thecraftycreek

It’s three weeks since I shared another two pages for my #stitching4thesoulbook which was a SAL organised by Anne Brooke of Hanne-made during the first lock-down. The videos are all still on YouTube so I’ve been working my way through them. I was hoping to have another pair of pages finished to share but I’ve still a little stitching to do, but here’s my progress so far…

The basis of this pair of pages was weaving, so we cut varying strips of fabric and pinned them to a base. Anne is stitching hers straight into a book made from wadding, whereas I’m using the individual calico pages from Untangled Thread, so I’m having to adapt things sometimes. I used quite a heavy furnishing fabric which was in the sample book I’m using as a starting point for these stitchings. Here is the first row of strips pinned on with a couple of trims already making an appearance…

Anne suggested leaving gaps for extra interest.. I then wove the shorter strips along, again the weaving is uneven to add interest. As you can see I also shuffled strips a bit to get a nice blue square of the base fabric, I tried to line the checks up with the crossways strips and also positioned the flower centre so it ‘worked’ with the flower going across. Once I was happy the strips were stitched down round the edge to keep the piece secure…

Now came the fun part, embroidering the piece! I’m trying once I’ve watched the video not to watch it again so I’m not too influenced by what Anne did, I can bring ideas and techniques to it whilst making it my own. I chose some embroidery threads, three blue, ecru and a couple of variegated ones. As you can see I also had a rummage in my button drawer…

The first thing I did was actually to cut down the centre of the backing and cut away a strip, I realised with the heavy backing fabric plus the weaving it was getting pretty thick to fold in the book. By removing a strip it makes the weaving strips can fold like a hinge and also adds interest with a ‘window in the middle. I’m blanket stitching along those edges as they seemed more liable to fray with movement.

I then stared embroidering…I continued a leaf on to the strip above and added more stitching to the blue embroidered fabric. I used feather stitch down the two blue and gold strips, sometimes it ‘goes under’ with the fabric and sometimes it carries on over the top. The darke blue square is embroidered with pistil stitch which is a bit likea french knot on a stalk. My original plan was to have a button in the centre of the square, but I’m undecided on that one. ..

…I used rice stitch on the woven ivory strip, it’s a coarse enough weave to count it easily. Anne stitched a square of running stitch which covered several strips of weaving, I didn’t have an area where that would work but I hit on the idea of circles centred around a button. I laid some round dies on to see what it looked like and liked it, so I traced round the dies and stitched it with the darker blue.

I still need to stitch the blue circle over the flower, I’m thinking of pistil stitch again for that one. Some of the lace still needs stitching down and I’m still tempted with the ‘handmade’ button, maybe on a strip of frayed gauze. Then there’s just a couple of areas to stitch on, decide how to finish the ends of the strips and then stitch it onto the pages, hoping my idea of a ‘hinge’ works!

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea. We post our progress on our chosen project every three weeks, just long enough to keep us motivated. Please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen

This week I turned my attention back to my #stitching4thesoul book. I started this in the summer, already late to the party and then got waylaid. Luckily it’s all on YouTube. It’s a stitch-a-long organised by Anne Brooke who lives not that far away and her videos on what to stitch for each page are delightful, it’s like having your best friend sitting there sharing an afternoon’s stitching.

We’re making a book with a colour of our choice running through it, not a dominating colour, just something to link the pages, mine is ecru, so it nicely includes lace and mother of pearl buttons, of which I’m rather fond!

For this third double page spread Anne suggested we use a colour we don’t particularly like, which isn’t easy as you don’t tend to buy fabrics you don’t like!! I’m using a fabric sample book as a base for all these pages, I flicked through the different colour ways and decided on red, mainly the orange end of red. In the book there was a page of furnishing weight silk with a gorgeous embroidered silk honey suckle flower in flame red, it was a perfect starting point. As an aside, I was flicking through the sample book when I found a price list at the back….Gosh!!…they’re between £100 and £200/metre!!!

I cut various squares and strips of different weights of fabric from the sample book, frayed some edges and started playing with them, I pulled out some lace and various trims and started to play with potential layouts. I find it difficult not to follow Annes design closely, it’s always interesting to see at which point you veer off and make it your own.

The brief from Anne also called for Suffolk puffs, otherwise known as yo-yo’s across the pond. I love the term Suffolk puffs, so that’s what I made. They are simple to make but tricky to get to look as neat as teachers!! It’s just a circle turned under and gathered round to make a fabric disc, gathers on one side and plain on the other. I decided for lightness to use scraps of Liberty tana lawn. My daughter has been making Liberty masks to sell on Etsy (Handstitched by Helen) and I get her scraps!! I made seven altogether in slightly differing sizes. I also used a couple of plain fabrics from a company who used to make fabric for Liberty so it’s a similar weight.

Once I’d stitched the pieces down with a simple running stitch in an orange/red variegated thread, I decided to continue to stitch lines of running stitch to make like a wave formation, the idea being that this would be the line that the Suffolk puffs followed.

I stitched the lace on next, the one on the left is in about three pieces as the flowers actually go across the lace, not down it’s length, so I pieced them together to get the effect I wanted.

Once I’d stitched the lines, I rather liked them, so I didn’t want to completely cover them with puffs. Instead I positioned the puffs slightly higher, overlapping the lines in places, but not obscuring them.I stitched a red bead over the hole in the middle.

It still needed a bit more, so I found my pot of random red buttons and started to play…

…the bottom right hand corner looked a bit bare, so I played around with a few buttons and fabrics and in the end found a frayed, simple square of red was sufficient.

I still haven’t decided if this one is finished yet, I’m tempted to do a few more lines of embroidery, maybe with some different stitches,but I might put it on my design wall for a couple of days, see how I feel then, otherwise I just need to stitch it onto the calico pages of my book.

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea. We post our progress on our chosen project every three weeks, just long enough to keep us motivated. Please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen