note in the official paperwork to say she approved the fabric.

The next step in the process is tacking, basting or stab stitching (choose your term) the two layers of fabric together. “Where is your self-coloured thread?” asked Angela. I didn’t have any – it wasn’t mentioned in the list of materials or in any other part of the brief. She said that if I was very precise I could use the yellow sewing thread; the only reason they prefer a thread the colour of the silk is that stitches that don’t get covered don’t show up so much, so it simply means I have to be extra careful in placing my stitches! Back home I showed my husband the back of the work because he couldn’t see from the front where the tacking was (a good sign) and noticed a big loop. Bother. It has now been seen to.

Besides my homework I also did a bit of felt padding sampling; not really necessary, perhaps, but I wanted to try out something with more layers than I had used so far. This little heart has five layers on the left, but only two on the right, with a bit of stab stitching to create extra contours. When my goldwork is back from assessment (whenever that may be) I might work Jap couching all over it; I’ve done some sketches of possible patterns. Perhaps it could even be turned into a brooch or ornament.

The layers all attached, and stab stitched

The height difference between the two halves

So the painted design is on, and by the start of the next class I will (with a bit of luck) have completed the stabbing, the felt padding and the string padding. All of which will eventually be covered up. Sigh. Still, at the class I may actually get to attach some gold that will remain visible!

Stretcher bars, eyes and rainbows

Posted on 5th November, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Some days ago I found myself saying to my husband, “More threads isn’t always the answer”. Yes, I know – heresy! But I have redeemed myself by ordering a pair of longer side stretchers for my Millennium frame. As I was commenting on a fellow member’s Cross Stitch Forum post about Millennium frames and Lowery stands I wrote “with hindsight I would have chosen the slightly longer side stretchers” and then thought, well, why not actually get them! The idea is that with the larger stitching area I could use it as a sampling set-up for the RSN Certificate goldwork module, mimicking the slate frame set-up better than a hoop can.

Now Needle Needs, known for their excellent craftsmanship and their beautiful, sturdy and effective frames and stands, are unfortunately also known for slow delivery and less than ideal communication. Personally I’ve never had any problems, possibly because I just ring them instead of emailing, but I know other people have had difficulties. I’m not in a frantic hurry for these stretchers (I’ve managed very well without them so far, after all) but in view of wanting to use them for the goldwork module it would be nice to have them before I finish! So I rang them to ask for a time frame – and found that the gentleman I spoke to remembered me (and my husband’s vintage Austins) from when I visited their workshop to try out the Aristo lapstand back in 2015!

Anyway, he said he would be making some stretchers of the right size in the next few days, and yesterday I got an email to say they would be delivered by 9th November, exactly one week after I ordered them. There may, of course, still be glitches, but it all looks promising!

Until then I continue to do my sampling on the spare silk mounted in a hoop, which works well enough. Today I heard that next Saturday’s Certificate class will go ahead, with only two students which should make it nice and safe, so I’m glad I managed to do most of my homework to show Angela. Part of that involved “mixed couching”, where instead of using a pair of the same threads you couch a pair of dissimilar threads, for example rococco paired with twist. Because rococco is by far my least favourite goldwork thread I decided to practise mainly with that, starting with it combined with twist, and then trying to work a pair of rococco and Jap right next to it, bricking the couching stitches as much as possible.

“As much as possible” turned out to be not very much – one of my questions for Angela will be how on earth you evenly brick anything that has rococco in it, with its wave that should be regular but in practice turns out not to be even when stitched in a straight line, let alone on a curve. Oh well, I’m meant to be learning so it’s just as well I have questions . (The picture also shows some improvement in my stitching already: there is a definite gap between the two pairs where I start on the left, whereas they are much better abutted as I went on. Reassuring to know sampling helps to sort these things out.)

Another thing I’ve been sampling is kangaroo eyes. That rather sounds like a buffet I don’t want to try, but actually it was a very useful exercise. In the design drawing, the kangaroo’s eye is roughly triangular, and my original idea was to use chips of smooth purl to somehow fill in that triangle, either with the chips all running vertically (with the front one slightly curved) or with some used as outlines (another idea of making them all run parallel with the top sloping line never even made it to the sampling stage). As you can see both these options looked awful. So then I started playing with the idea of a spangle with two chips of smooth purl for the top and bottom outline. That effect was much more like it, and after some experimenting with spangle sizes and placement of the securing stitches I eventually decided on the one indicated by the orange arrow: a 2mm spangle with the slit facing forward and one securing stitch facing backward.

And finally, remember the rainbow project I called Hope? I’ve been stitching quite a lot of variations on the theme (including a personalised one for a young girl facing a lockdown birthday) and was hoping to put the chart pack on the website this month, but the design was taken up by a magazine for publication which means I can’t publicise it myself until after that issue of the magazine has come off the shelves (some time next spring). I think I can probably get away with a teeny-weeny sneak peek though…

How a kangaroo ousted a seahorse…

Posted on 21st October, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

…and was in turn endangered by a miniature gecko. The story of how a goldwork design can be influenced by fabric, bedtime stories, and a Baptist minister.

Once upon a time, in 2015 to be exact, I sketched a whole series of ideas for goldwork designs, among them a toadstool, a sort-of-daisy and a seahorse. Forward a year, and on a visit to the Viking Loom I bought some scrumptious hand-painted silk dupion in turquoise, blue and purple shades. Forward another four years, and I’m starting the goldwork module for my RSN Certificate. For which I need to stitch my goldwork design on silk dupion. Well!

Sketches for a goldwork daisy and seahorse

No-brainer, right? Sea-coloured dupion, seahorse – done! Hmm, not quite. All these sketches were for designs without any rules other than what I liked. But the goldwork module comes with a brief; there are only certain materials you are allowed to use (no kid leather, no smooth passing, no rough purl or wire check, no silver or copper let alone any other colours) and there are certain techniques you have to use (bricked Jap, mixed couching, cutwork over soft string padding), sometimes with a specified minimum area. The seahorse couldn’t quite fit all that in, and I’d have to get rid of some of the materials I’d originally included. No worries (keep that expression in mind…), we can add to it. How about a treasure chest? I worked out that that could be made to include several of the required techniques, so I did some sketching to work out the proportions and positions of seahorse and chest to make them into a coherent design.

And then, in my pile of sketches, I came across an undated, very basic sketch of a sitting kangaroo with the scribbled note “find good pose. check eye shape” and an indication of padded cutwork along the tail, and some chipping on the haunch/hip joint. (It also had a small sketch of a hot air balloon, but I ignored that.) A kangaroo… well, it would be unusual; I’d found plenty of sea creatures when looking at previous Certificate goldwork pieces, but no kangaroo (although there was a koala). It wouldn’t work with the hand-painted silk dupion, of course – I’d need to buy some more shades to have a good range of options (oh the hardship). As I talked to Hilary at the Silk Route about this I mentioned that it was now between a seahorse and a kangaroo and she immediately plumped for the kangaroo, simply because it was so unusual; and Angela, my tutor, had also greeted my simple sketch with some enthusiasm, not surprising perhaps as she is Australian .

Anyway, I figured there was no harm in finding some more kangaroo pics and deciding on a suitable position, and what about a pouch and possibly a Joey? And then it hit me. Haasje!

Haasje (“little hare” in Dutch) is the cuddly toy my grandmother bought for me before I was born. For various reasons it was a very special welcome into the world, and Haasje became my constant companion. He was also my champion: when an older cousin told me that “earworms” (Dutch for earwigs) would creep into your ears at night and nibble your brains (I had no older brothers, but my cousins obviously did a great job as substitutes), I looked for a solution to keep me safe. One ear was protected by the pillow, but what about the other? Haasje, of course! For several years I slept with him snugly held against my ear; my mother didn’t find out why until I was a grown-up.

Now when my favourite aunt lived with us for two years and told me bedtime stories every night, she chose Haasje as the protagonist, and in one particularly memorable series of tales he travelled all the way to Australia, where a passing kangaroo gave him a lift in her pouch. He wasn’t used to hopping that fast and high, so he clung on for dear life while nervously looking down at the ground. That was it. The seahorse was forgotten. I had a design!

As is always the case the design went through several changes before it was finalised – it gained some grass, and a cloud with the sun behind it – but the basis for me was a panicky Haasje travelling by kangaroo (I hope to convey his wide-eyed look of fear by means of a big round spangle). In class I did some more work on what materials to put where, where to have padding, and which bits to leave open to contrast with the solid gold parts; the cutwork for the tail remained, as did the chipwork haunch, and other techniques and materials were added in, making sure all the requirements of the brief were covered. When I got home I did a mock-up (not easy for goldwork) to give myself a better idea of the balance between open and solid, and I think I’ve got it about right. I also printed the cleaned-up design on tracing paper to make the pricking needed for the prick & pounce transfer process.

Then in the middle of this whole process, after Haasje had been added but before my class, our minister shared a holiday snap during the Sunday service’s all-age talk of this teeny-weeny little chap (that giant white thing is a teaspoon), almost changing my mind a second time, but although I did find some lovely pictures of miniature geckos in beautifully sinuous positions perfect for goldwork, I decided to stick with Bruce (as I have called the kangaroo) and Haasje.

Remember I mentioned getting some more colours of silk dupion? Here is the selection I got, with the two at the top bought specifically for Bruce. The olive shade was not at all what I was looking for, so that became my doodle cloth, but I absolutely loved the shade called Ether. It was a bit of a surprise as the picture on the Silk Route website was rather brighter, but actually this less saturated look was just what I wanted.

Unfortunately, although the 28cm x 33cm cut was fine as regards size, it had the grain running the wrong way. Well, “wrong” for this particular design. In order to accommodate the design I’d have to use the fabric in portrait orientation, but in that case the grain (which is very visible in silk dupion) runs vertically, and Angela and I both agreed that that would look all wrong. So this piece of fabric will become a second doodle cloth, and I’ve bought a fat quarter of the Ether dupion which is easily big enough to cut a piece of the right size with the grain running horizontally.

This does mean I won’t be able to fully frame up until my next class, as I would much prefer to attach the silk to the calico with a tutor to hand. On the few occasions I’ve attached a piece of silk to backing fabric I’ve ended up with puckers in the silk at the end of the project, so I want to get this absolutely right. Apparently the secret is to baste the two layers together on the design lines when the whole sandwich is under tension.

However, we could get the calico framed up. Angela had never worked with a slate frame this small so it was a new experience for her as well! But apart from everything being rather smaller, the rest of the process is pretty much the same: sew the top and bottom of the fabric to the webbing, sew herringbone tape to the sides, and lace up using the lethal bracing needle (I won’t show you the wounds…)

By the way, do you remember the four protective flaps I made for the big slate frame? True, they overlapped quite a bit, but it will give you some idea of the size difference when you see the effect of a single flap attached to the new frame.

Four flaps covering the large slate frame

And that’s it so far! I’ve got my homework – getting the silk ironed, sampling some couching and s-ing, creating a tonal plan, pricking the transfer, cutting the layers of felt padding; Angela is definitely keeping me busy . After the next class I hope I’ll be able to show you the silk all framed up and with the design painted on, and who knows even a bit of gold (although all the padding needs to go on first, so it may be a while before I get to play with the bling bits – but there’s always the doodle cloth).

And now we wait…

Posted on 13th October, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Those of you who follow Mabel’s Facebook page will know that last week I finished mounting my Jacobean Certificate piece and handed it in for assessment. Definitely a Proud Picture moment, and Angela kindly obliged. Yay me! And now we wait for the assessment to come back, probably some time in January. Patience is a virtue, they say, and I will be getting a lot of practice…

But how did we get to that point? You may remember that at the start of my last Jacobean class I had the twill all herringbone-stitched to the calico, and the sateen cut to size and ironed. As it happens I’d misunderstood Angela and cut a 10cm excess all around, instead of 10cm in total (5cm all around) so some cropping was needed, but then the sateen could be folded to the right size and pinned to the twill in the four corners.

Then it was a matter of slip stitching the twill and sateen together. It’s a bit like a ladder stitch really, except with ladder stitch you have two folds that need sewing together and you scoop a bit of both folds alternately. Here the sateen got scooped in the fold, but the twill just got picked up as close to the sateen as possible. Boy do you need a curved needle for this! I hate them with a vengeance because they have a will of their own and are a pain to work with, but I will admit that this sewing would be well-nigh impossible without one.

You work several slip stitches before firmly pulling the thread (a sturdy buttonhole) to make the stitches disappear into the fabric. In the picture I’m getting near to a corner and am about to pull, so the stitches further away are already neatly tightened away but the ones near the corner are still visible. Which brings me to the invisible even stitches mentioned in the brief – I asked Angela and she explained that although if properly done the actual stitches are invisible, the tension on the fabric shows where they are so you can see whether they are evenly done even if you can’t see the stitches themselves! What do you think, in the second picture – are they even?

The sateen all attached, pins still to be removed

The final step was to take out all the pins, and then get rid of 140 or so pin holes. Quite a satisfying task, it was rather fun to see them disappear when gently rubbing the edge of the fabric.

And here it is, fully mounted, front and back view.

Irrelevant picture: while pinning I found these two entangled pins in the box. I thought they looked rather sweet .

Tomorrow will be my first proper class for the Goldwork module, and I’m hoping to frame up the new, small slate frame and finalise the design. Yes, I have a design – not either of the ones I started out with as ideas, but that’s what happens. It’ll change a bit more over the next few weeks I don’t wonder, but I’ve got the general idea plus a personal twist, which I think is very important to have in a project you’ll be working on for many months. I’ve also got my doodle cloth hooped up: one of the silk dupions I got from the Silk Route turned out to be an olive green I am unlikely ever to use for a proper project, so it may as well be put to work in this way.

Incidentally, I finally unlaced the SAL Tree on my Millennium frame – quite a difference in tension, isn’t it! Perhaps slate frames do have the right idea after all .

The Millennium frame all laced up for the SAL

Unlacing the Millennium frame at completion of the SAL

The home stretch

Posted on 5th October, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

Early last February, Wednesday 5th to be precise, I attended my 6th class for the Jacobean module of the RSN Certificate. My next class was originally going to be 14th March, but for reasons I can’t quite remember now I changed that to Wednesday 22nd April, with the 8th and final class on 25th April. Both those classes were going to be mostly dedicated to getting my completed project mounted, always assuming that it was completed by 22nd April.

Well, you saw what was coming the moment I mentioned April, didn’t you? Yes, if I hadn’t changed dates I might just have snuck that 7th class in, but it was not to be. At that point no-one had any idea how long this was going to go on for, but even so I decided to try and finish the stitching by the date the class would have been. And I did. The mounting, which I was not going to attempt by means of a Zoom tutorial, would have to wait.

It had to wait until late last month, when the Rugby satellite location opened its doors once again to the Certificate & Diploma students. I was lucky enough to have Angela as a tutor again, both for this class and for the next one I booked at the same time for 7th October. There were four students in total, and everything had been so well arranged that it felt completely safe, while at the same time being very familiar in that we all had a good chat, and even managed to see each other’s work by being careful to switch places with plenty of distance between us.

Angela had asked me to bring my threads in case of any tweaking necessary, so before I could get on with the mounting process she scrutinised my poor tree from all sides (including the back) before handing it back to me saying that was fine, no need for tweaks. I was very pleased about that – I hadn’t touched the embroidery since I finished the stitching last April, and I hadn’t relished the thought of having to get back into it.

Now I could really get started. To begin with I had to decide what size the mounted work was going to be. I was handed two right-angled “half mats” to play with, and after a bit of indecision I worked out what I thought looked best.

Next was cutting two pieces of mount board to size (measuring them very carefully first, at least twice). These were then glued together and left under a pile of books to set.

While waiting for the glue to set, it was time to take the embroidery off the slate frame. Before cutting the mount board, while the work was still under tension, I had put tacking stitches in the fabric exactly where the centres of the four sides were going to be. Now I took out the lacing threads which provide the horizontal tension and the split pins which provide the vertical tension, and cut the fabric off the bars.

The two glued pieces of mount board were then covered with calico by glueing round the edge of the back board and pulling the calico tight before sticking the edges down; the glue was not quite on the edge because a “channel” of unglued calico is needed for the twill to be attached. Here is the covered board and the upside down embroidery (giving you a rare look at the back of the work) ready to be folded around it.

Next, pins. Lots of pins. Far more pins than I’d expected. At a guess, approximately 140 of them by the time I’d pinned as far towards the corners as I could get. The tricky bit was making sure I pinned exactly on the grain; this was definitely a glasses-off close-up job.

I’d been quite prepared to do a second round, as I’d been told at the beginning of the course that it was rarely tight enough after the first pinning, and generally needed another round of pull-and-pin to get it properly stretched, but Angela had a good look at the result of round one, and said I could go straight on to sewing the twill to the calico and mitring the corners. With hindsight, I think I would have preferred a second round after all, but not enough to undo all the sewing I’ve done since!

The twill is attached to the calico using herringbone stitch, pulling the fabric taut while stitching. What with pushing in 140 or so pins, stretching the fabric and pulling the buttonhole sewing thread tightly at every stitch, after a while my fingers were becoming quite sore (I’d been warned about this). By the end of the class, this is how far I’d got, with Angela having demonstrated how to ladder stitch the corner when moving from one side to the next. Homework: finish the herringbone stitching and the mitred corners, and cut and iron the cotton sateen which will be the final backing.

I definitely improved with practice: my first ladder stitch was not quite parallel (although fortunately the corner came out quite nicely even so), but the second definitely looked more even.

And here it is, ready for my 8th Jacobean class this coming Wednesday, when I hope to finish the process by attaching the cotton sateen with, as the brief phrases it, “even slip stitches” which are “not visible”. How they assess whether my slip stitches are even or uneven if they’re not visible I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps you get marked down less if your slip stitches are visible but even ?

Shortly after this class I booked another for 14th October (also with Angela), on the grounds that it would keep the momentum going and get me started on that goldwork project – I figured that as long as I could get framed up and with a bit of luck even get the design transferred (this is a teeny weeny bit ambitious as I have yet to decide what exactly the design is going to be…) I would be willing to try some online classes for this particular module. But since then they’ve opened up the November and December classes for booking, and I’ve added two November face-to-face dates – fingers crossed they’ll actually happen!

Horsey decisions

Posted on 22nd August, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

One of the exciting things about an embroidery project is the choices you have to make. One of the scary things about an embroidery project is the choices you have to make. Both statements can be equally true, but they tend to apply to either your own design or at least a chart rather than a kit. When purchasing a kit (or attending a workshop, which tends to come with a kit) most of the choices are made for you: what to stitch, which stitch to use, and what materials in which colours – it’s all been mapped out in advance.

Even the order in which you work the elements is only free to some extent; very often it is determined by either the order of teaching, the design, or what is considered the usual progression of techniques and materials. Left to my own devices with the metalwork racehorse I started at the RSN 3-day class last summer, for example, I would probably have left the padded cutwork in the tail till last, purely because it minimises the risk of damage to that very prominent domed golden curve while working on the rest of the design; but it was taught on the second day of the class and so at least half a padded gold tail has been courting danger for the past year.

Pretty much the only decision I expected to be fully my own in this particular project was whether to plunge as I go or leave it all until the end. (Plunge as I go, definitely. I dislike plunging and there is a lot of it in this design which I don’t want to be left with when all the stitching at the front of the work is done and I should be celebrating.) And that is not a decision which affects the way the finished piece looks.

Even so, the end result will never be quite like the model, for a variety of reasons. Here is Helen McCook’s original stitched model, of which we were given an enlarged photograph for reference. You will notice that the background colour is different from mine – when she first started teaching this class she offered both the olive green of the model and the darker green I’m working on, but when absolutely no-one chose the olive green she abandoned that colour. Other tutor-made changes are the change from purple to blue for the body of the jockey’s jacket, and a different metal thread used for the red sleeve. Originally this was intended to be worked in a red version of the blue of the jacket and the black of the boot, a couching thread known as 371 thread (no, I have no idea why) which is similar to a smooth passing thread but coloured and without any precious metal content. I can’t quite remember why the change was made to a six-stranded metallic thread but I’m sure there was a good reason for it.

The jockey's arm in red 6-stranded metallic thread

Sometimes differences are unintentional – the one shown below occurred because, on a roll couching silver pearl purl, I failed to pay attention to the stitched model and couched the jockey’s hand with the same sort of angle as his face. That line abutting the sleeve should not have been there. I am definitely not unpicking it, though! Unless I show people the picture of the stitched model side by side with my version, no-one will know. (Yes, I realise that you know now, but I’m sure you won’t tell.)

Other differences are, in a sense, originated by the tutor but the stitcher has some choice in interpreting them. In the instances shown below, I couldn’t work the line as shown in the stitched model because the design lines pre-drawn on the kit fabric would have been visible if I had. The horse’s jaw is a single curve in the model, followed by a gap and then the curve of the muzzle. The design line showed a shorter jaw curve, a gap closer to the front of the muzzle, and a line between them. I chose to couch that element separately in pearl purl. The jockey’s elbow is quite rounded in the stitched model (which would be a lot easier to stitch) but the design lines give him a very pointy elbow. I have tried to adjust the couching to these pointy lines, but you may just be able to see that a little of them is still visible; I had to decide whether it was worth the effort unpicking the whole sleeve and working it afresh starting from the pointy elbow (with no guarantee that it would look any neater). I decided it wasn’t – I know the lines are there, but they are fairly faint and won’t be very noticeable when viewing the finished piece from a normal distance.

And finally even with a workshop kit there are some things the stitcher can decide all by herself – especially if she happens to have a reasonably abundant stash of goldwork materials… Some of these you know about already, like the horse’s eye (originally a gem in a squarish mount, now a silver cup sequin with a black bead) and some of the gold pearl purl in his head and neck. You may remember I didn’t like the bright yellow gold of the pearl purl that came with the kit and used a slightly finer one from my stash which was a rather mellower colour. This brought with it another dilemma, however. There is quite a bit of gold pearl purl in the design; did I really want to use up my nice, fine, mellow pearl purl and be left with a goodly amount of bright yellow pearl purl that I would be unlikely to want to use in future projects? No. So I used up the remains of the length I’d snipped off my stash purl in the jaw and in a small V-shape inside the rear leg, and I’ll use the kit purl for the other lines. In fact I rather like the effect of the two colours and thicknesses combined in the leg – an unintended bonus .

And that’s where the racehorse is now. There are several projects clamouring for attention at the moment but I may just get him finished first; I’ve just received an email to say RSN classes in Rugby will be starting again in the not too distant future, and after mounting my Jacobean piece the next module will be goldwork, so any practice I can get in before then is a good thing!

A horse of a different colour

Posted on 25th July, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

My embroidery has been distinctly equine recently, and I’d like to show you some of my progress (and regress; that is to say, unpicking…) on two horsey creatures.

The first is the goldwork racehorse I started at Helen McCook’s three-day class last year. I’d been doing some couching and plunging but a week or so ago I decided that before I did anything more, something needed seeing to first – his eye. The centre of the eye is a gem, and in the stitched model it is round and makes a good iris. But the gem that was in the kit, although a round cut as well, was set in such a way that it looked quite square. It was also rather larger than in the model (at least partly because of the setting), and quite apart from the fact that it just didn’t look right, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to work the surrounding couching properly with the setting extending beyond the design line in places.

Time to rummage through my stash and see if I could find an alternative. I remembered some tiny oval flat-backed gems I bought last year – might they work? But alas, even the tiniest was too large. How about a sequin? The 3mm flat ones I have would be too small, but what about a facetted cup sequin held on with a black bead? Would that look like an iris with a pupil? And it would still have some of the facetted look of the original gem.

A cup sequin-and-bead combination that looks promising

I unpicked the original eye, attached the sequin and bead, and gave a sigh of relief. The eye operation was a success!

Next was a decision about the pearl purl curving around the eye and down the horse’s neck. This was a very fine pearl purl which had also been used in the tail, and I’d noticed there that the gold was very yellow. I didn’t think this would work very well against the copper that outlines the eye, and another rummage produced a much mellower-coloured pearl purl of roughly the same thickness. None of the photographs I took quite picked up on how different the colours were, but it should give you an idea.

Since last time I also completed both the colour-graded couching and the plunging on the horse’s backside, and here it is as it looks at the moment (you can see the very yellow purl outlining the chipped section at the top of the tail).

On to a horse of a different colour, or rather of many different colours – although the bits I’ve been working on have been mostly grey . For some time now I’d been itching to get back to Hengest the Medieval Unicorn; I hadn’t worked on him since June last year! To ease myself back into it I started with his nose band. Once I’d stitched it I realised that if I stitched the rest of the bridle (if that’s the correct term) in the same light golden yellow (Old Gold #4) as I had planned, it wouldn’t look quite right next to the light yellow spot high up his neck. But I didn’t want to use the darker #6 because that was going to be used in his horn (together with darkest #8) and I needed the contrast. Fortunately I remembered that I also had shade #7 in my stash, so the rest of the bridle will be done in #6, and the horn in #7 and #8. One problem sorted, although putting the solution into practice would have to wait as I wanted to get on with his mane first.

And as I stitched the first two locks, another problem emerged. They were far too dark.

I’d worked it out so carefully, too. Because Hengest is quite cartoonish in look, I didn’t want the shading in the mane to be too subtle. All the rest of him is areas of flat colour, with the only “shading” coming from the direction of the split stitch. The mane would have dark locks and light locks, and each would be done in two shades which I wanted to be visibly different, with the light and dark locks also having to be different enough from each other. The design drawing has black outlines, but the stitched version doesn’t, so the locks had to be delineated by colour difference.

I had therefore decided to have no colour overlap between light and dark locks: for the light locks I chose Silver Grey #1 and #3, and for the dark locks #5 and #6 (the difference between two consecutive shades is not always equally large). But #6 was very obviously too dark compared to the pastel tints of the rest of Hengest. And so I ended up doing something I had strenuously resisted for this project so far – I started a doodle cloth. Five combinations of two greys would be tried out, and I started with the darker one in each of the combinations, then added the lighter shade. #5 plus #3, #4 plus #3 and #4 plus #2 were all options for the darker locks, while #3 plus #1 and #2 plus #1 were possible pairs for the lighter ones. Having studied all the combinations I opted for an overlap after all: #5 with #3 and #3 with #1.

Hurray! As tress after tress was added the new shades turned out to work very well together, the individual locks perfectly distinct in spite of the fact that they share shade #3. I’d completely forgotten that the direction of the split stitch would set them apart even if the colour didn’t.

And that’s the state of the Figworthy stable to date. I love both its occupants, but I will admit to a soft spot for Hengest. He will never be a racing champion (his inspiration on the Steeple Aston cope is decidedly duck-footed) and he will never be decked out in the Queen’s colours, but I think he holds his own against any racehorse in his polka-dotted eccentricity .

A little bit of progress

Posted on 1st June, 2020 by Flights of Fancy

So did I manage to get any work done on Queen’s Silks, the goldwork racehorse started last summer at Hampton Court Palace during a heatwave? Yes, I did; not a great deal, but at least I’m getting into the goldwork routine again.

And some of my first foray back into metalwork was routine indeed – plunging! There is an awful lot of couched Jap and passing in this project, and consequently an awful lot of plunging. Not my favourite part of goldwork, and therefore best undertaken in small doses. Here I could have finished filling the complete shape first, but it looked like such a jumble that I felt I’d like to get the ends out of the way first. I also finished the chipping on a nearby shape. The first picture shows the state of play in this area of the design when I got the racehorse home last July, the second what it looks like now.

Before I started the plunging there was one thing I did need to do; I noticed that part of the design line was still visible on the right-hand side of the lower end of the couched area, and this would have to be covered. Fortunately I had cut the Jap fairly generously at that end, so I could continue to couch a single thread to cover the design line and still have enough left (albeit only just) to plunge and finish off.

And that’s where we are now! It’ll clearly be a while before this horse passes the post but that’s fine – I’m in no hurry. Just very pleased to be working on something shiny again!

Shiny

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: RSN