I’ve not done much stitching this week, too many other things to do getting ready for Christmas, but managed some more feather stitching on my Christmas tree from last week’s challenge at Seata. It’s still in the forest and undecorated at the moment!
I’ve enjoyed the stitching, and am just assessing where another branch or two need to go. I can still see a couple of sparse bits before I add the baubles and decorations, some of which I found yesterday when moving things while tidying up.
I just want to wish all my blog followers and readers a Merry Christmas 2023, hope it’s a good one. Thank you all for reading.
Today has been our Christmas meeting at Seata. We had a different format this year, a Sewing Bee type challenge. We knew in advance that we could use the word “Tree”, “Snow”, “Star” or “Gift” to produce a piece of work that didn’t have to be finished, and that would be judged at the end of the day by Alex, our Chair. We could work out our design, even draw it up, but no stitching was to be done in advance.
Predictably I couldn’t make up my mind what to do but, seeing a picture of an embroidered tree on a Christmas card yesterday, it gave me a starting point.
What to use as a background? Having a rummage last night I found a lovely piece of dark green velvet. Perfect. I also wanted some lighter green felt to cut out a triangle to stitch on. No joy, it seems to have disappeared into the black hole with calico and bond-a-web. A beige piece was the best I could find, even after a better look this morning. So the only prepping I had done was to cut a piece of velvet and put masking tape round the edges. A zigzag on the sewing machine would have been better, but no time for that. Then to make a pattern from a folded piece of A4 paper, cutting it from the top fold to the bottom corner, and then cutting a couple of inches off the bottom, and finally cutting a triangle of felt.
I used a green perlé to start feather stitching to a faint blue line of water soluble pen. So far I have only stitched the felt, I’ll attach it to the velvet later. It’s all random, to try and give a more realistic tree. It’s certainly not precise and mirror-imaged.
I added another layer of branches in a variegated knitted thread, and this is how far I’d got by lunch-time.
We had a very nice shared planned “Potluck” lunch. Several of the members find it far too stressful to be potluck, and don’t trust that it will work. I’ve been in several groups over the years where it has always worked beautifully, with a good balance of savoury and sweet. To me, it’s more of a challenge to think what I want to cook / bring so far in advance!
We had all voted during the morning with the usual 5 beads for the Chairs Christmas Challenge, “The Twelve Days of Christmas ” made as a card. The ones who wanted to take part had a lucky dip at a previous meeting. I got four calling (coley – black) birds. I started it several weeks ago, but only finished stitching it this week, attaching it to the card and finishing it off last night!
As my starting-point, I used a photo I took from a friend’s window last December of a blackbird eating cotoneaster berries. After several sketches, looking at books and online to get the legs right, I used a lightbox to prick through the outline on to thin card.
Then I stitched in black thread for the body, some gold for the beak, brown for the legs, a gold jump-ring to outline the eye, and a tiny black sequin for the beady eye.
For the inside, Christmas wishes in the shape of a Christmas tree alternating the letters in red and green……
…….. and the words of part of the chorus on the flap of the card.
After lunch we went back to stitching. I wasn’t sure whether to start decorating with beads and sequins, etc. at this stage, as time was running out rapidly…..
……. or to carry on adding more layers of feather stitch, which I decided was the better option. There was no chance of finishing, and it would be better to finish the fly stitch first. Not the first Christmas project that has taken a while – sometimes years – to finish!
This is the piece of Kamal Kadai that I did with Alex Hall back in 2020, and at Linconshire Textiles today we had a workshop on it with her. Many folk hadn’t heard of Kamal Kadai previously, it’s an Indian technique that is basically needle weaving.
I decided that I would try using it in a slightly different way and not use a button and beads, partly as I didn’t have the right colour or size beads with me. Once my fabric was hooped up tightly, I was ready to start. Several of Alex’s samples used variegated thread, so I decided to try a perlé 8 that I had with me on a creamy yellow cotton little print. I did five fairly long weft threads from a central point, before starting the weaving near the point.
Alex had suggested we had long lengths of thread, as it’s a bit tricky to join in another thread if you run out. It does make it prone to knot or tangle if you’re not careful, but perlé is pretty amenable and I managed to undo the few that slightly knotted. The first one was a bit short!
But I was pleased with the variegation. I wasn’t too worried as the next “petal” could / would cover the gap at the bottom.
It very nearly did.
And the next one did, not that you can see it once I started putting in a leaf. The green is a perlé 12, but I only had one length of it in my kit; the big ball was at home. They’re very seasonal colours. This is as far as I’d got by the end of the session, a way to go yet…… another work in progress. Thanks, Alex for a good technique, with some lovely colour combinations around the group in various scales.
Last Saturday at Seata we had an all-day workshop with Jess Grady. We had a late start as her train was cancelled, and Julie very kindly fetched her from Doncaster station.
Fortunately there was a good sales table next to where I had sat. Good news and bad, as even after I had a good rummage through at the beginning, I kept spotting other things of interest because more was added as other members put things on the table. Bargains too good to miss!
When Jess did arrive, she soon had her samples set out for us to look at and be inspired by. After a quick outline of the plan for the day (we’d had a talk by her pre-lock down, so had an idea of what to expect), we got started on flowers / abstract gardens. Jess came round to each table to guide us and make suggestions on how to push our own ideas further.
I’d chosen a neutral background of a soft, fairly heavy fabric, and used what I think was the wrong side because I liked the effect of the weave. I’ve no real idea what it is, possibly a cotton / linen mix. I’m sure it came from a sales table at some stage, but it’s good to stitch in to. Jess had brought a huge bag of recycled ready-cut circles in various fabrics, papers, metals and plastics (many packaging of some sort). I decided to work out of my comfort zone with the pinks, and then picked out a couple of threads that don’t stitch easily, the rainbow-coloured ribbony one and a slubby knitting yarn.
I made petals by folding and stitching down the pink and purple circles, folded smaller pink paper circles in half, made them into little cones and put them in the middle, and then a tassle-like centre in some mauve shiny rayony thread.
Then I twisted more fabric circles in various weights and textures, and stitched them down.
I went for another rummage and look at Jess’s samples, and she was working on gathering up a strip of fabric / ribbony stuff. She said it was a good way of using things that won’t stitch through the fabric. I tried unsuccessfully to reproduce her effect, but was very happy with the way the slubby yarn gives the impression of clover or lilac. I think it will be a very useful technique.
I twisted the rainbow-coloured ribbon into petal shapes, and put beads in the centres.
Jess was having another look at what we were doing, and suggested twisting some crepe paper. I didn’t like the pink she was carrying with her, but she said there were other colours at the front. I wanted mauve or purple really, but a yellow picked out the yellow in the ribbon. It worked well with several layers of petals and coiling up the last bits in the centre.
Jess also suggested using twisted wire to make some leaf shapes, but this is as far as I got by the end of the session. Another work in progress!
The top photo shows the variety of work achieved by the group by the end of the day.
debbidipity 