I’ve occasionally seen work described as Brazilian embroidery on facebook but I’ve never known really what it entailed. Last week at Skipton Stitchers monthly meeting we had a mini-workshop run by one of our members, the lovely Claire Ketteman. She does regular stitching workshops in the area and is a great teacher.
Apparently Brazilian embroidery is so named not because it originated in Brazil but because the thread used was originally manufactured there. The thread is a rayon stranded thread, very silky and shiny, slippery to use for your usual embroidery, but brilliant for knots, as the rayon thread just slides into beautiful curls. The thread was used without being split so we did need a fairly chunky chenille needle.
Claire had designed a mini embroidery which covered the main knots, French knots, bullion knots and cast-on stitch. I think I’ve only done cast-on stitch once before but with clear demonstrations from Claire we all got the hang of them. Cast on stitch looks a bit like covering a couple of threads with buttonhole stitch, but it’s formed on the needle so you can make it into lovely curls, the yellow flower is in cast-on stitch.
Our piece of Brazillian embroidery is only little – a perfect size for a mornings workshop. I think I might make it into a pincushion or a needle case. It was great learning how to use the thread, so often I buy threads because they look gorgeous and then wonder how to use them!
If any of you are within striking distance of Skipton, we have an exhibition next weekend of work we created during lockdown. I’ve a few pieces on show, and there’s lots of amazing embroidery from all our members, all sorts of styles too, modern, traditional, abstract… the rainbow of squares will also be on show…
The exhibition is at Christchurch, Skipton, just over the bridge on the road towards Keighley. It’s on Friday and Saturday and should be worth a visit 🙂
I got myself organised this week with my seaside quilt so I’ve made pretty good progress. This is the quilt from the book by Kathryn Whittingham, she’s the designer of the gorgeous Cottage Garden quilt which I made last year, as I was finishing that one she kindly sent me the book of the Seaside Quilt. I’ve had lots of family holidays round Whitby and Robin Hoods Bay and this happy quilt reminds me of them.
Three weeks ago I had just finished the middle row…
At the beginning of the week I ‘prepped’ a large embroidered block and all the small ones for this last row. By ‘prep’ I mean choosing the fabrics, stitching the background were needed, cutting out and applying all the bondawebbed applique pieces and choosing suitable embroidery threads for them. I put them all in my plastic workbox and brought it downstairs so I could sew a little when I was having my coffee or preparing tea.
First of all I blanket-stitched round two starfish…
Next I stitched round a little octopus and a seahorse, these were very fiddly to cut out and just as fiddly to stitch, they are cute though! I was glad I had chosen a batik fabric for these as the denser weave means to doesn’t fray as easily as standard quilting cotton when you are stitching so close to the edge. To give you an idea of size, the squares they are on (finished) are 2″! They are set in a blue friendship star…
Next I stitched a couple of shells, a whelk and a periwinkle. One of the prints I’ve been using for this quilt has like ammonite patterns, with a bit of careful positioning it was perfect for the periwinkle. These match the shells on the top row, so they are set in a star block…
Finally I started a big block, this one is called ‘A Rainy Day on the Beach’ Our weather is changeable at the best of times, so most people who spend time on the British coastline will have a rainy day on the beach! This one took quite a bit of embroidering. I started off outlining the umbrella and clothes of the lady and her dog. I changed the pattern slightly to make the dog look like Zach, my little black shadow who died a couple of years ago, he loved being on the beach. I was particularly pleased with the bumbleberries fabric I’d used for the umbrella and the wellies, some of the new range of colours has a bit of a sheen to it, so some of the ‘berries’ are a little shiny, it worked really well for a wet umbrella!
The time-consuming bit was the sea, it’s made by overlapping the blue over the sand with a strip of bondaweb and a wobbly line. Kathryn suggests blanket stitch for the waves which I did, it’s stitched the other way up from usual which works well for the crest of a wave but did seem to give a bit of a hard edge, so after trying it out on the waves further back in the sea, I added lots of french knots for the frothy bits. I like it, I think it works pretty well. I did a few neat French knots at each end of the wave but mainly made ‘frothy’ ones by allowing it to loop more….it was an awful lot of French knots so by the time I got to stitching a few for the sand I just did the minimum needed and the lines of seaweed didn’t get a look in!!
Hopefully over the next three weeks I’ll finish two more beach huts and at least one larger block, I can start putting the blocks together too and this bottom row will be complete.
Hand Quilt Along Links
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
I’ve been pretty busy in my sewing room this week, just not with things ready to share, however I have started quilting my All the Trimmings quilt. This was a free QAL from the Fat Quarter Shop, it just took a layer cake and a bit of plain fabric. As I happened to have a Christmas layer cake I decided to make this little Christmas quilt.
I finished the top a few weeks ago, I was debating adding a scrappy border as I have quite a few squares left from the layer cake, however when I tried it with a few scraps on my design wall it just didn’t work. I decided to back it in the same plain as the front and then maybe use a scrappy binding…
I finally started quilting it this week, I sandwiched it with 505 spray which I find holds everything together nicely without gunking the needle up. I started in the middle with the garland of ribbon. I decided to do a mixture of in the ditch quilting and free motion quilting so I’ve gone round the edge of the bows and then stitched a meander to fill it in. The connecting tails are then quilted with a long zigzag line…
Having quilted the ribbon row with red thread on top and blue underneath it seemed a good idea to start the red stocking above. Again I quilted in the ditch first, I can’t say I’m getting any better at this, it always seems a lot more tricky than it should! For the free motion bit I decided to play a bit of dot to dot on the cuff, stitching two rows of zigzag across the top. For the main stocking I’ve quilted holly leaves, they’re not perfect but I’m pretty happy with how they’ve come out. I think I might use an off white thread for the two lighter stockings though, not quite so obvious as red or navy blue!
As the quilting doesn’t show up much on those photos, here’s the back view. It’s not a brilliant photo either as it’s artificial lighting so the backing is much lighter than in reality but you get the gist!..
I’m trying to take it steady with this quilt as it’s the first quilt I’ve machine quilted since my neck operation, little by little and I’ll get there.
These three week cycles of the SAL seem to fly by, I’m stitching the Jacquie needlecase by Faby Reilly, she’s releasing a new section every two weeks, last time I had just finished stitching the organza wing for the dragon fly…
We’re now working on the final section, another piece of stumpwork for those of us who wish to try it. Firstly however there was the basis of cross-stitch and french knots. It did make me smile a bit as whereas the first dragonfly reminded me of a jelly baby, this one looked like a little green (blueish) man from Mars!!!
He’s surrounded by a haze of dragonflies. The french knots weren’t easy to place, Faby recommended gridding the area to help with accurate placement, of course I didn’t so some were a little out, I think I would have found it easier to stitch after the ‘Art Nouveau’ lines were stitched.
There’s quite a lot of stitching on this next section, so Faby has kindly given us four weeks to complete this bit.
The stems are stitched with whipped back-stitch, the eye’s of the dragonfly are padded satin stitch over the cross-stitch base and the tail of the dragonfly is a long detached picot stitch. Practise definitely makes perfect with this stitch, now I’ve got the hang of keeping the long warp threads taut and using my needle to get the weft threads to lie neatly, it’s my best one so far!
‘All’ I’ve got to do now is make two sets of wings on the organza again. I’m going to edge it with buttonhole stitch with just one strand of thread (as per instructions!) this time and if it looks 100% better I might even make another for the earlier dragonfly.
One tip I’ve just learnt from Faby is that when you are struggling to thread a needle, try turning the needle over, needles are made by punching the eye out, so one side is usually smoother than the other, a bit like when you punch a hole in paper. So far it’s worked at least 95% of the time for me!
This SAL is organised by Avis of Sewing by the Sea, we post every three weeks our progress on our individual chosen project, it does help enormously to motivate you on a long project. Please follow the links to see everyone else’s progress…
Over the last 18 months when my stitch group, Skipton Stitchers (formerly Embroiders Guild) met over zoom many of our members started stitching 4″ squares to make a display.The idea was that each month people would do a little embroidery on a certain colour which could then be joined together as a display. You could embroider in any style you wanted. I must admit that I didn’t join in over lockdown as I always had so many other projects to keep up with. However when I saw them all on display at Yarndale last month I did have a twinge of regret as they did look amazing…
When a request went out to make extra colours I immediately volunteered, turquoise and purple were the colours I chose.
I started with the turquoise one. I looked initially for the background fabric and found one just the right colour with twirls and swirls on. I then pulled out a variety of threads and beads to give me some ideas.
I decided to embroider over the twirls with different threads and different stitches. Some threads were variegated, some DMC,others were varying types of thread, textured ones, thick ones. I started off using blanket stitch, chain stitch, herringbone and couching…
I’ve decided turquoise is a very elusive colour! it sort of merges into blues and greens so it wasn’t easy selecting colours. The most ‘turquoisy’ ones were the thicker textured threads which I couched down, I tried to use a different stitch with each thread, there’s buttonhole, chain, whipped back-stitch, stem stitch, herringbone…
I added beads where the fabric had dots until I was happy I had stitched enough. I trimmed it to 4″ square, applied some iron on interfacing to the back to give it a bit of weight before neatening the edges with blanket-stitch.
My turquoise square proved quite time-consuming, so if I was to finish the purple one in time I needed a simple design. It came to me at around 2am – all the best ideas seem to appear overnight! Luckily I still remembered my idea the next morning…
One of my favourite poems is by Jenny Joseph, the first lines are
When I grow old I shall wear purple
I chose some purple bumbleberries fabric (by Lewis and Irene) not too dark but not too light either. Having practised on paper first I wrote the line in pencil on the fabric and with some calico behind to give support I used split stitch to embroider the letters. My idea was that I would fold the fabric so it looked like the front of a dress or shirt with buttons, I decided to tuck some purple lace under too and hand-stitched it down just with a running stitch down the side of the fold. All I needed then was buttons, despite having a drawer full of buttons I couldn’t find ones that were the right size and colour without breaking into a set of say 8 buttons. Eventually I resigned myself to some which came in a box of vintage buttons, they were to me your typical grandma’s cardigan button, somewhat old fashioned! I was just about to stitch them on when I had a brainwave, I stitched them upside down, so they are a much nicer plain button. I’ll still have a look in town tomorrow in case there is something else more suitable, but for now it is finished, ready to take to the meeting on Monday…
If you live within reach of Skipton you might like to know we’re having an exhibition on the 29th and 30th October of stitching we did during lockdown. It’s at Christchurch, it’s free and you might even recognise some of my work!
For a few days last week we had a bit of an Indian Summer, or that’s what we call it over here, a spell of unseasonably warm weather in late September early October. I’d just put my summer clothes away too so I got some out again when it was 20 plus degrees!
I spent the good weather in the garden, starting the autumn tidy-up. Sometimes I look at the garden and think it got away from me again, but then realism steps in and I have to admit that it probably took over six months to fully recover from the nasty wound infection I had last Christmas, so actually it’s not too bad!
I’ve started in the patio area down by the conservatory. The garden arch had gone rotten and was pretty wobbly, I was just waiting for the clematis to finish flowering before I cut it back a bit so I could remove it’s support. The rose on the other side (Teasing Georgia) hasn’t been good for the past few years, getting lots of blackspot and generally not thriving. It was one of the first David Austin roses I planted so it’s probably 15 to 20 years old, anyway I decided to dig it out, replenish the soil and buy a new rose.There’s always concerns about rose sickness when you dig out one rose and replace it, I’m hoping that removing the soil around it and adding lots of compost the next one will be happy. I’ve ordered Wollerton Old Hall as a climbing rose, it’s bare rooted so it won’t arrive until next month…plenty of time to build a new arch!
The whole bed where the rose was needed sorting as it was overrun with huge geraniums and astrantia, I love both plants but they were getting a bit much. So, I’ve dug up and moved lots of plants, I’m sure I won’t have got it all so there will still be geraniums there…just not as many! It also gives me chance to improve the whole bed, this bit has the worst soil in the garden with very heavy clay, so I’m putting lots of compost in and some pea shingle to help break it up.
Once that area was cleared I carried on tidying up the beds, cutting back perennials, weeding and thinking about what needs moving or splitting. The birdbath and the wire goose have re-emerged from behind all the foliage, the birds love to sit on the goose’s head when deciding which feeder to go for, or eyeing up the worms! There’s still lots to do but it’s already looking better,
The roses are still trying hard to put on a show, dead-heading throughout the season does help to prolong the flowering. This little pink one is down by the conservatory, I think it’s called Fairy,I needed a short rose there so it doesn’t block light into the conservatory and this one works perfectly. It’s still got lots of buds hoping to bloom…
Up by the summerhouse at the top of the garden the cotinus coggrhia is a gorgeous mix of reds and oranges. As you can see I haven’t started tidying this bit yet! The sedum is a lovely shade of dark pink at this time of year, it really needs splitting when I get round to doing this bit. It’s flopping in a huge circle and apparently that is a sure sign that it’s getting over crowded.
I really enjoyed the warm days in the garden at the weekend, we’re back to the usual October temperatures now, so it’ll be big coat time in the garden! There’s lots to do out there 🙂
Having dilly-dallied a bit with this quilt I cracked on with it this week, this is the free QAL by the Fat Quarter Shop, it appealed (apart from the fact that I love Christmas!) because it took just one layer cake and some background fabric, I happened to have in my stash a Christmas layer cake which needed using! There’s a matching cross-stitch design too but I’ve resisted that one.
This is a row by row quilt, I’ve always fancied doing one of these and I’ve really enjoyed it, there’s not so many repeats of a block that you get bored and each row has been fairly quick to do. The first two rows which I shared a couple of weeks ago were holly with berries and Christmas stockings…
The third row was garlands of ribbons. This block took a fair bit of concentration as the main block was half of one bow and half of the next…
The final row was three Christmas trees, in theory this shouldn’t have been too taxing! I realised too late that the pattern on the lower tier of the middle tree was one directional…and therefore I needed to be careful which corners I stitched the triangles to…the seam ripper came out several times! Even after all that hassle I realised when I had stitched it all together that I had completely omitted two of the triangles!! Luckily its the middle tree and still looks fine, I bet you wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t say!
The bottom rows don’t show up as much as I would like but I’m planning to sort that with the quilting. Once the four rows were stitched I stitched a 2″ strip between each row and officially the top is now finished…
…but I’m thinking of adding a border as I’ve got quite a few layer cake sheets left. It’s 33.5″ square at the moment, so wall hanging size. Just got to quilt it then 🙂
Last month I started a quilt-a-long – another one! This is just a short free one from the Fat Quarter Shop. It’s called All the Trimmings. It appealed partly because I’m a sucker for Christmas stuff, but also because it just uses one layer cake with the background fabric, I knew I had a Christmas layer cake I’d bought off facebook a couple of years ago.
The first row was holly and berries…
As you’ve probably gathered it’s a little row by row quilt. The patterns were released each week but as I’m a bit behind I can now see all the other rows!
The second row is Christmas stockings…
I’m now half way through the third row which is proving to require a bit more concentration than the first two. The instructions are all on the Fat Quarter website and there’s youTube videos too. I’m enjoying this quilt-a-long, the instructions are nice and clear and it’s pretty straight forward. Just having four of each pattern to make does mean it doesn’t get monotonous or time consuming!
Hopefully I’ll soon have rows three and four to share.
I’m making good progress on my Seaside quilt, this is the quilt designed by Kathryn Whittingham, the same designer as my favourite Cottage Garden quilt. This one is a similar layout but with seaside themed blocks, it reminds me of happy holidays in Whitby with my kids when they were little.
When I last posted about this quilt three weeks ago I was just over half way…
So over the last couple of weeks I have been working on the remaining blocks of the middle row. The next square one which balances with the little row of cottages was of three seagulls. I think many people have a love hate relationship with these raucous birds, they are noisy, big and sometimes quite scary birds – they think nothing of taking a sandwich from your hand. They are also part of the seaside atmosphere and as such you couldn’t have a seaside quilt without them!
There’s a fair bit of embroidery in these bigger blocks, especially with all the french knots to give a bit of texture to the sand dunes and the waves. I used pistil stitch too for the waves as it just sort of lengthens the french knot .
There were two more 4.5″ blocks to embroider too, another beach hut and an anchor. I’d stitched the lollipop at the beginning of the quilt when I stitched the ice-cream block. The anchor and the rope were a bit fiddly to cut out and position as the rope is threaded through a little hole cut in the anchor, but once it was stitched down with blanket stitch it was really effective.
This is the forth of six beach hut blocks I’ve stitched for the quilt. I’m not sure how much beach huts are mainly a British institution, so here’s a photo my friend Nancy took of beach huts down on the south coast…
The beach huts in Whitby are more of a uniform set of primary colours, which look very cheerful, but there obviously isn’t the opportunity to personalise your hut, I love the pale blue one.
With all the blocks stitched I could choose some 2’5″ squares to add to them and start stitching them together. I’m trying to get a balance with the little squares, mixing nautical, floral and abstract fabrics and scattering the more dominant colours, I’m getting a bit quicker at this now there’s more quilt done. The middle row is now finished…
I love the cheerfulness of this quilt, it definitely shouts British Seaside to me. I carefully pinned the top row and the middle row together and stitched the long seam, it went together perfectly…
Just one more row to make and then I can choose some borders and then start hand quilting it. I’ve already got in my mind how I’m going to quilt it, hopefully it won’t take too long.
The designer of this quilt, Kathryn Whittingham of Patchwork Katy, kindly gave me a copy of this book, but the views and opinions are my own. The book is easily available from her website, together with the Cottage Garden Quilt book, I’ve really enjoyed making these quilts and the instructions are great, aimed at someone with no experience.
Hand Quilt Along Links
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Helen and I had a few days in the Lake District last week, staying in a lovely flat above the Wheatsheaf Inn in Lorton. Lorton is nicely situated in between Keswick and Buttermere, so all my favourite places to walk were within easy reach.
I spent lots of childhood holidays staying in Keswick, as a family we spent a fortnight each August in a guest house in Keswick, walking each day in the area. I first walked up Catbells under my own steam when I was four years old, bribed with squares of Kendal Mint Cake! In my late teens and early twenties I went up for a holiday each year with a friend of mine, spreading our wings a bit further to climb mountains like Great Gable and Helvellyn. Once I moved back to Yorkshire I could just about do it as a day trip with friends…Keswick and Derwentwater is my special place, it’s where I run to when things are bad, but also where I go to celebrate the good things!
Our first climb was Haystacks which is at the bottom end of Buttermere. It’s a great walk, it’s not big but it’s still quite a challenge. We planned to park in a little carpark at the end of the lake but when we got there there was a notice that it was closed for a couple of weeks. It turned out it was for a film crew, they were filming part of Mission Impossible there! Now I can’t say I’ve ever watched a Mission Impossible but we still waited a couple of minutes when we heard a helicopter coming in to land with Tom Cruise inside. Unfortunately they took off as soon as they landed, though he did wave through the window!
It’s a steady uphill climb to the top of Haystacks, a bit rocky but manageable. At the top it’s quite craggy, so it’s hands and feet time, I quite like that kind of scrambling. There’s about three small tarns on the top too. We found a spot with a good view for our lunch, the photo shows Buttermere in the foreground and Crummock Water behind…
On the other side was Great Gable, hiding behind a little cloud.
We descended down the other side, making a circular walk, a good walk though a bit of a challenge.
On Wednesday we spent the morning mooching round Keswick, walked through Hope Park so we could see the lovely statue of Max the springer spaniel. Max helped his owner Kerry through a really bad depression and eventually Kerry started sharing photos of Max and their walks on facebook and he has become quite a local celebrity. Kerry has three springers now, Max, Paddy and Harry and he shares his walks with the dogs on facebook, they love jetty jumping! He organises charity dog walks and has raised a lot of money and a lot of awareness of mental health issues.. The statue is lovely.
We sat on the benches overlooking the launch jetty for our lunch, Catbells is just behind the island, the one in the middle with a bobble on top is Causey Pike and the triangular one behind is Grisedale Pike.
We decided to walk up Catbells in the afternoon, I’ve been up many times, it’s very popular as it’s not too big but has amazing views. This also means that there’s a lot of erosion of the paths so every so often the National Park authority do some work to slightly re-route the zigzag up the fell. It may be my imagination (it’s about 5 years since I last climbed Catbells) but it felt a much more challenging route. There’s a lot of scrambling up craggy bits, but it’s so popular that the rocks have been polished smooth, so it was difficult to get a good grip or foot hole. We eventually climbed to the final section of the ascent, we saw a couple following a little path to the side which did look easier…at the beginning!
The path got narrower and narrower, but it also came over to the front of Catbells, rather than above the ridge, so if I looked down there was just a very steep hill drop to the bottom of the mountain and nothing to stop a fall! To add to my concerns, there was no firm rocks to hold onto, just grass and the path had little grip…it was one of those times when you don’t want to move forward but you know you have no choice as we couldn’t go backwards. Eventually I crawled over the final few rocks to the summit, very relieved to be able to sit on the top and eat my lunch.
The view from the top is amazing, I climbed up there in my younger days to watch the sunrise, it rose over Blencathra (to the right) as mist settled over the lake.
The walk down the other side was uneventful, in future I’ll have to go up and down the same way. I have to admit it has completely knocked my confidence at walking the Lakeland fells, I felt it was too much of a responsibility for my walking companions. It probably didn’t help that it was Catbells, which I’ve walked so many times and have a special little place for in my heart. I love walking in the lakes, it has a completely different feel to walking in the dales, I love that feeling of being on top of the world, but we’re thinking in future of using a mountain guide as they will know the more accessible routes.
On Thursday we did a much easier walk, we parked near Ashness Gate by Derwentwater and walked up the steep and winding road to Ashness bridge, stopping briefly at Surprise View…
The little packhorse bridge at Ashness is one of the most photographed views in the Lakes, with it’s backdrop of Derwentwater and Skiddaw. Unfortunately it was full of photographers standing in the way with their tripods and long lenses!!
We carried on walking along the hanging valley to Watendlath, a lovely little hamlet next to a tarn. We didn’t linger too much there either as there’s a hydro-electric pump being built so it wasn’t particularly peaceful! We continued over the fell and down to Rosthwaite in Borrowdale.
From there we could follow the Cumbrian Way path to Grange, where we had a very welcome cup of tea before walking across the duckboards to Lodore and back to the car. The weather was a bit moody but we didn’t need to put our waterproofs on all day. Despite our grumblings about the photographers etc we had a lovely walk, it was a great circular route without the scary craggy bits!
I was amazed to find we had walked nearly 11 miles. It’s the furthest I’ve walked since my operation and subsequent infection, so I was well chuffed with myself. Usually my friend and I find that however long the walk is, the last mile is hard work, but this time I still had some energy in reserve!
Of course we did manage to do a little fabric shopping! On the way home we stopped in Kendal to visit Cool Crafting – the home of Luna Lapin! It’s a lovely shop, much bigger than I expected, of course we couldn’t come away empty-handed, I bought a shirt length in a soft striped cotton – and I’ve already cut out a shirt!
It was lovely to have a few days with my daughter, I’ve managed to pass on my love of the Lakes as she has now set herself the challenge of walking all the Wainrights! I had a bit of a ‘woe is me’ day afterwards as sometimes it does feel like everything I enjoy doing is either bad for my neck or not safe due to my balance, I gave myself a good talking to, helped by my friend being keen to use the mountain guides too, and picked myself up again…I think it’s Ingleborough next 🙂
