Christmas Projects 2021.

This is a summary of a few Christmas projects that I couldn't write about in my weekly blog, because they were to be a surprise for someone who may have read the blog. 

The first two were samples of Lagatera designs I wanted to try out and thought they would make good pinwheels - which they did.

I'm very fond of pinwheels, as I have said many times. They are a very safe and convenient way to carry pins - and double as Christmas decorations!

These fridge magnets came as a kit of four. I haven't made the other two. On plastic canvas, they were designed for embroidering in the hand, but I had to mount the plastic on cotton and use a hoop because my I developed pain in my hands from holding them. A bit tedious - but a lovely result. 

I also abandoned the tiny magnetic pieces provided in the kit for lengths of magnetic strip purchased at a hardware store. Now, of course, I have enough for dozens of magnets!

The magnum opus (or, in fact, magna opera) was a garlic bag, which began as a Jenny McWhinney project from Inspirations Magazine 41. 

I really liked the look of it and went looking for the materials to make it. Sourcing the hessian proved challenging. 

By the time I was looking, Jenny no longer had the original hessian but I sourced something equivalent. I also decided that silk was not my choice for something that would get handled and used frequently in a kitchen. Furthermore, I decided few kitchens could easily accommodate a bag on a dowel, and even the most regular user of garlic did not need a bag of that size. So I adapted.

I used stranded cotton, inserted plastic stiffener in the opening and reduced the hanging tabs from two to one. It easily holds 6 head of garlic - more than most families need at any one time. 

There's usually a handle or hook somewhere in a kitchen that might be used.

I had intended to make two of these, one for each of my daughters' families, but got to thinking of the message of a rooster on a garlic bag.  One of my daughters keeps chickens, so it seemed appropriate enough, but if you didn't keep chickens, was the bag suggesting the best use of garlic was as a flavouring in chicken casserole?

So I redesigned. 

Bag 2 features a garlic plant.

I reckon it works.

I had a lot of fun with these - and great satisfaction.

I made two very lightweight scarves from a cotton/acrylic mix, that I paired with magnetic scarf holders from Scarf Pins & Rings. Unfortunately I forget to photograph the second one finished with its holders.

This is the front and back of Fallahi, a pincushion from Inspirations 72 which I bought as a kit years ago and decided to finish as a gift for a granddaughter.

I adapted it to hang (a pincushion entirely surrounded by tassels did not seem like a good idea to me) and added black pins. We were both happy with the result.

I wanted to give one of my daughters a pair of scissors but discovered it is considered bad luck to give scissors as a gift. Fortunately, the bad luck can be avoided by requiring the receiver to pay for the scissors, so the protocol is to tape to the gift a coin  which must be returned. 

To further strengthen the protection I made a bag for the scissors with an adaptation of an Irish scissor blessing designed to keep your scissors sharp. I figured it was more important to bless the scissors themselves than to keep them sharp, so kept it simple.

A few other Christmas gifts have been covered in earlier posts which the recipients were unlikely to see.  Finally, these two were gifts for November birthdays. The hat is a mix of cotton yarns as an experiment for someone allergic to wool. 

The wrist warmers below are from a Marie Wallin kit 

They were a challenging and fun knit, useful in limited times and places in Australia - but useful nevertheless.

I've really enjoyed making these things over the last few months and it's good to be able to share them here at last.

Coat lapels for Design Online

As my final project for Design Online, the Guild's first attempt at an online course, I decided to design embroidery to go along the lapels of a woollen coat I made a couple of years ago. It is in Italian felted wool and I had always intended to embroider the lapels.

I began by adapting some floral motifs from Annette Rich's Australian Wildflower Embroidery, but decided this was too detailed and fussy for the wool coat.

I did want Australian flowers, and I wanted the design to blend a bit with the dark purple coat, so I went looking for plants that might work, Hardenbergia violacea seemed to fit the bill.   Its hanging habit and long, pointy leaves seemed ideal for the coat.   

I translated this into a drawing, adjusted it, traced it onto Solvi,                   .

and tacked the two Solvi strips to the lapels of the coat.I selected a range of wool threads in the colours of the design. I chose to use the Australian threads I bought at the beginning of 2020 for my bushfire embroidery. That embroidery topic got a bit overtaken by Covid, so I'm happy to use some of the threads here. They are mainly Mogear, with a bit of Cascade House.

I had originally planned to work this project every month at the Basics to Beyond class at the Guild, but once I got into it I didn't want to stop - and a month between sessions was going to end up confusing me. 

I tore some of the Solvi off as I progressed so I could see how it was working. Most of the Solvi tore off quite easily.

The rest came off  without any trouble when I dabbed it with water on a cotton ball.

I did need to use my wrist brace while stitching. There was no way to put it in a hoop, and I get RSI in my left wrist from holding work in the same position for lengthy periods.

I also manage to put a needle right through the nail on my index finger - the result of pushing the needle with my nail and unthinkingly pushing the wrong end!

The embroidery result, however, is pleasing.

I rather like the way the flowers flow down the coat as they do on the plant.                                                                  

It's a bit of a mad project, but I've had it in mind since I made the coat, and I'm pleased to have done it. 

I don't imagine I'll wear the coat this year, but hopefully it will be used next winter.

Viking Samples

 

I've been doing quite a lot of research this year around Viking Embroidery. This is partly a result of the folding of the British Embroidery Study Group of the SA Embroiderers' Guild a couple of years ago. I promised the last couple of members of the British Group that the World Embroidery Study Group would incorporate British topics into our program.  My own particular interest, which goes back to my university undergraduate days, is with early English history, literature and language, so I have been scouting around Viking and Anglo-Saxon embroidery. I have a presentation on Viking Embroidery ready for the World Embroidery Study Group in October and have been asked to repeat it for a Certificate Course workshop in February 2022.  The latter means having a project for the group to work on.

Our knowledge of this era is largely built on the work of Margarethe Hald, textile historian and curator of the National Museum of Denmark whose definitive work was published by the Museum in 1980. Margarethe Hald died in 1982.

Subsequent books in the field acknowledge and draw on this work, which is, of course, out of print. When I looked, several months ago, there was only one copy on offer for sale in the world. There are four copies in Australian libraries, one here in South Australia at Flinders University. A Guild friend and alumna of Flinders, generously applied for an alumna borrowing card and borrowed the book for me. We are immensely privileged to have access to it.

Fortunately for us, there are numerous relevant excavated burial sites in Scandinavia and a couple in England, many containing textiles. In the acid soil of Scandinavian burial sites, animal fibre survives while plant fibre deteriorates faster, We know that Vikings were weavers and stitchers, who constructed clothes, mainly from wool but also skin and fur. The pieces were shaped and joined using running or back stitch, and the seams reinforced, either inside or outside the garment with a range of stitches. They also valued textiles and those wealthy enough imported silk, linens and embroidery from their trade routes to Baghdad, Constantinople and England.

For the workshop I procured just over a metre of dark brown woollen twill from the Historic Fabric Store in Sweden. The popularity of Viking re-enactments in many countries provides a supply of products attempting to replicate or imitate. It is not always easy to tell the difference. 

My plan is to provide students with a roughly A4 piece and the pattern, on printed solvi, for a reconstructed design from the Mammen Cloak, one of the few surviving  embroideries agreed to be Viking, along with some Appleton's wool in the colour range thought to have been used. It is believed the cloak was originally covered with embroidery, mostly in linen, which has not survived in the acid soil of the Swedish burial. The embroidered fragments that survived were all embroidered in wool. All are stem  stitch. 

I've worked my sample as a pouch. I used the Viking method of running stitch seams, reinforced on the outside by the stitch believed to have been used on the Mammen cloak.  

This is what it looks like inside - not very tidy, but it does hold the seam folds down, out of the way.

On the back of the pouch I decided to applique a sample of this design from a 10th century embroidery of spun silver on red silk in the Valsgarde burial. It isn't clear to me whether this part of the design was worked in couching or stem stitch. From illustrations it looks like stem. 

I located some red silk scraps in my stash. I chose one that was russet and stitched it on to some cotton fabric so it would fit in a 6" hoop. I then created a cardboard template of the design. I thought it might be easier to trace around a template than use other methods of transfer on the coloured silk.  It worked.

I've sourced some silver French gimp bullon perle wire that I thought might work for couching. It is not, however, even remotely close to spun silver in look or function - a much later thread design. In the end I settled for a silver metallic thread.

Initially I tried a softer, darker metallic, to outline the design in stem stitch. It was hard going and not the right colour or look. I  tried the silver metalic couched, then unpicked the dark outline.

The result isn't brilliant, but passable, I think, to give the idea of the original, which is thought to be the decoration on another cloak, probably imported to Scandinavia from Byzantium - either whole, or as pieces that were appliqued on locally.                

It seemed appropriate to appllique it to the back of the pouch. It's a bit wonky, but then, so was the original. I'm thinking that the woollen embroidery and the seam join will be the basis of the workshop. These are both directly attributable to Viking workmanship (or perhaps workwomanship). I will prepare some silk strips on calico backing that students can take home and work if they wish to try the example of silk work valued and imported by Vikings.

 I will eventually line the pouch and add a (very non-Viking) zip, but I will leave it unfinished for the workshop, so students can inspect the inside to see the seam neatening.

I have also purchased a set of Naalbinding needles and briefly tried them out, along with a lucet (which at the moment I have mislaid). Naalbinding, practiced by Vikings, predates both knitting and crochet and uses a needle to create fabric.  Certificate Group students may like to try these out and incorporate them in some way.  As I have indicated, my presentation to the World Embroidery Study Group does not include a project, but it will be useful to get their feedback on what I have planned.  There may be a later post around braiding, Naalbinding and weaving.

A friend from my university class in Early English Literature and Language commented that our studies were entirely based on the history of largely male activities - mainly fighting and writing - and that knowledge of textiles may go someway to redress the balance. We do know that there were Viking women warriors. There does seem to be agreement that the work of gathering, preparing, weaving and constructing garments, sails and furnishings from wool was executed by Viking women, perhaps not exclusively, but there's a way to go before we have a thorough knowledge of Viking women's lives. Someone, somewhere, I'm sure, is working on it.

In the meantime,  I can return to my knitting!