Sides of my cabinet stitched and all attached

This week I finished and mounted the second side of my cabinet - kist to the wooden box. I am having a lot of fun with them but the panels seem to get more complicated as I go along. I tried some new techniques with the elephant and the cat. The head of the elephant was stitched on a separate piece of fabric edged with metal pearl purl and then cut out and stitched onto the body after it was glued to the paper. It is impossible to glue the silk to the heavy paper backing if the embroidery is too thick. The tusks of the elphant are ivory from an antique piano key that I cut to fit. The cat was stitched with silk thread on cotton organza, the edges were turned to the back and then applied to the stitched side over the grass. I did a lot of hunting for the beads that I used for the acorns. It was hard to find just the right size and shape with a large hole in the bead so that I could stitch the silk threads over it to create the nuts of the acorns. Those perfect beads came from Israel and are made from olive wood. All of the plants and animals on my whole casket/cabinet have meaning to me and it has been fun to put them together. When I design a panel, I think I have it all in my mind the way that it will look but as I choose threads and stitches the design always has a mind of it's own and ends up changing as I go along. The designs for the next part are constantly in my thoughts and new ideas come all of the time. Then I just have to figure out how to turn those ideas into embroidery. Now on the the doors......

Sewing Rolls and other needlework toys

Historically small accessories for needlework were called "Toys". Today we sometimes call them smalls or even still call them toys. They can be things such as pin cushions, needlebooks, scissors sheaths, fobs, emeries or anything else that stitchers create, collect and use. Many times they are stitched but can also be made of fabric, paper, and Bristol board to name just a few of the materials but fabulous examples are created with Mother of Pearl, gold or silver. One of the very useful accessories is a sewing roll. It could combine a pincushion, a flannel piece for needles or pins and often has a pocket to store buttons or thread. It is then rolled up and can be placed in a pocket or bag. There are so many variations made from scraps of whatever fabric was available, sometimes it sould be a wonderul reminant of silk but even the last useable bit from the rag bag that was pieced and pressed into use. It is so much fun to imagine who it was for and who created it. I bought a barely started kit designed and created by Tricia Nguyen. It was a sewing roll called the Salem Sewing Roll. It is stitched on a lovely green linen with silk threads in pastel shades of yellow, pink, blue, green and tans. There was enough extra linen and thread in the kit so that I was able to create some "toys" to go with it. I used Tricia's original design for inspiration and created three more pieces to match. I did a scissors sheath, a combination needlebook and pincushion, and an emery. The first photo shows the outside of the roll and one side of the smalls.

This photo is of the inside of the sewing roll and the other side of the smalls.

Sewing rolls are fun to do. I designed and taught two of these sewing rolls in past classes. The last photo is of an antique piece that I own.

An army of goldwork frogs and a single robin

Last fall I took a class from Maria Clara Warschuer. It was a goldwork robin and was so much fun to do that I looked up her pattern for her frog in Inspirations magazine (#124). It is called Rana and worked in shades of green. I decided that since I love to look at poison arrow frogs becuase of the wonderful colors, I would create my own colorful batch of frogs. I went to my stash of colored purls and bullions to see what I had. Turns out that I have more than enough colors to make a huge army of frogs - who can resist purchasing assortments of colors from time to time. I ended up chooseing six colors. Each frog takes 2 colors - one for the body and one for the back. I used Clara's design for the back of the blue frog but played with other designs for the other five. I put pin backs on them so I can wear a cluster on a jacket.

Casket side and another Robin

It took me six months but I have finished the right side of my kist. It feels like I am getting a bit closer to finishing. Next step is to glue the back and side to the box and then get started on the left side.

I really love the way that the deer turned out. I found some fun deer on caskets and mirror frames and played with the designs.

I have been doing a number of robins lately and just took a goldwork class with a small robin. We were able to finish most of it in class and I came home and did the finishing touches to make it into a pin. It was designed by Clara Warschauer. She has a couple of other designs that I am planning on stitching.

Two Birds stitched 15 years apart 2009-2025

Years ago I took a soft shading class of a Red Poll from Tanja Berlin and really enjoyed it. I finished the bird in 2009 and was really proud of it, and it has hung in my house for years. Soft shading is a wonderful technique that is used to stitch realistic flowers, birds and many other things but it does take some practice to master.

Yesterday I finished a new bird by Trish Burr. It is "The dainty European Robin Erithacus rubecula" that was published in Inspirations magazine. I think that it turned really well and I can see so much inprovement in my stitching technique.

My husband's middle name was Robin and he was named for his father's friend from England. Since my husband's passing I have been collecting a few robins that make me think of him. One of the more unique birds that we discovered was one made of Legos. We could not find the kit but got the plans and ordered parts from several sources to build our bird. He sets on our mantel so we can enjoy seeing him everyday. It makes us smile.

Another pattern that I bought is "An Australian rose robin resting on a splendid magnolia depicted in threadpainting, by Trish Burr" from Inspirations magazine. The breast feathers are the most amazing shade of pink. The first time that I saw it, I was not sure that it could be real but it is. I stitched it several years ago and gave it to a friend who loves magnolias.

Casket Back is finished

 I  have finally finished the stitching on the back of my casket. I love the way that perspective doesn't matter. The peacock is as big as the pear tree and I am not quite sure if all of the flowers exist in nature and the snail certainly does not.

The crocodile is taken from the early 17th century painted ceiling at Rossend Castle in Burntisland, Fife in Scotland.  His body is exotic leather that I painted a bronzy gold color. The Mother of Pearl Fish was made in China in the late 1700's as a gaming token but I thought that it would swim beautifully in my pond.

My husband lived in New Zealand for several years and so I added the Kiwi bird. I bought the yarn that I stitched him with while I was there visiting. It is a combination of cashmere, silk and Brushtail Possum Down.

There are many dimensional elements on this panel with the pears just hanging from the tree along with flower petals that stick out from the background. 

I have used very tiny (about sizes 18-24) antique seed beads in several places. They are so small that I have to insert the silk thread  through the bead and then into the needle to sew them in place because even my smallest needle will not go through the hole of the bead. It takes a while because for each bead, you thread on the bead, then the needle and sew it down, unthread the needle add the next bead, rethread the needle and repeat. I am lucky that I have been collecting them for about 50 years since they are so hard to find now-days. 

Cabinet back motifs

I have been enjoying working on the back panel of the needlework casket. It is full of fun animals and flowers and is stitching up quite quickly for the amount of embroidery on it and all of the color changes but that is just part of the joy of creating my own interpretation of the fabulous originals .


This outline of the carnation uses some antique Chinese thread that is created by wrapping thin strips of paper with gold glued to it and it is then wrapped around a red thread.

My snail is so tiny but full of unique threads and stitches. The crinkled gold plate is from India. I was ordering some thread that I needed and added it because it was quirky and as long as I was paying for shipping why not add some extra goodies. You can see the scale of it by comparing the US twenty-five cent piece. It's amazing how much stitching  and how many different threads you can pack into a tiny area.

This pear tree is full of interesting details. Some of the elements are stitched flat on the silk like the tiny pear blossoms, the trunk of the tree, some of the leaves and two of the pears. The padded pears use 16th century English embroidery techniques with a tiny gold plate along with the gold silk thread. Four of the leaves are wired so that they can be manipulated into shapes. I have used a paper mache form for the other two pears which I did in needle-lace with gold plate around them.

Just finished the peacock which wears the most fabulous colors. 

 

Twined Floral Brooch

 

I call this piece "Twined Floral Brooch". It is an adaptation of a new class from Cynthia Jackson. The class is "A Garden in Gutter Lane". Cindy gave us three different designs and encouraged us to change things if we wanted to. I went totally off course and made mine look like a wreath that is fastened with a needle.

It has flowers and leaves done in a 16th century technique. Some of the flowers have 5 layers of thread and metal threads, and are only 1 inch (2.5cm) across.

I stitched a handmade lizerine around all of the flowers and leaves. Cynthia made it and although it more closely replicates the original metal thread it is much harder to work with than the more modern machine made metal that we use today.

I did the same strawberry two different ways, one with the handmade lizerine and and the other with the more modern machine made metal trim so you can see the difference.

Cabinet of Curiosities and life changes

 It is hard to believe that the last time that I blogged was in March, but this last year has been so full of unexpected and unwelcome happenings that it is understandable.  I have not yet mentioned it here but August a year ago (2023) my husband and partner in all things suddenly collapsed and passed away. To say that it was a shock doesn't even begin to describe the total collapse of my world.  

Since my house is much too big for one person, my oldest two daughters sold their home and moved back in with me. We are still just getting things a bit more settled. Amazing how trying to fit two households into one house is a bit difficult. My living room looks like a jumble sale in progress.

 In April, my 102 year old mother fell and we brought her here to live with us. She ended up on hospice for nearly a month and passed away in May, and all of us got COVID just before her funeral. Since I was trustee of her estate, I was in charge of getting her house ready to sell. After two months of cleaning, repair and misdirected wire transfers, it finally sold. But as you can imagine, I now have some things from house number three here. 

As part of the upheaval of my life and not entirely willingly, but knowing it is necessary, I am in the middle of selling our family cabin and bringing some things from there to the house. So now we have bits of four different houses trying to jostle themselves into one house. It is still  a work in progress. Lots of stuff has been given away and donated and much more is on the way out. But it is just "stuff" and just not that important any more.

During this time I have still found time to stitch because it is the thing that feeds my soul and keeps me sane.

I have been slowly working on my needlework box (Cabinet of Curiosities) or Kathrin's Kist. I have just finished the last side of the upper slope section.  I decided that this part of the casket would feature animals.

This is one of the sides. I tried to add some fun threads and techniques. I love the way that the dog and bird are the same size. The edges are a bit messy but will be trimmed and covered with silver tape.

The second side section has two bunnies, a fun tulip and a curly lamb.

The back of the slope features a very funky lion, a camel and leopard. 
The animals of the original caskets were often drawn by people who had never seen any of the live animals so they are often not quite true to life or sometimes a total fantasy.

The front was so much fun to do. I decided to do the Unicorn from Scotland and the Red Dragon from Wales. They are both padded and couched with metal threads. The wing is a separate piece so it and the flowers are detached elements that add lots of texture.

Silver Butterflies

 I love metal thread embroidery and antique jewelry and this project combines both of those interests. For a number of years, I have had an idea to use antique Edwardian bar pins as the body of a butterfly. The pins that I bought for this project are base metal because I knew that in taking off the pin on the back, the pins would be destroyed as a piece of jewelry but reborn as part of a work of art. Each of the unique bar pins inspired the embroidery of the wings of that specific butterfly. A  couple of the pins have colored stones and so I used that color in the embroidery. I raided my stash to find every silver metal thread that I had, I didn't use all of them but it was fun to have so many to choose from. I started with a metallic organdy for the basic shape. The embroidery techniques vary but include a lot of couched metal threads with some of the areas padded to add texture. I also used beads and silver leather.

This one became a moth because the pin was a different shape and I love how it changed the whole feeling.

I added some colored threads and beads because of the aqua center stone for this one.

This one has a blue stone and shows the frame. I just used a simple black frame for all of them.

Assisi Embroidery

 This pattern is from Modern Folk Embroidery called Fancy an ABC. I brought it because I loved the look but decided that I was never going to stitch the whole design. So.....I picked  part of the design that runs down the right side and tweaked it just a bit and stitched it.

I used a 56 count Seraphim linen in the color Antique Lace which has a bit of a green tone. I stitched it with one strand of Soie Surfine thread.

The technique is called Assisi. You stitch the background and leave the design open so you can see the linen.

Even on that tiny of a linen it is still 3 1/2 by 10 7/8 inches.

I love the way that it turned out. I needed a piece that required just stitching and no decisions.

Parham Owl and Progress on Needlework Casket (Kist)

 I have just finished another piece from the fabulous Jenny Adin-Christie. Her designs are wonderful and so creative. This one is the Parham Owl. It is an etui that has a pin cushion, and thimble holder under the head and the wings are needle holders.

Here is it perching on a stump. I am trying to find a creative way to add some grass around it. I think I know what I want it to look like but we shall see. 

I finished the head first and then the wings. The threads are not the usual ones that we go to when we have a design to work on but really enhance the look of the parts of the owl.

I am back at work on my casket. I have finished the designs for the slope and parts of the body. I needed to get the work that I had finished off of the slate frames so I could use them for the next section. So I glued the paper to the embroidery and then to the casket. It really is a "leap of faith" experience to brush glue on the back of embroidered silk fabric, stick it to paper and then have to wait to see if you did it right.  Anyway, it is on the box now and makes me excited to add more embroidery.

Pink Robin and Magnolia

 

This embroidery from Inspirations Magazine (issue 109) is called Pretty in Pink. It features a lovely magnolia blossom and a pink breasted robin from Australia (petroica rodinogaster). Who knew a robin could have such a vivid pink breast.

It is done in a technique called silk or soft shading. This allows the colors to shade from one into another without a sharp line where the colors change. It is a bit difficult to do but when it works the effect is glorious. 

The first time I saw it in the magazine, it reminded me so much of my friend Lynn, so I stitched it for her.

Whole Bag - Daffodil and Pomegranate - Petal Bag

 It is finished!!!! 

I love it when a design comes together and turns out the way that I imagined it would. Of course, it is not perfect, but hand work never is.

Daffodil Panel

It was quite an adventure figuring out how to do the edge of the daffodil cup and make it look seamless.  The center of the pomegranate is filled with tiny garnet beads, so it glows because of the way that the light bounces through them. The butterfly is tiny, but I managed to get several colors of silk and silver thread into the wings.

After I finished with the stitching, I needed to lace the embroidery onto the plastic shapes. When both sides were finished, I whip stitched the two sides together. 

The final step to get the petals ready was to couch Grecian gold cord around the whole petal and hide the ends of the cord.

When all five of the sides were finished, I carefully sewed the sides together. Which was an exercise in stitching into tight places. I tried a curved needle but finally ended up with a size 12 sharp that had a little bend to it and was able to sew them securely.

By this time, I was so close to being finished that I didn't even take any more pictures. 

The bag for the center is formed from two circles of gold silk with eyelet holes in the casing for the draw strings, and a plastic pentagon between the two layers for the bottom.  The centered pentagon was sewn to the bottom of the bag on the inside.

Last, I covered a pentagon with white silk for the outside of the bottom and sewed it in place.

Rose and Pear - Petal Bag

 I like the way that the rose turned out on this panel. The rose has both padded and dimensional petals, and the pear is padded silk shading over 3 layers of felt.

As I was working on the different panels the next stage was to add things like pearls, acorn caps and blueberries over the embroidered flat or padded elements on the fabric. 

Next to be stitched was all of the detached petals, leaves and other parts. They needed to have the pattern traced on another piece of fabric. The wire was basted down and then I colored the wire and fabric with a Copic pen.  This was done so that when I cut it out, any of the fabric threads that I couldn't quite get cut off would disappear and if the wire was not completely covered it did not show.  I used various techniques to fill in the shapes. A few were padded with string but mostly they were just stitched and shaded.  After all of the stitching was done, I put a very thin layer of acid free glue on the back so that they were more stable when they were cut out.

The ends of the wire were either just inserted into the fabric or wrapped with silk to make a stem before they were put into place. The ends on the back were bent down, couched to the lining fabric and then trimmed off. At this point the flowers, leaves and other elements were carefully bent to the required shape. 

Finally, I added flower centers, any other small details and then the gold pearl purl and spangles to the panel. Time to celebrate, the embroidery was finished. The photos at the start of each of the posts are of the finished panels.

Now all of that work was done, I could start to put it together.  I picked a soft gold silk taffeta for the lining and the inside bag. The stiffening is a combination of 7 and 10mm quilt template plastic. I wanted something that was thin but rigid and would not get crushed. For most of my small, shaped boxes or houses, I use comic board or Skirtex® to create the shape. I could not do that with this piece since the petals flex a little and if board gets bent it will stay that way and mis-shaped petals would spoil the whole bag.

Poppy and Acorns - Petal Bag

 This is the Poppy panel of the petal purse. I thought that I would do a six petal poppy to go with the acorns. A number of embroidered poppies have only four petals, but others do have six. The acorn caps are detached buttonhole and the nuts are a couched gimp.

The fabric that I used for the background is a Dupon silk in off white.  I ran the warp from side to side so that the more distinct weft with the slubs runs up and down. I mounted the silk with a white cotton backing in stretcher bars to keep both layers of fabric taut while stitching.

To transfer the design to the fabric, I placed a tracing of the design on tissue paper on the silk and then thread basted through all of the layers with a pale gold silk thread. Later I carefully tore off the paper so that the design on the silk was there but not too bold. It was easy to cover or tear out as necessary.

When the design was on the silk, I could finally start the embroidery. I mainly used satin stitch or soft shading with added stems of outline stitch. During this step I also added the flat elements of the design like the couched gold tendril and the snail. The snail is silk covered bullion wire that it couched in a spiral.

It was fun to be able to start the color embroidery after all of the work getting to this point.