Certificate Course Workshop Preparation

I have agreed to take a Certificate Course Workshop for the Guild next April, based on the presentation I did for the tour group recently, on Early Medieval Embroidery in Britain. While the presentation itself can be relatively easily adapted, the workshop requires a project for the students to do. This, I knew, would be a challenge. It weighed on my mind. To add stress, I agreed to help my brother write a book - deadline April next year! 

I was asked not to use wool as the basis of the project as an organiser has a severe allergy. Wool, of course, was the most widespread fabric in England in the period.That left hemp, linen and silk. I decided to work with the linen and hemp, the two produced in England in the period. 

Hemp cloth, after wool, the staple for everyday wear in the Early Medieval period,  is now, unsurprisingly, hard to come by. I found some available by the metre at Spotlight, bought 2 metres and tried two things  - embroidery and joining stitches. My efforts at embroidery convinced me no one would’ve done it. Even using a frame (which the Early Medieval Embroiderers would not have had) the result did not justify the thread and effort either then or now.

Joining, however, was another matter. Sails, clothing, and utilitarian items were all likely made from hemp, or, in some cases, a mix of hemp and linen. With limited loom width, joining was essential. Here hemp cloth worked well.

The thread, of course, needed to be linen. I couldn’t use wool, and it would be hundreds of years before cotton reached Britain. Linen thread is hard to find in Australia. I had a supply I had bought years ago from England. The Guild trading table had a small supply in green and pink. I commandeered it all.

I sketched up two designs, one an approximation of motifs on one of the embroideries recovered from the period, the other my idea of a modern version, As with several of the recovered embroideries, the design is a roundel bordered by leaves. In the Early Medieval examples the leaves are Acanthus  - quite hard to depict using linen thread.  For  my contemporary design I used flannel flower leaves (and flowers). It also requires couched gold thread.

I used Solvi to transfer the design for my first attempt, since the hemp did not take any of the usual markers. 

Once I began working on linen I used an archival marker, which gave me a good line - but, of course, required covering completely. 

I was using my own supply of linen. The heavy green filling I attempted, while close to the colour of Acanthus, was too heavy for the linen, so I unpicked it in favour of outlines.

I was much happier with that result.

I mounted it on another piece of linen with the motion it could be a cuff. 

Foolishly, when tracing the designs on to linen, I had kept the same distance betwen them as in my sketch, giving me no working edge..

I managed to oversew the edge by hand, going right to the top of the design. It gave me just enough. I was certainly close.

I used a range of greens to get  the leaves, leaf tips and flower centres within the flannel flower range.  Experimenting.

Once it was on the backing linen I could stitch colour right to the edge and add a border. 

The border I devised is herringbone with a single chain, trying to echo the elongated shape of the flannel flower leaves. 

My idea  is that students may wish to create their own contemporary design, not copy mine. They have 6 options to choose from, so I hope each student can find a happy one.

I'm now fairly relaxed about the workshop and can set it aside and turn to other things I need to finish before the big writing task!

Peranakan Batik Dress.

My daughter bought me a 2 metre piece of Peranakan batik on a recent trip through Singapore. It is a beautiful quality cotton with a repeated pattern of flowers, butterflies and a bird of paradise, as well as a border along one edge and on one end of the piece. She thought the bird of paradise was calling out to be embroidered - and she was right.

My imagination got to work straight away, but I didn't think to take a decent photo beforehand. 🙄  Embroidering a bird and cutting it out to frame or turn into a cushion seemed a waste. I didn't need a screen. The piece cried out 'dress' to me.

I phoned the dressmaker I have used in recent years. She was overseas and wouldn't be back for nearly 3 weeks (today, in fact!). I was impatient. The two dresses she has made for me are basic muumuus, and she gave me the pattern for safekeeping. I dug it out and tried it on the batik.

If I cut the front across the width of the fabric, and the back along the length I could do it.

So obviously I did!

With the two pieces cut I headed to Create in Stitch  to buy some cotton iron-on interfacing. The major fabric shops have plenty of cheaper polyester lining and interfacing, but this needed to be cotton. While iron-on was at risk of puckering, this does provide an excellent backing for embroidery.

I simply ironed the interfacing to the back of the two pieces and cut around them. I put the pieces together with French seams and pieced together enough of the off-cuts to make a pocket which I stitched to the left side seam to hold my phone (my left hand is in the pocket in the photo).

It was a little awkward in the 12" hoop, but not unduly so. the wide neck and generous arm openings provided plenty of room to get a hand in.

I had enough DMC stranded cottons to match the colours of the bird, so set to work as soon as I finished the beehive cushion I was making for St Margaret's.

I worked the body of the bird first - a lot of blanket stitch, chain and French knots, the print shape suggesting both colour and the stitch.

The tail worked the same way but this time the stitching was all white.  - stem stitch, pistol stitch, detached chain and more French knots.

I ironed it and tried it on.  The embroidery sat nicely towards my right hip. As much as I just wanted to wear it, I wondered if it needed another embroidery higher up on the right hand side as balance. Family opinion confirmed my suspicion, so I set to work on a butterfly.

The stitches are mostly the same - stem, chain, buttonhole (or blanket), pistol, French knots - but I added some bullion knots to capture some squiggles on the outer wings. I'm very pleased with the impact, although it isn't easy to photograph the whole thing to show it.

This shows the relationship of the two embroideries on the front of the dress. I think it works, but wearing the dress will allow me to gauge opinion. I think embroidering much more would detract from the artistry of the batik makers. This is a significant achievement in batik printing. It is not easy to get this level of colour mix and detail. 

I can see this getting a lot of wear in what promises to be a very hot summer. A gift that very much keeps on giving. 

And I have Singapore Orchid earings to go with it.!

Beekeeper Cushion 3

The third cushion using the beekeeper pattern is a different shape - not quite as long but much deeper. I wasn’t going to get an easy fit using the tension of the previous two cushions, so I moved up a needle size. It soon became evident this would work.

For this one I worked from the notion of St Margaret as the Pearl of Scotland a name by which she was widely known in her time. 

She brought brightness and glamour into the life of the community. As well as colour and pattern, she introduced jewels into both personal and communal life. Her husband, Malcolm III, himself illiterate, had the cover of her Bible encased in jewels. She carried it with her and read to him from it. She also carried a black palm-sized jewel-encrusted reliquary said to hold a fragment of the true cross. No detail about the jewels is recorded,

I was still trying to use up wool I had left from other projects, and I had assembled a 200 gram ball of pink, a similar ball of green and a couple of smaller balls of red. I thought these might represent pink diamonds, emeralds and rubies. A daughter suggested adding some surface embroidery with metallic to provide some sparkle. I tried, but wasn’t happy with the result so tried adding a metallic thread to the yarn as I knitted.  It was easy enough to do, but the metallic sank into the wool, giving only occasional glints. It took me a while to work out it was better to work a metallic diamond on one side of the knitted pod, rather than to use it all the way around.

I dug out the metallics I had and paid a visit to Create in Stitch to supplement my supply. As well as reels, I tried a couple in the Light Effects range, including the white E941 Glow in the Dark. I tried using the last to embroider a thistle on the central white “pearl”. You can’t tell it's a thistle, but, in pitch dark, it does in fact glow. I couldn’t photograph it. The cushion is reversible, so if parishioners get spooked by a tiny glow in the dark it can be turned over!  .

The metallic bling knitted into the wool is very subtle - perhaps too subtle to have any effect. That also may be more appropriate - a few glints rather than announcing itself to the world. I was, after all, after the story rather than the splendour.

I had intended to surround the central 'pearl' with rounds of a single colour  but when I reached this point was unconvinced, 

so began experimenting as I went, ending by mixing the red and green. Finally I let the pink dominate. I admit, using up the whole ball of pink was an incentive!

I squared off the sides with half hexies, intending to leave it thus but decided to complete the corners both for neatness and to hold it in place in the deep seat.

In is now in place in the church and used by those serving during services. I haven’t checked out the glow-in-the-dark effect!

I have one more to make which will not be required until Christmas Eve. I’m taking a short knitting break, but will be on to it by the end of the month. 

I have a couple of green wools for this one. I’m thinking emeralds and citrines. As far as I can tell, St Margaret had no association with, or premonition of, the green-uniformed Adelaide Cheerios Netball Team, but I’m not sure my granddaughters will see it that way!

Thanks to Veronica for the last photo.

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Beekeeper cushion 2: St Margaret of Scotland crosses the sea.

This is the second of four cushions I am making using the beekeeper quilt concept of knitted hexagon pods filled with archival quality wadding. The cushions are each designed to fit a specific (hard)chair in the Church of St Margaret of Scotland Woodville. I am using up the 8ply wool left from previous projects - a not unlimited, but nevertheless considerable, supply. I am trying to link each one to an event or theme of the saint’s life.

For this one I chose the theme of the sea and St Margaret’s journeys over water, in particular her arrival in the Firth of Forth around the age of 20, reportedly shipwrecked by a storm on the way to Hungary, the country of her birth, with her family. It is possible that they left Wessex, intending to seek asylum in Scotland, and Hungary was a misdirection to avoid pursuit. A shipwreck is equally possible. As great-niece and nephew of King Edward the Confessor, she and her brother were in both danger and demand in the succession battles raging in England, particularly after the defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Whatever the story, dangerous sea journeys were part of Margaret’s inheritance.

This seat is a pair with the one for which I made the first cushion - wide and relatively shallow. I began by making a row of eight pods, to get the length and a colour combination reminiscent of the sea. I then built out either side, trying out different colour placements to get a sense of both harmony and churn.

Some pods use variegated wool. Some use odd bits joined together. One of the advantages of the pods is the capacity to use even tiny bits of wool in this way.

Once again, I made some half hexies to square off the edges. This isn’t strictly necessary, but is neater and gives a snug fit. 

It is now serving its purpose (thanks to a daughter for the photo).

The Journey cross stitch

My neighbour, who is currently struggling with her own health, while caring for her husband whose mobility has been severely hampered by a stroke,  produced this cross stitch kit, called The Journey and  asked me to embroider it for her. She had bought it some time ago to make as a gift for her daughter, who likes both bicycles and flowers.

The daughter is currently travelling 40km a couple of times a week to take my neighbour shopping, and she wanted to give her the framed embroidery to thank her. 

While she said it didn't matter how long it took, I was anxious to get it done. I don't mind cross stitch, but I'm not a fan of the intricacy required for this one - a lot of individual stitches and clusters of colour, as well as a great deal of structural detail, including gears. It required concentration on both the chart and the fabric - and was hard on my eyes. It's a large postcard size - about A5.

I worked the lower left quadrant first, mainly because it looked the most intricate. I started with the wheel, but then outlined some of the bars to keep myself on track. I would normally have worked these as outlines at the end, but it helped to have some guidelines.

I didn't photograph the progress in detail - I just wanted it done! The second wheel and lower right quadrant came next, with the handlebars and basket frame added to give me perspective. 

The sunflowers were easier than their leaves - a welcome relief from the painstaking fill-in of the blossoms behind the wheels and in the basket.

I pushed on to finish late one night so I could add the text in the morning.

It was a joy to see it done

to remove it from the hoop, take out the tacking, and iron it.

It's now with my neighbour, who is happy and knows how she wants it framed.

I have my fingers crossed her daughter likes it.

Beekeeper Cushion no.1.

 

My mission to finish the various projects sitting in bags in my spare room led me to get my head around this curiosity. It turned out to be the result of a Beekeeper's Quilt pattern I bought seven years ago, presumably to use up left-over bits of wool. I don't think I ever had the intention of making a quilt, and I certainly don't intend it now.

It is, however, a good way of using up left-over yarn. You knit a series of little pods, using three dpns. The first three rows getting set up are awkward

but it gets easier after that.

After 20 rows you stuff the pocket with wadding and join the two rows together.

After adding a few more pods, I wondered if any of my family were in need of a teacosy. It seemed to me that would be a good use to put this to.

No-one wanted a teacosy (nor did I, I have several!) but there was a very positive response to cushions to cover four particular church chairs, so, with measurements, I got to work.

I needed eight pods to cover the length stipulated, so as I finished each pod I added it to a central line to mark the length. I already had the width  of five pods

It gave me something to aim for and meant I could choose and spread the colours I had, rather than ending up with blocks of the same. 

I was a bit concerned that a cushion of such random colours might look out of place in a church. I checked out the Saint for which the church is named, St Margaret of Scotland, to see if she had any colour association. To my joy I discovered that one of her famous acts was to introduce colour into the Scottish Court! She encouraged ordinary people, as well as the nobility, to wear coloured clothing, and introduced colour into wall hangings and church furnishings! She also set up workshops in the palace to produce embroidered textiles - and was herself an embroiderer!  Wow!

Eight rows by five is obviously 40 pods needed. The rows, however, interlock, meaning that some half-pods are needed to give a straight edge on two ends.The other two sides meet in points, not conducive to squaring off in knitting.

So the last two pods were four halves - the trickiest to knit, since, to get a smooth edge, I cast on from the centre and decreased rather than the other way around. 

It is now a more-or-less rectangular cushion that fits in a particular space. I’m wondering how I could have made it a couple of cm wider to reach exactly to the front edge of the chair. 

Half pods wouldn’t work. Slightly larger pods on the front row might work, but the best answer might be to to join the pods in vertical, rather than horizontal rows, with half pods along the long, rather than the short edges. I shall wait for a report on how it works in practice. It may, in fact, not be an issue.

I can, however,  begin work on the next one!