White Threads

revised website coming soon

I’ve been plugging away at revising the Vetty Creations website. All this is in aid of getting the Portuguese Whitework book up for pre-orders. Due to a number of reasons though, its not easy to put it up until the website is done.

So I’ll keep working away busily until it is done. We’re about to get a “severe weather event” here in Sydney over the next few days – so much rain that the massive dam that services Sydney, which got down to about 30% capacity during the recent drought, will likely overflow over the spillway. So I think inside will be the best place to be!

That’s not to say that we’ll be flooded because of the dam overflowing, just that there’s apparently going to be an awful lot of rain!

video preview update

I had a lovely day yesterday. Not only did I help my dad install some gorgeous new windows in our enclosed front verandah (the old ones quite literally fell apart in our hands as we removed them!) but I did heaps of work on the video preview for “Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães”.

In my attempt to purchase the backing music for it yesterday morning, I discovered it had increased in price by about 50% since the month before when I had chosen the music. And then, when going through the checkout, I found that price bore absolutely no resemblance to the final price which ended up being about four times more… Not sure how they calculate these things. I didn’t buy it.

So I looked elsewhere, and found a lovely upbeat, Latin style piece of music, with classical guitars, approximately the length I wanted. AND it was five times cheaper. Now, that sounds more like what I wanted!

I downloaded the low-res version, imported it into the video and got the screen transitions working with the music changes. When I was happy with how that worked, I paid for the actual recording, downloaded the full version, and replaced the low-res version with it.

Quite by accident at the end of the day, Rainbow Girl and I discovered that my computer has an inbuilt microphone (I still don’t exactly know where it is!) and by speaking in the general direction of where I thought the microphone might be, I was able to record a little voice over for the end of the video. It means that you’ll be able to hear what I sound like! It personalises it a little, so you get a bit of me as well as previewing the book.

Actually, the other day I received an email from a knitwear designer announcing her new book. I’m sure it is a gorgeous book, as all her work is innovative and gorgeous. But I did find myself wishing that there was some sort of preview I could see. That’s one of the reasons why I’m pleased to be supplying my readers with one for my new book.

So it was a really successful day. 🙂 I’m really happy with the video, as despite not having very up-to-date software with which to make it, I was able to create some quite nifty things with it. And apparently the neighbours think our new windows look great.

When will you get to see the video preview? Very soon, I hope!

Promotional video progress

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

I spent most of yesterday working on the promotional video for “Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães”. I feeling like I am getting there. For someone who has no experience with this sort of thing, I’ve had a steep learning curve!

Well, that’s not *quite* true. I did have to make a short video for one of my assignments when I was studying Visual Communication at uni years back. I can’t say it was a process that I enjoyed, and the result was pretty awful. But of course that was on dinosaur equipment compared to what’s available now!

I’m now wrestling with music licences and trying to figure out the type I need.

So that’s all I have to say today. Got to get stuck back into work. 🙂

textile crafts in Australia

I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning about hobbies in Australia. Through a very inexact set of percentages, it seems that a good number of Australians take part in textile crafts.

Let’s look at those numbers:
Australia’s population is about 21 or 22 million.
27% of the population over 15 years old has a hobby – about 4.7 million.
Of them, about 10% do textile crafts, jewellery making, wood crafts or paper crafts.

So what actual percentage do textile crafts? No idea! They don’t break it down. But let’s assume that it is broken up evenly, so it could be 25% of that 10% of that 27%. Mmm… that’s really clear, isn’t it?! 🙂 Numerically, that works out to about 117500 Australians interested in textile crafts – maybe!

For a population so small, that’s not too bad. I wonder how many of them own a copy of one of my books?!

It also makes me think that Australian museums should be more willing to mount textile and fashion based exhibitions. Brisbane seems to have had a good run of this sort of exhibition in recent years, with an exhibition of high fashion hats and the Valentino exhibition. Canberra had the Ballets Russes exhibition at the National Gallery. I believe that each of these exhibitions exceeded projected visitor numbers.

So, galleries and museums of Australia, can we have more textile exhibitions please? Proper ones with real information like the ones mentioned above, not like the complete dearth of technical information that the Harry Potter exhibition costumes had at the Powerhouse Museum…

Barefoot Shepherdess

I have a number of alerts set up that let me know whenever they find certain search terms appearing new across the internet. One of them is for Mountmellick embroidery. One turned up this morning, so I went to visit the blog that was talking about Mountmellick embroidery: Barefoot Shepherdess.

You’ll see in the comments section my thoughts on the style of embroidery that the Barefoot Shepherdess was taught as “Mountmellick embroidery”. I agree with her that it wasn’t quite Mountmellick! If you’re interested in learning more about what does make Mountmellick embroidery its own distinctive style, you can find more information at the Mountmellick page on my website, or in our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature.

Barefoot Shepherdess’s work (Mountmellick or not!) is very beautiful, and that’s why I have decided to link to her today. Its a lovely blog to explore, with some really attractive work that she’s made. Have fun with the inspiration she provides!

the next book

I’m turning ideas over in my head for what book to write next. I could write another Hardanger book, a book of Mountmellick projects, another merezhka book, another stitch dictionary or two, or…

I have heaps of ideas, but figuring out which one to do next is the difficulty!

Do you have any preferences? Is there anything you WISH I would write just for you?!

a beautiful project

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little busy here over the last little while, and my reading of others peoples’ blogs has dropped to practically nil. But I knew that Ruth O’Leary must be nearing the end of her mammoth banner project – St Cuthbert’s Banner for Durham Cathedral – so I went to check on it. I found that it has been finished.

It is magnificent! You can see her post (from a couple of weeks ago!) about the first time it was all put together and tested by being carried around.

I have been watching Ruth’s progress on this banner for many many months, and have particularly marveled at the way she plugged away at the same motifs over and over again. Such dedication!

The end result is completely worth all that dedication. Congratulations Ruth, on an amazing piece of work!

Embroidery commissions

For the record, I do not do any embroidery commissions. I just generally don’t have time to do my own work AND some else’s. (Unless you’re working for Baz Luhrmann and he needs a prop for his latest movie – then I will MAKE time to fit it in. Do look out for my handkerchief!)

While I love the fact that people want something special embroidered for them, my business is helping people to learn to do embroidery themselves, not me doing it for them.

Sorry if this disappoints. I just can’t do everything! 🙂

Stash to Pacific Islands

Thank you to those who yesterday suggested that they might be able to send some fabric/threads etc to the Pacific Island prisoners, to go with my books. Your enthusiasm for this project is really lovely.

I passed on the offers to the wife, and she was thrilled that people would like to help them. I plan to keep in contact with the couple, so hopefully we might even see some of the ladies’ work in time.

If there is anyone else who would like to assist, please let me know. I have permission to pass on their details to anyone who would like to assist with supplies. Just let me know if this is something you would like to do.

Thank you again for your generosity and kindness. It is really lovely to think that from so far away, we might be able to improve the lives of others.

From the organisation’s literature, I really appreciated these statements of what they believe (this is just an excerpt – there were more great points):

We believe that the current state of a person is no indicator as to their future.

We believe that the person sitting forgotten in the prison cell has the same worth as the person sitting in the palace.

We believe that in the prisons of —- are some truly great and awesome people.

Books to the Pacific islands

Yesterday I met some a couple who work in prisons on a Pacific island, helping to rehabilitate the male and female prisoners (different prisons) so that they can go back to their communities on release, and start afresh. Their work is having great results, which is an encouraging thing to hear.

I learned that the wife runs craft classes in the women’s prison, so I asked her if they do any embroidery, or if they would *like* to do any embroidery. She said that mostly they make paper beads (of which she showed me some, and they were lovely), but some of the women do enjoy embroidery but aren’t very good at it.

And so I offered her some copies of my books “The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion” and “The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion”. She thought that would be fabulous! She said that the prison authorities would like the women to be better at embroidery, but she and her team haven’t really had the skills or tools to help them.

With the step-by-step nature of the books, and with all their diagrams, the instructors and the women should all be able to work together to improve their embroidery. Even the women with low literacy skills should be able to work with just the diagrams for the more simple stitches.

She did also say that they don’t have proper fabrics or threads to use. For example, when someone’s nightie can no longer be worn because it is too old, they cut it up and use that to stitch on.

So today I will be posting off a parcel of stitch dictionaries to the Pacific islands, to meet the couple when they get back there to continue their work. It would be really nice to think that my books might help in rehabilitating women prisoners.