Gold work Turtle

 When I saw the gold work turtle in the Inspirations book, A Passion for Needlework vol. 3 by Georgiana Bellamy, I knew that it was on the to do list. Instead of purchasing the kit , I was able, with a little help from my friends to gather the many shades of purl, felt and  gold to make her. 

Sewing through the 8 layers of a combination of 3mm and 1mm felt for the shell was not for the faint of heart. I finally found that I could use a long size 13 beading needle and a pair of pliers to get through all of the layers. Sometimes it took 8 or 10 stabs of the needle from the bottom to get the needle to come out at the correct spot on top. It was worth it and she is wonderful.

Several years ago, my sweet daughter brought me a candle in a wooden bowl from Hawaii. The wood was grown there and is native Hawaiian. The candle is gone but the upside down bowl is the  perfect resting place for the the turtle.

I have several other projects in progress, actually 4 or 5 but that is normal. Sometime at the shop we get women who shyly admit that they have more than one project going at a time. I think that it is an achievement to celebrate. No need to ever be bored when there are so many wonderful things to read and do.

I am reading a very interesting book about the relationship of restrictive foundation garments and the status of women in Early Modern England. It is called Shaping Femininity by Sarah Bendall. This book brings together some of the things that interest me: English history, historic clothing, material culture and the restrictions placed on women throughout history by men who fought against the idea of a equal partner instead of a chattel.

Finished - Faith, Hope and Charity

 It is finished and framed. After  12 to 13 years of on and off stitching I finished this design from Heaven and Earth Designs. It is 525 by 393 stitches, that makes 206,325 stitches on 32 count linen over one linen thread. I added gold thread to the halos so it sparkles when it catches the light. I had to re-chart the faces and  pull out and re-stitch some of the hands. The colors were just too dark and looked like mud. I really like the way that Faith's hands turned out.

The back of the piece looks like an impressionistic  version of the design. 

Hummingbird moth and very old UFO

 The Hawthorn and Hummingbird moth is from a kit from Alison Cole. She discovered the moth on a trip to Utah when she was teaching here and said that she couldn't wait to stitch one.

It has dimensional flowers and  leaves in the pattern but I couldn't resist making the moth 3 dimensional so that it could hover over the flowers. Alison's pattern has the top of the moth and the wings. I found photo of bottom of the moth and stitched the bottom and created legs for it. It was a bit tricky  to put it all together. There are a few things that I might do differently if I was to do another one but I am happy with the way that I  turned out. I put a green wire in the bottom so that it could hover over the flowers. Taking photos was hard but I think that you can see the full moth.

In 1999, I took a class at seminar from Judy Souliotis. I worked on it in class but then it got put away for 20+ years. I was looking for a  UFO to work on and pulled it out. It is called Bouquet de Fleurs and is a basket of  shaded silk flowers on white Sha. The purpose of the class was to learn a number of techniques of shading with silk threads. It uses Japanese flat silk, Chinese slightly twisted silk and Needlepoint silk along with several types gold threads. I have improved my techniques over the years and now feel free to add and adapt as I go along if I want to, but stayed close to the original design of this one.

Tudor Embroidery in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

 Cynthia Jackson is a teacher with vast background and experience in historic English embroidery. This year I  have been taking an online class from her on Tudor Embroidery. We had 10 weeks of class and there were 5 projects for us to work on. All of the projects are based on historic sources. Some of the techniques were ones that I had a bit of experience with but others were completely new.  We stitched pieces on wool, silk file and finally velvet. 

I like the look of velvet but it is not nice fabric to work on. If you press it wrong, it flattens and will never be the same again but the surface is so lush that occasionally it is worth it. I finish Christmas stockings and refuse to work with velvet. Velveteen looks a bit different but is so much easier to work with and does not crush.

After we stitched some of the motifs, we cut them out  (that is enough to make you nervous) and applied them to the velvet.

This is a stylized flower and leaves. First we stitched it on linen and then cut it out and applied it to velvet with some added flourishes and spangles.

For the next we created twisted cords and applied velvet leaves and berries.

Then we stitched a flower and leaves on black velvet with gold threads.

This marigold is adapted from the Bacton Alter cloth. It is athought that the cloth was made from a skirt that was gifted from the wardrobe of  Queen Elizabeth to her lady-in-waiting, Blanche Perry. Later it was made into an alter cloth  that was used for many years in the parish church. The original is stitched on a cloth of silver so must have been sparkly and fabulous when it was new.

The last project was a rose and leaves that were stitched on linen and then cut out and applied to velvet. Gold stems tie the pieces together. Stitching on linen is easy and works well but then cutting little pieces out without cutting the stitching threads is a bit harder.  For the final degree of difficulty add velvet fabric. Velvet slips and crushes but gives a really rich looking background. I decided to stitch one set of flowers in yellow and one set in pink. 

The yellow rose is on a piece of antique blue/purple silk velvet that was not easy to work with but I like the color. The fabric did not like the prick and pounce powder nor the water color lines on it that were used to transfer the pattern.

The pink rose is on a piece of dark teal silk velvet. 

Red Welsh Dragon

Many of my ancestors come from Wales and somehow for me there is a born in fondness for Celtic music and designs. This little dragon was designed by Alison Cole. She had a thistle in the design and although I am also part Scottish, I didn't want to mix the symbols of the countries. Wales has the Red Dragon and also the Leek or the Daffodil and somehow a Leek just didn't work here so it needed the daffodil.

The dragon was fun to do. It is rather 3-D in person. The body is sculpted and one of the wings is a separate piece. Doing tiny flowers in dimensional embroidery can be a challenge but I love the way it turned out.

 

Past classes and UFO's

I can't believe just how fast this summer has gone.  I have told people that the only thing that I miss about the pandemic was the days and weeks of having nothing on my calendar. How that has changed this year. My mother told me that I needed to learn to say "NO" but, but but..... There are so many things I need to do and others that I just want to do, so.. now we are back to figuring out a schedule so I don't run around like crazy and nothing gets done.

Our Embroiderers' guild has a UFO challenge in the chapter. Unfinished Objects that linger in the back of the closet or drawer that keep calling our name. I am pretty good at getting rid of the ones that I no longer want to do but there are still a number that I really want to complete.

In 2002, I attended an embroidery symposium at the Peabody Essex Museum and took several classes. One, which I occasionally think about as I look at the box but it is not on the to-do list. The other one was a class from Shay Pendray and is a Japanese embroidery of a bunch of grapes. I have always wanted to finish it but.. you know how it goes. Other things end up on the top of the pile. I decided to pull it out and finish it. It is not very big and did not take long and now I am not sure what to do with it but it is finished.

Here are the grapes

and here is the small pouch that we got at the symposium. Which is how I knew when I attended.

Sewing tools/ pear shaped and a Fiber Talk Podcast and/or Youtube interview

 For years I have collected sewing tools and thought I ought to share some of them with you. This group is all pear shaped.   Three of them are wood and the other is vegetable Ivory.  

This is the same set open. From the left front, a pin poppet, behind it is a a thimble holder, next to that is a tape measure and finally a pincushion/thimble holder. The pin poppet was meant to hold pins in a enclosed secure case that went in the pocket. For years women's clothing was at least partially pinned together and if you lost a pin then this little case held the extra ones that you needed.  The thimble case is beautifully carved wood and helped keep track of your thimble. The tape measure is painted wood and the cotton tape is printed in inches. The case on the far right is one that my father carved for me. I saw one like it and so he made this one. I lined it with velvet and left a place in the center for a thimble.

This is the last tool that I could not resist. It is a Vegetable Ivory pear measuring tape that is carved and pierced. The tape is red cotton marked in centimeters.  It has Mar del Plata written on it. Often small sewing tools were made as souvenirs. This one was for a city in Argentina. 

One day several weeks ago I got a message from Gary L Parr. He does Fiber Talk as a podcast and on Youtube. He and Beth visited with me for an hour about all sorts of embroidery related topics. I was not sure how I would do but he is a wonderful host and so easy to talk to. We also talked a bit about embroidery tools and I mentioned that I had a pincushion with a chicken wishbone. Kind of an odd thing but I have seen many of them for sale.

https://wetalkfiber.com/2021/04/11/fiber-talk-with-carolyn-standing-webb/
Also on FlossTube at: https://youtu.be/XPnzllT3m_Y