English Work: Embroidery Short Course - Part 1

The Ashmolean Museum have been running a series of lectures and short courses in conjunction with The Eye of the Needle exhibition. I have attended them all with the exception of a black work workshop that was added as an afterthought. I have already written about the Empresse of Flowers workshop run by Lynn Hulse and Nicola Jervis. I also attended a short course on Opus Anglicanum run by Tanya Bentham. I have been following Tanya’s blog for several years and enjoy her quirky sense of humour as much as I admire her embroidery.

This was a 3 day course spread over several weeks with the first day being in August. In fact, I was not able to attend the first day of the course because I was doing something far more important than embroidery – throwing a party to mark my Daddy’s 80th Birthday. I’d been asking him for months how he would like to celebrate the occasion and, in the end, I was slightly worried that I had somewhat bullied him into having a party. In the weeks leading up to the party the weather had been cold and damp and my dad had not been enjoying the best of health (understatement, he hasn’t enjoyed the best of health for many years, just before the party he was feeling much worse than usual). But Sunday, 17 August dawned bright and sunny, and pleasantly warm – perfect for a garden party. Better still, Dad had awoken feeling bright and sunny and in the mood for a party. From my point of view the day could not have gone any better, weather was great, food was delicious (thank you Marks & Spencer’s party food) and the guests all enjoyed themselves but, most importantly of all, Dad had a lovely day and didn’t stop smiling.

Meanwhile, back at the Ashmolean the rest of the students were choosing their designs, stretching their fabric onto their frames, transferring their designs to their fabric and selecting their threads. I would imagine that took most of the morning so they then had a lovely afternoon of stitching to look forward to. Because I was not able to be there, Tanya chose my design, stretched my fabric onto my frame, transferred my design to my fabric and selected my threads, and she did a jolly fine job on every count. Tanya left these together with some very details instructions in the safe keeping of someone at the Ashmolean until I could collect them later in the week.

© Tanya Bentham/Carol-Anne Conway

Tanya had instructed me to work only on the dress as we would be learning how to do faces in the second class. With Sue’s unexpected illness and death, I didn’t much feeling like stitching but I did make an effort to complete some before the class in September so that Tanya could assess how I was doing. Tanya had warned us that Opus Anglicanum is a slow process but mine was going extremely slowly. That may be because I had not read one part of Tanya’s excellent instructions properly. The instructions said that the dress should be filled with very close, small split stitches using three (very fine) strands of silk. I missed the ‘three’ in the instructions and was filling the dress with very close, small split stitches using one (very fine) strand of silk. No wonder it was taking me so long!

© Tanya Bentham/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Sleeve Bag

I had such a good time demonstrating at the original Big Stitch Day in 2012 that I didn’t hesitate to sign up for this year’s Big Stitch at the Ashmolean Museum.

I’m told that in terms of numbers through the door it was even more successful this time around and I certainly enjoyed it every bit as much as last time. I gave two demonstrations this year, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, which gave me time to attend one of the study groups and grab a quick bite to eat. Because The Eye of the Needle exhibition was still running, I thought the Feller Swete Bag would be a good piece to take to demonstrate. When I said that it was a reproduction of a piece in the exhibition most people were interested to know more about it and I had several long conversations about the difference between basket weave needlepoint, tent stitch and half cross stitch.

Branch members who were demonstrating, or helping out in some other way, were asked to make a sleeve bag so that we could be identified as 'helpers'. I looked in charity shops for an old denim jacket from which to make my sleeve bag but every one I found I felt was in too good a condition to cut up. In the end I used the second sleeve from a dress shirt that someone had already cut up to make their bag. They had used all of the pin tucks and the button band to jazz up their bag so all remained was a plain white, double cuff sleeve.

Back in 2011 I had made a crochet rope handle for my Poppy Pouch. I put the handle away somewhere safe until I was ready to make up the bag … and promptly forgot where that safe place was. Eventually I made a second handle for the Poppy Pouch so I could finish the bag and the original remained in its ‘safe place’ until I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago. I decided to use that original crochet rope as the handle for my sleeve bag and to use the left over beads, stored in the same ‘safe place’, to embellish it.

© Carol-Anne Conway

First, I embroidered a few simple flowers on the placket.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I then beaded a double zig-zag border onto the tuck on the cuff and made a fringe to hang down from the folded back cuff.

© Carol-Anne Conway

It only took a few evenings to make and embellish the bag but stitching through the cuff with a beading needle was though and I repeated pierced the middle finger on my right hand, making it rather sore!

© Carol-Anne Conway

There was a wonderful variety of sleeve bags on display at the Big Stitch and I think some of the visitors had started a new craze of 'sleeve bag spotting' because I was asked a few times "may I see your bag, please". As before, I really enjoyed the Big Stitch day and look forward to the next one.

Happy Stitching.

Silky Glow Sampler

It seems to have been the year of the sampler!

Following the great success of The Big Stitch in 2012, the Ashmolean Museum and the Embroiderer’s Guild decided to host a second day in conjunction with the Eye of the Needle exhibition. As part of that event, SEW Region held a members’ competition to create a “Modern Sampler”. More about that later.

© Judy Dixon/Carol-Anne Conway

By pure coincidence, the Royal School of Needlework staged an in-house exhibition of Samplers and a 21st century sampler competition. The brief was to submit a design, not the stitched sampler, for judging. The two winners would then be invited to work with the RSN to stitch the sampler. Unfortunately, I did not manage to see the exhibition and nor did my entry win but I quite like my design and, if I get around to stitching it, I will share that later.

And equally by coincidence, and before either of these competitions were announced, Jo, one of our committee members, proposed that we (members of Oxford Branch) do a stitch-along of a sampler published in edition 59 (June/July 2009) of Stitch magazine.

© Judy Dixon/Carol-Anne Conway

A small group of us meet up approximately once a month to stitch together and then aimed to complete that section as ‘home work’ before the next meeting. One or two of the group chose their own colour scheme and it was interesting to see how different colour ways affected the overall look of the completed samplers. Ever the safe player when it comes to colour, I chose to use the original colour scheme.

© Judy Dixon/Carol-Anne Conway

The sampler, designed by Judy Dixon, is a combination of traditional hardanger stitches, some familiar stitches such as eyelet or cushion stitch, and some less well known variations on stitches. Part of what appealed to me about this project was the cut work – something I have not tried before. I did one small piece of hardanger many years ago but never completed it. Hardanger is one of those techniques that I find relatively simple to do and, therefore, quite relaxing. There were quite a few large cloister blocks in the border, which was the most time consuming part of the project. The sampled stitches were fun and, as they were mostly small sections, each one completed relatively quickly.

© Judy Dixon/Carol-Anne Conway

I love the soft colours combined with the smoky dove greys and the different textures of the threads were fun to try out but I thought that one or two thread choices where not the best for the stitches (unless I was using the wrong number of strands).

© Judy Dixon/Carol-Anne Conway

Overall, I really enjoyed stitching this piece and working it as a stitch along. I had been tempted to do mine in shades of grey on black canvas and wish that I had been brave enough to give that a go.

© Judy Dixon/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Happy 5th Birthday, Garstang Japanese Embroidery Group

The weekend before last, I spent a few days on a Japanese embroidery course in Garstang with some dear friends.

Sue and I often joined the Garstang Japanese embroidery group and we had helped at the Stitch and Creative Craft Shows in Manchester when Denise and Jane were considering teaching JE in the region. We meet several of their first student's at one or more of those shows. We didn't go to the first two classes when all of the students were doing the taster class or beginning Phase I but when we first went to Garstang in November 2010, we immediately felt part of this lovely group.

I had been looking forward to the weekend with mixed feelings. This would be our first embroidery course since we said goodbye to Sue; it was bound to be emotional. Also, Sue and I usually travelled there and back together and I knew I was going to miss her during the long drive. For the first two days we were all very brave but on the Saturday morning our British reserve crumbled and it was all Colleen's fault!

Saturday, 11 October marked the 5th anniversary of the first day of the first Garstang Japanese Embroidery course and Colleen had secretly planned to mark the occassion. She had commissioned the most beautiful celebratory cake.

At first, there was delight at the surprise and admiration of the cake but we could not celebrate the occasion without thinking of our absent friend. The flood gates of emotion opened and, for a short while, we gave way to our pent up grief. But I think it did us good.

... and the cake was delicious!

That evening we remembered Sue with laughter rather than tears. Denise invited us to play Uno, one of Sue's favourite games. Denise had never played before and was surprised at the slightly ruthless nature of the game. Colleen and Jane, particularly, seemed to have a vendetta against each other. But it was all good natured fun, we were not keeping score or even counting who won the most hands. I think that Sue was smiling down on us and perhaps rearranging the deck so that Colleen and Jane always had a card that forced the other to pick up or miss a turn whenever they called Uno!

Happy 5th Birthday, Garstang Japanese Embroidery Group and many Happy Stitching Returns

Lest We Forget - Part 4

By the time I had stitched all fifty petals on the flowers around the heart I was getting the hang of oyster stitch and starting to enjoy it.

© Carol-Anne Conway

So much so, in fact that I decided to use oyster stitch for the leaves as well. I tried to make the leaves longer and thinner than the petals. Because I had chosen a sheer fabric to show up the shadow work, the trailing threads also show through but I rather like the 'sketchy' effect that creats.

© Carol-Anne Conway

There are only twenty leaves around so it did not take me very long to complete those and the stem stitched stem, which I think helps to define the shape of the heart.

© Carol-Anne Conway

This was a fun project, made more so for learning two new techniques, and I am quite pleased with the finished piece.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Lest We Forget - Part 3

On projects such as this, I like to try stitches/techniques that I have not done before or ones I have tried without great success. One of the stitches that came up in Sharon Boggon's Take A Stitch Tuesday was oyster stitch. At that time, I completely failed to learn the stitch but I thought that it was the perfect stitch for the flowers around the heart so I thought I would give it another go. I reviewed Sharon's instructions. I also took a look at Mary Corbet's oyster stitch video guide and looked up the stitch in the stitch directories I have. When learning something new, I find it helpful to consult as many resources as possible, what is not readily understandable in one may be clearer in another. On this occasion I found Mary's video guide to be most useful but I had to watch it several times before I put all of the steps together and I had to make quite a few stitches before it could do it without reference to the video.

The first step was never a problem for me, it is just a twisted chain stitch.

© Carol-Anne Conway

The next step was the one that foxed me originally. You slide the needle under the bottom 'leg' of the twisted chain then take the needle down inside the loop just formed. This, apparently, makes a rosette chain stitch.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

Pull the thread through but leave a nice loop around the rosette chain and ring the needle back to the front of the fabric inside that loop. Take a small stitch over the loop thus making a chain stitch around the rosette chain.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

What I learn was that it helps if you leave the loops bigger than you want them until you insert the needle into the fabric for the next stitch, and then draw up the loop until it rests against the needle. I experimented with how much space I left between the point were I came up through the fabric and the point were I went down to give me plumper petals.

Happy Stitching

Lest We Forget - Part 2

I'm not sure whether the technique I used on the lettering was one of my own invention or an existing technique that I have not come across yet, or simply a combination of two existing stitches.

© Carol-Anne Conway

On the finer strokes of the letters, I did a simple stem stitch but where the strokes broadened I switched to working shadow stitch.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I think it worked quite well.

Happy Stitching

Lest We Forget - Part 1

Earlier this year the South East West (SEW) Region of the Embroiderers' Guild held a competition to coincide with The Regional Day. 2014 is the centenary of the start of the First World War so the theme for the Branch completion was 'Lest We Forget'. Oxford Branch created an album of 'Sweetheart' for their entry. This is the card I contributed to the album.

I based my design on a card I found via a Google search for sweetheart cards.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Many of the original cards are stitch on fine, translucent fabrics, so I used a fine muslin from my stash.

© Carol-Anne Conway

To emphasis the translucence of the fabric, I stitched the rose in shadow stitch. I have never used this technique before so there was a bit of a learning curve.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I varied the stitch size to give different densities of colour. I think it works better with closely worked stitches than the more open stitching.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Empresse of Flowers - Part 2

On the second day of the course we again split into two groups. My group picked up were we left off the previous day, experimenting with stitches for our finished piece.

I tried out a suggestion offered by Nicola for the cornflower. Nicola described a technique that she had seen on an extant 17th century embroidery where the petals were divided into three distinct shades of blue rather than the blended change of colour achieved by using long and short stitch shading. In Nicola's version the divisions follow the zig-zagged petal edge. First, I drew guide lines for the divisions and then outlined the petal with split stitch.

© Ornamental Embroidery/Carol-Anne Conway

Starting at the outer edge, I satin stitched the first section in the darkest shade of blue.

© Ornamental Embroidery/Carol-Anne Conway

I split stitched a line along the edge of the next section before filling it with the medium blue, and likewise with the final section, which I filled with the palest shade.

© Ornamental Embroidery/Carol-Anne Conway

© Ornamental Embroidery/Carol-Anne Conway

I don't like the appearance of this method as much as the blended shading but I think it will be interesting to have both techniques on my final piece so will do the cornflower this way and use long and short stitch for the honeysuckle.

In the afternoon, my group were taught plated braid stitch by Lynn. I have done PBS before on the Goldwork sampler, in deed, I experimented with several variations of this stitch but I think you can never learn enough about a technique, especially a complex stitch like PBS so was looking forward to the lesson. Lynn had prepared very good notes for us to follow and went through the steps one by one. Although PBS is not a counted stitch, we used a low count canvas and tapestry wool to learn the stitch before having a go with gold thread on our muslin.

Unless I did it very regularly, I would not be able to do PBS without refreshing my memory so I needed Lynn's input but having done the stitch before, after a few repetitions I was stitching quite confidently.

Throughout the weekend, Nicola spent some time with each of us developing our own design guide, making final colour and stitch choices. This is how I spent the last part of the second afternoon. I had already, more or less, decided on the colours and techniques I would use for the peas, strawberries and cornflower but we considered different options for details I had not yet thought about, like the peas and the strawberry flower. We also discussed options for the honeysuckle, which, as previously mentioned, I think I will work in long and short stitch shading. Nicola discussed some options other than PBS for the trailing vine, including an interesting zig-zag satin stitched version she had seen on an extant embroidery. I think I will probably do mine in PBS; I rather enjoy the stitch and would like to work more than the short, sample lengths I have done thus far.

© Ornamental Embroidery/Carol-Anne Conway

This was a great two-day workshop. I really enjoyed the format of developing our own design ideas for the piece. Lynn and Nicola are extremely talented and knowledgeable and I took full advantage of the opportunity to learn new techniques and better acquaint myself complex techniques that I was not fully confident with.

Happy Stitching