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Portuguese Whitework Handtowel

yvette — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:41:16 +0000

The second class that I will be teaching at Beating Around the Bush is a Portuguese Whitework Handtowel.

Portuguese Whitework Handtowel
With Yvette Stanton
Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th April 2012

From my upcoming book “Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães” comes this exquisite whitework handtowel, featuring a style of embroidery from Guimarães in the north of Portugal. With drawn thread work and a profusion of bullions and eyelets, this is a lovely mix of counted and surface embroidery.

No need to be scared of bullion knots; you’ll come away from this class highly proficient at working them! The method I teach for working bullions is different than the method many people use, and often using this different method gives great results that were previously unachievable for many stitchers.

For many, this will be the first chance you will have to discover the delights of Portuguese Whitework, and believe me, I am completely enamoured with it! It is a delight worth discovering!

Skill level: all levels. This project includes both counted embroidery and surface embroidery. Make sure you can count well – magnification will help!

Kit Contents: 38 count linen fabric, pearl cotton, needles, copy of “Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães” by Yvette Stanton

Please bring with you: 15-20cm embroidery hoop, magnification (highly recommended), wash-out marking pencil or HB pencil, embroidery scissors

Kit Cost: $85.00 AUD

To book in, please go to the TryBooking website.

The Magic Flute and BATB classes

yvette — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:03:18 +0000

Last night we took our girls out for a huge treat (a treat for us too!). We went to see Opera Australia’s production of The Magic Flute at the Sydney Opera House. It was amazing! As you can expect, apart from the opera itself, I was transfixed by the costumes. Wow! Full of colour, shapes and pattern. It was fabulous! We’ll have two very tired little girls today, but they were so thrilled to be going, and really enjoyed the performance. Fortunately today is a public holiday (Australia Day) so we don’t have to do very much – no gymnastics training for one thing!

Now, if you’re wanting to do any classes with me this year, for Beating Around the Bush, the needlework conference being run in Adelaide at Easter time, two of my classes have changed. Beating Around the Bush is a fabulous event, and last time one of the things I loved best about it was simply being with so many other people who also love embroidery.

My one day class is now going to be an Elizabethan Strawberry Roundel, replacing the Hardanger class.

Replacing the difficult and unusual stitches class will be your first chance to do a class in Portuguese Whitework with me! We’ll be making the handtowel out of my upcoming book “Portuguese Whitework”.

The Mountmellick lily cushion class remains the same.

I would absolutely love you to join me for these classes! Bookings for Beating Around the Bush can be made at the Try Booking website.

It is done!!

yvette — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:25:10 +0000

Yesterday afternoon my daughter and I drove to the Post Office (yes, drove! – that’s a new one for me!) and I posted off the printouts and files of “Portuguese Whitework” to my printers in Hong Kong.

Just quietly, it doesn’t feel as marvellous as I might have expected, to have it finished, possibly because I wasn’t feeling all that stressed about it beforehand. I was just working solidly to get it done.

However, I am sure that over the next few days and weeks I will really feel the difference of not having to rush off to my computer for every spare second to get more work done. I am looking forward to being a little more detached from the computer!

However, now I can get stuck into updating the website and putting it there so that people can pre-order it. But the thing I am really looking forward to, is making a video preview of the book. I’ve never done anything like that before, so I am looking forward to the challenge.

I’ll also have to decide which of my other book ideas is the best one to focus on next. Its a bit hard to decide! But the decision can just percolate for a bit yet. I’m happy to have a little break!

Thank you to you all for your encouragement, and for those who have let me know how much they’ve enjoyed hearing about the process of writing and publishing a book. There’s still more stages of the printing process to go through, so I’ll probably be able to tell you about them also.

first draft nearly complete

yvette — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:34:31 +0000

I’ve been working hard filling pages of the book. Currently there are only two pages that are yet to have anything put on them. One is a chapter opener that I need to take a photo for, and one is a fairly simple step-by-step instruction page.

Once they’re done, the first draft will be complete. I have already moved on to editing some of the other pages. It is lovely to be at the stage where I am checking all the project instructions, doing really fiddly typographical things (yes, I enjoy this! I am a book designer at heart, seeing that is what I trained as!) and just generally editing the pages.

I had a fun time the other day putting the photos of the historical examples in place. Wow, they look fantastic! It makes a wonderful start to the book, really helping you to get a feel for the historical background of this style of embroidery.

In the slightly paraphrased words of a “They Might be Giants” song, “and now we’re even closer, and now we’re even closer. And now we’re closer still…”

historical photos

yvette — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:43:04 +0000

This morning I have received the files for some historical photos I’ve requested to use in Portuguese Whitework. They’re downloading at the moment, as I write. Its a little bit exciting as these are going to add a wonderful sense of history to the book!

I have been very fortunate throughout the process of putting this book together. All the people I have dealt with in Portugal have been so wonderfully generous with knowledge, time and even things like photos and fabric. I have been thrilled by their kindness and willingness to help me.

I’m really looking forward to putting the photos in place on the pages.

This morning a reader asked if she will be able to pre-order Portuguese Whitework. Yes, you will be able to, but not yet. Once the book is off to the printers and that process is underway, they’ll give me a shipping date, which will help me to figure out when it will get here (give or take some weeks, depending on shipping!). And after it is off to the printers, I will have time to get the necessary information up on my website.

I also hope to put together a youtube video type preview of the book. I’ve seen a few video previews of books now, and think they’re a wonderful idea. I’m really looking forward to the fun and the challenge of making that!

In the meantime though, I have a book to finish, and the historical photos (still downloading as I write!) to enjoy!

Added later: Oh WOW! The photographer has been even more generous than I had hoped, and sent me a number of photos of each of the items I requested, showing different details. I had only asked for one of each item! Manuel Correia of www.mcfotografia.com, you are wonderful! Thank you so much!

Happy New Year!

yvette — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:04:58 +0000

Welcome to 2012! And a particular welcome if you’re joining us here for the first time after visiting Mary Corbet’s Needle’nThread! Why not subscribe to White Threads while you’re here?

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

2011 has been a year of hard slog for me. I’ve gotten seriously into writing and stitching for my upcoming book “Portuguese Whitework”. I am well on track to having it off to the printers very soon. From there it will take a few months to come back to me, and to make its way around the globe to my distributors.

However, it hasn’t all been hard work, as I have enjoyed the stitching for the book so very much! I find myself very much in love with the style of needlework, and now say that it is my favourite style. If you would like to know more about the book as information becomes available, please sign up for my email list specifically for news of the book. You can email me to ask to sign up for it, or let me know in the comments section of this blog post.

Personally it has also been a great year for me and my family. My husband had some excellent things happen at work. He’s a librarian, and his library moved into its new purpose-built home early in the year.

My eldest daughter finished her primary school education and is off to the larger world of high school. She continues to mature into a delightful young lady.

Rainbow Girl, my younger daughter, has stepped into the world of elite gymnastics on her quest for an Olympic medal. Given that she’ll need to be 16 years old before she can compete internationally, we’re a long way off from anything like that! But she surprised us completely. We had no idea she was that good, have no idea where the sporting talent has come from, and would never have imagined a child of ours setting themselves the goal of an Olympic medal!

And because of all the gymnastics training, just a few weeks ago, I finally got my driver’s licence. Driving is still not something I’m thrilled about doing, but it will make life easier, I am sure.

2012 promises to be a year of great delights. I will finally publish “Portuguese Whitework” – it feels like it has been a long time coming, especially since we visited Portugal to do the research for it way back in 2008, before I got sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome! (I’m completely better now, if you’re wondering…!)

This year I’ll have to decide which idea on my list of book ideas turns into my next book, and get started on it. I will be off to Adelaide to teach at the “Beating Around the Bush” conference run by Country Bumpkin at Easter, and have various other classes lined up around the countryside.

I hope that 2012 (wow, it feels strange writing that!) is a wonderful, stitchy year for you, filled with happiness and joy.

photographing cupcakes

yvette — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:34:37 +0000

I spent some time on the weekend taking more photographs of embroideries for “Portuguese Whitework”. I took delivery of the cupcakes I had ordered from a friend so that I could use them as props for one of my photos. They were absolutely gorgeous, and I was really pleased with how the resulting photo of the embroidery turned out.

Yesterday I spent several hours removing the wash-out pencil from and damp stretching the tablecloth. It is now drying on the floor in our lounge room. I had hoped to photograph it this week, but it looks like the weather is not being my friend. I had hoped to try photographing it at my sister’s – she has a nice outdoor area with a table that might work – but with showers forecast for the whole week, I don’t think it will be happening this week!

I also started work on the final projects for the book – a set of Christmas tree ornaments, though of course they don’t need to only be used on a Christmas tree!

When all the embroideries are finally finished and photographed, I will be sending out another of my email updates about the book with some sneak previews of some of the projects. If you’re not signed up for the email list specifically for “Portuguese Whitework”, you may like to get yourself on that list.

If you’d like to join, please let me know in the comments section. I should be able to get your email address from that. Alternatively, you can go to our contact page and fill in the form there, to let me know of your interest, and your email address so that I can add it to the list.

dreaming of bullions

yvette — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:31:46 +0000

I feel like a lot of my dreaming time was filled with making bullions last night. Perhaps that reflects how many I have done recently? It reminds me of the nightmare I had when I sent my stitch dictionary off to the printers. I think that my day job is invading my sleep too much!

A few weeks ago a friend asked if there was going to be a bookmark in the book, as she felt that would be an excellent project for a beginner like her. I said that there was not as the bullions would be too thick to fit in a book as a bookmark, but that there would be other small projects suitable for a beginner.

But she got me thinking. One of the things about a bookmark is that it also requires very little finishing expertise. It doesn’t require a sewing machine, and has no fiddly construction bits. It really is an ideal project for a beginner.

So yesterday, after spending some time damp stretching the Portuguese Whitework sampler project, my mind was free to move on to new things. On the walk to school in the afternoon to get the kids, I devised a bookmark design that was simple to stitch and make, and where the thickness of the bullions would not be within the pages of the book.

I started it last night, and will finish it this morning. It is simple, but effective, and will be an excellent beginner project and quick gift. It is nice to get a project done so very quickly! Thanks for the inspiration, Belinda!

drawn thread work base complete

yvette — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:50:51 +0000

I spent the last few days madly working on my new project for the book. It is a sampler which will have a large number of bullion stitch motifs on it. It will be an excellent reference piece because of all the different motifs featured on it.

Except that they’re not there yet! I did get all the drawn thread work completed late last night though, so it is great to have already made that much progress.

Over the next few days I’ll be getting stuck into working the motifs. It is so very lovely to *have* to spend so much time embroidering things I love! What fun!

I showed my mum the tablecloth the other day. She liked it very much, even more than Hardanger and Mountmellick. I told her that the style is my new favourite embroidery. I hope that I can do a good job of really showing off these projects in the photography. The style of embroidery is so gorgeous – I really hope that I can visually communicate that to you all.

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!