Striking a cord

Courtesy of our Embroiderers' Guild lending library, I'm currently reading (and thoroughly enjoying) a book published in 1977 called Textures in Embroidery by the late Valerie Campbell-Harding. One of the many techniques described in the book is an easy method for making wrapped cords. I've broken several needles in the past trying to do this in FME mode and never really been happy with the results so I had a go with Valerie's method today.

This is done with feed dogs up and presser foot on and Valerie suggests using 1" strips of old tights or stockings. I'd actually got three brand new pairs of tights in various shades of blue - no, I had no intention of ever wearing them but they were reduced to 50p a pair and I never can resist a bargain! So, scissors in hand, I sliced a strip from each pair. Holding one end of the strip behind the presser foot, you need to stretch the 'front' end and pull it up at about a 45 degree angle between the 'toes' of the presser foot. With the machine set to the widest zig zag and short stitch length, off you go, keeping up the tension between your hands so the tights remain stretched.

When you get to the end of the strip, if you want more of the tights covered with thread, just feed the strip under the foot again (you won't need to stretch the strip this time - just keep gentle tension front and back so it remains in the centre of the presser foot).

Having made several lengths with tights, I tried the same method - except without stretching - with various wools and ribbon yarns. Not a broken needle in sight!

Four days and five nights in Italy

Arrived home safely last night after four days in Puglia with Maggie Grey but minus my iPhone which I'd managed to leave on the train. Luckily, it was found by a very charming young man who kept it safe for me and we met up today at Cambridge railway station so I could collect it. Almost 24 hours spent phoneless sharply brought it home to me just how much I rely on it!

Anyway, here are a few photos of the trip:-

Interesting shadow of one of the gates at the Masseria

The pool and the two trulli at the bottom of the garden

Visiting the village of Alberobello to see the trulli

A marvellous lichen speckled wall

And this is John eating a large Italian ice cream. It's become a tradition when we go away that I take a photo of John eating his favourite food (?)

No pictures yet of the work I created because I didn't manage to finish much of what I started - simply ran out of time - four days and five nights away wasn't nearly long enough....

I can't believe that .....

... it's been almost a month since I last blogged. Where has the time gone? In my defence, I have been rather busy in the run up to the general election - telephone canvassing mostly and then getting out the vote on the big day. And now here we are, with a coalition government. Not ideal (and certainly not what I worked for) but we shall see.

I have also been busy on the stitching front making various birthday gifts but, stupidly, forgot to take pictures until they were wrapped up and given so you'll just have to use your imagination here!

First was a pair of honeycomb pleated silk cushions in duck egg blue and pale coffee for my niece Kelly (actually she only got one on her birthday - the second is still on my work table half finished so you may see a picture of that if I remember to take one when is is done and before I send it off to her).

Second was a whole cloth, appliqued sofa quilt for my other niece Toni, in cream and red to match her lounge. I call it a sofa quilt as it's meant for snuggling up in on the sofa on chilly evenings. It's bigger than a lap quilt but smaller than a single bed quilt so just the right size - and not too unwieldy to quilt on an ordinary home sewing machine.

I've got a place on a workshop with Jean Littlejohn at Broadland Arts Centre next month (yippee!) which I'm really pleased about as places are as rare as hens' teeth. They had a cancellation apparently and I couldn't help wondering why on earth someone would cancel after actually getting a place. Who knows. Anyway, the theme is "Waterscapes". I was playing around with transfer dye designs in advance of the course and this - a photo which I did remember to take, albeit badly - turned into a lap quilt for my friend Sally's birthday.

We should be off to Puglia, Italy again on Wednesday for the course with Maggie Grey. I say should as it looks like the Icelandic volcano and the wind direction could be conspiring to prevent us getting there. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Multifarious Muslin

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop entitled "Multifarious Muslin", organised by Norwich branch of the Embroiderers' Guild, with Pauline Verrinder. She doesn't have her own website or blog but is tutor/mentor of Fibrefusion and Fen Edge Textiles. She is also the organiser of the very popular Textiles in Focus, a three day textile artists exhibition and trade show held at Cottenham Village College in Cambridgeshire every February. Pauline also teaches workshops at Art Van Go in Knebworth, Hertfordshire.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me so only have photos of the three sample pieces that I made but it was amazing how, even though we were all using the same type of fabric and the same techniques, everyone's pieces were so completely different.

First, we wrapped a square metal frame with strips of coloured muslin (NOTE - this is the fine, loosely woven cotton fabric which I believe is called cheesecloth in the USA) and coloured threads and yarns. This was then free motion embroidered on the machine with a close overlapping vermicelli stitch to connect all the muslin strips and yarn together and then cut off the frame. As you can see, I didn't have time to complete the stitching before it was time to move onto the next technique but was pleased with what I'd done.

Next we wrapped the frame very tightly with shirring elastic, followed by more muslin/yarn strips (but less densely wrapped than the first technique). More free motion machining before cutting the piece off the frame whereupon it promptly scrunched up to form a lovely texture.

Lastly, we took the tiny snippets of muslin left when we'd cut the previous pieces off the frame, added more chopped up muslin, threads and yarn and sandwiched them between two pieces of water soluble film. Free motion stitching was added - making sure all the pieces were joined together! - before dissolving the film. The remaining lacy fabric was stitched to black felt and gold fabric paint drybrushed on to highlight the texture.

We'd almost run out of time but Pauline quickly demonstrated how to make lacy trim from muslin and lace ribbon using stitch and water soluble film.

A good day out was had by all.

Just like buses

Nothing for ages then loads all at once - that's how this blog is going. Oh I don't mean it to be like this but sometimes that's just how life is.

Anyway, this is what I've been up to.

More postcards

An ugly piece of fabric doctored with dyes and metallic fabric paints

Some discharged black fabric

A vessel (this is destined to be a birthday gift for a friend)

Some playing around with fabric scraps and the embellisher (after watching these)

And 42 dyed fat quarters - just in case. You know how it is - a girl can never have too much fabric in her stash. These were recycled cotton sheets from the charity shop.

Some interesting markings on a couple of these

Sorry for the rubbish quality of the photos. I tried everywhere in the house to get some decent shots but ended up with these. Still, you get the idea.

Three other things are still in progress which I'll tell you about later as two of them are birthday gifts for my nieces and I think they look in here from time to time. Don't want to give the game away!

And finally, I suggested a solution to a problem a fellow blogger, Eileen, was having here and she sent me one of her lovely cards and a box of acrylic stamps as a thank you. Isn't blogland great.

An ending, a beginning and stuff in between

Sadly, my stepfather has passed away after a year long battle with cancer. He would have been 80 if he'd lived another couple of days so a good long life. The funeral is on Monday and I've made a flower brooch to wear from a tutorial I found here. It took no time at all and I think it looks quite impressive (apologies for the poor photograph - trying to take a decent picture of black in poor light is nigh on impossible).

On a happier note, my niece, Kelly, has got engaged. Nick popped the question on Valentine's Day and they'll be starting married life together after the wedding in January next year. A 'hen weekend' away is already being planned and I've been asked to run a crafting session for the hen and 22 little chicks! I think organza flower brooches will be just the ticket and they'll have ready made buttonholes to match their outfits for the big day.

I've been making more postcards for the charity I mentioned here, although I think the blue ones need a little something else - maybe some beads? I'll ponder on that....

I dyed a couple of silk scarves. I try to have a few things in the cupboard ready to give as gifts, although I like these two so much I just might keep them for myself.

And I've been experimenting again with transfer dyes. As these were trials of various techniques - crumpling the paper before painting it, printing an image from the computer before painting and after painting, wax resist marks and rubbings before/after, stamping etc - I made them postcard size so I can keep both the fabric and papers, with notes on the techniques used, in a 'flip' type photo album.

Just as well they're only samples. I wasn't particularly pleased with any of them as I'd forgotten (again! ) how different the resulting transfer looks to the painted paper. Most of the colours are far too bright/garish for my taste except, that is, for the last few where I was just messing around using up the colours left on my palette and I quite like these.

Aurora Borealis

I needed to take a break this weekend from working on the piece I'm entering into a juried exhibition next month. At our Embroiders Guild meeting last Saturday, members were asked to produce one or two fabric postcards which are to be sold at an event in Sheringham, North Norfolk later this year to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Unit at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge which is due to open in December.

I've not had my embellisher out for a while so I used a couple of skeins of multi-coloured wool felt yarn from my stash and embellished some onto three different colours of acrylic felt. I really wasn't happy with the results until I turned the pieces over and saw the back. I've never been lucky enough to see the Aurora Borealis but that's exactly what the pieces brought to mind. Some trimming to size, hand stitching with metallic thread and satin stitching the edges on the sewing machine and I'd got six postcards to donate to this worthwhile cause.

It's quite hard to see the hand stitching but hopefully, if you click the images to enlarge, you should be able to see at least some of it.