Wattle scarf

While I was making the Ottoman Scarf from Alison Snepp's January SA Embroiderers' Guild class (http://jillian-alwaysstitching.blogspot.com/2011/01/embroiderers-guild-of-sa-summer-school.html), I decided to try the same techniques on a scarf using a wattle motif.  I managed to buy a black scarf from Raffal after contacting Helen Webster at Raffal.

A hunt through my gardening books gave me a photograph of wattle that I could simplify  and enlarge sufficiently to produce a design that might work on the end of a scarf.

Armed with a very poor photocopy of the original wattle picture (the book was pretty big and I didn't want to carry it around) I went to Christina's on Prospect Rd, Adelaide, to selected threads. As always, they were very helpful and between us we came up with a practical set of threads. I wanted to stay with the Gumnut Stars silk thread. It is lovely to work with and very helpful in achieving the effect of the grey-green leaves of wattle.I used two shades of yellow and two shades of green.

I then began the hardest part - transferring the design on to the wool. These scarves are very loosely woven. 

The plus side of this is that it makes it possible to use a light-table to transfer a design. I tried a black pashmina from another source that showed nothing at all through the light table!

The down-side is the difficulty of keeping a consistent line going across the fibres - especially on a black surface. I used a gel pen and kept turning the light on and off to see what I had finished and where the gaps were, since the white gel doesn't show up with the light behind.

I was able to get enough of the structure in place to enable me to begin to embroider.





I began with the outlines in chain stitch. This gives me a framework before the chalk fades. I can then fill in and improvise around the outlines.The photos below, because of the light I focused on it, bleach out the thread colour.

I used chainstitch for the leaves, as they are so long and thin, and atma stitch inside the chainstitch outlines of the wattle balls. This works well on the loose weave of the scarf.

Although it was a little harder embroidering on the black scarf than on the cream one from Alison's Ottoman Scarf class - just because of the usual difficulty of seeing the threads through the dark background - it was nevertheless fun to do. I could have embroidered over the light table, but chose to work without it.

The french knots were a little tricky on the loose weave, but made a big difference to the overall look.









The final challenge was the dreaded tassels - 58 in this case, 30 at one end and 28 at the other. These scarves are not tied off with same number of bundles at each end. I did more green than yellow tassels, partly because I had more green thread and partly because I didn't want yellow tassels to overwhelm the wattle design.

I don't dislike making tassels as such, but making them around the knots on the threads already hanging from the scarf is quite tricky.


Once done, I teased them up a bit using my handy boo-boo stick.








                                                                                                   


                                                                  I am pretty pleased with the result. It turned out much as I had imagined it

Sewing Bag for Eight-year-old

Recently I put together a first sewing bag for Brigid's eighth birthday. Rather than making an elaborate sewing box - which was my original idea - I settled for making one of the round bags in my earlier post, but adding pockets to the outside to hold various items separate from the space inside. The sewing box can come later if interest lasts.

Brigid likes snakes, so I used two different snake print fabrics, one inside and one outside.  The prints were from the One Stop Fabric Shop. I made the pockets on the outside by lining a strip about half the width of the bag, laying it along the fat quarter for the bag and stitching sections vertically , then gathering the whole piece to the circle base as usual.

This is the result, laden with tools.

Tools included the Needle and Pin case and thread holder from last week's blog, some needles, a tin of buttons and beads, an embroidery hoop, a thimble, a tape-measure, a selection of threads and two pairs of scissors.

One pair of scissors was for cutting material and attached to a simple tab-keep so the scissors don't get lost. 

                                                                                                                                      

The other was a pair of embroidery scissors in a   scissor-keep embroidered from a drawing Brigid did a couple of months ago and which sits on our fridge. Figuring out what she would look like from the back took a bit of imagination.

I used chain stitch, stem stitch and Atma stitch - learned on the Ottoman Scarf - for the embroidery scissor keep. 

I added another bag, this time purchased from a Vietnamese seller in the Adelaide markets, and hand-embroidered in Vietnam. This bag contained three 'kits' for potential projects.

Stitched cards

This stitchable stationery can be used as notecards.

Peg dolls

I put together some threads, wool, pegs, felt, small samples of material and simple patterns to make and clothe peg dolls.

Doiley
Finally, I found one of my mother's yet-to-be-embroidered printed doily/traycloths that requires only lazy daisy stitch and gathered some potentially useful threads to form another 'kit'.

I hope there's a lot of fun in the making  whatever and whenever she chooses.

Embroiderers' Guild of SA Summer School - Ottoman Scarf

Last week I attended a two-day class on Ottoman Embroidery taken by Alison Snepp as part of the Embroiderers' Guild of SA Summer School. The project was an embroidered wool scarf. The Summer School is held at Hosanna Heights, now an International College in the suburb of Rostrevor.

The scarves provided by Alison for the class are Australian wool woven in India by a company called Raffal. They are quite loose woven and incredibly soft. Stitch tension is a challenge. The threads are Gumnut Stars stranded silk. I got mine, as did most of the class, from Christina's Craft and Gifts on Prospect Rd in Prospect, Adelaide. She has a great range and offers mail service - www.christinascraft.com.au.

Alison's design is for a bath towel - the embroidered covering carried by the Ottomans over their arm to cover up the towel they used at the baths, which they carried underneath the cover towel.

The project uses four stitches, chain stitch, stem stitch, Bokara and Atma stitch. Atma is a couching stitch, with satin stitch beneath Bokara.







It is a bit scary, as the satin stitch looks really ugly until the couching Bokara goes over the top.





Once you get into the rhythm, it is very soothing sewing. We also learned to make little tiny tassles to add to the scarf's own dangling knotted fringe. I need to practice these more, but by the time I have done 64 to accommodate the fringe at both ends I will be very good at it!

I have finished my first motif since the class finished on Thursday. It is designed to have two motifs at each end but could be worn with only one end embroidered or only one motif at each end.

I intend to embroider the four motifs.















I really like Alison Snepp's classes and her work. Two years ago I did her class in Naxos embroidery and made the necessaire that I make very good use of for my day-to-day embroidery projects.

                                                    It is a counted-thread technique.

I have also made a chikan sachet designed by Alison for Inspirations Magazine issue 61.

I really like Alison's historical knowledge and interest, as well as her focus on India, Greece, Turkey, Uzbekistan - probably what the British used to call the East. She is a very clear and patient teacher. She has published a book of embroidery based on May Gibbs's work and The Australian and New Zealand Book of Cross Stitch and Counted Thread Embroidery. Both are out of print but I managed to get copies through Abebooks.

29 January
Three of the four motifs are almost finished. I ran out of light green and light blue thread, so visited Christina's this morning to top up. It is looking good.

7 February

Finished the scarf late yesterday afternoon. I needed to buy additional silk in four of the colours - both blues and the two goldy greens. I substituted a slightly paler blue for the Atma stitches in the berries when the original wasn't available, but compensated by using dark blue in the foundation satin stitches.

I found the tassels a bit of a discipline to make - very fiddly work. It made me think of women in Ottoman homes gathering up the little pieces of leftover silk thread and working them together. I at least had mostly thread still on the hank. As I ran out I reduced the number of colours in the tassels.  

The reason it takes so long to make each tassel is because you are wrapping it around the existing knot on the tied off ends of the scarf. A regular tassel that is attached later would be a lot faster - but less effective.   

                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Even the back doesn't look too bad and will not draw attention when it flips over while being worn.

I am very pleased with the final result. I'll be wearing it when the weather allows.

 Many thanks to Alison for the class, Christina's for thread help and all those who have endured my tassel making.