White Threads

Mary Corbet’s review of Sardinian Knotted Embroidery

Today Mary Corbet of Needle’nThread has posted a very comprehensive review of “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery”.

If you’re familiar with Mary’s reviews, you’ll know that she always she points out all the things she loves about the book, with accompanying photographs. In many ways she says it better than me: she’s independent and unbiased, she’s looking at it with fresh eyes, she’s looking at it with the eyes of a reader not an author.

So please pop on over to Mary’s website and have a read of her wonderful review.

And then when you’re ready to purchase, ask for it at your local needlework shop, or of course it is always available on the Vetty Creations website! And don’t forget, we also have a range of supplies for working the embroidery, including linen and thread, the hard-to-find linen banding used for the candle wrap project, and the pendant bezels and chains for the pendant project.

Craft show over for another year

On Sunday the craft show ended for another year. It was a fabulous show in a lovely new venue. I sold many copies of my new book and shared the embroidery from it with many, many people. I did little demos of how to stitch the knots, and explained where it came from. A common misconception was that the book is about Scandinavian knotted embroidery! No, it comes from Sardinia in Italy. 🙂

It was lovely to meet some more of my blog readers, and to see many familiar faces again. Seeing that was my fifth show, I am really enjoying seeing people year after year. I have rebooked for next year, so I’ll be back again.

Some people asked what I am working on now. “My eighth book, and no, I’m not saying what it is yet!” I hope to have it ready for next year’s show, but that will be harder as the show will move back to its regular timeslot in June, rather than July as it was just for this year. It means I need to get cracking on writing this book! I have a couple of projects done already, and am currently working on another.

I only bought two things at the show: 2 metres of black wool coating, and 2 metres of blue wool coating. Both were ridiculously on special on the last day of the show. I’d like to make a jacket out of one, and a coat out of the other. I’d like to put an embroidered collar on the jacket. I think I’ll probably make the blue one the jacket and the black one the coat.

If you were put off going to the show this year by its new location, please may I encourage you to rethink that for next year? It really isn’t much further or longer, when you take the ferry from Darling Harbour.

Thank you to all who came to visit my stand at the show, to see the embroidery and to purchase my products. I really do appreciate your support of my business. I hope you enjoy what you purchased, and if you have any questions, you know that you can always ask me!

See you all again in June next year!

A talk on writing “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery”

Tomorrow at 2pm on the Australian Women’s Weekly stand at the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair, I will be giving a talk on the writing of “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery”. If you’re there at the fair, please come along!

I had another wonderful day at the show today. Again, I am absolutely exhausted and can’t wait to get to bed once all the preparation for tomorrow is done! Hence such a short blog post. 🙂

Winner – Craft book of the Year! Sardinian Knotted Embroidery

This morning before the craft show started for the day, they awarded the Australian Craft Industry Awards. You may remember that “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery: Whitework from Teulada” was one of the finalists for Craft Book of the Year.

It WON! 🙂

It is very gratifying that the judges (who were industry experts) decided that my book was the best craft book of 2014. Thanks to them for this vote of confidence!

Thanks also to all the people who helped make the book what it is. I named them in the book’s acknowledgments and I am very grateful for their support. Of particular note are the craftsmen and craftswomen of Teulada, who shared their beautiful embroidery with me. Then there is Jeanine in Canada, who is always such an encourager, and has helped me in so many ways. And last but not least, thanks to my family who love me and support me in all my endeavours – we make a great team!

I’ve now had two great days at the craft show. People are snapping up copies of the new book, and are enjoying seeing the display of all the embroidery from the book. Seeing it in real life is always so much better, no matter how good the photos are!

If you’re coming to the show, there are two main ways to get there by public transport. One option is free buses from Eddy Avenue at Central Station. The other option (my preferred option) is the free ferry from Darling Harbour – take the train to Town Hall station, then walk to Cockle Bay. Take the ferry from outside Cyren Restaurant, and it is about a 10min trip. The ferries leave every 20 minutes, so you won’t have to wait long.

I really enjoyed my trip there and back on the ferry this morning. Sydney Harbour is a beautiful harbour.
Darling Harbour in the early morning sunlight.

Beautiful Sydney Harbour under winter blue skies. I was having a chat with one of the other stall-holders yesterday. He comes from Melbourne, and commented that arriving by ferry is a “very Sydney” thing.

Boarding the ferry at the end of another successful day. The exhibition centre is the building with the lights and the white roof. The bridge in the background is the Anzac Bridge.

The city skyline from the ferry.

Set up for the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair

This morning my husband and I went in to the new exhibition centre at Glebe Island to set up for the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair which starts tomorrow.

As I noted previously, the new venue has beautiful natural light for a craft show. Except for late in the afternoon and if we have any stormy days (not predicted) we’re not really going to need lights.

The stand is all set up, and it looks great!

My stand layout is different this year. This time I have a table-height bench all along the back wall. It’s a great place to display the tablecloths from “Portuguese Whitework” and “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery”. You can see my lovely big posters on the back wall and on one of the side walls. All the projects from “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery” are on display, and lots of my other projects.

The dress and pendant look lovely on the dressmakers dummy. I had them on the dummy in the living room recently, in preparation for the show. A friend came over to visit and LOVED the pendant. Correct reaction! I hope everyone has the same reaction and wants to make their own. I have supplies packs specifically for the show with pendant, chain, thread, fabric and needle. On the website you can find the pendants and chains.

Now, the big news about the show is the Treasure Chest giveaway. There have been over $16000 (yes, that’s the correct number of zeros!) worth of prizes donated by exhibitors. Each time you spend $50 at a participating exhibitor’s stand you get one entry.

I’ve contributed three Vetty Creations books to the Treasure Chest, so I’m a participating exhibitor.

The overwhelming thing about this giveaway is that there will be only ONE winner. $16000 worth. I think you’ll need a truck to get it all home… I’m not sure what I’d do with it all!

So come and see me at the show. Stand C86 – in through the front entry, turn left to get to aisle C, and then head right down the back to near the cafe. That’s where you’ll find me! See you there!

A reader’s thoughts on Sardinian Knotted Embroidery

Last week I received a thoughtful and detailed review of “Sardinian Knotted Embroidery” from Robert.

Here’s what he had to say:

The reasons I love your book:

You bring a new cultural experience to the rest of us. Your sharing of the techniques and patterns helps me appreciate the region and encourages me to learn more about the people.

I very much like the organization of the book. After some history, you start with the projects first and not with the how-to instructions. This encouraged my participation sooner rather than later. When the instructions are listed first, sometimes I feel like I must practice first. The organization of the book encouraged me to jump right in to the first beginner project.

With each project, you indicate what needs to be done and the corresponding page number showing how to do it. Can I mention how helpful this is to a beginner!

Your instructions are very clear as are your photographs. As a visual learner, it has made the learning process easier.

With half of the first project done, I feel very motivated to continue with other projects or to create my own in the future.

Thanks Yvette!

In my correspondence with Robert following his email, I explained why I have put the projects first in my recent books:

My earlier books have the instructions first and then the projects later. Somewhere along the line (actually it was quite recent, with the Portuguese book, I think) I decided that I wanted to have the projects first. My thinking was that it was such beautiful embroidery that I wanted to inspire you all with it, and make you fall in love with it before feeling like you were bogged down in the instructions. I also took my cue for this from craft magazines – they often have the project photos all up the front and then all the instructions buried down the back.

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me, Robert, and for allowing me to share them with others. I am so glad that you’re enjoying working from the book.

Finding that needle

It won’t surprise you to know that I haven’t even slightly bothered looking for the needle. But I did get more done in preparation for next week’s craft show! I figure the needle will turn up at some point, and if it doesn’t, oh well…

In addition to the responses on the blog, I received a number of emailed responses to yesterday’s blog post, so wanted to share them with everyone. I’ve kept the comments anonymous, but if you’d like to be credited with yours, please let me know.

If you are ever responding to one of my blog posts which has come to you via email, may I remind you that by replying to the email, it comes to me only. I totally understand that you’ll want to do that if it is a personal message! However, if it is a general comment, if you click on the heading of the blog post near the top of the email, it is a link that will take you to the actual blog on the web. There you can add your comment for all to see, and add to the conversation. It means we can all share our thoughts with each other, rather than just me sharing mine with you, and you back with me.

Anyway, on to the enjoyable email responses I received yesterday for how to find a needle:

The answer is fairly easy. Purchase a needle finder. It is like a pointer and yes it has a magnet on the end. My needles have flown everywhere but this kind of needle finder makes it easier to find. Within 10 minutes I bet you will find where it went. Or, if your Catholic, St.Anthony always helps. If you are not Catholic it means that an old legend has it that if you offer money to the poor when you lose something, ask him to help find it then put your money in the poor box on Sun. Works for me except I think I owe some money.

When I unpick something, I use a threaded needle, exactly for the reason you describe.

Yes, I used a threaded needle after I flung mine across the room. I figured that would help me to find it next time, and regulate its trajectory too!

If you have good eyesight try using a torch to “shine a light” on the problem. See, I use clichés too. I do that as well as using one of those magnetic expansion sticks like a wand under tables, down between cushions and anywhere else I think the needle may have landed.

Walk barefoot.

I use a vacuum with a nylon (like panty hose piece) booted over the end of the hose. But honestly the most effective way is to have my granddaughter over she is always finding pins and needles on the floor. Seems when they stick in the carpet the vacuum doesn’t get them out. Oh she is 15 and she never has actually stepped on one.

Does anyone else have different tips for how to find a needle, or a cliché they can add to our collection? 😉

Finding a needle in a haystack (or the lounge room)

The other night I was undoing the wrong stitching on my new embroidery piece. I was using a tapestry needle to lift the stitches and pull them out. All was going well (as well as *undoing* can go) until I accidentally let the needle flick out of my fingers as I un-pulled a stitch.

It went up… and in some direction… and down until I heard it quietly land.

Oh NO.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHICH DIRECTION IT WENT OR WHERE IT LANDED.

Me to The Husband: “It was so quiet in here, you could hear a pin drop.”
The Husband to Me: “And finding it will be like finding a needle in a haystack.”

(We speak in cliche. Yes, you can groan now. 🙂 )

It might have gone backward, behind me, and down behind the lounge or into the curtains. However, if it landed in the curtains, I don’t think I would have heard it land.

It might have gone forward, and over towards the fireplace, bookcase, stack of jigsaw puzzles in the corner, onto the coffee table (which is currently covered in Stuff)… anywhere. Quite frankly, I don’t think I have a hope of finding it, unless someone walks on it and discovers it in their foot!

I posted this little disaster on the Vetty Creations Facebook page, and received lots of tips for locating my needle. Most of them really involved having some idea of where it went, though! If I had some idea, I’d be happy to get out a magnet on a stick and drag it across the likely area to pick up the needle, but under the current circumstances, I’d be dragging that magnet over *everything* in the room!

What tips do you have for finding needles and pins when you drop them or flick them across the room? How do you do it?

A winning doily!

In November last year, I shared with you Crystal’s beautiful version of my design “Claire Doily” from Elegant Hardanger Embroidery.

Crystal wrote to me again this week, with news about her doily. She entered it in the folk art competition at the Sons of Norway District Convention in California. It was one of about 20-25 Hardanger embroideries. There were also other sections, including Rosemaling, Norwegian weaving, other Norwegian needlework, Wood Carving, Norwegian knitting, photography, and painting.

Crystal’s Claire did extremely well: 1st place, People’s Choice, and Best in Show! WOW!

Congratulations, Crystal, on your excellent results! It is lovely to see that others have recognised and rewarded the high standard of your work!

Winning Claire Doily by Crystal in Colorado

new embroidery started

On Friday the fabric I had been waiting for so that I could start a new embroidery arrived (it had been out of stock for a few weeks). On Sunday I was finally able to find the time to do something with it.

I printed out my pattern that I designed some weeks ago, and started stitching. First thing, of course, was the counted tacking, and then on to the actual embroidery.

When I was on my research trip I purchased some thread for the embroidery. I had two different brands. I started off with one, and didn’t much like it at all. It seemed to go from thick to thin rather a lot. I changed to the other brand – it was much nicer! It seemed smoother, with fewer snags, and less variation in thickness.

I stitched the first motif, and then moved on to the second. I made a major mistake with the positioning of the second motif, and when I realised (at the end of stitching it, of course!) I had to pull it all out. I resumed stitching, with the motif in the correct place this time!

Because I am preparing stock for the craft show this week, the daytimes are filled with that. I’m only really able to stitch in the evening. However, during the day yesterday, it occurred to me that I had made a major error with the scale of the piece. I had made my calculations based on 25 count fabric (1 thread per millimetre), and this fabric is not 25 count fabric! Oh dear.

I sat back down with my computer and using the thread count of the design, worked out that it was going to be much smaller than I had anticipated. Too small.

The whole thing is going to have to be ripped out, and started again. All that precious thread brought back from Mystery Country… 🙁

Last night I started redesigning the pattern to make it the size I need. There are aspects of this version of the design that I am much happier with. Actually, the only thing that I’m not happy about is all that undoing! I know that the end result will be much better.

All this is to say that if you make mistakes with your counted embroidery, you’re certainly not alone. I do it too!