If you’re wanting to get started, I suggest you’ll need the following:

Sometimes you just can’t seem to get that thread through the eye of the needle, and you don’t [...]]]> I recently shared this tip with one of my classes, and it was new information to many of them. While I have shared it previously on my blog, it seemed a good idea to share it again.

Sometimes you just can’t seem to get that thread through the eye of the needle, and you don’t have a needle threader handy. That’s ok. If you have some paper, you’ll be right!

To thread a needle with paper, cut a very narrow strip, about 1cm/0.5 inches long. It needs to be narrow enough to fit through the eye of the needle. Then fold the paper in half, insert the end of the thread into the little paper “pocket” so that the thread end sits inside, towards the fold.

Hold the folded paper (with thread inside), and feed the folded edge through the eye. It gives a “sharp” edge to thread through the eye, taking the thread with it.

This doesn’t work for needles with very narrow eyes such as straw needles, but if it helps you out with threading other needles, then that’s a bonus! Its cheap and easy, and if you lose your precious piece of paper, you can always cut a new one!

After showing you my damp stretching set up on Friday, Kathryn asked for a better description of “spongy mats” – a great question!

I have heard of people [...]]]> Just in case you haven’t been reading the comments from Friday’s post, I’m making this into a post of its own, because it contains Really Useful Information.

After showing you my damp stretching set up on Friday, Kathryn asked for a better description of “spongy mats” – a great question!

I have heard of people using a number of different types of things such as cork board, or polystyrene. For small pieces, in the past I have used my ironing board.

However, one of my dedicated readers, Renee, suggested to me to use those high density foam mats that have alphabet cutouts, the type that are for kids to put together as a large floor jigsaw. (You can slightly see the A and B in the photo.) I immediately saw the benefit of something like this: they can be packed away when not in use, and you can use as many or as few tiles as you need for the size of the piece.

I had been troubled by the fact that I was going to have to stretch my Portuguese whitework tablecloth for my book, and this perfectly solved the problem of what to use. I got mine quite cheaply at my local Kmart store (Australia).

Renee has glued the letterforms into her mats so that they do not dislodge. I haven’t yet done this with mine. It hasn’t bothered me that they can fall out, but if I find it is a problem then I’ll superglue mine in too. Potentially it could be a problem if I had to pin into one and the tension of the fabric caused it to pop out. This started to happen with the side of the B, in the example photographed, but you can see that the box is holding the edge of it down.

Given that there are about 30 mats within my pack, and I’ll very rarely use all (or any!) of them, I can’t imagine they’re going to wear out quickly. They will get wear and tear by being pinned into – the pin holes will gradually cause them to break down – but considering how long it will take for this to happen, and that I only paid $15 for the whole set, I think I’ll be getting very good value out of them!

The surface of the mats has texture on them, which if you’re using a not very firm fabric, could show up as texture wiggles on the surface of the fabric when it has dried. If you were concerned about this, you could use the back of the mats instead – on mine these are completely flat. I also found that a light press with the iron (after the work has been unpinned and removed from the mats!) removed any of these texture wiggles.

'Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães' by Yvette Stanton, due for release in early 2012.

Thanks Renee, for sharing the wonderful idea of the alphabet mats with me, and for allowing me to share it with others. It is such a Good Idea!

I’ve now got the tablecloth soaking in a bucket so that I can carefully go around the whole thing and remove the wash out pencil marks. I’ve found that unfortunately, due to the density of the bullion stitches, the wash out pencil marks don’t simply disappear in [...]]]> I finally finished all the hemming yesterday.

I’ve now got the tablecloth soaking in a bucket so that I can carefully go around the whole thing and remove the wash out pencil marks. I’ve found that unfortunately, due to the density of the bullion stitches, the wash out pencil marks don’t simply disappear in water. I need to give the fabric a tiny (and I do mean tiny – there’s no scrubbing here!) rub with my finger nail. It makes it very time consuming to go around checking every stitch on the whole tablecloth, but when I’ve already spent *so many* hours working on it, I’m not skimping at this stage either!

The runner that I hemstitched on Wednesday was damp stretched yesterday, and I left it sitting like that overnight to make sure it was fully dry before removing the pins. Damp stretching makes such a good result. Full instructions will be included in the book, so that you can use this wonderful technique to have your embroidery looking “just so”.

I thought you might like to see the setup I used for the damp stretching yesterday.

Underneath the embroidery are my spongy mats into which I pin. I have used normal dressmaking pins, and lots of them! Around the edges are 4 cartons of my books which are holding down the edges of the spongy mats, to stop them from curling up under the tension of the fabric.

I could use anything heavy, really, but I’ve got lots of book cartons just lying around and they’re definitely nice and heavy! Having them that large around the edges does impede the airflow and probably slows down the drying a bit, but that’s a price that’s worth paying if it means it will give a good result.

For the traditional Mountmellick embroidery knitted fringe, we generally use four balls of knitting cotton together to provide a very full fringe. Rather than dividing a single ball into four, the student wondered if she could use two [...]]]> This is a technique that was discovered by one of my students up at Maitland recently.

For the traditional Mountmellick embroidery knitted fringe, we generally use four balls of knitting cotton together to provide a very full fringe. Rather than dividing a single ball into four, the student wondered if she could use two balls, and take the ends from the outside as well as the inside of the ball, thereby knitting with four strands.

So she got herself two balls, and went home that night to try it out. By squashing the balls and folding up the cardboard tube inside the balls, she was able to make it small enough to pull the tube out from the centre of the ball.

She was then able to successfully knit with the outside ends and the inside ends of the two balls, thereby easily using four strands. An ingenious method!

We have knitting cotton that is perfect for Mountmellick work, available from Vetty Creations’ online shop. It is completely matt, is not fluffy, and has a good twist. By purchasing two balls, you can try out this fabulous technique!

Each ball comes with two patterns for making the Mountmellick knitted fringe. Our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature by Yvette Stanton and Prue Scott, also features a third method which is the most traditional method of producing the fringe (NB: only the edition with the cover shown has this third method – the first edition does not). It has step-by-step instructions, with words and diagrams for each step.

Thanks to Judy for working out this great technique!

I wanted to ask whether the 8 inch is the one you find best to use. I looked up White threads again, and saw that you said you can order in other sizes. I have inflammatory arthritis in a number [...]]]> Yesterday I had an enquiry about the wonderful embroidery hoops with stands that I sell:

I wanted to ask whether the 8 inch is the one you find best to use. I looked up White threads again, and saw that you said you can order in other sizes. I have inflammatory arthritis in a number of my finger joints (and problems with other vertebrae) and presently use a 4 inch hoop (no stand). I must say I like the idea of the wider hoop, I thought you said once you also have back problems, so hopefully the hoop makes life easier. Have you used the hoop plus stand successfully when sitting on a low lounge chair as well as on a firm upright chair? I know you said the height was adjustable, so hopefully this allows both. Are these made in Australia?

My answer:
I use hoops that are either 7inch or 8inch (I have both). I have an 11inch (I think!) that I use occasionally. I too prefer smaller rather than larger hoops. Having a stand will mean you don’t have to reach around the side of your hoop to hold it (as you are probably currently doing with your 4 inch hoop). This will probably help your arthritis immensely – having the stand to hold your hoop instead of your hands. Even without arthritis, I find that holding a hoop really stiffens up my hand and makes it sore.

With both hands free, you can keep them both moving more, and also access the entire hoop much more easily. So it doesn’t need to be quite so small as you’re obviously used to.

Yes, I use the stand successfully on our lounge, my office chair, dining room chairs, train seats, swimming pool spectator benches… you name it! It works on them all, and yes, as you say you can move the height up and down.

They are not made in Australia. I think they are German. They are lovely smooth wood – very good quality.

I hope that might answer some of *your* questions too, about these lovely embroidery hoops with stands. I use mine as often as I can, as it is such a pleasure to use. I will have these hoops and stands with me at the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair at Darling Harbour from June 22-26, so you can see them for yourself, and even see me using one. If I happen to run out of stock because they’re so popular, I’ll happily take an order for you and post it to you after the show.

If you ever have any questions about the products we sell here at Vetty Creations, please contact me with your questions. I’ll be only too happy to answer!

Last year I attended a course at [a patchwork shop], to do with hand-appliquéing designs. There were 3 left-handers out of 12 participants, and one had your book [...]]]> Yesterday I received an order of The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion from a lovely lady who told me about the circumstances that resulted in her purchasing the book:

Last year I attended a course at [a patchwork shop], to do with hand-appliquéing designs. There were 3 left-handers out of 12 participants, and one had your book on left-handed embroidery. It was certainly a help on the course for some of the more complicated stitches [the teacher] encouraged us to use.

I’ve always enjoyed needlework, but it has very much been my hobby, not my consuming passion. Now I find needlework can strain the eyes, so have done little embroidery or cross-stitch in the past 10 years, finding patchwork easier to do. However I like to have “something on the go” so was pleased to see a book for left-handers.

Her comments raise a very interesting point: she found The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion a useful addition to the class she was taking. It seems that it made it easier for her to learn about the stitches that the teacher suggested that they could use, from a left-handed point of view.

Statistics suggest that 10-15% of all people are left-handed. It is therefore likely that we can extrapolate that to show that about 10-15% of embroiderers are also left-handed. Within an embroidery class, that usually means that from about one to three students are likely to be left-handed. (That’s my experience anyway.)

I’d therefore like to suggest:

• If you are a needlework teacher where your class might include any sort of embroidery, PLEASE supply at least one copy of “The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion” for the left-handed stitchers to use within the class. They will love you for it.
• If you are the shop owner of a shop where needlework classes take place, PLEASE supply at least one copy of “The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion” for the left-handed stitchers to use within the class. They will love you for it. And make sure you have enough on hand to sell to each of the left-handers in the class. You’ll find that when they try the book, they’ll see the great benefit to owning their own copy!
• If you’re a left-hander, off to a new needlework class any time this year, please remember to take your copy of “The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion” with you. Chances are you will find it useful in the class, and even if not, other lefties in the class are still likely to find it interesting.

With such a useful left-handed embroidery reference book available now, the nicest thing you can do for left-handed embroiderers is have it available for them.

If you received a copy of any of my books as a Christmas present, or have recently treated yourself to a copy, I’d love to hear what you think of them.

I [...]]]> Yesterday I was considering doing some embroidery in red thread. It was Presencia brand perle, which I have not used before. So before I even put it anywhere near the white fabric I was going to use, I wanted to test its colourfastness (or “colorfastness” for those who prefer to spell it that way!)

I found a small piece of white fabric, cut myself a length of the red thread, and liberally wet them both until they were both completely wet. Probably soaking them both for a few hours would have been good too, but I knew that if I did that, I’d probably forget to take them out to dry, and I wanted to know the answer sooner rather than later!

I put the wet red thread on the wet white fabric and left it there to dry in the bathroom. The idea is that if any coloured thread is going to bleed, red is probably one of the most likely. In the evening, my younger daughter came out to me with it in her hands and said “Mum, you left this in the bathroom.”

Ah yes, thank you! It was dry and there was NO hint of any bleeding. Very nice to know.

The thread had been curled up in the centre of the fabric. I've moved it aside and you can see there is no bleeding.