White Threads

Autumn leaves seminar report

I’m home from the Ballarat branch of the Victorian embroiderers’ guild’s Autumn Leaves Seminar, and I’m very tired!

The class was a great success, with all the students learning a lot and very happy. We spent two days working on learning the stitches for the Mountmellick wildflower cushion, and the students also made a start on the cushion itself. We had a lot of fun with lots of laughs and story telling. Because the class was not a counted embroidery class, it didn’t require *quite* the same level of concentration as counting does, although I’m sure the students will tell you they went home with very full and overloaded brains!

There were quite a few other classes on at the same time, with Effie Mitrofanis, Alison Snepp, Christine Bishop, Alison Cole, Sally Darlison and probably others. (I’m so tired, I’ve probably forgotten someone really obvious, for which I apologise.) There were also many happy students enjoying the challenges of learning new projects and new techniques.

I always get home from these things and wish I’d taken some photos to share with you, but I’m always so focused on the class and the students that I never think of it at the time! Maybe one day I will!

Thank you to those who organised our stay, cooked delicious food, drove us around and picked us up. It was a very successful seminar, and while I’m already home, it continues with other classes and tutors on Saturday and Sunday. Have fun!

Ballarat Autumn Leaves Seminar

Today I am in Ballarat in Victoria for the Ballarat branch of the Victorian Embroiderer’s Guild’s “Autumn Leaves Seminar”. I’ll be teaching Mountmellick embroidery. There are other tutors also here teaching their areas of specialty.

As I’ve never been to this gathering before, I’ve no idea how big it is, or what to expect, so I guess there will be more to report later!

I am, however, expecting to have a very enjoyable couple of days sharing Mountmellick embroidery with a group of lovely ladies. 🙂

Vetty Creations price changes

As you may know, here at Vetty Creations, we include postage/shipping in all our prices, so that you don’t have to be surprised by the postage cost at the end of placing your order. I hate it when you realise that that $3.00 skein of thread is going to have a $7.00 postage charge added to it. That’s why I decided not to do that on my website.

Due to increases in almost all Australia Post’s charges yesterday, I have had to increase prices almost across the board. The prices of the products themselves have remained the same, but the postage/shipping component has been increased.

I sincerely apologise for the lack of notice. Australia Post is notorious for giving very little warning of their pricing changes which makes it very difficult for business owners. Some of their increases were extremely large, and business owners across Australia are very cross and are protesting loudly!

Unfortunately I realised that I could no longer absorb any more postage/shipping price increases. I have been absorbing price increases for several years on some of my products, and I can no longer afford to do so.

For those of you who have printed catalogues which you have received at classes or shows, you will note on there that we reserve the right to change prices at any time and without notice. We also state this on our Terms and Conditions page. Therefore the prices that are now on the Vetty Creations website are the correct prices, and any prices in printed catalogues and price lists are no longer current.

I really apologise for having to do this. I’ve been putting it off for ages, but it had to be done. I’m sorry. 🙁

Mountmellick everywhere!

Can someone please let me in on the secret? Why is it that pretty much all the books I am selling at the moment and nearly all the supplies are for Mountmellick embroidery? (I’m not complaining!) Did someone decide to make 2013 the year of Mountmellick embroidery, but forgot to tell me?

From all around the world, orders are coming in for copies of Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature, and people are continually ringing to order Mountmellick supplies. Is there some new fad of which I am unaware?

Are you working on Mountmellick embroidery at the moment? Are you doing it by yourself or as part of a group? What made you decide to try it now?

Please tell me, because I am so intrigued!

Not scarlet fever

Just to update you on The Gymnast’s condition, it isn’t scarlet fever. It is another identifiable childhood illness, along similar lines (no, not chicken pox). She’s contagious until the rash goes away, so she’s in quarantine for a bit longer yet. This seriously cramps my style with getting work done during the day! I relish being at home by myself while the children are off at school, but this week I have company! Thankfully she seems quite well – just contagious! – so that is a big plus.

This week I have preparation to do for a Mountmellick class that I’ll be teaching in Ballarat next week. As part of the Ballarat branch of the Victorian embroiderers’ guild’s Autumn Leaves Seminar, I will be teaching my Mountmellick Wildflower cushion. There are other teachers presenting other classes, so it will be nice to get together with them. I rarely get the chance to be with other embroidery tutors, so it is always great to talk “shop” with people who also do what I do.

Not your average weekend

Perhaps you’re wondering how Crazy Hair day and the sick Gymnast ended up? To put it mildly, it’s a long story…

Thursday morning, as I knew she would be, she was absolutely determined to have her hair done and go to school just for the parade. (This is Little Miss Determination, after all, as how else will she get to be an Olympic gold medalist?!)

I did her hair, we went to the parade, she sat there looking dreadful. She was noticed by the judges. She was awarded a chocolate rabbit (that she can’t even eat!), and then she said “Can we go home now?”

So again, we were victorious, but I must say it felt like a hollow victory because she was really still unwell, having had practically no food for about a day.

The next day was Good Friday and I was off early in the morning for music practice at church because I was singing as part of the team leading the music that morning. I expected my husband and daughters would be there in time for the service. However, The Gymnast fell asleep on the lounge and pretty much slept on and off for the whole day. They never made it to church.

She developed a fever, which we treated with both paracetamol and ibuprofen (one didn’t work by itself, we needed both). She was still very unwell. On Saturday night she developed an extremely impressive rash all over her torso, up her arms, and down her thighs. It was time to visit the hospital. She and I spent until 2:30am at the emergency department of the local hospital, trying to determine what what wrong. Again, the verdict was “it’s just a virus.”

She finally started to turn the corner yesterday, as we didn’t need to dose her up with any medicine the whole day. The rash is still amazingly impressive, but thankfully hasn’t been itchy at all. We’ll follow up with a doctor’s visit to get the results of the blood culture. Maybe we’ll get more answers, maybe we won’t. In the back of my mind, I suspect scarlet fever, but unless it shows up in the blood culture as a bacterial infection, then it can’t be scarlet fever as that is bacterial.

She definitely won’t be back at gymnastics any time this week (she’s had several days with practically no food!) and I’m not sure when she’ll be allowed to go back to school.

On top of all of that, first thing on Saturday morning, I found out that my website had gone over its allowed bandwidth for the month, meaning it automatically went offline. I immediately called my hosting provider to upgrade the hosting package, but because it was a long weekend, although I could pay for it, the people weren’t there to do it. Obviously it is back on again now or you wouldn’t be reading this, but 2 days without my website over a long weekend is less than ideal…

My plan for the weekend was to get sewing on some luggage that I’m making for a family trip later on in the year, but I didn’t allow myself to work on it on Sunday because I was so tired from our hospital visit that I knew if I did, I would just make mistakes with expensive fabric. I did get to work on it yesterday, so I made some progress, but not nearly so much as I had hoped.

So all in all, it wasn’t the weekend I had expected, but that’s the way things go sometimes. I’m just glad The Gymnast is finally getting better and that no one else in the family has gotten sick.

the scissors arrived

My delivery of assorted scissors arrived yesterday and amongst them there were two that I found to be excellent. I do intend to go through and explain to you what is so wonderful about them, but yesterday wasn’t the day to get it all prepared.

Yesterday I had a different day than I had planned as The Gymnast woke and immediately started vomiting. She also had a cough that sounded very much like croup, though at her age, she’s actually getting a little old for croup.

She quickly deteriorated and by about 9am, I was extremely concerned for her. She was probably the sickest I have ever seen her. We had a doctor’s appointment at 10am, and if I hadn’t been able to get an appointment so early in the day I would have taken her straight to the hospital. The doctor said it was a virus (never surprised to hear a doctor say this!) and that if she hadn’t passed urine by 2pm, I was to take her to the hospital as they would need to put her on a drip.

As soon as we arrived home from the doctor’s, we started on the rehydration in earnest. Even before The Gymnast had started rehydration, she seemed to pick up – she was much more responsive and was keeping her eyes open. Because she was so much more engaged, she decided that every ten minutes she would have a sip of drink, and slightly increase the quantity every time. By 2pm she still hadn’t passed urine, but she was SO much better, I knew that the danger had passed.

Apart from the fact that she was so terribly unwell, and that it all happened so quickly, today is the Thursday before Easter, and for us, that means Crazy Hair Day. The Stanton family is renown at our school for being highly competitive on Crazy Hair Day, and there is one teacher in particular who always comments in an assembly beforehand that great things are expected of the Stantons.

On Tuesday night when The Gymnast had been fine except for a sore throat, we did a test run of this year’s crazy hair. She was very happy with it, and found it extremely comfortable to wear. But yesterday, it didn’t seem very likely that we would be taking part.

Last night The Gymnast kept dinner down (very bland, mostly carbohydrates, and no protein). This morning she is all bright and happy, and pushing for the idea of heading to school JUST for the crazy hair parade. I’m rather torn. I KNOW that she’s not really well enough, and she may not cope with even just being at school for an hour. I don’t believe that she’s still contagious with her virus, and if I had any inkling that she was, we definitely would not be going anywhere near the school!

But on the other hand she REALLY wants to go, and I think that the teachers would be really disappointed if there was no Stanton entry this year. So I think I will leave it until about an hour before the parade to make my final decision.

For those of you who have not been reading White Threads long enough to have heard about our previous crazy hair exploits and therefore do not understand why we have such a reputation, check out my previous posts on crazy hair day:
2012 crazy hair
2011 crazy hair
previous crazy hair

So today I still probably won’t get the chance to write an informative post about scissors for you, but hopefully soon. For those who celebrate Easter, I hope that this Easter is a wonderful time of reflection and celebration of a God who loves us beyond measure, and his plan to save us. For those who are unfamiliar with the Easter story, you can read about it in Mark 14-16 of the Bible.

The perfect embroidery scissors

Whenever I teach a class I take my little scissors with me and they travel around the classroom as I go. Invariably, because I am comfortable with them, I use them when demonstrating how to cut threads in Portuguese Whitework and Hardanger embroidery.

In Portuguese Whitework, there are usually eight threads to be cut at a time. I cut the first four (in groups of two) to demonstrate the process and explain a few things, then I hand the embroidery back to the student and they get to cut the remaining four threads.

In the class requirements I always state “sharp, fine-pointed scissors” and they bring along the best they have that fulfills that requirement. Most of the time the student picks up their scissors, looks at them and realises how big, clunky and not very sharp they are. Sometimes they persist with theirs because that’s what they’ll be using at home, and other times, they ask to use mine (which I don’t mind at all).

So then the next question is: “Where did you get your scissors?” I have picked up my scissors in various places over the years. My first pair were bought for me by my parents back in high school when I first started doing Hardanger embroidery. They are lovely, lovely scissors. They are also quite precious, so I don’t usually take them to classes.

I have another pair that I purchased quite cheaply at a local craft store, about 10-15 years ago and they’re very good too. But the ones I usually take to a class with me are a pair of $5 scissors that were actually sent to me by the Australian distributor as a sample about 5 years ago. They’re the type that are often sold at craft shows.

In a recent class, we had a discussion of these $5 scissors and we compared all the ones that class members had. It seems that the earlier pairs (including mine) are very much finer than the recent pairs, which tend to be much thicker and therefore not nearly so useful as the ones I have, for cutting threads.

Because of the fact that none of the scissors that I have are readily available any more, I have no scissors that I can actually recommend my students. I decided that something had to be done about this, because they ALWAYS ask me. I’ve been looking around at local shops and have seen nothing I like or that will suit my requirements. Last week I hopped onto the website of my scissors supplier and ordered about eight different pairs of scissors, carefully assessing what looked to be best from the photos that they had there. But while I can see how finely pointed the blades are from side on (how scissors are always photographed) I can’t see how thick they are, and that can be very deceptive from a photograph. That’s why I had to take the plunge and order a whole heap.

I’m hoping that they arrive today. I will then check them all out and decide which I think are the best. Assuming that amongst them there IS one that I feel is good enough, I will then stock those scissors as my recommended “perfect embroidery scissors” so that others can have a great thread cutting experience too.

Stay tuned.

A weekend in Victoria

Last night I came back from a lovely weekend away, teaching the Mornington Peninsula group of the Victorian embroiderers guild and a group of embroiderers at the headquarters of the Victorian guild. Both groups did Portuguese Whitework classes, but different projects.

The classes went very well, with some excellent quality stitching in evidence. They were delightful women, and a pleasure to spend a couple of days with.

A number of people drove me around, billeted me and generally looked after me. Thank you particularly to Sheryl, Helen, Alice, Ros, Shelagh and John. I am very grateful to you all for your lovely hospitality.

Thank you also to the participants in my classes for being so welcoming. I was very impressed with your stitching and with the progress made.

Sharron’s success

Once upon a time I taught a class in merezhka at Springwood, here in NSW. We did a small panel of merezhka as an introduction to the style. There were many lovely ladies in that class, but there was one student who *really* took to merezhka.

Big Time.

Sharron absolutely loved the embroidery style and by the end of the day she was saying that she was definitely going to be doing some more. And she did. I heard reports that Sharron was off and running with her merezhka. Eventually, when I went back to Springwood for another class, even though Sharron wasn’t at the class, someone had borrowed her merezhka masterpiece to show me.

Sharron had taken a design of a peacock with its long, flashy tail and translated it into merezhka. It was astonishing. I didn’t measure it, but my estimate would be that it was 25 x 40cm. For merezhka, that’s huge! The workmanship was simply amazing. It was stunning!

Yesterday I heard from one of my embroidery tutor friends that Sharron had entered a Hardanger in this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show, and it had won first prize and has secured a place in the prestigious Cabinet of Excellence!

Why am I not surprised?!

My friend sent photos of Sharron’s Hardanger displayed, and it is simply beautiful. (I’ve asked for permission to share a photo with you, but I’m not sure whether that will be possible.) There is very little ground fabric left, it seems, with much of it removed for lacy needleweaving. I’m not sure if the design is Sharron’s own, or someone else’s design.

If you are going to the Sydney Royal Easter Show, I do suggest you seek out Sharron’s award-winning Hardanger in the Cabinet of Excellence.

Congratulations Sharron! You’re a star, and you have my sincere admiration!