Orange crazy patchwork 2

I did another seam treatment with irregular herringbone stiches in a gold perlé thread.

Then I started thinking about a button. I’ve got some orange plastic ones in various sizes but, when I went to get the jar, I spotted these wooden butterfly ones.

Before laying them on the pocket, I thought this orange and yellow one looked perfect, but it got lost in the colours around it.

I thought that the red one was too bright, but it did pick up the rust tones in the eyelets.

I had a quick look on YouTube to remind me how to do a bound buttonhole, last done at school more than 50 years ago. I just marked it in water soluble pen and, too impatient to tack it all, machine stitched with a small stitch round the box….

……. and cut through both layers, down the middle and diagonally into the corners, ……

…… turned it through and pressed it, ……

……. made the “lips” and machined in the ditch (not meant to machine stitch it). It should be done invisibly on the wrong side.

I then did another one to go on the back, stitched the lining to the pocket, and realised that I’d not left an opening to turn it through. I trimmed the corners and managed to turn it through the buttonhole opening…..

……. only to realise I’d attached the second buttonhole on the back of the first one and not to the pocket lining! I’d used a small machine stitch again and need to unpick it, or use a big press stud on the back and just stitch the button on the front. At least I hadn’t attached the pocket to the jacket, but I’ve run out of patience with it for today!

Deerfield Embroidery

Yesterday at Seata we had an in-house talk and workshop by Ruth on the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. It is little known, and several members had Googled it and found very little; few books are to be found on the subject, and a few have a chapter on it. Ruth had done a stirling job of bringing it all together for us to look, at and had samples in the style of Deerfield work.

It is similiar to crewel work in some ways but rarely done in wool, as they apparently have more of a problem with wool-eating moths in America. It was often worked on linen, with linen thread, and if I’d realised that I would have taken the linen threads that I bought years ago and have never used (yet).

I arrived a little late, and didn’t take notes as I usually do, but the talk was fascinating with lots of information about designs and stitches. Several we know by different names: “Spike” stitch is blanket / buttonhole stitch. Fabric and threads were hard to come by and expensive, so many stitches were ones that are only / mainly on the front of the work – rarely satin stitch, it uses too much thread. A similiar dense appearance was achieved with New England Laid Stitch, also known as Roman or Roumanian stitch.

The designs are often floral or natural, sometimes birds but rarely animals or insects.

It was often worked in blues, as they could get lots of shades using indigo, but other soft colours obtained from natural dyes were also used.

Ruth suggested we use 3 or 4 shades of blue. These were the only turquoise threads I had with me, and I thought they looked better than blue on the neutral background colour that I chose. White or pink were the alternatives.

We had no excuse not to get started, as Ruth had drawn in water-soluble pen two motifs on each napkin for us all. That alone must have taken her ages.

I started with “Spike” stitch on the flowers in perlé. Some of the stitches are easier to work with single strand threads, like the New England Laid Stitch. I’d just started with the very fine rayon for the centres, when Ruth came round again and recommended to some one else that they use the same number of strands for the whole piece. No, I have to go off piste somehow! And I wasn’t pulling it out. I like different textures in my work.

The other perlé was much finer too. I was surprised how well herringbone worked on the irregularly shaped leaves.

I just about finished the leaves by the end of the day, and want to use a different colour for the stems, which I think will be a heavier weight. I’ve not looked yet. I think that I’ll use the same threads but different stitches for the other motif.

Thank you, Ruth, for how much preparation work you put in, and giving us all such a lovely stitchy day, and something else to read up about.

Stitching mandalas

At Seata today we stitched mandalas, geometric designs put into a circular format. Instead of us all working on our own, they were to be collaborative pieces, a little bit from everybody on each table of eight. We all started with a piece of plain (or plainish) fabric, stretched in a 6″ hoop. Most used cream or white, but I chose the brown swirly print above.

We all did a central motif of some sort, knowing we had 20 minutes before passing to the next person. I did four long stitches into the centre, and continued to divide each section until I’d gone all the way round a couple of times. Then I did smaller stitches between each spoke, and finished with a cluster of French knots. I’d tried to make it so that it was even when the 20 minutes were up, and decided I would stick with known stitches….. it wasn’t the day for doing anything too complicated!

A little star was passed on to me, and I started couching down a slubby thread from each point……

……using a different colour between each one.

The time increased by 5 minutes every two rounds. The next one arrived like this……

…….. and I added yellow lazy daisy stitches.

To the next one…….

……. I added blanket stitch.

I forgot to photograph the one below when I got it. I used a shiny rayon thread to do herringbone.

Then it was time for a lovely shared lunch, and each place had a little tube of handcream, all different. I picked Lily of the Valley, which took me right back to my mum doing Avon when I was little. Thank you, handcream fairy!

There were only five (four after lunch) taking part on our table, and three of of us opted to continue passing them on rather than working on our own. I had the lazy daisy one back, and blanket stitched using the rayon again into the chain stitches of the previous row……..

…….ending up like this.

Last was the blue star one, and I added straight stitches in a grey perlé following the round before.

This is how mine came back. We had a few more minutes to stitch, so I whipped the chain stitch and the outer running stitch in the same mucky pink colour.

At the end of the day here are some of those that had been done.

A few have thread attached, where a row hadn’t been finished when it was time to pass it on. Some tables had drawn circles as guidelines, which I think in hindsight would have made things easier.

It was fun to respond to what was in front of you, with no time to change your mind, no procrastinating or deliberating, just choose your stitch and thread, thread your needle and stitch away!

It was a great idea, Alex, with very helpful and clear instructions; thank you. Just a shame you couldn’t be there.