White Threads

A new Hardanger pattern available

Last Thursday the lovely people at Inspirations magazine posted a picture on Facebook and Pinterest of Hardanger that I taught in a class back in 2010. The picture linked to the blog post about the class that I was going to be teaching at The Crewel Gobelin (way back in June 2010 when the shop was under the previous ownership).

I thanked them on the Inspirations page for posting the picture of my work, and got on with my day.

Part way through the morning I received a phone call from Julie at The Crewel Gobelin. “I’ve just had a phone call from a lady wanting to book into a Hardanger class with you, but we haven’t organised one.”

I explained to her about the picture on Facebook and that it was getting interest there too. We decided to reschedule the class! Julie and I are just working on the final details, but as soon as that’s done, we’ll let you know. Certainly, you are welcome to contact her to express interest in the class. I will announce the details of the class here on the blog and on my website when they are available.

There were many people who expressed an interest in purchasing the pattern so that they could make it themselves. In the days since, I have reformatted the step-by-step instructions into my pattern format. The pattern for the Blue Green Beginners Hardanger Panel is now available. It comes with detailed step-by-step instructions with diagrams (snippet shown below) that will take you by the hand and teach you the beautiful art of Hardanger embroidery.

Purchase your own copy of the pattern for the Blue Green Beginners Hardanger Panel today! I have a large pile of them here, ready to be popped into the mail to you!

Top 7 cutting tools for needlework on flights

I belong to an online needlework group where the subject of flights and needlework comes up fairly regularly. Flights can be long and boring, which makes it seem like the ideal time to do some needlework. However, every time the subject comes up it is very frustrating, mostly because THE RULES FOR WHAT YOU CAN TAKE ON FLIGHTS DIFFER AROUND THE WORLD. (Yes, I did just shout that.)

Some members seem to think that TSA (let’s note that it is a *US* agency) rules apply everywhere. NO, THEY DON’T.

Let’s think worldwide, not just of the rules in your particular country. In this, we are thinking of what you can take into the cabin with you – what you put in your checked luggage is different.

In some places, disc thread cutters are banned (because they contain a razor blade). In some places you might get through with them. In some places scissors are banned completely. In some places you can take scissors under 4 inches in length.

What applies in your country does not necessarily apply elsewhere. Before you travel you should check the regulations for all the regions into which you are flying, and the rules of your airlines as well. If you’re unsure, ring them and speak to a real person. Whatever solution you decide to use, be prepared for them to be confiscated anyway, because sometimes the officials you deal with might be a little overenthusiastic and take them anyway. In that case, I think I’m unlikely to want to challenge them… So make sure you’re prepared to lose whatever it is you choose to take.

And just because you’ve “always done it, and it’s never been a problem” doesn’t mean you aren’t breaking the law and won’t be caught next time.

So what are the options available for stitchers travelling on flights?
NB: This is a discussion of what is available. It is NOT a recommendation of what you should use. You need to make your own decisions based on the regulations that apply where you will be. Depending on where you are travelling, some of these will be unlawful in cabin luggage.

In no particular order:

	Disc thread cutter – this is a round metal disc with indentations in the sides in which the blade sits. It can be worn as a necklace pendant.
	Scissors under 10cm/4inches in length.
	Mini scissors – when these threads are sheathed in the little cap, they don’t look like scissors at all on an X-ray.
	Ceramic scissors – as they are made from ceramics they don’t show up on X-rays.
	Mini nail clippers, like you would use on a baby.
	Dental floss box – the cutter is used for cutting the threads.
	Pre cut threads.

Do you have further suggestions that you can share with us? Add your comment in the comments section. (If you email me in response to this because you receive this post as an email, no-one else will be able to read your suggestion, so please post on the original blog post by clicking on the “Top 7 cutting tools…” heading at the top of the email.)

Please note, I do not want this to become a discussion about what can be used where. Regulations change, so what might have been legal last week in one jurisdiction, may not be now, or may be different next week.

Museums with online collections

Sometimes on a Saturday, I will try to find something visually inspiring in an online museum collection and post a link to it on the Vetty Creations Facebook page. For me, inspiration often comes from historical needlework.

There are a few museums that I like to go to for reference and inspiration in their online collection. These include:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Victoria and Albert Museum
Digitalt Museum, Norway
Digitalt Museum, Sweden
Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, AKA The Powerhouse Museum
The Cooper Hewitt Museum

If wanting to look at collections elsewhere, I will usually try to see if there are ethnographic museums or museums of costume, or folk museums for a particular country, city or region. These often have the sorts of things I am looking for.

Do you have a favourite museum with an online collection that includes textiles and/or embroidery? Could you share the link with us so that we can go and have a sticky beak too? It would be great to put together a much more exhaustive list than the one I’ve started us off with!

two amazing fabrics and their creators

I’ve seen two things in the last two days that I wanted to share with you.

Over the past week or so, The Reader and I have been watching Kevin McCloud’s “Man Made Home” Series 2. In this show, Kevin moves the mobile cabin that he made in the first series to the seaside. He sets it up for the new location, then goes about making the little extras to go with it. One of these things is a parka based on native Alaskan parkas made of seal gut. Kevin didn’t have seal gut on hand, so he and his mate went to a local abattoir and got themselves some pig gut. Kevin worked with Shellie Holden to create the garment. The most amazing thing was that the “fabric” they made from the pig gut actually looked beautiful! It was papery thin, had a lovely crinkle to it, and apparently was extremely strong. It just wasn’t waterproof as Kevin had hoped!

You can read more about it on Shellie’s blog, where she also has lots of photos.

The other thing that I wanted to share with you is another video about Bevilacqua, the weavers I visited in Venice and wrote about for Inspirations magazine. Such lovely fabrics, and it was really enjoyable to spend some time there, learning about the process of making the fabric. The video is in Italian, but even if you can’t understand the words, you can appreciate the pictures.

For those reading this as an email: Videos generally don’t embed in the email version of White Threads posts, so you can view it either at the blog (click on the header at the top of this post) or at YouTube.

working hard on new book

Did you think I’d fallen off the face of the earth? No, I’ve just been busy working on the book! This week I’ve been working on stitch instructions, photography and the cover of the book. I think the cover is nearly there, which is quite a relief!

Last week I went to a training day for people who exhibit with the company who runs the craft show that I exhibit at. They run a whole lot of different shows, some trade and some consumer, so it wasn’t just for us craft people. It was a really worthwhile and informative day! I learnt heaps, and was able to enjoy the day with some friends from the embroiderers guild who had also turned up to learn.

Last weekend I went to Melbourne to teach Sardinian Knotted Embroidery for the Victorian embroiderers guild. I had a great weekend with lovely hosts, and excellent students. I’d love to share some photos with you of my time there, but when I’m teaching I’m too busy teaching to think of taking photos! Thanks again to the guild for hosting me and allowing me to teach for you.

I’m doing a bit of market research that I’d be very grateful if you could help me with it. You can answer here in the blog comments section, or send your answers to me via email or my website contact form: http://www.vettycreations.com.au/contact.html

If you have a copy of any of my books, why did you buy that book/s?
What aspect of the book/s is the most valuable to you?
What do you think I could have done differently?
Would you recommend my books to others? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Thanks so much for your help with this!

busy January

We’ve been busy over the January break. It is nearly time for the girls and the husband to go back to school, but not quite yet. We have been swimming at the local pool most days, and I have been gradually regaining my fitness after a very non-fit year seeing The Gymnast was too injured to walk to school. It was embarrassing (to myself only) to see how unfit I had become! So I am slowly adding more laps of breaststroke, and then increasing the number of freestyle laps within my total number of laps. It is lovely to be exercising again. I hope to keep it up when everyone goes back to school, but I’m not sure how I’m going to fit it in. I will make every effort!

We have also been building a shed during these holidays. My dad is an excellent handyman and with him, we have been doing the work. It has been enjoyable to be out there doing manual work with my dad. Exhausting though!

The Gymnast has been training each day at gym, and The Reader has been reading and going out with friends.

In the evenings when I’m not falling asleep, I’ve been doing some embroidery for the book. And we’ve also had friends and relatives around for meals.

Next week school resumes, with them all going back on different days. Depending on where the shed is up to, I might be out there painting by myself. 🙂

Happy Christmas from Vetty Creations

It’s late on Christmas Eve, here. We’ve been wrapping gifts for nieces and nephews, and now that our girls have gone to bed, we can wrap theirs too.

We’ve been to the Christmas Eve service at our church this evening, where we sang carols and the younger children took part in a nativity play. The Reader is too old for these things, but The Gymnast took part, as the star of the show. Quite literally, she was the star that showed where the baby Jesus was born! The children were all very cute, as they always are in these things.

The Reader booked in with council and has done some busking at the local shops this Christmas season. She played Christmas carols on her trumpet. She sounded great! She also did it last year, and I feel she’s made a huge improvement in her playing over the past year. It was a pleasure to hear her playing for others. Some of our friends were shopping locally and saw and heard her, and thought she sounded great too – friends who haven’t seen her in recent times and didn’t realise it was her!

I finished my sewing for gifts today. Now that The Gymnast is at a different gym where they’re allowed to wear their own choice of leotards for training, she was thrilled to plan a new leotard for me to make. However, she wasn’t allowed to see it being made. I buried myself away in part of the house to finish it today, while she and The Husband made gingerbread.

And now we’re icing them. Two trays done, and one more to go. They’re all snowflakes, which really is quite silly, given that Australia has summer this time of year (and even when it is winter, we never get snow here!). The girls and I went swimming at the local pool this morning before breakfast. It was lovely. Soon after I started my laps, a mist came up the valley and settled on the pool. It looked very atmospheric!

Tomorrow will be a family day for us, celebrating God’s gift of Jesus to us. We’ll have lunch and then dinner with different parts of the family. We’re planning to have a water fight during the day – we thought it would be a fun thing for all the cousins to do, so hopefully it will be hot. I think it’s supposed to rain, but that’s fine as we’re going to get wet anyway!

If Christmas is something that you celebrate, I hope that you have a special day with family and/or friends. I hope that you take some time to remember the reason for Christmas – God’s gift of his son Jesus, to us. Of course, the story isn’t complete without Easter, where Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, so that we can be right with God. What an amazing gift!

Best wishes from me and my family to you and yours!

Stitch name etymology

I do not mean to be offensive or controversial in this post. My intention is to inform about the etymology of a stitch name. This post was written in response to an email I received this morning about the stitch to which this post refers.

Faggot stitch is a drawn thread stitch in which groups of threads are bound together in a pattern to make holes in the fabric. The etymology of the stitch name is nothing to do with the derogatory term (dating from the early 1900s) used in some cultures.

Faggot is a word dating from the 1300s meaning a bundle of sticks tied together, which is similar in appearance to a group of threads bound together. It would therefore be a good way to describe the stitch.

Most likely, as the stitch is a very old stitch, it took its name a long time before the derogatory version of the word developed. I understand, however, that some people may not want to use the common name of this stitch. In the absence of other well known alternative names (apart from cable stitch which is an alternative name for reverse faggot stitch), a way of describing it could be “bundle of sticks stitch”, thereby referencing the much earlier meaning.

The meanings of words can be transient, changing over time, and in different places and cultures. Sometimes this presents problems for the present day when using names for old stitches.

Embroidered Ukrainian blouse display

On Sunday 30th November, there will be a fashion parade of Ukrainian blouses from various parts of Ukraine in Sydney. I very much hope to go, seeing I have an interest in Ukrainian embroidery since writing my book Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery: Merezhka Poltavska.

A commentary on the history of the Ukrainian blouse and the origin of the blouses will accompany the modelling.

Sunday 30th November 2014 at 2pm, Ukrainian Hall, 59 Joseph St, Lidcombe, Sydney.

Entrance fee: $10. All proceeds will be donated towards helping Ukraine.

There will also be the opportunity to purchase Ukrainian handmade artefacts.

For further information, contact Kristina Bailey, President of the Olena Pchilka branch of the Ukrainian Women’s Association, NSW on (02) 94878732.

more stitch instructions

Firstly, thanks to all who contributed to our discussion last week about needlework fears. I felt it was very interesting and hopefully beneficial to some. It certainly caused me to look at some things differently.

This week I have been steadily plugging away on stitch instructions for the next book. I also added more pages of photos from my trip to the front section of the book – the part that deals with the cultural and historical background of the embroidery style. I just felt that more needed to be included to give a better survey of historical work. And more pictures are always fun because they’re so nice to look at!

My goal is to have the stitch instructions done by the end of November. Not sure that I’m on track for that, but I’m certainly going to keep working towards it! I’d like to get all that over and done with well before Christmas. Being summer in Australia at Christmas, that’s when our schools have a long break. The girls get about 6 weeks off school. I’d like to not have my head buried in a computer the whole time they’re off school! It would be much more preferable to be stitching and finishing projects then. It’s quite a bit more social!

Also, the sooner I have the stitch instructions done, the longer I can leave them to sit before coming back with fresher eyes to reassess and edit them.

What is does mean is that the projects section of the book still looks very empty and sad. I really want to start filling up some of those pages, but I keep reminding myself, “All in good time.” Must stick to the current goal and not be thrown off course!

So all is progressing well. I’d love to show you some photos, but not yet. 🙁