Camellias, flower 2

When I had completed the petals of the first flower at the end of day two, one of my tutors asked if I wanted to move onto midare-sashinui next. I definitely was not!

Instead I opted to do the left hand flower. It is worked midare-sashinui, the same as the first flower, but this one is padded and worked in flat silk. The advantage of working in flat silk is that the silk spreads slightly and fills the space between stitches. The disadvantage of working in flat silk is that the silk spreads slightly and fills the space between stitches! That is the paradox of working with flat silk.

Each of the petals is padded on the outer edge. The laid stitches of padding cotton are quite long so they are held in place with a couching thread stitched in a lattice pattern.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

The first petal went in surprisingly well but it took me all day to do all of the padding and stitch one petal!

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Since returning home I have had very little time for serious embroidery (I am very busy at work and that is taking most of my time and energy) but I have managed to stitch two more petals.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I don’t like the way that the second petal looks but I learnt so much in stitching it that it was worth continuing with even when I knew that it was going wrong. I left it in for reference while I stitched the next petal.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

This one I am pleased with, so now I will reverse stitch the bad one and try again.

Happy Stitching

Camellias, flower 1

There are three methods for realistic stitching (long and short stitch) in Japanese embroidery: alternating LSS (nagamijika-sashinui), random LSS (midare-sashinui) and curved angular stitches (kussetsu-sashinui).

The first flower is worked in alternating long and short stitch in twisted silk.

Long and short stitch is something of a misnomer, only the first row is worked in long and short stitches. It seems to me that the first row is crucial; if that one is not right then none of the following rows will be. I really concentrated making the long and short stitches consistent lengths, spacing them evenly and following the contours of the petal.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

In subsequent rows the stitches are all roughly the same length as the original long stitches and only every other stitched is worked filling the space between the 'long' stitches.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Each petal is worked in three shades. The first row, on the outer edge of the petal, is worked in the darkest shade, followed by the next darkest with the palest shade at the inner edge. The thickness of the thread also gradually decreases from the outside to the inside of each petal.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I don’t think that I have ever concentrated so hard on a piece of embroidery. To my delight and surprise I completed the first petal without too much angst.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I was feeling a little less anxious about LSS but did not want to move onto the other methods until I was comfortable with this one so I spent the rest of day one and the whole of day two completing the petals on the first flower.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I must say that I really surprised myself with this flower. I like how it came out. So far, so good.

Happy Stitching

Phase VII - Camellias

I spent the second week of March in Bournemouth at a Japanese embroidery class. This is my seventh successive year attending this class. Each year I begin a new Phase; this year was Phase VII -the dreaded long and short stitch. There are two Phase VII designs available, Pansies and Camellias. Both are delightful. I am stitching Camellias.

Back in September Michiko wore a stunning kimono to the Stitch and Creative Crafts show. Although the flowers on it are peonies, I thought that the colour scheme would easily transfer to Camellias. Michiko very kindly brought the kimono to Preston in October so that I could colour match some silks to it and my tutor ordered the design on the fabric that most closely matched the background.




Because of shipping delays, I did not see the fabric until the first day of class. When I picked out the silks that I had intended to use they did not go well with the fabric. We made another selection in similar shades but those didn’t work either. Margaret then made a selection of apricot shades that I really like.


I spent the entire morning framing up, selecting silks, reading instructions - basically doing anything but stitching. Just when I thought that I had run out excuses, I read on my box chart that the first flower in worked in twisted silk. Aha, I had not twisted my silk, another reason not to get started!

Happy Stitching

New Beginnings

The first week of March did not go exactly as I had planned. My beloved little car suddenly and unexpectedly blew a gasket. Only 2 days earlier she had passed the MOT and the day before I had paid for a year’s tax. I thought that we would be together for at least another year but the cost of repair was non-viable so reluctantly I have had to let her go.

We are a 4 car family and I am not entirely comfortable with that. I have wondered if I could do without my car. The problem is we all work full time, but at disparate locations and we live in a village with no public transport. Just one week without my car has shown me how much I rely upon it and I am definitely not ready to give it up. The weekend before I went to Bournemouth was spent frantically searching the county’s car dealers for a replacement vehicle. The search was proving fruitless and we were on the verge of giving up but at our last port of call we found a cute little Corsa. It was sad to wave good bye to my old companion but it was going to happen one day. I’m just getting to know my new car and am looking forward to the adventures we will have together.

In addition, our cat severely beat up (by another cat not by me) and I had to take her to the vet a couple of times. She has made a full recovery now but needed a little TLC for a few days. Things that I had hoped to do before Bournemouth fell by the wayside. I didn’t have a lot of stitching time but I need to do some just to stay sane. When we do the stitching shows, we take a selection of our work. Sometime ago Denise brought with her a small design called ‘Geisha in the Snow’. It totally captivated me and was the perfect design for my frame cover. Denise very generously shared her design but I had not got around to stitching it, until now.


I traced the design onto tissue paper and stitched straight through the paper into the fabric. The Geisha, her umbrella and the bamboo are all worked in stem stitch. The snow is worked in seed stitch. The whole project took just two evenings to complete.


Unusually, I have come to a point where I am beginning lots of new things. Loving Couple was finished a while ago and I have been ready and waiting to start Phase VII of my Japanese embroidery. Poppy Pouch has been nearing completion and would have been done if events had not taken their own course. Phase IV Japanese bead embroidery is waiting in the wings. I have a small project screaming for my attention and I have also enrolled in another on-line course that starts on 1st April.

Everything feels very new and exciting at the moment.

Happy Stitching

... and a Couple More

The Travelling Books for the Oxford Branch of the Embroiderer’s Guild are now into their third season. This time around my pages are following a theme based on the inchies I made just before Christmas (the first TB in my group actually got some of the inchies). I am exploring altering fabrics and each one began life as a piece of white cotton that I dyed with Brusho.


My second piece very much followed the same process as the inchies, first bonding torn fragments of coloured silver foil to the base fabric. I covered this with a piece of lace curtain and then free machine embroidered all over the surface with a variety of threads. I then did more FME in certain areas to pick out some of the lace pattern.


I am not a pleased with this page as the inchies; it is too pink for my taste and not as textured as the first piece.


The third piece I treated differently. First I applied gold paint paste through a stencil. The stencil is a katagami which is a hand cut paper stencil used for dyeing kimono. I have a couple of 'retired' stencils that are no longer in good enough condition for use on kimono. I was hesitant to use them, not really knowing much about them or how to care for them properly. But I have decided that i would rather use them a few times that let them languish in a draw, never to be used again. The design on them is very intricate and gives a very delicate gold pattern on the fabric.


I did not want to totally obscure the pattern so I did not overlaid it with any other materials this time; instead I have over stitched with a variety of threads using some of the decorative stitches on my machine. To stabilize the fabric during stitching I tacked it onto a piece of creative plastic; that allowed me to stitch right to the edges. I don’t think that the design is very coherent but I think the method has some potential and is worth exploring further.


Happy Stitching

... or Two ...

This is another stop/start travelling page made for the swap on the Embroiderer’s Guild forum.


I began this one at a Flower Pounding workshop with Linda Rudkin.


The component parts were made at the workshop but it waited some time to be assembled into a finished design.


Although I had attached the individual flowers with beads, I felt that it was lacking embroidery so added the word Hydrangea in stem stitch.


I think that this is one of the prettiest Travelling Pages I have made thus far.


Happy Stitching

A Travelling Page ...

I started this travelling page several weeks ago but it was a very stop/start project.

I had space-dyed several pieces of cotton with Brusho and from those I selected a piece that I thought had an Autumnal feel to it. The design, by Sam Bourne, was published in Issue 8 of Stitch Magazine in January/February 2001. I have been exchanging Travelling Pages with friends on the Embroiderer’s Guild forum; this design must have stayed in my mind because when I came to do a page for a member who loves trees and oak trees in particular, I remembered it.


I found the instructions very easy to follow.


I enjoyed making the component parts ...



... and assembling them into the finished design.


Happy Stitching