October 2020 Update

Much has happened since I last posted here in July. Many places have had second waves of Covid and various degrees of restrictions or lockdowns have been imposed. Here in Adelaide we currently have no known community transmission for several weeks. We are still, however, cautious, observing distance, hand hygiene and restrictions on numbers gathering. 

In that time, Blogger has altered its tools and coding for blogposts and I have struggled with the new text wrapping tool. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  Apologies in advance for much less than perfect layout.

I am still posting my daily blog which has included the embroidery I have been working on since I last posted an update here in July. It is still my intention to continue the daily blog for a year - until 24 February 2021. It's a kind of Journal of a Covid Year. Once that year is over, I intend to return to more or less weekly posts here.                                                                                                                  I made some progress on my crewel chair adding a Jacobean flower, an acorn and  redwork rabbit.

Once I got these pieces on the chair, I realised I needed much more to fill the gaps, so ordered a series of printed linens that I thought would do the job from The Crewel Work Company. I have just finished two sets of Rabbits at Dawn to put in front of the tree of life on the seat.

  The embroidery is finished, blocked and ready to add. I am now working on a series of feathers to go along the top edge.

One of my daughters suggested I make some Covid masks, which were being mandated in some parts of Australia and recommended in others, so I spent a couple of weeks finding recommended designs, fabrics and patterns and made, in the end, about 45 masks.

I completed this alpaca shawl with a pattern and yarn from Adagio Mills in Orange NSW. Blocking was a challenge!                                                                                                            

This bag and the tools that go in it were also a challenge, the result of a class with Christine Bishop at the Embroiderer’s Guild. Surprisingly, I enjoyed doing it. I learned a lot, the bag has proved very useful and it has been much admired.

The bag in the composite photo above is the result of a study of Icelandic Embroidery undertaken by the World Embroidery Study Group of the Guild, which I convene. We don’t often undertake a stitching project, but a few of us tried this design published in Piecework Magazine. It uses long-armed cross stitch which I had never done and really enjoyed. I of course, turned it into a bag, working worked a runic pattern on the closure side.

I couldn’t resist the Italian Caterina project in Inspirations 107. The Catherine de Medici stitch on 8 thread count linen was a definite challenge, as were the tassels with, I think, 380 knots in each.

A Certificate Course workshop at the Guild in September with Barbara Mullan on Mola Reverse Appliqué resulted in my producing this little bag for holding tools.

I have also worked, on and off (more off than on as you can see) on a shawl from a ball of lovely 2 ply wool brought back from New Zealand for me by a friend.

Hopefully the shawl will be finished when I post my next update here around Christmas time.

Stay safe.

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.

Chicken scratch apron no.3

For the last 52 days I have been posting a daily blog at https://jillian-england2020.blogspot.com. It began as a travel blog, but continued when I arrived home on 19 March to 14 days self-isolation, and subsequent lockdown at home in the face of the Covid19 pandemic. Much of my daily blogging is about embroidery, which I have not  repeated here. The post below was written in January. I will certainly post to this blog again in the future, maybe some composites of finished projects while in lockdown, or, certainly, when the need for daily posts has past, returning here to my usual project-based posts.

In the meantime, here's a post I prepared in a less troubled time, three months ago!

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I was making this one over the holiday period between Christmas and early January, on the last piece of gingham I had bought more than a year ago to make aprons. It needed a heavy thread to get decent coverage. I had a good supply of ecru thread in perle 5, but not much red. 

 I began on the pockets, using ecru thread and working crosses on all the ecru squares using running stitch up, down and across the diagonals, then whipping the diamond section.The second pocket I worked with similar technique but on the mixed red-ecru squares, leaving the whipping.








Along the bottom I worked a chain stitch diamond border.

Introducing colour into the bodice, was, I think, a mistake when I didn't have red thread. The pink didn't quite pop, but I was not going to undo it.

When Create in Stitch opened again after the holiday break,  I made a bee-line and bought a supply of red perle 5.

I used it first to whip the diamond on the second pocket,


then to work an edge below the bodice.
















It helped. The impact would have been stronger, I think, with red in place of the pink, but it does have its own charm. It is such a lot of fun experimenting with chicken scratch. The effects are pretty much limitless. 

Quilt repair

I have been on my annual jaunt to England for the Crewel Work Company's Embroidery Retreat. Now back in Adelaide, I am in self-isolation for  14 days, and catching up. If anyone wants to read of my retreat experience and associated travels, you can do so at https://jillian-england2020.blogspot.com/. I am continuing that blog while in isolation.

Back to the Quilt
The quilt I made in 2014, from paper-pieced hexies from fabric left-over from sewing projects dating back to the 1960s, has been in use on my bed each winter since then.

However, when I had it cleaned two years ago, the dry-cleaner pointed out that the wadding had begun to leak through the machine stitching rows on the plain black borders. The shedding wasn't too bad but after that I washed it myself, rather than having it dry-cleaned.  At the end of last winter, however I decided to cover the black borders with more hexies.







I had some spare 2" fabric squares left from the project, and a few papers. Over Summer I slowly created hexies to add to the quilt. I figured I needed about 160 extra coloured 'flowers' and maybe 90 extra black ones.

As I began to applique the completed hexies, I realised I could get away with only adding the coloured ones. The black background on to which I was appliqueing was sufficiently covered by the coloured hexies not to leak further - especially if I added in the purple and red centres where the black hexies would have gone.

I was constructing the hexies in horizontal rows. I had made black hexies for a couple of rows, so used those, but after that reverted to simply adding the coloureds.








It is cumbersome work, but effective. The quilt is looking better already.

Because of the need to pin the hexies, and the awkwardness of size, The pincushion necklace that Niamh made me for my birthday has come into its own - so much easier to have the pin cushion always around my neck!







I got, I think, 82 hexies done and attached before running out of already cut fabric. At this point I decided to call a halt for a bit. I had covered two sides and part of the third.

When I arrived home from England last week, I quickly decided it was time to swap my summer quilt for my winter quilt, to it is now on my bed.

My plan now is to construct the remaining hexies (about 78) and add them in batches.

Sari bag therapy - resolution busting.

On 7 January at a Guild gathering, I talked about my use of drawstring bags for gift wrapping and the bags I had just made from a kimono jacket. In the past I have bought 'sari scraps' to make bags, but as my old source of sari scraps has dried up, I proclaimed to the Guild group that I was resolved in future to use up my fabric stash in replenishing my bag supply. My quick online search for 'sari scraps' had returned only resellers in Australia or USA and I certainly have a good supply of cotton and other fabric I could use up.


When I got home I did a final search online, this time using 'remnants' instead of 'scraps'. Before I went to bed I had ordered three bundles of sari remnants from The Purana Bazaar. Two days later they had arrived. 25 substantial pieces of vintage sari.

Such deliciousness!

cut out bags

On 11 January I cut out 85 bags - large to medium size and stitched up 10 of them before going away for a few days on 12 January.



On my return, I stitched up 10-20 bags each day. I am using a stool to sit at my machine - good for my back, but hard, so I limit myself to about an hour at a time.  Once stitched, I have a box of ribbons and other cords to sort through to find the right draw-string. Most of these bags are made from a single piece folded, so I fold over a hem at the top and undo the side-seam to insert the cord. These have only one drawstring. If the bag has two side seams I use two cords.  This means I can often knot the ends together rather than adding a stop.



Some pieces need a repair. The silk had split on this piece, so I added a piece of bias binding to hold the cord.







I used the cord and ribbon I had - but also bought a new supply as I was running too low to complete this batch.



When the cords are in, I dive into my collection of buttons, single earrings, broken jewellery and beads to find suitable cord stops. It's satisfying work and a lot of fun. I also repaired a few bags that have have come back to me in the recycling process.














These are a few of the beads, buttons and bits that I used to stop the drawstrings disappearing into the hems.
















I added a few extra bags from stash fabric.  With the Japanese kimono fabric , the sari remnants , stash bits and ribbon purchase, I made 128 bags at a cost of about $A1.06 per bag. I now have a goodly supply for the next year or two!

I love recycling!

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