White Threads

Sewing coming back into vogue?

I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard an interview with a demographer (possibly Bernard Salt) who was talking about the return to frugality for many people due to the economic downturn.

He was discussing how people are becoming more likely to reuse and fix things rather than throwing them away. Darning socks was mentioned, and the interviewer wondered whether anyone actually darns socks anymore – I DO!! But the idea of making things and the satisfaction that that brings was also discussed. The demographer suggested that people are returning to the idea of personal satisfaction from making things and being able to think “I made that!”

Well, for people like you and me, we never left that idea behind! But it is interesting to see that others are returning to it as well. One of the callers to the program told about how her daughter and daughter-in-law came over on the weekend to replace zips in their clothing, and alter clothing that had dated a bit. She also said that both her sons can sew, and have even made dresses for their girlfriends. Wow!

The demographer even said that sewing classes are well booked out because there is a whole generation who missed out on learning these skills at school, and who now realise that they want to know how to sew.

It was interesting to see how much of a focus the whole field of sewing was talked about. Potentially the discussion could have flowed into many other areas, but callers and the discussion were very much stuck on sewing.

I was so encouraged! If it takes an economic downturn to bring on a return to the finer things in life (sewing!) then at least that’s one good thing that can come from it!

Maybe sewing is the new knitting?

Hardanger happiness in Queensland

On Wednesday last week I received an order from Gail in Queensland. As is my custom, I follow up all internet orders with an email telling them when their order will be posted, the address it will be sent to etc, and asking where they learned of Vetty Creations and or our products. Later in the day I received the following reply:

Hello Yvette,

Thank you for your email. I have just started attending Craft mornings here in town and saw some Hardanger work. Our teacher has been very patient and I have learnt a lot. Unfortunately it is all done by being shown and I am a visual learner and need to be able to check back in a book to make sure I have the method correct.

I was googling to find a practical guide to Hardanger stitches and came across your web site and book.

I have done Kloster blocks, Buttonhole, and this week learnt Four-sided stitch and double cable. Four sided stitch I have no problem with but the Double cable is giving me grief. I can go straight but changing direction is a problem I just can’t seem to get the gist of it. Your book looks to be just the thing, a reference point for me to check. I’m looking forward to receiving it in the Mail.

My reply to Gail:

Dear Gail,

Your book was posted this afternoon, so if things go really well you might get it on Friday, but more likely early next week.

Changing direction IS difficult with double cable, so don’t feel that you’re the only one that doesn’t “get” it straight off – you’re certainly not! You’ll find instructions for turning a corner on page 30.

I agree with you that while being shown is great, it is also very useful to have some written instructions to refer to when the teacher isn’t there! I do hope that you find my book to be useful in that regard.

Any questions you may have about any of the stitches or techniques are always welcome.

Best wishes for your adventures in Hardanger, and I do hope that you enjoy your classes.

Yvette

And then on Friday night Gail sent the following email:

Dear Yvette,

How can I thank you. Received you wonderful book today. Turned to page 30 and got it in a flash. Your directions were so easy to follow, I have now completed 8 corners in the double cable and they look great. I have [Janice Love’s] Basics and Beyond as well but your book is so much better, it will be my bible for Hardanger and I can’t wait to share it with the other ladies as well as our teacher.

I will send you a photo when I finish the Doily.

Once again Thank you Thank you Thank you.

Gail

Really, I do love hearing from my customers, so if you have any questions about Hardanger, Mountmellick or Merezhka, please just ask. If you have photos of your work (especially using one of my designs) I’d love to see them. I love to celebrate other stitchers’ successes!

Privacy note: Gail has given me permission to use her emails here. I don’t share emails without permission. I don’t want you to think that if you email me that your whole email will automatically turn up here on my blog – it won’t! If I’d like to quote it in full or in large part, I will obtain your permission first. If its only a small part such as a sentence or two, I may use it, but first I’ll remove any extra identifying information and include only first name and state/country. If you have any questions, please just ask.

Customer embroidery: Mountmellick doily

Today I received a photo from one of my customers, Pam. This is the first Mountmellick embroidery that she has ever done. Hasn’t she done a lovely job?

Embroidery by Pam, from Queensland.
The embroidery is an adaptation of one of the designs from our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature: the Oval Dogrose Doily.

Congratulations Pam, on a job so well done.

And a reminder to all you others who have made embroideries from a Vetty Creations kit, from one of our books, or one of our projects in a magazine – I LOVE it when you send me photos of your embroidery. It is always such a lovely encouragement to me to know that you are so proud of your work that you want to share it with me.

I look forward to seeing other photos floating into my inbox!

Happy Mountmellick Day! (St Patrick’s Day!)

Happy St Patrick’s Day to you all!

I have a little Irish blood within me, and I do love Mountmellick embroidery, which is of course Irish.

I have decided this is a great day to celebrate all things Irish (particularly Mountmellick embroidery) and am therefore very pleased to announce that we now have our new premium quality Mountmellick fabric (also known as cotton satin jean) in stock.

This fabric is a heavy weight fabric, with a high thread count. It is the same as the fabric that I purchased when I was in Mountmellick itself, so this fabric is the real deal. It is absolutely perfect for Mountmellick embroidery. I used this fabric for a number of the projects in our book, but notably for the Blackberry table runner.

The interesting thing about this fabric is that it is cream. “Cream?” you say, “but isn’t Mountmellick embroidery meant to be white thread on white fabric?” Yes, it is. And with this fabric, you stitch on the fabric, then when the embroidery is complete, you boil it to turn the fabric white. The instructions for boiling embroidery are included in our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature if you’re unsure how to do it.

For those who want the rest of the stats, the fabric is 137cm wide, and is available by the metre, in 10cm lengths, and as fat quarters. It is 100% cotton. To differentiate this fabric from our other Mountmellick fabric, our new heavy weight fabric is known as Cotton satin jean, and the other, lighter weight one is Polycotton satin jean.

How about celebrating St Patrick’s Day by doing something particularly Irish – Mountmellick embroidery! You could purchase some of our Mountmellick thread and fabric and use a design from our book, or you could purchase a Mountmellick embroidery kit with everything in it for you already.

Go on, be a bit Irish!

portable knitting tip

During my prolonged illness, there have been times when all I have felt like doing is reading. And sometimes where my brain can’t even handle reading. At other times I feel that I can take a little more activity. Of course, I’d love to be doing some embroidery, but most of the time that’s too much for my brain (deciding where to put a stitch etc) and too much for me physically. Equally, I’d love to be working on either of my books that are underway, but have had to be temporarily shelved. Unfortunately my brain just can’t handle writing much at the moment.

So, in these times when I haven’t got anything to read, and I am capable of doing *something*, I knit squares for charity rugs. Knitting is something that I can do without concentrating, because all I’m doing is going backwards and forwards, and no tricky increasing or decreasing is required. So it suits me at the moment. Especially because even though I can’t get out much, at least I am doing something positive, something for others, and contributing something to society.

In her Christmas letter, my mother told her friends of my illness and asked if anyone had any spare wool to keep me occupied while I was incapacitated. (I was horrified when I found out that she’d done this.) I was even more horrified when bags and bags of knitting yarn donations turned up! I was beginning to feel a bit better, and knitting was becoming a bit passe. I was ready to do some embroidery, and even get out a bit.

However, I was now morally obliged to use the wool to knit the squares. So while my daughters have their sporting lessons, I take my knitting with me. I can keep my fingers busy and still be able to watch them swimming and doing gymnastics. With my youngest having just started school, for the first month they finished a half an hour earlier than the rest of the school. Because my older daughter still finished at the regular time, we had a wait until she came out of class. So I took my knitting with me and sat and chatted with my younger daughter and some of the other mothers.

I use circular needles (see right) for knitting my squares for a number of reasons:

they are the right gauge for what I need
if I drop one, I haven’t really dropped it, because its still attached
because they can be popped in my bag as they are very compact (see second picture)

The interesting thing is that many people seem to have never seen circular needles before. I’ve had quite a number ask me what I am using to knit with.

So I just thought that maybe some of you haven’t seen or used them either. Circular needles are usually used to be able to knit a tube sort of shape without any seams. It means you can just keep knitting stitch after stitch after stitch, without having to turn at the end of a row, because there is no end of a row! However, you don’t have to use them that way. Like me, you can use them just as normal needles that happen to have their back ends attached.

If you haven’t tried them, they are great for portable knitting because they are so compact. I can just roll the knitting up around the ball, stick the needles in it, pop it in my bag and off I go!

As an update for how my knitting project is going, I have knitted about 30 squares. You need 28 for a Wrap With Love rug, so I already have enough for one whole rug. And I’m quite grateful for all the extra yarn at the moment, because I haven’t been so well lately, so knitting has been quite welcome. When I first thought of knitting after I got sick, I decided I’d see how many rugs I could get knitted during the course of my illness. I felt it was a good way to continue to feel like I had a place in society, even though I couldn’t do very much else. And it does (sort of) help with my constant compulsion to be making something.

One rug down, how many more to go? 🙂

the fruit of my labour: satchel bag

I mentioned the other day that I went to the super furnishing fabric sale and picked up a piece of animal print suede. Or I think I mentioned that… my brain’s not always so good at remembering things lately. 🙁

Anyway, I made the fabric up into a satchel bag. I’ve posted about it on my other blog (which I’ve never mentioned here before because it has a completely unrelated focus of “enjoying travel with kids”). But rather than write the whole thing out again, please excuse me for simply directing you to my post about it there.

And, as of writing, my internet connection is back up (still intermittent) but the phone is not. I knew it was wrong to hold my breath. I’m trying really hard not to feel isolated and annoyed… Please accept my apologies yet again if you are still trying to phone me.

my apologies

If you have been trying to ring me over the last day or so, and it seems that our phone is engaged all the time, no I am not having a wonderfully long yak to someone. Our phone unfortunately isn’t working for some reason. After the 58mm of rain that we had on Sunday night, it was horribly crackly, and now has decided to cease working. A call to the phone company on Tuesday night (when it was still working but was *terribly* crackly) meant that it was supposed to be fixed by 7pm last night.

However, it still isn’t working this morning. Because I have no mobile phone, and because my internet connection is ADSL (which uses the same phone line) and is therefore only working intermittently, I feel very isolated. I had to walk over to a relative’s place this morning to use her phone to report the fault yet again. Apparently it will now be fixed by 7pm tonight. I’m not holding my breath…

So, my sincere apologies if you have been trying to ring me to place an order or to ask a question. You can try emailing me or placing orders through our website instead, and hopefully my email will work for long enough for it to get to me.

Hopefully all will be well tomorrow. Hopefully…

For those in Sydney – quality fabric bargains

My apologies to all of you who are not in Sydney! For those who are, you might like to know about a special event that is currently on. Roylston House, who are a furnishing fabric wholesaler, are having a direct to the public sale, THIS WEEK ONLY!

They have heaps of high quality, but discontinued, furnishing fabrics up to 80% off. Some are offcuts, and some are on rolls that you buy by the metre.

I went on Saturday and bought some *gorgeous* silk fabrics and some cheetah-print suede. The silk was $20/m (excluding GST) marked down from $94/m. I also saw some amazing patterned sheers that were $50/m (excluding GST) marked down from ooh, a cool $296/m! I also got a couple of offcuts for $5 each (excluding GST), about a 1m x 1m.

They had a great selection of plains, patterneds and prints. Some were heavy weight, some were light weight.

The details:
Monday 9th March – Friday 16th March, 9-5.
Roylston House
Unit 1, 23 Leighton Place, Hornsby
Ph: 9476 8522

I might even see you there…

Public thanks: Miss Gurney

I would like to pay tribute to one of my textiles teachers. Miss Gurney was my teacher for several years when I was doing Textiles and Design at school. She was a great teacher, and taught me a lot about machine sewing, hand sewing and hand embroidery.

Textiles was one of my favourite subjects at school, and was where I was first introduced to Hardanger embroidery (apart from me being very interested in what I saw of it in The Readers Digest Guide to Needlework).

We all had to do a major embroidery project in Year 10. We did a sample of cross stitch, blackwork, shadow embroidery and Hardanger. I LOVED the hardanger, and embarked on a massive project (see right), which I relished every minute of.

Miss Gurney was always an encouragement to me. We also did a smocked baby’s dress in Year 10 (I think!), and I am still grateful to her for teaching me how to do a very gorgeous hand-sewn placket for the back opening.

There was one day that I’m sure Miss Gurney was ruing the day she’d ever met me. I was using one of the overlockers (sergers) in class, and for some reason the threads kept breaking and Miss Gurney had to keep rethreading it. I don’t think I was very popular that day!

So thank you Miss Gurney for being such an inspiration to me. I really enjoyed your classes, and as you can see, I took what you taught me, and absolutely RAN with it! I’m extremely grateful to you.

Labels added to White Threads

If you look down the right side of my blog, you may notice a new list – I have finally added labels to the blog. I’ve gone back a fair way through the old posts adding labels, but it did get a bit tiresome in the end, so they’re not ALL labelled.

But hopefully you will find them helpful for finding posts on various topics.