My stitching class at Tresillian has recommenced. We have a new teacher this term – Tania Cohen.
We are working on a crewel work piece – it’s going to be a gum nut. So far so good – I have even managed to get my homework done.
Tag Archives: embroidery
Holiday Craft Purchases
I went on a trip to Edinburgh, London, Bayeux and Paris. I wanted to see tapestries, and I saw so many. Starting with the reproductions at Stirling Castle, then all of the tapestries at Palace of Holyrood House (this place is wall-papered in tapestries), the tapestries at the V & A (plus I saw the Syon Cope), Hampton Court Palace, the Bayeux tapestry (not a tapestry but an embroidery) – this one had the best audio guide, The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Cluny Musée (there were other tapestries here as well) and the tapestries at the Louvre. We saw a lot of tapestries.
In between seeing tapestries and visiting book stores, I bought some craft supplies (as souvenirs).
In Paris I went to Ultramod (the oldest haberdashery in Paris) and bought trim. I then went to Le Bonheur des Dames and bought the chicken cross stitch (this store is down a very cool passage – well worth a visit).
In Edinburgh I went to Kathy`s Knits and bought sock yarn – Abercairn Yarns (the top skein in the above image).
In London, I went to Liberty (embroidery scissors and fabric – I plan to embroider on the fabric), and to Loop where I got that second skein of yarn (it’s a La Bien Aimée, so it’s like a London/Paris souvenir).
And finally in Bayeux I bought an embroidery kit – I am going to attempt to make one of the boats.
While travelling (planes and trains) I worked on a sock
It’s just a plain sock (I didn’t want anything too complicated), the yarn is from Fiber Lily (I think it’s called Apple Blossom Fairy).
Filed under Cross Stitch, Cross Stitch, Embroidery, Fabric Stash, Knitting, Sock Knitting, Yarn Stash
Samplers of Seduction – A Brief Dictionary of Stitches
My box from Rebecca Devaney of Textile Tours of Paris has arrived – it came very quickly. Unlike my kit from the Royal School of Needlework, which still hasn’t arrived.
I also have the online course, A Brief Dictionary of Stitches,
This is a beautiful kit, with silk threads, linen, hoop, scissors and needles all from European manufacturers.
Rebecca’s teaching style is fabulous. I thought I knew how to hoop my fabric, but no and now (as you can see in the above image), I can get my hoop drum tight.
Filed under Embroidery
Wonky House Project Bag
Wonky House Stitching
I bought this design from Urban Threads ages ago, but, like a lot of things, did nothing with it. On the weekend I decided to make another in the hoop zipper bag – it was a bit of a disaster because I forgot to open the system (and therefore it was forever shut!).
I then had a bit of an epiphany and thought ‘why don’t I do the embroidery and then make the thing using my normal sewing machine?’.
I wanted a new project bag for my knitting and decided a draw string bag would be ideal.
Martha Stewart has a great tutorial on making draw string bags – super easy and quick.
I have used linen for the bag, which makes for a nice finished product, but the fraying was extreme.
I stitched the embroidery by hooping a tear away stabiliser and floating the linen on top (picking the stabiliser out was a complete pain in the butt – there must be a better way). My machine has a basting function, which stitches the linen to the stabiliser and holds it in place for the embroidery.
Filed under Machine Embroidery, Sewing
Embroidery
Images from ‘Royal School of Needlework – Embroidery Techniques’
I really like textiles and embroidery. I like the look of embroidery and the stories behind the creation of embroidery, but I am too lazy/impatient to do hand embroidery. I do like machine embroidery – both free motion and the digitised version – what I would really like to do is create embroidery that looks like it has been done by hand using my embroidery machine. To this end, I have been trying to improve my digitising. I made this blackwork sampler and now I am trying to learn silk shading. I am discovering a few tips and tricks with my software (which is Embird) and like anything I just need to practise.
Filed under Digitizing, Inspiration, Machine Embroidery, Software