Early Women of Books bag

I have been down a fairly large rabbit hole with this project. 

It began when I read The Gilded Page by Mary Wellesley, an extraordinary book for anyone interested in Medieval History, telling stories about the making of books before the printing press, of those who laboured in the industry, and those who commissioned works. Amongst these are stories of at least nine significant women, largely overlooked in their times. 

Of course, my first thought was that I could make a bag, featuring the names of the nine women, along the lines of the Voices of Women bag I made in January. When I mentioned  this to a friend from my 1965 undergraduate Early English Literature and Language Course, who was also reading the book, she wanted a bag too. I began to wonder if it would be possible to photograph the finished bag and somehow print the photograph on to fabric. While I thought about that I got on with the embroidery

I began by cutting two bag sides from the remaining fabric, and fusing some webbing to the back of each. I drew the nine names in pencil on the sides where they would fit, then mounted one piece in a hoop. I used Quaker stitch to embroider the first name. Leoba was an 8th Century English nun who sent, in a letter to St Boniface, a poem she had written. Boniface was related to her, and she later joined him as a missionary in Germany, ending up as Abbess at Tauberbischofsheim. Her letter to Boniface makes her the first named female  English poet. She had learned to write poetry from Eadburga, a skilled scribe and Abbess at the Thanet monastery, which supported a scriptorium.  

I used red perle 8 thread, and worked the names, dates and occupation of each woman. The dates are mostly estimations of the years they lived, but in Leoba's case, the date of her letter to Boniface. I used a darker red to embroider the one book title included, Encomium Emmae Reginae (In Praise of Queen Emma). This was a book commissioned by Queen Emma, to tell her story and secure the future of her dynasty. Emma's story is also extraordinary

It took me a couple of days to embroider each side and another to make up the bag, lining it in black linen.

I had worked out, as I embroidered, that I would need to do something to tell the story of these women. The original bag used names of, and quotations from, women well known to most of us, whereas these women were largely unknown to even those with a background in Medieval History.

I therefore began to create summaries of the nine lives, using The Gilded Page as a base, but adding and checking with other books and Internet sources. I put these together with photos of the embroidered faces and published a booklet entitled Early Women of Books on Blurb. It can be purchased as print-on-demand or in pdf form. I have no royalty on it, so the price is that placed by the printer. The whole book can be previewed free on the site, but it does take a long time to load in full. 

I have also been experimenting with the notion of a printed bag. I used photographs of the earlier bag to test out sites that offered printing on to tote bags. At first, the only site I found that would print both sides of a bag would only print to a section of the bag.    That was OK, but not quite what I wanted.   

After a lot of searching, I found a more customisable option and tried again. It was ordered from Melbourne, took about 3 weeks, was printed in China - and was what I was looking for. The background colour is more mauve than appears in the photo. The bag is quite large.

I have now ordered a small number of Early Women in Books bags to be printed. I will report back when they arrive - estimated to be at the end of April. When they arrive I will have the original embroidered bag, a booklet about the women, and four printed bags. It's been a very deep rabbit hole for the past couple of weeks. I've learnt a lot. 

The Guild is having an exhibition in August as part of SALA (South Australian Living Arts) with a theme of Divergent Textiles. It occurred to me today that these bags might be my entry! I think they qualify as divergent - crazy might be a more accurate term.

More Cosy Needlework Crime: Maggie Sefton's Kelly Flynn

This is another series of cosy crime I enjoy reading. 
Maggie Sefton lives in Colorado. She began her writing career with historical novels but switched to mysteries when she realised murders were at the core of her historical novels. Her knitting mysteries feature Kelly Flynn, an accountant who has left the corporate world of New York to freelance in Colorado. 

In the first of the series, Knit One, Kill Two Kelly investigates the death of her aunt. In subsequent books, Needled to Death, A Deadly Yarn, A Killer Stitch, Dyer Consequences, Fleece Navidad, Drop Dead Stitch, Skein of the Crime, and Unraveled,  the bodies keep coming.

In Needled to Death Kelly discovers a body while taking a group visit to an alpaca farm. A Deadly Yarn sees Kelly investigating the apparent suicide of a friend and A Killer Stitch revolves around the death of an alpaca sheep rancher with a 'love and leave them' attitude.  In Dyer Consequences  Kelly is battling vandalism of her home as well as dealing with the death of a member of her knitting group in a dye vat in the shop's basement. You get the idea - observation, integrity and relationships applied in a community the reader comes to know and identify with.

One thread of the books is Kelly's developing relationship with Steve, a local builder. Steve goes out of business in the economic downturn and breaks up with Kelly in the process. Her knitting and real estate friends help  her out. The global financial crisis is playing out in small town Colorado.

In the latest book, Unravelled,(which made the New York Times best seller list the week it came out) Kelly is  visiting a property in a canyon with her friend Jennifer when yet another body is found. One of Kelly’s clients falls under suspicion as does the friend of a friend. Kelly takes a photo of the gun at the murder scene and follows up, digging out information that eventually leads to an arrest.

Kelly also runs into Steve at a meeting and ends up playing volley ball against him. They start the long process of being in contact again. While this is a fairly predictable story with no great character development it is a pleasant read and a interesting to see an author dealing with very current economics in a domestic setting.

Each book has a knitting pattern and a recipe at the back. I haven't tried any of them.

Knit One Kill Two has pattern for Kelly's first, very basic, scarf, a simple template pattern for a sleeveless pullover and a recipe for Maggie's Cinnamon Rolls. Needled to Death has a Blueberry pie recipe, and patterns for an eyelet yarn scarf and a shell for a seed-stitch vest. Dyer Consequences has a recipe for pecan pie and a pattern for a knitted collapsible cloche. Fleece Navidad has a range of holiday knitting patterns (easy mittens, sweetheart gloves, a ribbed hat and two Christmas stockings) and a range of recipes (cinnamon rolls, pumpkin nut bread, ginger snaps,chocolate pecan rum balls, hot mulled wine, chocolate mint fudge and Carl's Doggie Christmas Cookies). Skein of the Crime has a triple layer carrot cake and a braided knit scarf while Unravelled has a knitting pattern for Sweet Summer Tee and recipe for Yummy chocolate cake.

This series seems to be available for Kindle as well as the paper formats, and Unravelled  is available as an audiobook. 

Maggie Sefton  also has a series of mysteries set in the real estate world and featuring Kate Doyle as sleuth. I haven't read any of these. She has a very clear and straightforward website at www.maggiesefton.com with useful information about her books and how she became a writer.

Cosy Needlework Crime - Monica Ferris

Another way I relax is reading crime fiction and in recent years I have sought out crime fiction set in needlework or knitting communities. One of my favourites is Monica Ferris's series set in Betsy Davenshire's Crewel World needlework shop in Minnesota.

Monica Ferris is a pseudonym of Mary Monica Pulver, who also writes as Margaret Frazer, Mary Pulver Kuhfeld and Margaret of Shaftesbury. She has a journalism background and teaches courses in mystery writing to both children and adults.

In the first of the series, Crewel World (1999), Betsy's sister is murdered in her own needlework shop. Betsy inherits the shop and it is through her reasoning and unravelling of motive and opportunity that the murder is solved. As the series rolls out, Betsy's skills in ordering data, understanding human motivation and engagement, building friendships and bringing people into the needleworking community involve her and that community in the investigation of a number of crimes.


The series is 'cosy' crime in the sense that Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories are cosy crime - small community life and close observation of human interactions combine with local police who don't mind a bit of talented local help from women who knit and sew. There are a set of regular characters who pull back sufficiently from stereotype to keep me reading.

In addition, each book has a stitching pattern of some kind at the end, mostly cross-stitch, but sometimes different. I like the books for the community they create, the positive view of small town life in the USA, as people adapt to changes in roles, the economy and relationships while adhering to their values.

The books following Crewel World are, in order:
Framed in Lace (1999), A Stitch in Time (2000), Unravelled Sleeve (2001), A Murderous Yarn (2002), Hanging by a Thread (2003), Cutwork (2004), Cruel Yule (2005), Embroidered Truths (2005), Sins and Needles (2006), Knitting Bones (2007), Thai Die (2008),  Blackwork (2009), Buttons and Bones (2010) and Threadbare, due to be published later this year. They are available in hardback, paperback, Kindle and other eBook forms.

As yet I haven't embroidered any of the patterns at the end of the books but I intend to do so, beginning with the Han Phoenix at the end of Thai Die  and getting around to the Tlatolli from Embroidered Truths and the shooting star from Buttons and Bones.

The stitching books I got for Christmas

My daughter Alison gave me three stitching books for Christmas. Each is likely to produce things that will be the subject of later blogs as they are full of very substantial ideas.

The Art of Manipulating Fabric, by Colette Wolf was published by Krause Publications in Wisconsin in 1996. It is encyclopaedic - giving instructions for every imaginable form of fabric manipulation - gathering, shirring, making ruffles, flounces and godets, pleating, smocking, tucking, cording, quilting, stuffing, using darts and various combinations of these. It has a useful section on Italian smocking and different traditions of surface smocking. It shows different effects of a technique, for example, the effects of different angles of a dart. There is a section on yoyos and puffs and their use as decoration and another on stuffed applique.

There is a lifetime of creative ideas in The Art of Manipulating Fabric.

Uniquely Felt by Christine White was published by Storey Publishing in Massachusetts in 2007. It is  a handbook on all kinds of felting but also contains 46 projects to illustrate and help master the techniques. It also features artists who specialise in the techniques. I am not sure that I am going to take up felting, but it is interesting and useful to know about the techniques and how some felt is created - such as jelly-rolled jewellery.

I really like the project-based approach and some of the objects are truly beautiful.

Victorian Needlepoint Designs is interesting on a couple of fronts. First, it is a 1975 Dover Publication, and although I have quite a few Dover books that I use for designs, none of them are actually embroidery or needlepoint books. I was unaware that Dover published a whole range of books of designs especially for needlework - most of them, like this one, reproducing designs of older publications.

Secondly, this book has a very clear section on the variations on tent stitch, the standard needlepoint stitch, with explanations about the effect on shape and strength from each stitch.

Finally, a couple of the designs (such as the bicycle on the cover) are really terrific. I'm considering ways of using them.