White Threads » customer embroidery

Ornament exchange again?

yvette — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:39:37 +0000

Last year here at White Threads I organised a Christmas ornament exchange. I have been wondering about whether to run it again, as I’m not sure it was entirely successful last year. I just wasn’t sure that everyone received their ornaments. However, no-one let me know that they *didn’t* receive the one that was promised to them, so perhaps I should not be concerned.

My questions for people who participated last year are (and you can email me privately if you prefer):

did you receive your ornament?
Was it a fun and positive experience for you?
Is there any feedback that you can pass on to me that we can learn from, if we are going to run it again?

For everyone (those who participated and those who did not): would you like to take part in a Christmas ornament exchange this year?

To give you an idea of how things might run, in case you’ve never done something like this before you need to know the following things:

you will need to make an ornament as a gift for someone else. Someone else will make one for you. Your recipient and giver may not necessarily be the same person.
You will not know who you will be receiving yours from, but you will know who you are sending yours to! The idea is to keep it a little bit secret, but that you will let the recipient know in the parcel with the ornament who and where theirs is from.
you will need to post it – possibly to the other side of the world – so that it arrives at least 2 weeks before Christmas.
Post at Christmas can take much longer than you think! You may need to allow up to a month for transit.
International post can be expensive. Flat or flattish things will likely be cheaper to send.You should check your postal regulations for guidelines.
Some countries have strict quarantine laws about what can be sent into that country. You will need to make sure your ornament does not breach the quarantine requirements of the recipient’s country. As an example, you would have a hard time getting wood into Australia.
You will need to make sure that if you commit to taking part, that you actually make and send the ornament. Nothing would be worse than being the person who does not receive their ornament because you ran out of time or inspiration. It is a firm commitment, and you should take your commitment seriously.
There is no need to send anything else other than the ornament.

Any questions, please ask. If I decide to go ahead with running the ornament exchange, we’ll probably need to have signups completed in about 2 weeks to allow enough time for people to make and send their ornaments.

gorgeous babushka doll

yvette — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:38:02 +0000

Last week when I was in Tasmania I wrote that I met Natasha of The Snow Queen’s Garden, and purchased one of her gorgeous handmade, hand-embroidered Russian babushka dolls. I promised pictures, so here they are!

The Snow Queen's Garden "Eau de Parfum" - all Natasha's designs are one offs. And of course, they are all copyright to her!

Even the back is embroidered!

It was lovely to meet Natasha, aka The Snow Queen! She told me that a lot of the stitches she uses on these lovely little dolls, she has learnt from the step-by-step instructions in my book “Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature”. They are obviously not worked in Mountmellick embroidery (!) but the stitches in the book can be applied to all sorts of other embroidery. I recommended my stitch dictionaries to her for an even further increased stitch repertoire!

I am so pleased to own one of The Snow Queen’s Garden’s beautiful handmade babushka dolls. I will treasure her!

home again

yvette — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:49:25 +0000

I’m back home again today, for a very short while before heading off to Hobart tomorrow for a Mountmellick class on Thursday and Friday. Yesterday’s class went very well, up at Springwood. It is lovely to introduce a new style of embroidery to people and have them “get” it.

The ladies really enjoyed themselves. I knew quite a few of them from my last class at Springwood, which was a merezhka class. Because they’ll be having an exhibition of work at The Springwood Community Arts Centre this weekend, there were a few framed merezhka pieces there (amongst other things), ready to go on display. It was great to see how well they had done with the class project.

I took my Portuguese whitework tablecloth with me to work on the train, and so that the students could see it and other projects from the book. By the end of the day several of the students realised *just* how much work is in that tablecloth, seeing they had taken the whole day to do what would amount to a tiny portion of the cloth.

I must admit, the tablecloth has been getting me a bit down. It is just going so slowly and taking so long. It really has put the book back by several months. I really hope that people DO make the tablecloth for themselves after seeing it in the book, as its taken up such a large chunk of my life for their benefit!

But I will be so terribly proud of it when it is done. I’ll have to see what competitions I can enter it in, to milk it for all it is worth!

Beaded blackberry doily

yvette — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:14:46 +0000

When I was at the craft show back in June, I met a lovely lady called Alison. She was quite interested in Mountmellick embroidery and wanted to give it a go. Her project of choice was my “Blackberry Doily” from our book “Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature”.

Alison isn’t normally an embroiderer as such, more an embroidery beader. She’s been doing it for years, and her teacher is Karen Torrisi, who is a lovely girl I met a few years back when we shared an apartment as tutors at Beating Around the Bush.

Anyway, Alison embarked on the blackberry doily, but eventually decided she’d feel more comfortable reinterpreting my pattern into bead embroidery. On Sunday she sent me some photos of the finished work. It is magnificent!

Alison has allowed me to share the photos with you. The work is ALL beaded, except for the fringe, which is the traditional Mountmellick knitted fringe. I think you will agree that the work is simply stunning, and a lovely interpretation of a Mountmellick embroidery design. Congratulations Alison!

'Mountmellick Blackberry doily' interpreted into embroidery beading by Alison

slightly closer in

If this is something that interests you, do try to find a class with Karen Torrisi. I know I’d love to do one of her classes one day. All the embroidery beading I have done, I have loved!

Alison, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful work with us!

merezhka book

yvette — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:34:33 +0000

Yesterday I was talking with a lady who wanted to order a copy of Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery for her friend. She said she already has her own copy and loves it. She’s taken the techniques and run with them, having recently completed a merezhka project that she adapted from filet crochet, featuring grapes.

I’ve asked her to send me a photo of the embroidery to share with you, which she said she will do.

Oh, how I love it when people take one of these techniques and really get into it! It is so wonderful to know that my books give people so much joy. Sometimes when I feel a bit down I can doubt that what I do has very much impact on the world. I’m not a doctor or a nurse, or a teacher, changing people’s lives in a very tangible way. However, if my books help people to learn to relax and gain enjoyment from a new skill, I think that’s pretty fantastic!

PS. Sorry there was no post yesterday. I didn’t really have anything to say, and I just got stuck into more of the techniques pages for the books, first thing in the morning.

beautiful merezhka

yvette — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:40:34 +0000

Merezhka bellpull from Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery by Yvette Stanton. Beautifully stitched by Lisa in Canada.

Lisa from Canada emailed me last week to show off her latest finished project: its the bellpull from my book Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery: Merezhka Poltavska. Hasn’t she done a sterling job? You can’t tell the difference between hers and mine… oh, except the black thread ran on my when the steam iron spurted on it… Happily, Lisa’s doesn’t have any such blemishes!

Congratulations Lisa – its beautiful!

If you have photos of any of your finished embroideries that are from my books or my designs, please share them with us! You can email me at yvette at vettycreations dot com dot au, changing the words to symbols, where appropriate.

If you’d like to make one of these bellpulls for yourself, you can find the pattern and full instructions in Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery: Merezhka Poltavska by Yvette Stanton (me!).

award winning Mountmellick

yvette — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:41:04 +0000

Firstly, today I want to say a heartfelt thank you to those lovely people who emailed me yesterday or posted a comment to encourage me. I really appreciate the time you took to write to me explaining why what I do has made a difference to your life. It does put things into perspective.

Yesterday I was writing to someone who had been in a difficult medical situation, where something was very wrong, but the medical staff were just dismissing their concerns. Eventually it was happily resolved, but not without a lot of heartache where the people in the situation felt very powerless to help themselves because the people who should have been helping them weren’t.

As I wrote, it seemed to me not a bad description of poverty: the powerlessness of needing help to get out of a situation, and having no way to help oneself to get out. And thinking about poverty also puts my situation in perspective. I am so very blessed by God with all that I have, and it does give a feeling of responsibility to help others who cannot help themselves.

Anyway, moving on from the introspection (for now – I’m never far away from it!)…

The other day I received an email from Pia in Queensland (which is one of Australia’s states) who recently won second prize in a state-wide competition for a Mountmellick embroidery that she embroidered. The design was an adaption of my design “Snow White” which was featured in Inspirations magazine, issue 62 a little while back. Congratulations Pia, on your beautiful embroidery, and for winning second place! A well deserved result.

Learning merezhka

yvette — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:54:32 +0000

I was reading a needlework forum recently where some time ago a lady wanted to learn merezhka to put some on a sampler she was making. Many people directed her to websites where she could get the information. She used one of those websites for her sampler.

However, Mary Corbet and others also directed her to my book Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery. Some time later she came back to the forum and said that she had purchased my book to work some merezhka, and found that using my instructions created a neater and straighter result than the websites.

Smiles all round.

You get what you pay for.

If you’re wanting to learn merezhka, Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery comes highly recommended by people who have used it and and found it very beneficial.

Hardanger needlecase

yvette — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:31:52 +0000

Recently I received a lovely email from Marjolein in the Netherlands. Marjolein was wanting to share some pictures with me, of a hardanger needlecase that she has made, featuring one of the projects from my book Elegant Hardanger Embroidery.

Square sampler from Elegant Hardanger Embroidery, stitched by Marjolein from the Netherlands

made up into a needlecase, based on a pattern from Inspirations magazine

Inside the needlecase

You can see how Marjolein made it up into a beautiful and useful needlecase with lots of wonderful pockets. She based the needlecase on one in an edition of Inspirations magazine. Marjolein chose to interpret my hardanger design into colour, using browns and oranges, rather than the cream on cream that I used in mine.

Congratulations on a wonderful result Marjolein, with beautiful stitching! And thanks for allowing me to share it here.

If you’d like to create your own version of the Square Sampler, the pattern can be found in my book Elegant Hardanger Embroidery. And if you’d like to share with all of us, any of your own work made from one of my designs (whether following the same as mine, or adapted), please let me know!

Mountmellick embroidery in Ireland

yvette — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:10:45 +0000

A little while ago, Angelina from Ireland commented on one of the posts on this blog. She told us that she and the ICA group that she is part of, are currently learning Mountmellick embroidery in Ireland. I was so interested that I asked her to share some more with me and all you lovely readers. Following is what Angelina had to tell me:

The Irish Countrywomen’s Association [ICA] is a national organisation that was set up 100 years ago; it is based in local communities with over 700 guilds throughout the country.

Roscahill ICA Guild was set up in 1971 by a very enthusiastic group of women. (Roscahill is in Galway in the west of Ireland and is a beautiful place to live in!) The basis of ICA membership and most definitely ours is one of friendship and fun; the focus is to facilitate women in our community to meet as a group, to socialise, to discuss issues of concern and to nurture and promote traditional crafts. Currently there are 21 members of the Roscahill ICA and we meet weekly in our local Community Centre.

Social outings, information/educational talks, learning new skills and reviving old skills are all included in our undertakings. Each year we select a theme it may be something very new or something we have all done before but, want to update our skills. We are involved in many local community and church activities as well as achieving numerous awards in everything from embroidery to calf rearing and from set dancing to art.

Over the years we have done hand knitting, macramé, cross-stitch, crewel embroidery, ribbon embroidery, gingham embroidery, blackwork, decoupage, crochet to name but a few! Our current project is to learn Mountmellick Embroidery.

Our Mountmellick Embroidery Project took off on the 27th February 2010 with our first workshop.

Our craft teacher arrived laden down with books, patterns and samples of Mountmellick embroidery that she had done – beautiful pieces – we wondered if we had bitten off more than we could chew!

This is some of our craft teacher’s work…

There were 15 Roscahill ICA members at the workshop. We were each given material and thread to practice the stitches on.

Firstly our teacher demonstrated the stem stitch and we practiced it. From that we continued with:

Whipped stem stitch

Chain stitch

Whipped chain stitch

Twisted chain stitch

Snail-trail stitch (also known as coral knot stitch)

Cable chain

Knotted cable chain stitch

Bullion

Cable plait stitch

Buttonholing: saw tooth, indented, fringed

Our aim over the next few weeks was to be competent enough with the basic stitches to move on to working our first piece of Mountmellick Embroidery! …And this is what we did.

Mountmellick embroidery motifs L-R: passionflower, lily, passionflower

Mountmellick Embroidery Workshop; Killannin Community Centre; 27th February 2010

Left image: What concentration! Right image: Our left-handed duo!

As much time as possible at our weekly meetings was taken up with practicing the stitches and learning from each other; trying to gain as much confidence as possible.

By the beginning of April we decided that we had practiced enough and it was time to start something more structured. We choose one of the patterns from Mountmellick Embroidery: inspired by nature as our first piece.

Having reviewed a number of books on Mountmellick Embroidery we decided that your book was the most comprehensive and easy to follow. Our local bookshop had to re-order there was such a rush to get your book!

In the meantime, we discovered your Left- Handed Embroiderer’s Guide which Sally and Peggy find really helpful – (I’m looking forward to getting a copy of the Right-handed version as soon as it arrives in our local bookshop!)

Our group doesn’t meet over the summer months but we have set ourselves a target of working on up to three pieces of Mountmellick Embroidery so that we can submit them for proficiency testing later on. So hopefully we will have lots of completed projects to show you in a few months time!

I love reading your blog and intend following your stitch along!

Angelina, thanks so much for telling us about your group’s adventures with learning Mountmellick embroidery in its home-country! The pictures are beautiful, and we look forward to seeing some of your finished pieces after your summer break. But I’d love to know who your teacher is so that she can get the recognition she deserves also!

If anyone else would like to tell us all about the embroidery group that they are part of, please let me know. I think I can safely say that we all love reading this sort of thing!