White Threads

Portuguese love

I’ve been steadily working on my next Portuguese embroidery for the book, and I know I say this all the time, but I am just loving it! It is one of the prettiest styles of embroidery that I have ever seen. It is just so appealing!

Everyone that I show the embroideries to, comments on how pretty it is. There is something about the combination of drawn thread work and bullions that works so very well.

I’ll be teaching this style of embroidery at All Threads Embroidery in Brisbane next Friday, and its not too late to join the class. Just contact All Threads. I will be taking my other examples of the embroidery with me to inspire further, and I’ll have lots of photos of the Portuguese town where it originates, from my trip to Portugal a few years back, to give context. We’ll have a great time, with me in my unending enthusiasm for the style!

trying something blue

When I was studying at uni, for some reason it was requested/suggested that I have amongst my supplies a blue lead mechanical pencil. By mechanical pencil I mean those ones that you click and the lead pushes up through the middle. Because the lead is fine, you don’t get thick, heavy lines, and nor do you need to sharpen it.

The blue lead was for a very particular reason, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was. I can’t even remember which class/subject it was for. (Ah, the joys of having had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome!)

However, yesterday as I was working on my latest Portuguese whitework project – which I am loving 🙂 – I remembered this pencil. Actually I remembered the lead first of all, and wondered if it might be useful for drawing the design on the fabric. It seemed to me that if the lead colour was a mid blue, there was going to be little chance of going too dark as there often is a danger with regular pencil lead. So I searched through my drawers, and while I didn’t find the lead (I’m sure its there somewhere!) I found the pencil, replete with some lead already in it.

I tried it out on a portion of the design and it works well. You CAN’T draw too heavily because the colour is only a mid blue so it never gets as dark as regular lead, and because it is whitework, the blue blends nicely even if some of it does end up showing through. Whether it will wash out, I have no idea yet, but that’s not really an issue with this project as it will all be covered over.

So maybe this is an idea you might be able to try. Having not bought this lead for about 20 years, I have no idea if its still available, but my guess is that an art shop would be the place to try.

holiday reading

We haven’t had a book reading post for a while, so here’s a new one. I took the opportunity to read quite a few books over the school holidays. Many were quite forgettable, but a few made a real impression on me.

If you love the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, you may be interested in a recommendation of one of his other series. I don’t like all of his series – the Isabel Dalhousie ones leave me cold – but I recently introduced my husband to the 44 Scotland Street series. I’d read a few over the years and loved the characters in them. My husband is not much of a fiction reader, so it took a little convincing to get him to read them too, but eventually he did, and now he loves them too. The characters are fantastic. Who could resist the completely narcissistic Bruce (in his mind, no-one can resist him!) or the terribly put-upon little Bertie and his awfully irritating mother Irene? There’s about 6 or 7 books in the series now, and Mr McCall Smith is still going strong, so there’s lots of good stuff to read there!

Another book that made a profound impression upon me was “Matthew Flinders’ Cat” by Bryce Courtenay. Set in Sydney (where I live), I immediately felt familiar in the setting. Its about a man who finds himself an alcoholic, who sets about giving up the alcohol so that he can help a young boy find his own feet. It brought home to me how terrible an alcohol addiction is, and what a difficult process it is to dry out. I felt that it gave me a new understanding of the life of homeless people in Sydney. Very thought provoking.

I was also going to recommend Mary Ann Shaffer’s “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, but I find I did that in my last reading post. So I won’t do it again! 😉

Have you read anything worth recommending lately?

And buried down here at the bottom of the post you’ll learn that I’m famous! My little red dress has been featured on Tessuti’s blog! I’ll be visiting Tessuti’s Surry Hills store this week on my fabric and buttons trip with my friend. We’ll also be going to The Fabric Store (also in Surry Hills), who have continued their 50% sale to this week (so I was delighted to find I won’t miss out!), All Buttons Great and Small in Newtown, and a new-to-me shop, The Remnant Warehouse in Alexandria. Well, that’s the plan, anyway. We’ll see how much we can *actually* fit into our day!

weekend roundup

Thank you all for your feedback on aspects of the rainbow dress over the last few days. My husband and I have decided on Version 1 – my choice was always between 1 and 3. As pink is her favourite colour for the highest percentage of the time, we’re going with that closest to her face.

I really appreciate the confirmation from experienced dressmakers that keeping with the original grain is the way to go. The dressmaking tips were pure gold. Many I already knew, but its never a bad thing to hear good advice like that again!

We checked the local shop’s poplin on Saturday and they have enough different colours that we can do the whole rainbow. I didn’t get the fabric there yet though, as I’m off on my fabric and buttons trip later this week, and would like to see if there’s anything available of a slightly heavier weight. So I’m being patient. 🙂

I finished off the drawn thread work of my new embroidery Portuguese whitework project yesterday, so am looking forward to getting onto the bullion work some time this week.

As always, I’m very busy and there’s lots on my to do list, but I enjoy what I do. Being happy and fulfilled really makes for satisfaction.

working on a dress design

Thank you all for your great comments on the rainbow dress design yesterday. There were some very carefully considered responses, and I enjoyed working through your reasoning with you. I really appreciate the thought that went into the answers. Its been fascinating reading of others’ points of view.

Last night after the girls had settled in bed, I pulled out the dress design and got to work. The dress is going to be a surprise for the Rainbow Child for her birthday. I’ve asked her if she’d like a rainbow dress (yes!) and she’s tried on the muslin for a fitting, but that’s all she’s going to know about it before she opens her birthday present on the day!

The TR (Transformation, Reconstruction) process which I am basically using for this design is an interesting one. First, you make the basic dress (a muslin) of your choosing in plain, cheap fabric. I just used some white stuff I had lying around, left over from something else. Then you put the muslin on the dressform (I don’t have one, so I got my eldest who’s about the same size to do it for me, the other day when Rainbow Child was out at gymnastics) and draw the design lines on it.

Last night I worked on the curves of the design to make them more pleasing – which could have been more easily done with french curves, but I don’t have any. Then I started cutting along the lines, to make my new pattern pieces. BUT, I should have marked the notches on them BEFORE cutting! So after they were all cut out, I had to realign them all back where they’d been and mark the notches. These will help me to match up the different parts of the curves when I’m sewing it back together again, so they’re really important.

Once I had them all cut up, I had to work out how much fabric I was going to need of each colour. At this stage we’re still working with Colour 1, Colour 2, Colour 3, etc as I haven’t yet made my final decision on which colour version to choose.

In working out how much fabric I’d need, I had to decide how to work with the fabric grain (the direction of the weave of the fabric). Should I just use the grain in the same way it was on the muslin, or should I change it so that it basically runs down the centre of each colour swash? I’ve worked it out so that its based on the original grain, but just in case I change my mind, I have given myself enough grace in the fabric measurements that I can change to the other way if I want. Changing the grain could make a difference to the way the dress hangs. I suspect the only way I am really going to know which works better is to give it a go.

The dress is sleeveless, because I’m pretty sure my daughter is going to want to wear it all year round. I figured with sleeveless, she can wear it in summer and also put a long sleeve top under it for winter. I’m going to line the dress to make it more comfortable to wear – I don’t want all those seamlines being scratchy!

Hopefully today I’ll get the chance to check out my local fabric shop for suitable fabrics. I think poplin might be a good choice, as they have lots in stock in a great range of colours. Hopefully enough to make a rainbow! Poplin is cheap, so if this whole thing is a disaster then I won’t have outlayed too much money. Its also quite a firm weave, so should work well with the many curved seams. I’ll probably line it with poplin as well, rather than a bemsilk type lining, as I think I’d rather a polycotton against a child’s skin than a polyester. I’ll need to choose a neutral colour for the lining, so that it doesn’t show through the lighter fabrics.

So that’s where the dress design is at, for now. If any of you experienced dressmakers have any advice on handling the fabric grain, I’d love to hear it. Thanks!

voting for a dress design

I’m planning a dress for the rainbow child’s (my younger daughter) birthday in a month or so. I thought that it would be fun to put the TR technique into action, and give it a try. (I found it very inspiring!)

I’d love your input into which design I should choose. Please note that the child in question could easily wear any of the designs, given her pale colouring.

Left to right, 1-5. Which one do you like best?
Thanks!

inspiring videos

Recently I was introduced to some interesting videos on Youtube. They demonstrate a style of pattern design called Transformational Reconstruction (or TR) by Shingo Sato. It is absolutely fascinating.

Shingo uses his method to create very unusual patterns by drawing lines (mostly curves) on a shell garment on a dressmaker’s dummy, then cutting along those lines, using the cut up pieces as patterns, cutting out new pieces using those patterns, then sewing them all back together. (whew!)

I highly recommend watching some of his videos and bending your mind! You can find them here.

This video is probably a great one to start with, to see him in action and learn about what he’s on about.

Apparently he has a book coming out later this year. As I have always wanted to learn pattern drafting, the book is on my wish list!

paper mace

When I was at uni, I studied graphic design. I took many different classes as part of that degree, most of which were core subjects, and very few of which were electives. One of my core subjects was 3D model making. I loved this subject! It was right up my alley, and I came to be known by one of my lecturers as “tricky fingers” because of what I could do with a craft knife, glue and that sort of thing.

One of our projects was to make a multiple sided shape. This REALLY appealed to me, and I went all out, and devised a really weird one. It was based on elongated square and triangular pyramids. I cut a large square out of the base of each one, inverted the point, and pushed it through that hole. Of course, we’re working with paper here, so it wasn’t quite so easy as it sounds – it had to be constructed with the point emerging through that hole. That means gluing it in situ. It was fiddly but so worth it!
I made it completely out of white paper – I was a whiteworker back even then too! I just felt that with a lack of colour, you would be able to concentrate completely on the shape and form of it, whereas coloured paper would have just distracted you from that.

I can’t remember how I did for this assignment, but given that its now nearly 20 years since (really? how can it be?!) and I still have it, and am still proud of it, I suspect that I did very well! I’ve always thought it was one of the most original things I’ve ever come up with.

About a month or two ago, I was reading Ruth O’Leary’s blog, and saw her dodecahedrons. It reminded me very much of my own mace, which I’ve been meaning to show to you ever since.

Cyclone Yasi update

In case you’ve been wondering, I heard back from my two northern Queensland correspondents. (The resumption of telecommunications and electricity so soon afterwards might give you an idea of how this is going to go…) Thankfully, both made it through Cyclone Yasi relatively intact, not being in the worst hit areas of Tully and Cardwell. They still each have a massive cleanup ahead of them. While they personally got through mostly ok, their communities have been hard hit, so it will be a long road to recovery.

We wish all the people who were hit hard by Yasi the very best.

starting a new project

There’s something very satisfying about a piece of crisp white linen, just begging for some embroidery. Add to that a (reasonably) newly designed pattern, some soft white thread, and a needle, and you have a project made in heaven. So much potential!

I love starting new embroidery projects. Yesterday I started a new one for my Portuguese embroidery book, and its a runner. I designed it a few weeks back, but then had to work on other things and had to wait to start it.

I started off by tacking all the guidelines, so that I knew everything would be in the right place before I started cutting anything. This takes a while, but I always find it is worth it. Do the right preparation, and you’ve got a much better chance of doing a really high quality job.

So I’m in heaven for a bit, working on my new project. Have you started a new project recently? What are you working on?