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With a lot of experimentation, I have now finished and uploaded my video for how to knit the Mountmellick embroidery fringe. The method that is shown is method 2 from Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature. I’d love to know what you think of the video, and if there are videos of other things that you’d be interested in seeing. You may have noticed that I didn’t post here on White Threads yesterday. That’s because I’ve decided that I might not always post on Sundays. I trust that you’ll be able to manage a day without me…! Our weekend was very busy. One of my daughters does drama and needed a new leotard for her end of year production. The other does gymnastics and has just added another day of training each week to her schedule, so I decided to make her another leotard too. Fortunately leotards are very easy to make, so two were produced on the weekend as I already had some fabric handy. On Saturday night my husband and I went to see the 90th anniversary concert of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs at the Sydney Opera House. There we learnt that Sunday was going to be an open day at the Opera House. As our younger daughter had mentioned on Saturday that she had never been to the Opera House we thought it might be a fun thing to go. And so after church on Sunday morning, off we went to the Opera House. It was a very rainy dreary day, which we didn’t see as a problem because apparently last year they had 55000 people attend the open day. We hoped that the rain might keep some of those people away! We had a self-guided tour through the opera theatre and the concert hall and some of the areas down below where the performers get ready and rehearse. There were a lot of people there, but the queues were quite fast moving, and it certainly could have been worse! (Raining harder, or thousands more people!) Our girls took the opportunity to stand front and centre on the stage of the concert hall and surreptitiously sing – the elder one sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (very quietly) and the younger one sang “la la la la” (even quieter), so now they can both say they have sung on stage in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House. The surprise of the day was that because Dame Joan Sutherland – Australia’s most well known and lauded opera singer – recently died at age 83, Opera Australia had brought some of her costumes out of storage for a display, to commemorate her death. This was a last minute thing that had not been planned for Open Day before her death. It was wonderful to see five of the gowns that she wore for various productions. So despite the rain, we had a great day, and two girls are very happy with their new leotards. A little story for the day. When we were in Ethiopia I had six No 24 tapestry needles with me. I did have a number of other needles, but that was the size I was using for the project I was working on. I was terrified that I was going to break or lose them. One day I was undoing some stitching, using the needle to ease up the stitches to undo, and I slipped and it flung across the room. I looked everywhere for it. The next day I was sorting out papers on the coffee table and there it was. Relief! Makes you realise just how precious the single needle a stitcher was fortunate to own must have been in times past. Finally, back to the Mountmellick embroidery stitch along today. I apologise for the very long delay in moving on to the next part of this. It has been weighing heavily on my mind, but I have had several projects with deadlines. We’re going to talk about the knitted fringe that traditionally goes around the edge of all Mountmellick embroidery. For those of you who have our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature the fringe we will be using is method 2. If you have one of our balls of knitting cotton, you will also find the pattern on its wrapper too. To knit the fringe, you’ll need four balls of 4 ply knitting cotton, which we have available for purchase. If you are working on a small project, you can sometimes get away with one or two balls divided into 4 equal groups. The easiest way to divide a ball is to note that one ball weighs 50 grams net. If you want half of this in a ball, wind off 25grams worth (use your kitchen scales). This should give you a new ball of 25 grams, and the remainder of the original ball at about 25grams. If you want to divide one ball into 4, you’ll need about 12 grams in each part ball. The knitting cotton that we supply has been specially chosen for its appearance. It is completely matt – it has no shine. It is reasonably finely twisted, and is not fluffy. There are lots of white knitting cottons out there, but this is the best one that we have found available to us. And so we are pleased to make it available to you! We need four balls of knitting cotton because we knit with four strands all at once. This gives the fringe a much more full effect. Knitting needles: You will need to use metal knitting needles. You can’t use bamboo or plastic as they will break. Cotton thread has pretty much no “give” – its not stretchy – and four strands of cotton used together will break plastic or bamboo needles. Ask me how I know…! What size knitting needle? No 10, 11, or 12 (UK), No 2 or 3 (US), or 3.25, 3, or 2.75 mm (metric) knitting needles are usually used to knit the Mountmellick knitted fringe. Larger needle size will produce larger scale fringe, with relatively longer loops, while smaller needle size will produce a more compact result. I spent yesterday experimenting with making a video of how to knit the fringe, so hopefully I’ll figure out how to upload it today or tomorrow. So get your supplies together, and get ready to knit! (The video does assume some prior knowledge of how to knit, so hopefully you can…!) As a follow up to yesterday’s little challenge of the disappearing lines, I felt that I needed to come up with a fully workable solution, seeing the project is going into a magazine. I can’t imagine that putting, “if you use a water-soluble fabric marker you’ll need to get the whole thing stitched within a week or the lines might disappear” would be really very helpful for the majority of readers who don’t quite have a whole week to just devote to embroidering a curtain! I know I didn’t! So I pondered a solution. One idea that I had was to find out if I could get a permanent Pigma pen (or similar thing of another brand) in a pale colour that would be able to be covered over by the stitching. But then I realised that there wasn’t one colour that would work with all the colours of thread that I had used. And I wouldn’t be sure that a permanent marker like that wouldn’t bleed when I drew it on the “fabric” (remember, its basically plastic, being 100% polyester) anyway. So then I wondered about using a sharp HB pencil. I wasn’t sure that this would properly mark the fibres. But there was one way to find out – try it. And so I did. Surprisingly it worked beautifully. It went on nicely, and stayed there. It was thin enough to be completely covered over by the stitching. I used a pencil with a propelling lead – you know, a clicky type pencil, where you click the end and the fine lead moves up through the middle? So there you have it: if you need to draw a pattern onto 100% polyester organza fabric, you can use a sharp HB pencil. Happy days! I think I’ve mentioned once or twice on here and on the Vetty Creations Facebook page that I’ve been working on stitching some butterflies for a magazine project. Its been a delightfully restful project that has been something that I have picked up from time to time when I’ve a spare minute. The other day I devoted the day to stitching on it. I hadn’t had the chance to work on it for more than a week, and when I pulled it out of the bag I’d had it in, I was not pleased to find that the lines of the butterfly patterns that I had drawn on the fabric had faded away to a mere nothing… Oh dear. I was using a washout marker because the project is a curtain that is more a fashion item than anything else, so wouldn’t need to be around for longevity. But because the curtain is 100% polyester, the marker never soaked into the fibres, and obviously there has been enough rain over the last week for the moisture in the air to make the lines disappear. So take this as a warning: if your ground fabric is basically plastic and doesn’t actually soak up anything, it won’t soak up a washout fabric marker either. Lesson learned. After a not so helpful customer service experience with another business recently, it got me thinking about my customer service. To make things very clear about how your order will be treated, I have for some time had a carefully written full page about Terms and Conditions of sale from Vetty Creations. This sets out the amount of time you can expect for your order to take, the type of postage service I will use and all sorts of other details. I hope that people read it before ordering, and then that they refer to it if they have questions. And of course, you can also email me if you have questions. Typically I send out a personalised confirmation email about your order on the day that I receive the order. If your order comes during the weekend, then your reply will typically be sent on the Monday. In the email I state when the order will be posted, as accurately as I can. If I say it will be sent that day – which most orders are, unless they come in the afternoon, or unless they are an international order and I’ve already been to the shops that day – then it will be sent that day. If you don’t get a confirmation email from me, it possibly means that your spam filter has filtered me out. If I get a bounce notice letting me know that my email was rejected – sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t – then I’ll try another way to get an email to you, such as even by using my Hotmail account, which surprisingly can sometimes get through where others can’t. Sometimes the email address that I am given that is attached to your Paypal account is out of date. If that’s the case, then there’s not really any way I can contact you, however much I try. I’m sorry about that, but perhaps you could make sure your email address is up to date? (wink!) I want you to be informed. If your order is going to be delayed for any reason, such as if a product is out of stock which happens occasionally, then I’ll let you know. If there is any problem with your order, please let me know. If I know, then I can do something about fixing the problem. If I don’t know, then I can’t. So I guess this post is all about keeping the lines of communication open. I want you to be informed about your order. I want you to know that I aim for excellent customer service. If you think I’m doing a good job, please tell your friends. If you think I am not, please tell me. With the Vetty Creations Christmas ornament swap underway, I’m already thinking about Christmas. I hate leaving things to the last minute – I do not thrive on stress as some people do! Here in our house, and probably many others, it is common practice for various family members to affix a list of Christmas present suggestions to the fridge. I haven’t written one in years because my list of wants is not very long! This year I think I’ll ask for some plants for redoing our front garden. We recently went to a local garden centre and explained what we wanted and one of their garden designers drew up a plan for us. We wandered around the nursery and she showed us some plant ideas and we were able to see what she was suggesting. We like her design very much, and I’m looking forward to seeing the real thing outside the front of our house one day! I also think my copy of the Valentino exhibition catalogue is likely to be a much anticipated Christmas gift.
If you haven’t seen these books in the shops, you can see turn the page previews at Scribd: They’re the books everyone is talking about: “I was very impressed with the clarity of instruction and the detail given. I found it very easy to create new stitches and was impressed at how well they turned out (especially compared to my attempts following my other books).” Workshop on the Web “My sister bought the left-handed book for me and I thought I would buy the right-handed book for my friend. The book was really well layed out and l liked the pictures.” Leanne, Australia “The LH Stitch Dictionary is proving to be so very helpful. I refer to it almost daily, and am always impressed with the precision of your instructions. They are so clearly stated that it is impossible to stitch incorrectly. It is an invaluable reference book and am so delighted to have it nearby.” SB, France So if you’d like to give yourself (or that very special friend) a gift that could open up a whole new world of embroidery stitches, head down to your favourite needlework shop and grab yourself a left or right-handed stitch dictionary. If they don’t have it, there should still be ample time for them to order it in for you in time for Christmas. And of course, we have both The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion and The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion available for purchase right here at Vetty Creations. Here’s a great opportunity for anyone who’s got nothing to do just after Christmas – learn something new! Merezhka at Springwood Arts Centre, Springwood NSW
Merezhka is drawn thread work from Ukraine. Merezhka Poltavska is the name of this specific type of merezhka, which means that it comes from Poltava, in Ukraine. Traditionally, this type of embroidery was worked on the top of the sleeves of women’s blouses, and down the front of men’s shirts. It was also worked across the width of the ritual towels, commonly used in religious observances in Ukraine. This class is suitable for beginners through to advanced stitchers. Some experience with counted embroidery would be helpful. We’ll be working a small square panel of merezhka which could be framed, made into a tiny cushion, applied to a bag, or made into a needlecase. Thanks to all who have signed up for the Christmas ornament swap – Registrations are now closed. We’ve got a really good number of participants, so it will be exciting to see what people come up with. If you have signed up for the swap, over the next few days you should expect an email from me asking for your name and address. I will put these all into a spreadsheet and allocate who is sending to who. Once I have all the addresses and people allocated, I’ll send you another email letting you know who you will be sending your ornament to. As was previously stated, it would be good for all decorations to get to their new owners either near the beginning of December, or by halfway through December, so that they have time to be enjoyed before Christmas. What fun! |
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
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But if you’re thinking about gifts for yourself or a fellow stitcher, I’d love to suggest a copy of either 
