Hussif / housewife sewing kit

As is usual for my New Year “not” resolution, I try to finish off a few things before starting anything new….. it doesn’t normally last very long. I cheated slightly this year, as on 31 December I started a new piece for a Grasby Exhibition in May. It’s making progress and will be revealed in due course.

In an attempt to be more organised with my basic sewing kit way back in January 2019, I started making a hussif to take to the various groups and classes I go to, but it soon got abandoned part done. I have a lovely hexagonal box, but it’s a bit cumbersome to take out with me. I’ve used an A5 plastic wallet, but it tends to get over stuffed with bits and pieces, requirement lists, programmes and dates of groups, and since then two have burst so far.

So rather than use another plastic wallet, I’ve decided to finish the hussif. First I had to find it, which took a bit of a search. It was started before putting Projects in A4 plastic wallets, and storing them in a big wicker basket with all the relevant fabric, threads so I can just pick one up, and everything I need for it is together (unless something has been “borrowed” for another piece of work).

I remembered seeing it when I was tidying up before Christmas, but where?

Eventually I found it in a large blanket box that is full of bigger projects, bags of wool etc., that has two large cushions on top to make an extra seat in the lounge. It had been moved into the hall so the Christmas tree could go in its place…. which is where it still is.

I couldn’t remember how far I had got with it, but it was all together in one bag, along with some green felt that I couldn’t find a few weeks ago! So far the outside has a mixture of machine and hand stitching, sandwiching wadding and a calico / sheeting lining following the vertical stripes. It’s quite bulky, which will cushion and protect what’s put inside it.

The inside (the stripes running horizontally) has some felt stitched on, and a loose pocket ready to be attached on a single layer of fabric.

The top photo shows the extra outer sandwich with the hand stitching on – potentially a needle-case or a smaller detachable hussif for a smaller pocket-size kit maybe.

I haven’t made any further progress on it, as I need to decide where it is going, how much and what I want to put in it, maybe put a zipped pocket or two into it, decide how it is going to be folded, and how it is going to fasten.

Crown

The theme for this month’s travelling book pages for S.E.A.T.A. (Scunthorpe Embroidery and Textiles Association) is the Queen’s 70th Jubilee, and could be from any event during her reign illustrated in stitch.

The first thing that jumped into my head was the carving of the crown that topped the State Carriage, by O.H. Boyd (Howard). I was going to his pencil-drawing class at the time, and sure that we were privés to seeing the work in progress. I don’t recall seeing the finished crown before it went to Australia, no doubt as it was probably pretty close to the deadline. I have a memory of it being on the front of the North Linconshire Magazine (April 2007), which was called “Direct” at the time, also of him writing a couple of articles for a wood-carving magazine which I thought a friend would probably still have.

Janet went to his wood-carving classes as well as the drawing ones, and she found and loaned me the magazine, and another article about it. The image wasn’t quite what I had in mind, because it showed work in progress rather than the finished crown.

An internet search brought up the finished State Coach (which is now known as the Diamond Jubilee State Coach) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Jubilee_State_Coach, but not the articles in the wood-carving magazine. The Coach was made to commemorate the Queen’s 80th birthday.

I made a rough drawing which I decided to stitch through using a gold coloured silk thread, after trying blue water soluble pen on the gold lamé very unsuccessfully. You can see lots of needle pricks where I’ve come up in the wrong place. It’s backed with a piece of cotton curtain lining, with a layer of wadding to give a quilted effect.

Once I’d stitched all round, I started adding some beads.

More beads were added, rather too many for the curved sections, but I didn’t want to use bigger beads as it would have been too bulky for the travelling book. There were also some curved stitches – straight stitches couched down in the middle near the bottom to try and replicate the texture of the carving.

The finished stitching in daylight.

I then used a needle over the stitching lines to break through the paper and make it easier to remove. In fact, I liked the effect of the paper once I’d taken off the excess round the edge, and was tempted to leave it on.

But I decided to take it all off, and stretch it over mount-board.

I did this in two layers, initially mitred across the diagonals of the corners of the curtain lining, then lacing across the verticals and horizontals. The wadding was cut back to the size of the mount-board. The gold lamé had one selvedge edge which I left on: it frays so badly, and I thought three fraying edges were enough to deal with. Again I mitred the corners, then turned the raw edge under and stitched it gently through the curtain lining.

If I was using it again, I would zigzag round the edges and tack it to a bigger piece of backing fabric. But I do think that lacing the backing fabric, and then stitching through the fragile fabric to attach it, would work for fine silks, organzas and things you don’t want so much tension on. I just need to do my inspiration page, and it’ll all be ready for the swap.

Done !