Further twill (and twilling) adventures

Posted on 18th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

It’s been very interesting working on the two twill samples which Barbara at Tristan Brooks sent me last month. The final verdict? I like them both! But that’s not particularly helpful, is it?

So let’s look at them in a bit more detail. I described in an earlier post how the different twills took micron pen transfers differently; now to find out whether they take stitching in crewel wool differently too. First up was the Scottish oatmeal twill. It’s quite a heavy fabric compared to anything I’ve ever stitched on – Lizzie at Laurelin Embroidery described it to me as “a heavy cloth suitable for soft furnishings” and it definitely feels stiffer and a bit coarser than evenweave or plainweave linen. In order to minimize wear on the crewel wool (Appleton’s, which happened to be the only type in my stash) I used a size 22 chenille needle, which feels quite big but works well. The fabric has a nice close weave, closer than the Normandie, and it was easy to pierce it exactly where I wanted to, which makes for accurate stitching (well, as accurate as the stitcher…). I’m not sure I’d use this with silks or goldwork, but I do like it with wool; even using wool that I don’t particularly like!

You may ask why I’m stitching with wools I don’t much like. Good question. It’s because when I wanted to buy some crewel wools to experiment with, several years ago, Appleton’s was all I could find. It also comes in lots of colours, which is convenient, and it isn’t too expensive. But it suffers from varying thickness, getting quite worryingly thin sometimes, and it pills, bunching up when you come to the end of a thread. I have good hopes that the Pearsall’s wool I treated myself to the other day will be nicer to work with.

Back to the project for a moment, and to the non-fabric elements. The design is Kelly Fletcher’s Bloomin’ Marvellous 11, and I used stem stitch (the stem), padded satin stitch (the green bit under the flower), buttonhole stitch (light yellow), chain stitch (the petals), and finally, because the petals looked a bit empty, I added dark yellow lines of Palestrina stitch. I varied the distance between the knots to see which I liked best, but I think they’d all work depending on the effect you want.

Bloomin' Marvellous 11 on Scottish twill - does it need anything more?

Bloomin' Marvellous with a few more lines added

The next project was Bloomin’ Marvellous 4. I’ll get the stitches out of the way first: stem stitch (the stem and the outline of the leaf), loop stitch (inside of the leaf), two shades of buttonhole stitch “slotted” into each other (green ring), French knots (yellow centre), chain stitch and lattice work. The chain stitch and the buttonhole stitch, by the way, show how varying in thickness the wool is.

As for the fabric, it’s Legacy Linen twill as used and recommended by Mary Corbet. It’s a much lighter fabric than the Scottish twill, both in weight and in colour. It also feels smoother and more pliable. But like the Scottish twill it is a close weave which makes it easy to place stitches exactly where they should go, and in spite of being lighter it has enough body to take the stitching well without distorting or puckering. (Both fabrics take unpicking well, too.) Because of its smoother, lighter look I can see myself using this with other threads besides wool, making it a bit more versatile than the Scottosh twill. But as I said at the beginning, I like them both and will hopefully use them both again.

Bloomin' Marvellous 4 on Legacy Linen Twill, half done

Incidentally, have you heard of “twilling”? Nothing to do with twill, which is what I first thought, but a type of stitching used mainly by quilters, apparently. It consists of outlines stitched in Palestrina stitch, originally white on white or at least tone on tone (much like Hardanger), but now also worked in colour. As the outline stitch used is knotted I’m not sure it would work for very detailed pictorial designs, but perhaps a Celtic knot pattern or something similarly abstract? Mary Corbet does beautiful things with it on an ecclesiastical linen pouch, outlining a cross. Definitely a stitch to play with!

Threads, satin stitch and a Wedding Elephant

Posted on 8th May, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

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

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

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

The Wedding Elephant with the appropriate date and initials

The Wedding Elephant, ready for any occasion

Now all I need to do is stitch it .

Workshop kits

Posted on 21st February, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

Our dining room table is strewn with flowers. Shisha flowers, that is, as I’ve been experimenting with fabrics, threads, and stitches, not to mention mirrors, sequins, shells and silver card. Yes, I am trying to decide what to put in the workshop kit, and what exactly to stitch with those materials.

The threads are a fairly easy decision – I’ve been stitching most of my models in Anchor Multicolor perle #5, but for the kits I’ll probably use some skeins of DMC Variations that I’ve got in my stash and don’t use very often because there is no matching #8. The fabric is the next thing; blue cotton, lime green linen/cotton blend, or off-white silk dupion? Having just almost ruined a flower on dupion by ironing it too hot I am inclined to play it safe and go with one of the coloured fabrics; they are also less expensive (not unimportant when putting together kits for a charity workshop).

And which flower? The Cretan version uses less thread, looks nice and is quick to do, but the fly stitch version looks more floral. However, it might take too much time, especially as I will be using this design for a 90-minute workshop later this year, and I do think it’s important that the project can be finished or at least nearly finished within the time of the workshop – so much more encouraging than taking home something that’s barely been started. The yellow shell discs I got some weeks ago look nice, but some people might feel they are not really doing shisha embroidery unless it’s got a mirror. I could bring both and offer the option; the shell discs are a little bigger than the mirrors, but both just about work with the same size transfer.

Small shisha flower using Cretan stitch, on green fabric

Small shisha flower using fly stitch, on blue fabric

Which brings me to size. And budget. I printed my little flower design in three sizes, to go with a 15mm, 18mm or 20mm mirror/sequin/shell. The smallest of the three fits snugly into Craft Creation’s small square aperture cards. The medium one, which I would need to use with the mirrors I’ve got, requires the card one size up. Which, unfortunately, is 50% more expensive. So ideally the design would use an 18mm mirror but be no bigger overall than the 15mm one. Using my photo editing program and the scanned design I enlarged and shrunk various bits and I think I’ve got a version that will work, although it may look too cramped with the shell discs. Watch this space!

Now, sequins – yes, I will definitely include the sequins. Options here are to attach them with holding stitches using stranded cotton, securing them with metallic petite beads, French knots, or standard seed beads in a contrasting colour. One thing to bear in mind is that my size 9 needle would only pass through about one in every three petite beads, so the size 7s definitely won’t stand a chance with them (I decided on 7s for the workshop as being a little less challenging to thread). I do like the look of those tiny beads, though, so perhaps I’ll just bring a few size 10s or beading needles to pass round the class (must remember needle threaders too).

Sequins attached with metallic petite beads

So far I’ve tried three different stitches for the scrolled stem: stem stitch, chain stitch (apologies for the example below, it’s not the most even chain stitch I’ve ever produced) and heavy chain stitch. I really like the look of the last one, but it’s probably a little too complicated for a two-hour workshop. Stem stitch may make an appearance in the leaf, so I think plain chain stitch will be the best choice.

The scrolled stem worked in chain stitch

The scrolled stem worked in heavy chain stitch

The leaf has been a great place to experiment, and I tried five different styles before finding the look I was after. Four of them I outlined, mostly in stem stitch, but one in backstitch. The necessity for this no doubt arose at least in part because my stitching wasn’t neat enough to produce tidy looking edges, so the outline made up for that. The first I tried was fishbone stitch, and I do like the look of it, but it does require more precise stitch placement than some of the others and takes a bit of time. Next I tried feather stitch, but that just looked rather haphazard. Fly stitch looked better, and I liked the line that formed down the centre of the leaf. Satin stitch can look great, but it needs to be done very accurately to get it to look its best, and I didn’t really take enough time over it. Finally I returned to fly stitch, but I worked it less densely, which had the advantage of being less time-consuming as well as producing a nice light look. It was also the only one that could stand on its own without outlining, even when worked rather quickly.

The leaf worked in fishbone stitch and stem stitch

The leaf worked in feather stitch and backstitch

The leaf worked in fly stitch and stem stitch

The leaf worked in satin stitch and stem stitch

So what’s it going to be? Blue cotton fabric (although I may use up the bit of lime green I’ve got left as well), Cretan stitch for the flower, chain stitch for the stem, open fly stitch for the leaf, and metallic petite beads to secure the sequins. And if I can get all these things to work with an 18mm mirror and the smallest design size, I’ll be well pleased!

Shisha sampler finished!

Posted on 2nd February, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

After the two experiments on my pre-sampler sampler I decided that the condemned blue & white daisy would be replaced by the more open version of the Cretan shisha variation. A closer look at the sampler confirmed something I had vaguely suspected before, namely that the 24mm sequin was too big for where it was. A rummage through my modest stash of shisha materials produced a bag of 18mm mirrors, which I bought for a class I taught some time ago. Just the size Mary Corbet was working with in her instruction pictures, so that would work very well – I could now be fairly sure that the 16-dots-only version of the Cretan stitch would come out all right. I picked a rather chipped mirror as I wouldn’t be able to use that in a class and it would do perfectly well for a sampler. (Do you find yourself doing that, when teaching someone to stitch, or passing on some threads or materials? Saying “well, it would be all right for me but I couldn’t possible give it to someone else”?)

As I had feared, the holes from unpicking the daisy were quite visible, and using a smaller mirror meant I wouldn’t be covering them with the shisha, so I mulled over various options in the back of my mind while working the Cretan stitch; I could go over the holes in French knots, or beads, or small sequins, or perhaps chain stitch. Oh well, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.

In the end, I decided not to do any of these things. I did add sequins and beads, but only to balance the overall look of the sampler, giving it a vaguely circular outline and filling in a few obvious gaps. The unpicking holes will be part of the sampler, a reminder that you don’t always get things right first time round. As for the Cretan stitch, I definitely like the way it turned out and will be using it again; probably only with the smaller mirrors, though, which I think look a bit daintier than the big sequins (unless you’re doing a really chunky piece that will be seen from some distance away, like a wall hanging).

In fact, as I was considering using this stitch again, I thought it would make rather a pretty floral design with some stems and leaves added. So back into the hoop went my shisha experiment, and out came some DMC floche, variegated stranded cotton and blending filament. Some stem stitch and fishbone stitch later the two shishas had become part of a flowery whole.

Stems and leaves added to the Shisha experiment

Fishbone stitch leaf in stranded cotton and blending filament

After that, it was a small step to cards. Using the less dense Cretan variation with a smaller sequin or mirror, with a scroll and a leaf to complete it, makes a quick and very attractive card for birthdays or other celebrations – and of course the colour of the flower can be adapted to the receiver’s preference. Tucked away in a drawer somewhere were some pretty aperture cards that were just the right size for this project, and, well, I’ll be making a few more of these in the near future! Not only that, but the design struck me as just the right project for the 2-hour workshop I’m planning in aid of our church’s building fund. Slightly different stitches, probably, like chain stitch and fly stitch; a blue background; cheerful yellow shell discs instead of sequins; some spangles…

But first it’s back to the golden bee and watering can, and, at some point, Orpheus!

A pre-sampler sampler

Posted on 31st January, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

OK, I’m a wimp. My shisha piece is meant to be a proper sampler, which strictly speaking should include false starts and unsuccessful experiments. But I would also like it to look nice . So out comes the shisha daisy, and because it is so densely stitched it will leave an awful lot of little holes in the fabric. Fine if I were certain which stitch I was going to use in its stead, but I’m not – I’m havering between re-doing the daisy version in perle #5, and using the Cretan version. Better try them both out first before putting whichever one I decide to go for on the sampler. And so was born the pre-sampler sampler! From the sewing basket I got some green fabric left over from a cushion project, and some non-descript cream fabric left over from who knows what, and mounted them in a hoop together. Add two shades of Anchor Multicolor perle #5 and two 24mm sequins (one silver, one blue) and you’ve got a mini project.

In her shisha instructions, Mary Corbet uses perle #5 both for the foundation and for the surface stitches, but I decided to use a matching perle #8. It would have made sense to try out both thicknesses for the foundation, seeing that I was about to try out two shisha variations, but I thought of that too late; I’ll probably try the #5 foundation on the proper sampler. So here are the two sequins secured with a perle #8 grid. You can make the grid more secure by weaving the threads over and under, or looping them round each other, but here I just worked them in straight stitches without any complications.

By the way, my apologies for the atrocious colours in most of today’s photographs; I wanted to take progress pictures but was hampered by the fact that it was evening and the work is lit only by a standard lamp. This meant the camera insisted on flashing (as in the picture above) unless I specifically told it not to (as in the following pictures). Disabling the flash, however, not only made it necessary to keep the camera steady for a long time, the low light also seems to play havoc with colour accuracy. Even so, I hope the pictures will give you some idea of the how the stitches work.

For those of you who looked up the stitches that I’m trying out here on Mary Corbet’s blog, you will notice that I’m doing one or two things a little differently. (Isn’t it wonderful how needlework can be adapted to any stitcher’s requirements, skills and preferences?) Firstly, she uses ¾” card circles in her demonstrations, which equates to about 18mm, whereas my sequins are almost 1″ in diameter. This has an effect on the number of stitches worked around the sequins. Secondly, on the fly stitch variation (the one that looks like a daisy) she draws a full circle around the sequin for stitch placement; I’ve chosen to use dots, so that the line doesn’t show up among the petals, and also to help me place the stitches at regular intervals.

The dots were placed as regularly as I could make them by eye – that is to say, I didn’t get out the compasses and ruler, but used a sort of “points of the compass” division method: first mark dots to the North, East, South and West of the sequin, then equally divide the quarters and place dots NE, SE, SW and NW, then divide again and place dots NNE, ENE, ESE, SSE etc. For deciding how far from the sequin to place them I used a pinkie’s width to begin with, then judged it by eye (not completely accurately in some cases). This gave me 16 dots, which I thought might be enough for the Cretan version (which is very widely spaced and open in Mary Corbet’s version), while for the daisy I could use 16 more virtual dots by going between the marked ones. Both stitches start in the same way, by coming up on the outside of the sequin and looping the thread around the foundation stitches. Here is the start of the daisy/fly stitch version, with the petals anchored on and between the dots.

The next picture shows where a new stitch starts, and also illustrates quite nicely how to start a new thread if you run out before you’ve completed the circle. When you come to the end of your thread, complete a petal by anchoring it. The needle is now at the back of the fabric with nothing to do but start a new stitch, so fasten off and start the new stitch with the new thread (where I’ve just brought the needle up in the picture).

Changing threads isn’t nearly so easy in the Cretan shisha variation, because there you keep having to catch the loop of the working thread, so when the needle is at the back of the work the stitch hasn’t actually been finished yet. More of that a bit later; first let me point out another difference with Mary Corbet’s version. When I first learnt shisha stitch, from a book of stitches, I learnt to work it clockwise. Both Mary Corbet and RSN tutor Sarah Homfray work theirs anti-clockwise. Both methods work just fine, they are simply mirror images of each other, but I thought I might as well go with them and go anti-clockwise, especially since the variations they show and/or teach go anti-clockwise too. Except, for reasons I can’t quite work out, for Mary’s Cretan variation, which goes clockwise. Being now firmly in anti-clockwise mode I decided to mirror it, which is what I’m doing here, and why it looks different from the tutorial on her blog.

As you can see I use the virtual in-between dots for this variation as well; I really like the open look of Mary’s version but didn’t have the courage of my convictions – if I’m brave enough I’ll try the less dense way of stitching it on the real sampler. Even my denser version of the Cretan shisha stitch uses less thread than the fly-stitch variation, so the lighter version would probably only take one length of perle. Here, however, I did need to change threads, and because of the point made above this needed some preparatory thinking. In the end I decided it would have to be done in two stages. First, take the needle down and leave a loop at the front, as usual.

Next, fasten on the new thread by means of a waste knot and a few tiny stitches near the sequin, then bring it up in the right place to catch the loop (making sure that you don’t get entangled with the end of the old thread at the back of the work). Pull through and work the next loop around the foundation threads. Before taking the needle down the next dot on your guide circle, fasten off the old thread, then continue to work with the new thread. Simples!

So here are the two shisha variations side by side, both with 32 petals. I was surprised how easy both stitches were once I got into the rhythm of them, and both are very decorative, though I have a distinct preference for the Cretan one. That variation also uses less thread – a look at the back of the work explains why.

And finally, two close-ups. These show quite clearly that the foundation threads are visible between the surface stitches in places, but I’m not too bothered about that, bearing in mind that the original Indian pieces Sarah showed us last week didn’t always have complete coverage either. All in all I’m pleased with my pre-sampler sampler – a successful experiment; and now it’s back to the real sampler to try the ligher version of the Cretan stitch.

French knots and some wonky gold insects

Posted on 3rd January, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

The Small Sweet Heart is finished – but I did have some trouble with all those French knots. First I managed to fasten on in the wrong place. Unpick, re-fasten. Then after 5 knots realised I was using 2 strands instead of the 3 I had intended. Unpick 5 French knots, re-thread needle with 3 strands. Work 10 French knots, realise they are far too bulky and I can’t see what I’m doing because the knots cover the holes I need to use next. Unpick 10 French knots, re-thread needle with two strands. Off we go! From then on there weren’t too many problems, apart from some of the knots failing to sit where they should and having to be un-knotted, and the fact that because the threads of opalescent fabric include a metallic strand, the holes are much less defined and you find yourself splitting the fabric threads instead of going down the intended holes. In the end I worked the French knot sections with my glasses off – I am very near-sighted and working without my glasses I can get really close to the fabric so I can focus on the details. The downside to doing this is that you notice every irregularity which is very discouraging, but on the other hand looking at it from a normal viewing distance is suddenly a very pleasant surprise because it doesn’t look nearly so bad as you thought!

In order to keep up my goldwork, I am interspersing work on Orpheus with completing my little RSN bee from way back in 2009. I cast a critical eye over it, and the later dragonfly, and have come to two conclusions: A) that both leave a lot to be desired, and B) that goldwork can look remarkably pretty even when it does leave a lot to be desired .

Here are a few close-ups to show what I mean. The first two are of the dragonfly (which I think I did in 2012), and quite apart from the fact that I haven’t covered all of the design lines, some of the cutwork is too long and buckles (arrow in the first picture), and some is too short and doesn’t quite cover the felt padding (arrow in the second picture). The next two are of the bee; nothing buckles, but several bits were cut too short (arrows in third and fourth pictures). The bits pointed out in the dragonfly, by the way, are smooth purl, the ones in the bee are bright check. There is some bright check in the dragonfly as well (a thicker size than in the bee) which miraculously appears to have been cut to the correct length throughout.

The watering can project I started at the day class last month has some cutwork, but not over felt padding, so there wasn’t the need to cut it to exactly the right length. Much easier and less fraught, but the padded work does catch the light rather beautifully. So back to the bee, and I may well see if I’ve got enough bright check to start again. It may work if I use bright check from my stash for the chipwork that is to cover the leaf. Here is what it has looked like since the workshop in 2009; so now I need to finish couching a double Japanese gold thread around the leaf (blue arrow), complete (or completely re-do) the bright check cutwork on the bee’s body (red arrow), and finish couching the pearl purl stem (green arrow), then use the pearl purl for the bee’s wings, and bright check chips for the leaf. I’ll keep you updated!

A parrot, an unintended project and a border

Posted on 2nd January, 2015 by Flights of Fancy

First things first: Happy New Year! May only good things come your way in 2015.

It’s not often that I stitch other people’s designs nowadays; it’s the downside of having so many of my own things to stitch. There is a Victoria Sampler kit languishing in a drawer that I still want to do one day, and definitely some more goldwork too, but generally I work on models of my own designs because if I don’t, I can’t put them up on the website for other people to stitch!

Occasionally there is a solid reason for picking an existing design rather than charting one myself. Recently my mother reminded me that I had promised to stitch a bookmark for my eldest aunt, and in my stash of cross stitch patterns collected from magazines over the years I found a colourful parrot that was just perfect for her, so I used that.

Sometimes there is no particular reason at all, except that a design really takes my fancy. This was the case with a pretty little heart which a lady on the Cross Stitch Forum stitched using a hand-dyed thread, and which had come out beautifully; it’s a freebie and you can find both a picture and the chart on Olga Maxden’s blog. What I like about it is that it uses a variety of stitches – lattice stitch, French knot, double cross stitch, different-shaped ray stitches and so on – and only two threads, one perle and one stranded. Using a solid perle and a variegated stranded thread produces a very attractive effect.

Remember the Gloriana silk I was given at the Knitting & Stitching show by the kind lady at the Calico Cat stand? As it turned out it wouldn’t really do as a substitute for the Dinky Dyes perle used in Sunken Treasures, but it is a lovely thread with its subtle variegation of green, smoky blue and lavender, and with a pale blue perle just the combination for this little heart. I’ve gone for a 28ct opalescent white Lugana with perle #12 and two strands of Gloriana silk (three for the French knots, needed to recreate the nice and plump look of the original). Here’s what I’ve done so far, just the French knots to go (“just” – ha!):

In spite of sneaky little projects worming their way into my To Do pile I did manage some work on Orpheus, on the first of the three borders. The inner and outer borders are long-armed braid, and the central one is a double feather braid; I was hoping for a nice contrast between the two stitches, and I think it’s working rather well: the long-armed braid is quite solid and 3D, and should form a nice frame for the airier feather braid. Here is a close-up which shows a little of the texture and height of the stitch, though unfortunately it’s difficult to get the picture to look like it does in real life.

Gold!

Posted on 13th December, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Tucked away in a drawer somewhere is my RSN (Royal School of Needlework) folder; in it are the kits I got at the one-hour workshops I’ve done at various Knitting & Stitching shows. There are five in total, and I was pleased to see that I had actually finished most of them (a one-hour workshop is never enough to finish the project there, so there’s always homework) – the goldwork dragonfly I’ve shown here before, plus crewelwork, blackwork and silk shading.

I vaguely remember having done a stumpwork class as well but I can’t find it, and I’m not sure that was a RSN one. The only unfinished project in the folder was the little goldwork bee I mentioned last time, and I will definitely finish it some time soon; it’s got an area of chipwork (more about that later) I’m looking forward to trying. But oh dear – the cutwork (more about that later, too!) that’s there already is really rather embarrassing, and I may undo it and start over again.

All this talk of chipwork and cutwork leads neatly to what is really meant to be the subject of this FoF, the RSN goldwork day class I attended last Saturday. I’ve got lots of pictures of all the beautiful sparkly materials, and of some of the techniques we’ve been learning, although the merest glance at some of the work Sarah Homfray, the tutor, had brought along for us to see was enough to bring on severe self-doubt about showing any of my own. Fortunately Sarah turned out to be a great teacher who managed to correct while encouraging – brilliant.

Let’s start with the pack we used for the class. It was well-presented, everything bagged up in little acid-free paper bags, good picture of what we were meant to produce, and stitch instructions to remind us when finishing the work at home. Just opening all the little bags and feeling the materials (goldwork must be one of the most tactile forms of embroidery) was enormously enjoyable; and we hadn’t done a single stitch yet!

The “basic” supplies (apart from the fabric which I didn’t photograph unused) were various needles, some of them very fine, some sewing thread in a yellow-gold colour, and a piece of beeswax. Proper beeswax is apparently better for goldwork than the synthetic version whose name I can’t remember for the moment.

Having taken everything out of the pack, we were given advice on how to put the fabric in the hoop (pushing the inner ring into the outer ring from the back; this made it really taut but unfortunately wouldn’t work with the flexi-hoops I tend to use), and shown the first of the techniques we would be using. The instructions were very clear and delivered in manageable chunks, with information about the materials as well as the stitches. Here’s a little goldwork nugget: you plunge thread, but not wire.

Plunging, in case you’re wondering, has nothing to do with necklines but everything with taking your threads through to the back of your fabric for finishing off. And one of the threads we would have to do that with is Japanese thread (which Sarah told us on no account to call “Jap”, as some people do). It’s a core of silk or cotton with a long strip of gold wrapped around it. Well, not 100% gold, obviously. About 2%, apparently, down to ½% for more affordable threads. But it looks very effective and gold-like nonetheless!

The next thread isn’t a thread but a coiled wire, and it’s my favourite goldwork material so far, if only because of what it’s called. It rejoices in the gloriously silly name of pearl purl. Like most of these materials it comes in several thicknesses; the gold in the picture is what came in the RSN pack and is, I think, a #2, the silver is from my stash and according to the label a #3. The bit at the end that looks different is where I’ve pulled it apart. You’re meant to do that, by the way, though not quite as far as this.

Then there were sparkly bits; beads and coloured sequins, and spangles. The spangles are interesting: they are still made in the traditional way by flattening little loops of metal. Because of this, each one is slightly different, and they have a gap which you have to bear in mind when stitching them down.

Two more types of wire: bright check and smooth purl. The bright check is triangular in cross section and very sparkly, the smooth purl is, well, smooth. The coloured bits are a very fine bright check.

And finally two threads which I haven’t actually tried yet. We were shown how to use them at the end of the class, so there wasn’t any time to get stitching with them. But as they are applied in the same way as the Japanese thread they shouldn’t present any great problems. The wavy thread is called Rococo (spelled with varying numbers of “c”s depending on which website you visit), the other one is called Twist for the obvious reason that it is three gold-covered threads twisted together. It apparently frays like anything.

Well, those were the materials, and here is what I managed to do during the class:

The three main techniques used in it are chip work, cut work, and laid work. For chip work you cut bright check into little pieces, as square as you can manage, and then attach them much as you would beads. The direction of the pieces should be random for maximum sparkle. I’m not sure whether you can do chip work with any of the other wires – I must ask some time. Cut work is like chip work but with longer pieces. In proper goldwork it is attached over felt or string padding (which I did do in the dragonfly and bee) and the big challenge is to cut your wire to exactly the right length needed to cover the padding; too long and it buckles, too short and the padding is visible. Both these errors are in evidence in my earlier pieces. Bright check, by the way, like smooth purl, is in effect a tube, so they are attached by taking a fine needle through the pieces, very carefully so you don’t damage the tube by pulling the coil apart or poking your needle through it. The smooth purl especially can pretty much unravel on your needle. Approach with caution.

You can use cutwork in a different way as well, with deliberately long bits that stand up in a loop for example, in this case to create flower petals. The sequins and spangles can be attached with plain stitches (which I haven’t done here), with a bead, or with a chip of bright check.

The watering can is laid work, which as far as I can make out is anything couched onto the fabric or over a base of felt or string padding. The main body of the can is double Japanese thread, and it is couched down with a single thread in a brick pattern. In the corners you couch the two strands separately to make a nice crisp turn. This part was worked from the outside in, and somehow I managed to end up with a triangular shape in the centre, so I plunged the two strands separately and filled in the little gap with chipwork. Ideally I’d have kept it rectangular all the way through and filled it completely with Japanese thread. Oh well. The spout and handle are worked in couched pearl purl. You start by pulling it, a little at a time because if you overstretch it you can’t push it back. When it no longer coils when you let go of it, it’s ready to use. You couch at an angle between the coils so the thread slips down and is invisible, although in “free” goldwork you can overstretch deliberately and couch very visibly with coloured threads for effect. Will definitely try that some time!

This was just a day course, and so we only scratched the surface of all that is possible in goldwork. For a look at a proper, full-blown RSN project, have a look at this great set of blog posts which follow one stitcher’s project from the very start to the final assessment (the posts are in reverse date order).

Hand-made felt and the right surroundings for a sunburst

Posted on 20th September, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Would you believe it, I found I had six more tags than I thought – so I can do 16 bookmarks before having to think of ordering more! Here are the six different colours all made into bookmarks, and the first three bookmarks to use sunburst stitch instead of dove’s eye.

The first three bookmarks with sunbursts

More about the sunburst stitch later, but first the tags. It’s been really enjoyable making these bookmarks, and I’d love to make some more, but there are a few things to consider before I put my order in. First of all, much as I love these bookmarks, will other people love them enough to buy them? After all, they are meant to raise money for charity. Secondly, are all colours equal? Are the pink bookmarks going to appeal as widely as the dark blue or purple ones? And what about that unknown green? Thirdly, am I or am I not going to produce Felt Bookmark Kits? I’m tempted to put together at least one set of twelve, as my project for next year’s Knitting & Stitching Show – it would make a nice change from the needle books, which I will have used twice already by then. Fourthly, how many do I get? The difference between an order of 16 and an order of 60 is 8p per tag. And finally (and rather importantly), are the tags up to the task?

There is a reason for that last question. You may remember that one problem was that the little hole in the tag (or rather, the felt around the hole) wasn’t strong enough to hold the tassel; but that could be got round by trimming the tag and taking the tassel through with a large-eyed needle. A bigger worry is that, being hand-made, the felt isn’t equally thick throughout. In most of the sixteen tags that I have the irregularity isn’t big enough to matter, but in at least one it looks as though over time and with a fair bit of use it may start to come apart.

Now this was just one out of sixteen; and it will probably be all right. But if I were using these tags to make up kits, I’d probably choose to discard this one as not being up to scratch, which means the money spent on that tag has been wasted. So here’s what I’ll do: write to Blooming Felt (who have been very helpful in answering my previous questions) and ask whether there is a way of guaranteeing that I’ll get only usable tags, and then place an order for sixteen (the maximum number I can get at their lowest postage) including one Apple Green.

I promised you more about the sunburst stitch and here it is – my experiments with different bars. The easiest one to work is the sunburst in woven bars, and it looks great when the sunburst is worked in colour against white bars (1st picture). White on white it gets a bit cluttered, even though I pulled the woven bars quite tightly so they were thinner than usual (2nd picture). Working a sunburst in wrapped (3rd picture) and double wrapped bars (4th picture) is more fiddly, because the loops around the bars aren’t anchored (with woven bars the loops go through the bars rather than around them, so they stay put). This makes the double wrapped version more effort than it’s worth as it really isn’t any less cluttered than the woven bar version, which is much easier to work. That leaves the wrapped bar version, which is the one I will go for if these do make it into kits – a bit more work, but a nice open, airy look.

More about bookmarks

Posted on 13th September, 2014 by Flights of Fancy

Three more felt tag bookmarks have been finished – they really are very quick which is just what I want. True, I pre-tasselled the tags and pre-cut the threads and fabrics, which makes the whole process a bit quicker still (quite a production line, in fact), but I do think that an experienced stitcher could put together one of these, start to finish, in about 2 hours. Ideal for charity stitching, or indeed for swiftly producing a good number of small Christmas presents. It might be an idea to put some kits together!

As straightforward running stitch is not quite secure enough for my liking in attaching the patch (the first bookmark has been unpicked and restitched) I tried two different patterns: a zigzag (below right) and running stitch turned 90 degrees – perhaps you could call it perpendicular running stitch (below left). Both use more thread than ordinary running stitch but both definitely look and feel more secure. Another observation: the slightly stiffer Hardanger fabric (left) behaves better than the softer, floppier Oslo (right).

On the whole I incline towards perpendicular running stitch as it is quicker to do, and also a little less noticeable. Both methods, if pulled fairly firmly while stitching, make the patch “puff up” and give a slightly padded effect. Both methods should not be looked at too closely on the back of the bookmark, but I hope people won’t mind that. One way of making the back neater is to attach the patch with thread the same colour as the tag, but unfortunately that would make it stand out rather on the front, and I’m not sure it would look as good as with white securing stitches.

Talking of colours, the Blooming Felt tags come in eight different shades; one of them is Ivory, which wouldn’t work unless you used coloured fabric, then the six colours I’ve got, and one more called Apple Green. The picture on their website, however, looks more of a mossy green. A very pretty colour, but not particularly apple-y. (It didn’t help that the picture of the Turquoise tag looked quite a different shade from the turqoise tag I’d just been using, making me think they might have changed the colour since I last ordered from them.) So I wrote to ask what DMC shade Apple Green was closest to, and quickly got a very helpful reply saying that they sell DMC soft cotton in shades to match their felts, with a link to the one that matched Apple Green. Well, what can I say.

With such a difference between the two pictures it would be anybody’s guess what Apple Green actually looks like, but fortunately I remembered that some DMC’s soft cotton shades match their stranded cotton shades, and both this one and the turquoise soft cotton happen to be shades I have in my stash. Turquoise is definitely like the tag I already have, and Apple Green is bright rather than mossy. In a way that’s a shame as I rather like mossy green; and this bright green will probably not go with any of the Anchor Multicolor perles. What it comes down to is that I’ll just have to order one to see what, if anything, it will go with.

But first there’s six more tags to finish. So far I’ve used woven bars and dove’s eye for all of them, and I’ll do one of each colour that way. The other four, which are duplicate colours, I’ll vary a bit; especially if I’m going to make them into kits, it would be good if the patch wasn’t exactly like the Mini Kit ones. I’m leaning towards using sunburst stitch (as used in Floral Lace: Forget-Me-Not and Song of the Weather: November) but haven’t quite decided yet what bars to surround it with. So far I’ve only used it with woven bars, but I’ll try it out with wrapped and double wrapped as well, plus perhaps some slightly different backstitch motifs.

Sunburst stitch

Worrying thought: I haven’t actually tried out any of these bookmarks in a book…

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Stitches