White Threads

Snow White mountmellick – cable plait stitch

I have had a number of enquiries about the instructions for cable plait stitch, to use with the Snow White mountmellick tablecloth. The instructions for this stitch have not been included in the most recent issue of Inspirations magazine, in which Snow White has recently been published.

When Inspirations publishes a project, they often can only dedicate a certain number of pages to each project. This means that often they cannot include the instructions for every stitch that the project uses. Usually they include the unusual or different ones, and rely on you to find the instructions for the rest of the stitches in the books or magazines you already own. I have no control over which ones they include and which they don’t, despite it being my project. (They rightly have editorial control, as its their magazine!)

For Snow White, they have not included the instructions for cable plait stitch. I don’t know why they chose to not include this stitch, as it is quite an obscure stitch, and the instructions for it are not readily available. I suppose that they expect that you already have one of their other publications with the instructions in it.

For those who are at a loss to know where to find the instructions for cable plait stitch, I direct you to the following books and magazines, which you MAY already have on your bookshelf, or your local library may have.

Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature by Yvette Stanton and Prue Scott. Yes, this is our book, and of course we have excellent instructions for cable plait stitch in it! 🙂

The A-Z of Stitches 2

Inspirations 55. The issue that had my previous Mountmellick embroidery project.

The A-Z of Whitework
Just in case you do not have any of these publications, Inspirations is always happy for their readers to contact them if they have any problems completing one of the projects in their magazine.

Of course, I completely support the idea of you purchasing a copy of Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature, as you’ll find many excellent stitch instructions in there (not just cable plait stitch), and learn heaps about Mountmellick embroidery. Then there’s also a good selection of Mountmellick projects to move onto once you’ve finished Snow White.

left handed embroidery book instructions

Over the last week since I’ve resumed work, I’ve been very busy on my left-handed stitch dictionary. I am SO enjoying working on it again. I’ve been concentrating on writing instructions and doing the diagrams. I’ve been averaging about 6 pages a day, which is really very pleasing.

In the past few days, some of the stitches I have worked on include: antwerp edging stitch, double pekinese, crossed buttonhole, ceylon stitch, oyster stitch, chevron stitch, cretan stitch, knotted cretan, cretan catch, cross stitch, smyrna cross, spanish knotted feather, sorbello stitch, palestrina stitch, mountmellick stitch, mountmellick thorn stitch, portuguese knotted stem stitch… and still going!

It is so much fun! Its like having some food for my brain again. Nothing like a little bit of mental stimulation!

My plan is that once all the instructions and diagrams are done, then I’ll work on all the stitched examples of each stitch. There will also be an inspiration panel on each page or spread, to show you ways of using the stitches (like serving suggestions for food!).

All this hinges on my health remaining as good as it currently is. I can’t count on that, but at least I can plan! 🙂 Assuming that it does, I hope to have the book out before the end of the year, but don’t count on that!

Is your leisure time changing?

I’ve been thinking some more about the effect of the economic downturn on people’s leisure habits.

From my point of view, taking into account my own business’s sales, it seems like people are very much turning to leisure pursuits that while taking some initial investment, can last far longer than going out or seeing a movie etc. My sales are chugging along very nicely (thank you!), with people seemingly very happy to purchase an instructional embroidery book, or the supplies to make a new embroidered project.

So, is the economic downturn affecting the way you look at your leisure time? Has it made you more likely to think about starting a new craft project or learn a new technique? Are you less likely to spend money on “experiences” (like the movies, or a meal out) and more likely to spend it on something tangible that can give you pleasure over a longer period by including the time it takes to create it, and in the enjoyment of the finished product?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

more stitches for my left-handed stitch dictionary

Today I have had the pleasure of resuming work on my left-handed embroidery book. After a long run of bad health, things have improved so much that I feel well enough to work again. It’s quite exciting as I have been lamenting for some time that nothing has been happening with my book.

I spent the day writing the instructions and drawing the diagrams for Antwerp edging stitch. It was quite fun, and I really like it as a stitch. It makes a lovely knotted edging. I also had a look at Armenian edging stitch, but wasn’t happy with how it was forming. There has to be some trick with the needle that I am missing, because at the moment it seems very awkward and time-consuming. I’ll have to experiment a bit further.

Some time ago I consulted embroidery teacher extraordinaire, Carolyn Pearce, who has an amazingly large repertoire of stitches that she regularly employs in her embroidery designs, about her suggestions for stitches that I should include in my book. She gave me a huge long list, many of which I was relieved to find were already on my own list (meaning I didn’t have to add them!), but also with a good selection of stitches that I hadn’t thought to include.

Carolyn, who is a right-hander, is very sympathetic to the plight of left-handed embroiderers in her classes. She told me, “I have taught myself how to stitch like a left-hander… in order to help them. That way I can tell when a stitch will feel awkward when executed in a right-hand fashion. Years ago I was at a class where 3 were left handers – the tutor couldn’t help them – just left them to their own devices. I realized that this just was not good enough!”

Thanks to Carolyn for her assistance with the book. I truly appreciate it.

If you have any suggestions for stitches that you would like to see included in my left-handed stitch dictionary, please leave your suggestion in the comments section. I’m still accepting suggestions, and will be for some time yet.

Snow White Mountmellick – link to images

As I promised, here is a link to some images of Snow White, my Mountmellick project in Issue 62 of Inspirations. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there’s a better picture than the very difficult-to-see one at the top of the page.

You can purchase all the Mountmellick embroidery supplies needed for this project from me at Vetty Creations.

And I’d LOVE to see photos of people’s own completed Snow Whites! 🙂

Mountmellick blackberry/dogrose identity crisis

If you’ve been hanging around here for any length of time, you’ll know that I have been quite sick for a while, and that the illness has definitely affected my creative output. However, yesterday morning I woke with the feeling that I HAD to make something. Not being completely well, I decided the best plan of attack was to work on a project that was already started. (Despite feeling all inspired by Mary Corbet’s stuffed, embroidered eggs!)

So I picked up a small Mountmellick doily that I had started back in February, on a day when I was also feeling an attack of creativity. It was a design featuring dainty dog roses.

It was too nice a day to sit inside to stitch – a lovely warm Autumn day, with gorgeous sunshine. I packed up all I needed and took it out into the backyard. I was about to start stitching when I realised there was something wrong with the design.

Here was a branch of dog roses, and lo and behold, there were what seemed to be a few blackberries stuck out the end. Huh? (Keep in mind that this was designed by me, so if anyone’s to blame, then its definitely me!) I went back to my computer to check the pattern, just to make sure that it was named “dog roses” not blackberries. Ah, yes it was. These were definitely supposed to be rose branches. So then I checked my records of historical designs to see whether any of the dog rose designs had little blackberry looking things attached to them. Ah, no. Blackberry branches had blackberries, and dog roses had buds.

What to do?!

Because I’d already started stitching it on that day back in February where I’d had my moment of VERY confused creativity, I really didn’t want to have to start again. So I tried rubbing out the pencil lines where I had drawn the blackberries onto the fabric. It didn’t work. While they were very light pencil lines to start with, they were definitely still there.

So the only thing to do was to start again. I redrew the design onto a new piece of fabric, this time omitting the blackberries – which thankfully looked okay, and didn’t leave it looking like something was missing – and started again.

Late last night, I finally finished the whole doily, knitted fringe included. I’m very pleased with the design, now that it is only dog roses, and not having a slight blackberry identity crisis! It was lovely to be able to feel like I was well enough and inspired enough to spend the whole day stitching. (And to have the opportunity to do so.)

It also says loads to me about the state of my brain back in February! I might have thought I was ok, but obviously I was not operating at full speed. Precisely the reason why I have had to put aside any book writing for the past few months. I think the most annoying thing about me being sick has been that my brain went AWOL as well. Maybe it has now decided to come back?

I’m not showing you a picture of the doily, because I’ll keep this design for when a magazine next asks me for a project, or for a future class, or even for a future new Mountmellick book. (Yes, I’d love to do another one some day, but there’s a long list of other books I also want to write!)

Ukrainian Easter Eggs: Pysanky

Because I do Ukrainian embroidery (merezhka), I sometimes get enquiries from people wanting to learn how to make pysanky, which are painted traditional Ukrainian easter eggs. They are completely and utterly gorgeous, and in another life, I’d love to learn how to make them too! (In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy looking at the creations of others.)

I learned of a website today for learning how to make pysanky: http://www.learnpysanky.com. It might be a good place to start.

If you know of any other websites that teach or display this beautiful craft, please leave a comment in the comments section, so that others can see these wonderful websites too.

More on decorated eggs
Still on the subject of decorative easter eggs, Mary Corbet of NeedleNThread has a wonderful post about making embroidered easter eggs.

Temari would be another way to make decorated eggs – there’s a spherical temari project in the upcoming issue of Inspirations magazine (no 62). Obviously spherical is not egg-shaped, but it opens the mind up to all sorts of possibilities.

Snow White Mountmellick Project

Today I received my contributors’ copy of “Inspirations” No 62, from Country Bumpkin. It is, as always, full of absolutely gorgeous embroidery.

I have a project in the magazine: “Snow White”, a Mountmellick embroidery tablecloth. I actually made this cloth some time ago, and when my friends at Inspirations called, asking if I could do a project for them, we arranged to put this one in, as I was too ill at the time to make something new.

The tablecloth features a centre circlet of blackberry and dogrose branches. There are wonderfully plump berries, lots of leaves and also some roses. Blackberry and rose always go well together because they are from the same family of plants, so they really look very similar.

Being Mountmellick embroidery, it is of course, white on white, and has a large selection of highly textured stitches.

As usual, all the Mountmellick embroidery supplies for this tablecloth can be purchased from Vetty Creations.

I was going to link to the Country Bumpkin preview of Issue 62 on their website, but it doesn’t seem to be working yet. I’ll send you a link to some pictures when they become available.

Needlework exhibits at the Royal Easter Show

A few days ago we visited the Sydney Royal Easter Show. As a past winner several times over, I am always interested to see the exhibits in the arts and crafts section.

The Hardanger category seemed to only have 4 entries this year, but they were all amazing! Really detailed, huge projects, which were extremely admirable. Congratulations to all the entries in that category! The smocked dresses were, as always, very beautiful. Such pretty creations.

As we walked past one of the cabinets, my daughter said, “look Mum – candlewicking.”

Feeling very proud that my daughter was able to identify this particular type of needlework, I asked her “Did you recognise it?”

“No, I read the sign.”

OH…

Each year the needlework exhibits are fewer and fewer in number. Its quite sad really. Even the patchwork and quilting exhibits were down from what I remember in previous years (though I don’t go every year).

In the past it really has irked me that the patchwork and quilting classes get more prize money than the other needlework classes. Why? I wouldn’t say that the materials are any more expensive. Certainly the fabric needed for a quilt is expensive, but then fine evenweave linen for counted work, or lots of silk thread for a thread-painted picture is can also be extremely expensive. I wouldn’t say that there was necessarily more work involved in a quilt than a Hardanger runner either. So why the disparity in prize money? I was therefore very pleased to see in this year’s schedule that the prize money for each is now the same. Well done RAS!

On the way home on the train I heard a lady commenting to a fellow traveller that the exhibits in the craft section seemed fewer. She was quite disappointed, as she obviously looks forward to seeing these exhibits. I imagine that they are quite popular too. It would be good to see more needlework exhibits in the show. If you are a Sydney-sider, I therefore encourage you to enter the Sydney Royal Easter Show next year. Ring the Royal Agricultural Society and ask to be put on the mailing list for the Arts and Crafts Schedule, so that it is mailed to you later in the year for next year’s entries.

The more support the competition gets, the more likely they are to expand the categories, and make it a bigger and better show.

Kill the fatted calf!

A few days ago I decided that it was time to clean up my computer desk. It was a precariously balanced (ok, I’ll say it…) MESS of stuff, which threatened to topple if anyone moved even the slightest thing. It made it quite difficult to use my sewing machine, given the shaking that it gave the desk.

So it was time to clean it up. I discovered reel after reel of sewing thread, and was so pleased to find a small ziplock bag of zipper pulls that I had lost quite some months ago! I had been looking for these for ages, and there they were, hiding under the computer monitor.

The satisfaction of having a tidy desk is quite amazing. I keep looking at it and thinking how nice it is. OH, the simple things in life are often the best… Now I just have to work on the rest of the room. I wonder what other embroidery and sewing gems I’ll find?