Schwarm Workshop for Guild Certificate Course

In May Carol Stacey took a Workshop on Schwalm, a technique I have never tried. While the monthly Certificate. Course workshops are for those enrolled in the course, any Guild member is allowed to attend. They run from 9.30am to 2.30pm on the last Saturday of the month, though time after lunch is often used to help individual students with general certificate course work. I don’t always go. I really like the chance to learn in this engaged group. It's my tribe. I don’t however, want to end up with more unfinished work. I’m not good at living with unfinished work, so I pick workshops for things I think I can finish.

I was curious about Schwalm and Carol is a good teacher - one who really encourages the application of technique rather than replication. While she had a number of precut templates for us to use, she also had sheets of template plastic and encouraged us to make our own shapes.

I took up this option, and attempted to design a flannel flower. We were working on roughly A4 pieces of linen so I made the template in one piece, about 8" high. I was aiming to give myself several areas to work in different stitches, naively thinking each flower petal could be different.

Once I had used the template to trace an outline on the linen, I began the lengthy process of working coral knots all around the outline. I didn't get far in the workshop. I was soon having trouble with both my eyes and my back. The Guild chairs are  not built for sitting at length for close work. I gave up, and left at lunchtime . I managed to score a copy of Christine Bishop's 1999 book on Schwalm - a really useful  primer of stitches in the context of shapes.

It was over a month before I got back to it. It took quite a few hours to complete the coral knot outline. I needed to work in a hoop to keep tension, which largely means stabbing rather than scooping. I used coton-a-broder 25 in ecru.

When I finished I took it out of the hoop to work the inner row of chain stitch.That was much faster, and surprisingly, was OK on my hands.

The hardest part was the removal of threads to create a stitching grid. I began with the easiest bit - the centre of the flower. I now know why Carol's templates were all simple, regular shapes.

I used a green coton-a-broder 16 to work the centre, using the Algerian Eye stitch filling from page 22 of Christine's book. Using colour is not part of the tradition, but the temptation to add the characteristic green centre of the flannel flower was too great for me to resist, especially since I had the perfect colour in my coton-a-broder collection.

I had realised by now that trying to work different stitches in each petal was a bad idea. The spaces were hardly big enough and I could see no way of dealing neatly with the intersections.

Removing threads from the flannel flower was tedious and slow. I needed to remove them from the whole flower in order to ensure consistency. It took patience, magnification, very sharp scissors and lost of clipping. I decided to use the single feather stitch motif on page 28 of the book. It proved a bit tricky but did allow me to keep  a few long lines moving.

It is a long way from perfect, but I'm OK with it. It does give a sense of consistency and texture.

Originally, the centre was the only part I planned for green, but I now got bold, and used the honeycomb stitch from p21 for the remaining leaves. I also added a touch of green to the stems, a single line of chain stitch. 

I'm pretty pleased with the result. here it is straight out of the hoop

Today I ironed it and found linen to back it and a cotton batik to line a bag of roughly the same dimensions as the Glazig bags.  I considered a cushion, or even hanging in a hoop, but thought it might get used as a bag.

I had been thinking of a silk lining, but didn't have any green, which I thought was needed to show through the gaps. Did I need to stitch with green thread? I stand by that decision.

The back linen is a bit darker than the embroidered piece, but I think that's OK. The zip is white. Ecru would have been better, but with different shades of linen, no colour would have been perfect. 

As it is, I'm happy with the result. It is a sampler of a kind, I've learnt a bit about Schwalm, and had a go. 

And there's a decent bag to show for it. My idea of success.

Certificate Course Bulgarian Embroidery Workshop.

I had such a good time last Saturday, presenting a workshop on Bulgarian Embroidery. There were nine students and the two organising tutors  present. It is such a focused, engaged and supportive group - intent on learning. I was well prepared (as Lee, one of the students, said ' belt and braces') with back up plans in case the technology failed, a container with Nelly Ivanova's collection of embroidery by her mother-in-law Vala Georgieva ( thanks Nelly!), who is still embroidering in Bulgaria, a bag of reference books, and a box of printed student notes and my own worked samples. 

There was a problem with the projection, but with Christine's help, we got it working sufficiently to use the PowerPoint. 

I am always nervous about these presentations, because my interest focuses heavily on the history of the embroideries I am working on, and as this is not the usual focus of Guild groups I'm always worried I will bore the socks off the group. I'm beginning to believe I can stop worrying. Those who come, it seems, have now self-selected, and are as fascinated by the history as I am. I seem to have found my tribe.

In this case, of course, I have the added advantage of Vala Georgieva's fabulous collection for students to pour over. This photo doesn't do justice to the lovely black dress - hanging on the black pinboard doesn't aid the photograph.

Having such a rich collection means students can see first hand, explore and go back as they work their samples, to see how it was done by the originator.

The exercises I set were those I worked out 12 months ago, and had assistance from Margaret Adams to chart, based on two motifs from two items in the collection.

I, of course, turned mine into a bag. To finish it I added a simple elbetica design on the back. Some students were very interested in this.  The point of the Certificate Course is to learn a range of skills and to show that in a series of samples. I always prepare too much in the project. I would hate anyone to run out of work, or feel they were not sufficiently challenged. 

We spent a good two hours just stitching the design, but even so, I think there is a few hours of work for most to do at home if they wish to have a finished product.  On the other hand, they could stop once they  have tried out the four stitches used. 

I also gave the option of an alternate design based on the Great Goddess motif. No-one started this but at least one will, I think, try it. As Lee said, belt and braces.

I really enjoyed this workshop - the content, the interaction and shared knowledge. It is, for me, the Guild at its best - all of us learning and sharing our knowledge. This workshop has the added benefit of learning more about our own local community embroideries and their connections to the rest of the world.

It doesn't get much richer than that.

395 Bulgarian Samples

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I have been working over the past week, on a couple of samples for a workshop I will be running in September 2022 on Bulgarian embroidery. I realise this is a bit absurd, when there are plenty of projects with shorter timelines that I  could prioritise. This one is a bit of a challenge for me, because the focus needs to be on counted work, and I need to chart the samples - and I don't have much practice.

I have written about this collection elsewhere and the links here and above provide the background. Suffice it to say, the workshop is to be based on a collection of embroidery by Vala Georgieva, a Bulgarian woman whose son and daughter-in-law live here in South Australia. The tree of life motif above is from one of her runners. 

The issue I had with charting for use by others is around the clarity of coloured pencil once photographed, and the need to show both stitch and colour. I know I could use software or an app to do this - I have done that many years ago, but no longer have the software, which is, in any case, more useful when working from photographs.  I'm hoping my manual effort will be sufficient for this exercise. I'm hoping to get a friend to try it out for me - another reason for working well in advance.

This is a second motif from Vala Georgieva's work. The shape, I believe, derives from a figure of the Great Goddess, evident in Bulgarian embroidery since Thracian times. One of the distinctions of Bulgarian embroidery is the persistence of symbols from pre-Christian times, often incorporated into Christian practice. Recently I have been making bookmarks from Aida bands and I decided to chart this motif and incorporate it into a bookmark. It worked quite well, I think, and students at next year's workshop can decide if they want to use it that way or not.

I lined the back with silk. The earlier bookmarks I made were lined with felt, but that's a bit thick to use in a book.

I worked the Tree of Life motif on 14 count Aida. I did look for other fabric, but decided that this is closest to the texture of the fabric in the original, which is, I think, hand-woven hemp.

I folded the piece I had used various ways to find one that worked as a bag or pouch, settling, in the end, on an almost square shape.

This called, I thought, for another motif on the back.  Two Bulgarian motifs I had not examined in my original reading were these, known respectively as Elbetica and Celestial Turtle.

Elbetica is a symbol of the four directions - North, South, East and West and of the whole world, linked through a single point. It also represents the four seasons. The Celestial Turtle symbolises wisdom, moderation, perseverance, moderation and longevity.I chose a simple version of Elbetica.

I lined the piece with a remnant of linen from my stash, picking up on the red which is a feature of Bulgarian embroidery.

I'm very pleased with the result - and with having two sample projects which I think will work for the workshop. I can now check the instructions with a couple of friends and relax into some of the other projects on my list!

I hope I've done justice to Vala Georgieva's beautiful work, and her  commitment to Bulgarian embroidery.