White Threads

Tentmakers of Cairo

The other day I had a strange email from my mother which said simply, “Google Tentmakers of Cairo”. So, like the dutiful daughter I am, I did just that. WOW! Thanks Mum!

I won’t make you Google it, I’ll just give you the link, and it is definitely worth following. Tentmakers of Cairo. Take a look around the site and enjoy the pictures of the tents/quilts. This is a tradition I know nothing about, but I’d like to learn more.

Mum heard about it while listening to the radio overnight and thought it would be something that interested me. She was right!

Hello from Port Hedland

On the west coast of Australia, a little way up from the uppermost sticky-outy bit, there’s a small coastal town called Port Hedland. It’s basically an iron ore port, which takes all the iron ore from the Pilbara region to other parts of the world.

Everything here is brown. The ore and the dust make everything look rusty!

I wasn’t expecting much here, but the welcome for the township has been very warm.

We met the mayor, Kelly, who seems to be popular with everyone and is obviously doing a great job in the town. (Kelly is on the left.)

Buses shuttled us from the ship into town, where we were met by people handing out free bottles of ice cold water (very appreciated when it was 40 degrees celcius at 9am!). They also had fans for anyone who wanted to cool off that way. There were markets which locals had set up, and a great art gallery with really excellent quality art work.

The buses also took anyone who wanted to, to the local shopping centre, where we rectified the very obvious lack of hot cross buns for Easter on this ship. (Hey, Royal Caribbean! You might not be interested in celebrating Easter, but we are!)

I met a couple who go to our church in the visitors information centre – they’re also on the cruise!

This afternoon we will head off to Bangkok. We have five sailing days before we get there. So far it has been very smooth sailing.

The classes are going well, and continue over the next few sailing days.

If I find wifi in Bangkok, or in Ho Chi Minh city after that, you might hear from me, otherwise it will be when I get back. (I have scheduled a few pre-written posts for my likely absence though.)

In the meantime, you might like to check out the new Pinterest board on Elizabethan embroidery which I’ve created for the sake of my students in my Elizabethan Strawberries class which I’ve been teaching on the ship.

Exploring the needlework internet this week

In my travels around the web I’ve seen more things this week that might also interest you. Please note, for the sake of those who think that I spend my time looking for interesting links for you, these are just things I’ve come across in my daily needlework life. They’re things that have cropped up along the way. I’m not trawling for things for you – I do have enough things to do already! No need to marvel at me. 😉

This week I passed 900 Facebook fans on the Vetty Creations Facebook page! (Small fry for some people, but big deal for me!) Thanks so much to all of you who show your interest and support for Vetty Creations either here on this blog, or on Facebook. If you haven’t visited me on Facebook, please do. If you are a Facebook fan, note that to keep Vetty Creations updates coming up in your newsfeed, you’ll need to regularly like posts and/or comment. Thanks!

I’ve just this morning learned of a small boutique Canadian overdyed thread manufacturer – Colour Complements. She has some gorgeous threads, and on her blog she’s showed them in use, stitching lovely squares of needlepoint. It’s a really attractive way to give us ideas on how to use the pretty threads! During a quick look, I couldn’t find anywhere that said the threads were colourfast, so I think you’d have to assume that they are not.

Yesterday I saw a link to this beautiful lampshade on Facebook. It features what look to be hand-embroidered cockatoos and galahs, which are both Australian birds, and a range of Australian native plants and flowers. If this is indeed hand embroidered, then I suspect it has been embroidered by underpaid labour. This isn’t something I support. However, I did want to share it here, simply because it is so beautiful.

I’ve found a museum to visit while in Ho Chi Minh city – The Vietamese Southern Women’s Museum. They have a collection of regional clothing and also Ao Dai, which are traditional Vietnamese women’s dress. I look forward to seeing this exhibit! I also plan to shop for silk in both Ho Chi Minh and Bangkok. I don’t know whether I’ll buy any, but even if I don’t, I’ll enjoy looking! There are also a few museums that I’ll probably visit in Bangkok, such as Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles.

Not on my list of places to go for this trip, seeing it isn’t anywhere near where I’ll be going, is Pysanka Museum in Ukraine, celebrating the Ukrainian tradition of hand painted eggs. The website is in Ukrainian, so you’ll need to run it through your favourite website translator. There are lots of beautiful pictures of gorgeous pysanky.

So that’s it for this week! I hope that you find some beautiful things to interest you amongst this week’s little internet tour!

class preparation nearly done

I’m nearly done with all my preparation for my cruise classes. There are piles of stuff on the table, each one for a different class, plus other piles of stock to sell.

I’m still undecided about whether to take my laptop with me on the cruise. It would mean that I could work on the book in my spare time, but part of me thinks it would be really nice to just have a break!

I still have some research to do about where to see/purchase silk fabric in Bangkok. If you have suggestions, please let me know! The Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles is on my list of possible things to do while in town.

I’m not sure if there’s anything textiley to see/do in Ho Chi Minh, but surely there is… 🙂

One of the things I’m most looking forward to is not cooking for two weeks! I do enjoy cooking, but you know how coming up with something interesting for dinner each night can be difficult at times.

More to do, so I’d better get on with it!

Another watery adventure

In just over a week I’ll be off on another watery adventure. This time I will be teaching embroidery on a cruise from Fremantle (Perth) to Singapore. We’ll stop off at Port Hedland, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh. It’s a 15 day cruise, and I’ll be teaching on 6 of the at sea days. The rest of the time is mine to enjoy. I’m looking forward to relaxing, having someone else cook and clean for me, seeing the sights, and hopefully laying my hands on some lovely Thai silk!

I’ll be teaching 3 classes, each of 2 days duration.

: Portuguese Whitework Biscornu class

: Sardinian Whitework Hand Towel class

: Elizabethan Strawberries class

I will therefore be out of the office from Tuesday 31st March until Thursday 16th April. All orders and enquiries will be dealt with on my return. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any orders you’d like to place, I suggest you place them now so that I can fulfil them before I leave.

Exploring the needlework internet this week

On my travels round the needlework internet this week (no, there isn’t an internet specifically devoted to needlework, though wouldn’t that be nice?!) these are some of the noteworthy things I’ve seen:

In preparation for the coming Easter season, I’ve been inspired by some embroidered Easter eggs.

First, we have Luzine Happel’s gorgeous Schwalm embroidered eggs.
Then there are Mary Corbet’s actually embroidered eggs – no fabric, the embroidery is worked into the egg itself. The mind boggles about the care and patience required for this!
An old favourite, with some smocked easter eggs, which I found on Facebook. When I went to the linked website – Pinwheel Ponders – the actual photo of the smocked eggs wasn’t apparent, but there was an excellent tutorial on smocked balls, which is the same method as could be used for the eggs.
And finally, some more rather amazing examples of embroidery stitched directly onto eggs.

For some people, Easter is all about bunnies, chocolate and eggs. For me, Easter is about the death of Jesus, and his raising to life again. Eggs at easter represent new life, and for me that means the new life I have in Christ Jesus.

Back to embroidery, we have a fun article about old lady hobbies that people should take up in their twenties. And number one on the list is… Embroidery! 🙂

I read about a French company who sells silk threads dyed with plant-based dyes. For people doing re-enactment clothing who would prefer their silk dyed with vegetable dyes, this could be an excellent resource.

I found a stitched version of my Claire Hardanger doily on Sophia Weng’s blog. She’s done a lovely job, and made some adaptations to the original design that work very nicely. The pattern for Claire can be found in Elegant Hardanger Embroidery.

And finally, on my Big List of Online Textile Collections, I’m up to 55 museums. Take another look if you haven’t lately. There’s some great stuff there! I do have a lack of South America museums, and there is a lot of embroidery in South America, so that’s the next area to address.

Exquisite Threads exhibition

Coming soon to the National Gallery of Victoria is a new exhibition called Exquisite Threads: English Embroidery 1600s–1900s. It’s looking like it’s going to be a cracker of an exhibition. I might just have to somehow get myself to Melbourne and take a look.

If you head to the NGV page about the exhibition, there is a photographic survey of key works from the exhibition. Mmm, no counted whitework samplers in amongst that lot, but maybe the exhibition itself will have one…

There is a series of events associated with the exhibition, including demonstrations and talks.

The exhibition opens on 2nd April, and closes 12th July. And best of all, it is FREE!

This is not a gallery which is well known for its textile collection. Because of that, if at all possible, we should let them know of our support for such exhibitions by voting with our feet and going. People turning up in droves to textile related exhibitions does turn the heads of curatorial staff at museums. They notice, and if we show them we’re interested, they will hopefully keep putting on such excellent exhibitions.

See you there?!

PS: Yes, the National Gallery of Victoria is on The Big List of Online Textile Collections (number 27), so even if you can’t get to the exhibition itself, you can look at what’s in their digital catalogue.

The Big List of Online Textile Collections

I have great pleasure in announcing The Big List of Online Textile Collections! It is now live on the Vetty Creations website; just click on the preceding link.

About a week ago I mentioned that I was going to put together a list of all the museums I knew of that had online searchable collections. I started the list off with about five suggestions. I knew there would be more, and there were! Thank you to Laura and Nicole who each suggested a good number to add to my list. If you have further suggestions, please let me know and I’ll be happy to add them.

I’ve had a great time looking at all these websites and testing them out before putting them on the list. I know that I will have many hours of enjoyment and inspiration found through those links, and I hope you do too.

If you know of anyone who might benefit from the list, please share it with them. Put it in your guild newsletter and share it on your blog. We may as well all benefit from it!

If you haven’t already clicked through, go and visit The Big List of Online Textile Collections now. You’ll be glad you did!

Morning Meadow Beginners Hardanger class

I now have the details of my next Hardanger class, newly rescheduled due to revived interest from Inspirations Magazine’s Facebook and Pinterest posts!

Morning Meadow – Beginners Hardanger class, with Yvette Stanton

The Crewel Gobelin, Killara NSW
Saturday 2 and Saturday 16 May 2015
12.30 – 4.00pm each day (7 hours tuition time)

Learn the Basics of Handanger Embroidery with this pretty blue and green Hardanger panel. When finished, the panel could be applied to a bag or a book cover, or made into a pincushion, biscornu, doily, sachet or needle book. Each of the stitches used will be taught, so absolute beginners are completely catered for, though it will probably help if you have some counted stitching experience.

It is likely there will be an alternative colour way for this class, but we’re currently awaiting supplies. 😉

For more details and bookings: The Crewel Gobelin – 02 9498 6831

Exploring the needlework internet this week

I’ve found a few things on the internet this week that you might be interested in.

The first is an example of Punt ‘e Nù, or Sardinian Whitework, by Francesca in Italy. For this, Francesca used my book Sardinian Knotted Embroidery and “Sardinian Knot Stitch” by Gioja Ralui to create the piece. She used information from each, and has created such a beautiful piece of embroidery!

From Phys.org comes the news that textile artist and psychologist, Ann Collier, has been studying the therapeutic value of art making. Her results have been published in the Journal of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts and the American Art Therapy Journal. Art making participants in her study had excellent results in inflammatory immune responses, and improvements in their mood.

And I’ve started a new Pinterest board for Mountmellick Embroidery. If you haven’t been to visit my Pinterest boards, why not check them out? My favourite board is definitely the Folk Embroidery board. So many beautiful images, and so much inspiration!