Catch up

It is a long time since I posted to this blog. In the last post, on 19 April,  I explained that I was posting daily to what began as my travel blog,  https://jillian-england2020.blogspot.com.  I continued the daily posts in order to provide a bit of a record of my Coronavirus lockdown, and then living under the post-covid restrictions. 

I have no idea how long I will continue the daily blog. I have assumed that there will be a point when the end of the Covid restrictions will bring the blog to a natural conclusion. If this is not the case I will need to reassess. When the daily blog concludes, I will return to more-or-less weekly posts here.

Two projects completed from the Crewel Work Company Retreat in March.

In the meantime, this is a summary of the embroidery projects I have finished in the last couple of months and discussed in the other place. I will continue to summarise every month or so.

The top piece is from Nicola Jarvis's class and the lower one from Kate Barlow's class.

The Muncaster Orange shown here being blocked, was begun in a class with Phillipa Turnbull at the March retreat.

The Muncaster Orange was added to my crewel chair, along with the Mellerstain Screen panel which I worked once I had returned home.










This bag is based on a design from the family collection of a friend of Italian-Australian background. An account of that collection can be found at https://www.jdellit.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/TheEmbroideryLegacyofMariaGraziaCarminaandherFamily-1.pdf




I completed this songbird design by Anna Scott from Inspirations magazine Issue 106 and appliqued it on to a bag I made from fabric from Ink and Spindle.















These 78 hexies are ready to add to to plain black edges of my winter quilt when it comes off my bed as outlined in my 24 March post.


These two birds are designs printed on linen by Nicola Jarvis. I embroidered them using colours of Australian birds and appliqued them on to another bag made from Ink and Spindle fabric.






















Niamh is modelling a Fair Isle scarf I made for one of my daughters,











The owl bag was my travel project. It has progressed, but isn't finished.




This Muncaster Orange is a reverse of the one above, to fit on the chair in a complementary position. This is what I am working on at the moment.

The hand-towel below has not been part of the daily blog. It was a birthday gift for a friend whose birthday is today. I would not have normally picked pink, but I wasn't able to source another colour in a timeline I could rely on.








We are both fond of flannel flowers-Actinotis Helianthi.













This brings us up to date.  I will continue to update this blog on an irregular basis until I reach a point where daily post-Covid posts are not needed.

Jacobean Medley with Phillipa Turnbull at BATB

Two weeks ago I spent three enchanted days stitching crewel with a twenty other women at Beating Around the Bush. 

When the BATB program came out, I expected to be away for the first week of the event, so I booked into Phillipa Turnbull's Crewel work class for the last three days, when I expected to be back in Adelaide.

In the end I didn't go away for that week, but with the Guild Exhibition on, I'm glad I didn't try to fit in more!

Beating Around the Bush is a very different experience from a small group embroidery retreat. BATB is a chance to be part of a big group of people who come for a wide range of embroidery experiences. It shows the range of embroidery interests, from stumpwork to Solerosom, crazy patchwork, Japanese beading, crewel work, tambour and more.

Each teacher is free to set up their room with their work - including kits and other supporting bits to sell, On the first evening of my three-day class time was provided to visit other classrooms to look and buy.

Although I have travelled with Phillipa on her first Scottish Highlands Tour,  have attended two of her retreats, and booked into another one,  I have only been able to experience her teaching in a couple of two hour blocks. This was a chance to spend three whole days learning from her as an embroidery teacher.

I'm so glad I did.

Our project was A Jacobean Medley, an elegant design with a good variety of crewel stitches.  Philippa is a really good teacher. She is clear and explicit in her instructions. My technique noticeably improves from working with her. Her knowledge and skill come from years of closely examining examples of extant historical crewel work and working out exactly how they were made - down to needle angles, order and short-cuts. Not content with analysis, she practises and perfects the physical execution to ensure a comparable result. She observes and corrects posture & handling techniques in the pleasantest possible way.

I also really like the business model of The Crewel Work Company - the partnerships with museums & private collections. It is respectful, educational and ensures we understand and honour our history. It's why I go back and back.


Most teachers have their preferred hoop or frame. Phillipa works with and sells a seated hoop of the stalk variety- the same model used by the RSN when I was there. I too prefer a sit-on hoop. Mine is (I think!) a 7-8 year old Lacis one. I also have a Nurge seated frame - great for arm adjustment, but the clamp is a bit limited.

The screw holding the stem into my Lacis stand has worked loose in recent years. Tape on the wooden screw has been a fix for a while, but the problem, I suspect, is wear on the thread in the stem of the stand.

When this began to impact my work, I swapped to Phillipa's version. The screw on this one is hardened plastic, which I suspect will hold longer than the wooden version. In any case, it worked brilliantly to hold my work firm - and is continuing to do so as I finish it at home.


The best thing about BATB is the range of students (mostly women). While I recognised several members of my Guild, there are lots of overseas visitors - and a huge number of women from country towns in Australia. I met  three Victorian women whose husbands had initiated the visit - they were off exploring the Flinders Ranges while the women were at BATB.

In our class of 19 there were 3 women from Melbourne, 3 from Canberra, 2 from Sydney, 2 from Adelaide, 1 each from Tallangatta, Sale, Wangaratta, Rockhampton, Ravensthorpe, Young, New Zealand, Huston, Texas and (I think)  Gidgegannup.

And yes, I have been working steadily on my piece since the class finished. I haven't finished yet, but am making good progress - and I have an idea for using the final product, along with other crewel pieces I have, including a couple not yet stitched.

I am being reminded of how soothing and satisfying crewel work is - especially its capacity to absorb error and enable corrective work over the top rather than by unpicking! It blends and smooths.

There will be more on this as I progress!  It's a great privilege, and a lot of fun,  to be able to participate in this class in my home town.

I might even join the Guild's Crewel Work group!

Dorothy Wordsworth's Post bag

I am posting this from Adelaide Airport, about to undertake the first leg of my journey to London, from where I will  once again travel to Windermere, in the English Lakes District, to attend another of the Lady Ann's Needlework Spring Retreats organised by Phillipa Turnbull. When I attended last year's Retreat I had no intention of travelling to England again this year. It was, however, such a great experience and such a great group of people, that I, and most of my fellow students, decided to return in 2018.

When I returned home in mid-January from a beach holiday, there was a parcel waiting for me. It was canvas, wool and a pattern for Dorothy Wordsworth's Postbag, which we had viewed at the Wordsworth Museum in March 2017. Phillipa was inviting us to make something based on the bag in advance of the Retreat. She had also organised for the results to be displayed at the Museum towards the end of our Retreat.

I was mildly panicked.The next day I was to begin the first of my two Summer Week classes at the Embroiderers' Guild and I had an unfinished project from my beach holiday.  As a fanatical finisher, I was even more panicked at the end of my Summer School Classes.

Even though I have published blog posts on the Summer Week Classes, I prioritised Dorothy Wordsworth's bag over finishing those projects. I have been working on this in the background and only returned to Opus Anglicanum and Australian Bush once I had finished the work on this bag.

The story, however, has had to wait a bit to be told.

So panicked was I, that I began work immediately, using only the notes that came in the package. I decided, however, to approach it differently to Phillipa's suggestion.

The original bag is roughly A4 size. If I reproduced that size I would need to back the bag with something.  I decided instead to make the piece longer, so I could fold it in half to make a smaller bag embroidered on both sides.


I began by embroidering a set of diagonal lines delineating the different colours in the original.

I initially used cross-stitch in a single thread on the diagonals but soon decided that the coverage was a bit thin, and that cross-stitch was going to take me too long. After some experimenting, I settled for tent stitch using a double thread.


Once I had the diagonals in place I began to add the skeletons of the little trees, using a silk thread in my needle along with the two strands of wool.  This was a bit tricky, but I got into a rhythm of pulling the wool into place before pulling the silk into place - not perfect, but allowing the silk to dominate.

I completed a corner to make sure it was going to work. I  used the dark red and dark blue as my backgrounds, rather than their lighter versions - hoping I had enough thread.

I then went ahead and outlined the whole piece, filling in the tree skeletons.

It was about at this point that I got a link to Phillipa's tutorial . If I had waited, I may well have, as Phillipa suggests, started in the middle and worked out, working the skeletons in wool first, using the silk to form a cross over the wool stitch!

As it was I was too far in where Angels fear to tread!

I  kept going.



By now my panic had subsided and I was having fun. I had forgotten how addictive canvas work can be. This is especially so when the pattern repeats itself as it does here. I love being able to work from an outline without referring to a pattern.

While I am telling this story in a single blog post, it took me about three weeks of not doing much else to finish the embroidery. I'm very grateful to my family and friends at the Embroiderers' Guild who encourage me and dampened the panic!






The thread in the needle in the canvas is all I had left of the dark blue!

My stash yielded several options for lining fabric, but this printed linen seemed the natural choice.








A maroon zip, side seams and a neat, useful bag emerged.

The finished bag was slightly twisted, so I blocked it. It took a while to dry.

The bag has, of course, one side where the trees face the zip and one facing the other way. That's fine by me. There are inconsistencies and imperfections in my stitching. That's also OK by me. I'm not after perfection - but serviceability, harmony & tribute to Dorothy Wordsworth.





I really like the result. It will be useful and I'm happy to share it with my fellow students and the Wordsworth Museum. It is safely packed in my suitcase which is now booked all the way to London.


I will continue to post to this blog while I'm away but most of my travel adventures, for anyone interested, will be found at https://jillianengland2018.blogspot.com.au/. The first post should be there within 7 hours of this post.