White Threads

the left-handed embroiderer’s companion – cover

Today I have the prospective cover for “The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion” for you. It may change yet, but this is it as it currently is.

For those of you who are used to seeing mostly whitework from me, it will be rather a surprise!

I have had a lovely time stitching the cover embroidery over the last few days. It has been so enjoyable to stitch it. I have used a background of Colourstreams wool felt, with stitching in a large range of threads, some overdyed and some straight single colours, in cotton, rayon and wool.

Some of the stitches that have been included on the cover include pekinese stitch, feathered chain, spiral trellis, palestrina stitch, whipped spider web, knotted cretan stitch, cretan stitch, up and down buttonhole stitch, french knots, couched trellis, cross stitch, cable chain stitch, ladder stitch, padded satin stitch, mountmellick stitch, spanish knotted feather, square chain, loop stitch, whipped buttonhole, pistil stitch, feather stitch, double feather stitch, herringbone stitch, chevron stitch, stem stitch, back stitch, chain stitch, diamond stitch, basque stitch, bullion stitch, lazy daisy stitch, running stitch, cretan catch stitch, sheaf filling stitch and coral knot stitch. (Phew! Take a deep breath!)

I’d love to hear your comments on the look and feel of the cover.

As for when it is going to be available, it looks like it might be in about April next year (2010), so that’s something to look forward to. 🙂

Waterlily SAL progress – Diane’s day 2

The Waterlily Hardanger Stitch Along has started in my hardanger Yahoo group. Diane has posted some progress of her work so far. She is working in golden yellow thread on blue fabric – what a sunny combination! You’re making great progress, Diane.

If you’d like to join in, you’d be very welcome to join us at hardangerhowto. Its not too late to join in.

You’ll need a copy of my book Elegant Hardanger Embroidery and the supplies for the Waterlily cushion. Of course you can choose your own colours as Diane has done. 🙂

Hardanger embroidery SAL

Sorry about the lack of communication. We went away to Canberra (Australia’s capital city) for a few days, and then I’ve been getting stuck into more embroidery for the book since my return.

On a much more exciting note for you lovely readers, for those who love hardanger, at my hardanger Yahoo group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hardangerhowto/) there is a Stitch Along about to start.

The group has decided that they will be stitching the Waterlily Cushion from my book Elegant Hardanger Embroidery. They’ll be starting in about a week’s time. I will be there amongst the group to answer questions, and help out in any way. If you’d like to join in, you’ll need to join the group, buy a copy of my book, and get all your supplies ready.

We’d love to have you along. 🙂

Ackworth School Stitch Along

I’ve “wasted” a lovely amount of time this morning finding out about an amazing SAL – the Mary Wigham Forever! Stitch Along.

All the information can be found at the Needleprint blog.

Mary Wigham stitched her sampler at the Ackworth School 220 years ago. It is a delightful sampler, with many gorgeous motifs that could easily be extracted for use on all manner of projects.

For the stitch along, people all around the world are taking part and in many countries there are community blogs for those who are taking part, so that they can encourage each other with posting their progress.

Anyone who wants to take part should make their way to the Needleprint blog and get involved!

Yvette Stanton’s books available in New Zealand

Exciting news for our New Zealand readers: Vetty Creations books by Yvette Stanton (me!) are stocked by Capital Books in Wellington. Yes, I know that you can always buy direct from me here in Australia, but wouldn’t you like the wonderful opportunity to see each of the books “in the flesh” before you purchase?!

If you’re in Wellington and have been considering purchasing one of my books, you can take yourself off to Capital Books, 110 Featherston Street, Wellington and ask for them by name. Of course, you’ll be able to browse first, then make your purchase. Capital Books has stocked Vetty Creations books for some time now, and will no doubt also take stock of the new left-handed embroidery book when it is available.

If you’re not in Wellington, you can ask your local bookshop or needlework shop to get a copy in for you, or you can purchase directly from the Vetty Creations website.

learning Mountmellick a sheer pleasure

I received a lovely email from a customer the other day, who has been teaching herself how to do Mountmellick embroidery. I include some of if below.

By the way, I haven’t sent a picture of the problem I was having with Palestrina stitch, but I did notice that the instructions in Inspirations magazine which is what I was following when I was first introduced to Mountmellick, and the instructions in [your] book differ. Since having your book and following it, my Palestrina is beautiful. Your book and your lovely nature (always willing to help) has certainly made learning Mountmellick a sheer pleasure.

If you are having a problem with a Mountmellick stitch (or merezhka, Hardanger etc) I am always happy for you to send me a low-res but good quality (small enough not to overload my inbox, but good enough so that I can see what you are stitching and what might be the problem) photo of the part of your stitching that is troublesome. You’ll need to include a description of what your problem is also. That way I might be able to advise you by remote so that you can fix the problem and continue on happily.

If you’d like to try learning Mountmellick embroidery for yourself, you can purchase our book, Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature at the Vetty Creations website. And because learning with the correct materials and thread is always best for giving you a real feel for the style, you can also purchase Mountmellick supplies, or even The Ultimate Mountmellick Kit – a complete kit with supplies and the book.

More guerilla knitting

Revisiting the idea of guerilla knitting again. You can read the previous post here.

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald there are some wonderful pictures of guerilla knitting – love the bus!

You must read this article.

When I have the chance (like while watching kids’ swimming lessons), I’m still knitting squares for Wrap With Love, but mostly I’m just working on the left-handed embroidery book.

Not much else to report.

Reader embroideries: mountmellick and merezhka

Today I have two reader’s embroideries to share with you.

Mimi is from Hong Kong and has recently been enjoying Mountmellick embroidery. Following is her first piece of Mountmellick embroidery – it is the framed flower spray from our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature. I think her embroidery looks very beautiful and she has done a wonderful job!

Joan K from Sydney, Australia has recently purchased a copy of Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery: Merezhka Poltavska and has been teaching herself merezhka. Joan has only recently branched out from cross stitch, after enjoying it alone for 40 years. She has taught herself both the large scale and small scale merezhka methods from the book. Joan commented, “Your merezhka instructions and illustrations are really clear and easy to follow.”

From the results of Joan’s bookmark, you can see that she’s done a sterling job! The bookmark is one of the projects included in the book. The cloth on which the book and bookmark are photographed is one of Joan’s past cross stitch projects.

Thank you to both Mimi and Joan for sharing your successes with me, so that I can share them with others!

a few new books

Over the past few weeks I’ve either bought or been given a few new books.

“Embroidered Textiles” by Sheila Paine. This is an amazing, thick book detailing the embroidery used around the world in different cultures. It has many, many coloured photos and is wonderful to inspect in great detail.

“The Goodhart Samplers” by Bromiley Phelan, Hansson and Holdsworth. This is another very heavy book with lots of wonderful close up photos of the embroideries. For anyone interested in samplers from the 16 and 17th centuries, this book is fabulous.

“The Proper Stitch” by Darlene O’Steen. I must say that I have been a bit disappointed by this book – I was expecting more from it. It doesn’t include all the stitches I expected it to, and I’m not really sure why it is so expensive… Good book, but not what I was expecting.

“The Complete Stitch Encyclopedia” by Jan Eaton. This is an old book, but new to me. I had borrowed it from my local guild library and found it so useful that I decided to get myself a copy from Ebay. It was easier, quicker, and almost cheaper to buy it from Ebay than to go down to the guild to borrow it again!

Some of these have been acquired for the purposes of writing my left-handed stitch dictionary, but others were purely and simply for personal interest. Not sure how I’m going to fit these on the bookshelves… Have to do a bit more squeezing in!

the latest on the left-handed book

Well… since writing the post on what’s going to be in the left-handed embroidery book, things have changed…

Kirsten Edwards of The Gift of Stitching has suggested a whole heap of specialty counted thread stitches for me to include. And I posted on The Gift of Stitching forums asking for people’s top 5 specialty sampler stitch suggestions.

I just figure that if the book’s going to be right, it has to include counted stitches as well.

Big sigh…

So, I’m having to add more pages and much more info. While that’s a big thing for me, it means the book only gets better for you. And that’s what this book is all about – being as useful as possible to left-handed stitchers.

So, you’ll just have to be a bit more patient while I add a whole heap more to it. Please?