Pontos Vermelhos

I have been making a bit of an effort to work some of the kits and projects in my stash. I played with a few of them, but the one that spoke to me was Pontos Vermelhos, a drawstring bag designed by Maria do Ceu Freitas in Inspirations 79  in 2013. I features the traditional embroidery of Guimaraes in Portugal.

The bag is worked on a single piece of linen, edged and prepared for construction before embroidering. Traditionally worked in one colour, this one is in red.

I used a pencil to trace the design on  to the linen.



It was relatively complex, but could be followed from the basic shapes of the design.

It used reverse chain,, whipped chain, padded chain, buttonhole, satin, padded satin, stem, eyelets - and lots of bullion knots.

The result is highly textured - and really interesting to work.












The interest didn't stop there.  The bag is stitched together decoratively, a hem-stitched panel accommodates a cord and tassels are added.



I love the result - and enjoyed it. It is the kind of project that gives me huge enjoyment - so many parts, each one satisfying and purposeful.




For the moment this is a keeper. I am using it to store the monthly Stitchy Box thread packs.


I am also grateful to Christine Bishop for showing me a piece from her collection of Portuguese Embroidery and giving me access to an article she wrote on Viano do Castelo Embroidery for Embroidery and Cross Stitch Magazine.

Zen mandala

For some time I had thought that Zen colouring designs would make interesting embroidery, so a couple of years ago, when Herrschner's advertised some already printed on fabric, I ordered some for me and some for my Adelaide daughter.  She got to work on hers fairly smartly, but I put them on my embroidery back-burner. In the last month or so I dug one out as a back-up 'grab and go' project. 

I had purchased a thread pack to go with it. This consisted of a range of bright perle cotton. The thickness is not marked on the label, but it is about 5 - quite thick.                                                                 My concept for this mandala was a red edge, then very roughly following the rainbow from purple into a red centre. I didn't want to plan it in detail - and I certainly didn't want to colour it in pencil first. I wanted to use the threads to guide me and work it from the outside in, making decisions as I went.

I also wanted to try out a range of stitches. The narrowness of the bands of the design, especially when combined with the heaviness of the thread, places some limits on stitches. I worked the outside border in fly stitch. It gave the density of colour that I wanted - but used an entire skein of thread.

I gradually worked my way in, using stem, chain, more fly and French knots. Later I introduced pistol stitch (yellow row below).

Keeping to my rainbow colour movement wasn't straightforward but it provided a general guide. I tried to foreshadow coming colours and provide an echo of those I was moving away from.

I found it useful as I entered a new band, to try out colours on a wedge.


The density of the thread grew on me. It began to look like a carpet.


Most of it I worked in my hand. I needed to scoop most of the stitches and even if I don't always follow the maxim 'never scoop in a hoop' (picked up at a class at the RSN) these narrow circular bands are difficult to work in a hoop. I used a hoop for the pistol stitches.

The row of curly things gave me a challenge. I tried bullion knots and fly stitch before settling on a double couched line and French knots. The line below these is worked in Palestrina knot stitch.

The finished piece needed blocking - and easy task which straightened it up nicely.


By now I had decided what to do with the finished piece, which is about 10" in diameter.

No, not a bag.


I appliqued it on to the coat I made last year, using the red thread of the outside border and a buttonhole stitch.

It blends well with the wool fabric and I get to see it (as, of course, do others!).

I've really enjoyed this piece. The threads (somewhat to my surprise) were terrific. I have some other designs to do and another pack of thread when the mood takes me.

Birthday Crafts

My birthday - an auspicious one - was last week and I celebrated with lunch with friends and dinner the next day with family. I had many messages and phone calls. It was very gratifying - and I plan to make this celebration last all year. 

The gifts I received were so creative, crafty and satisfying that I wanted to record and share them. It is also appropriate for what happens to be my 400th blog post!

My grand-daughter Niamh, still on a mission to save my sofa (and those who sit on it) from pins, made me a fat pincushion using chain stitch, stem stitch, buttonhole stitch and top-stitch - all learned at the Junior Embroiderers' Group of the Embroiderers' Guild. It is wonderfully soft and tactile.

Her brother, with a little recipe help from his father, made me a jar of Fionella - a chocolate and hazelnut spread in the style of Nutella. It is delicious and very nutty.

Brigid crafted, 'fired' and strung me a pendant reminiscent of the waves she spends time riding as part of her Surf Club patrol duty. I looks as if it were made for the top I was wearing!

Veronica created Bubbles to keep me company while I stitch. Bubbles has a rainbow tail and comes with her own handbag containing a coin - her bus fare in case she gets lost.

Their mother, my elder daughter, gave me six months of StitchyBox threads - I wonder where these will take me in 2017?



My younger daughter, whose wonderful knitting has been interrupted for several years by arthritis, has picked up her needles again to make me a necklace, which comes on a gold chain, but can be threaded on to a range of necklaces.

A friend also gave me a bundle of Madiera threads - among my favourites. A couple of books from my brother and a beautiful, bright green handbag from friends completed the gifts showered on me on the day. I feel very blessed - and secure in the knowledge that the skills and joy I learned from my grandmother and mother will go on giving joy beyond my lifespan.

Adobe Rose Shirt

A few months ago I was given a book that had belonged to Gloria, the mother of a friend. It has examples of traditional embroidery from all continents and some very clear, enticing projects. One such was a pattern for Navaho beading on the back of a shirt.  No, I did not take up another beading project! The design, however, was very attractive and gave me an idea.

In Oklahoma City, the week after 9/11, I bought myself an Adobe Rose denim shirt which serves me as a Spring jacket. It is soft, serviceable - a reminder of that extraordinary time and my US friends Diny and Joe, who, in spite of their own concerns, took the trouble to ensure I got out of Washington DC - and eventually the USA- safely.          

I still wear the shirt and decided to give it a further significance by adding the Navaho design to the back, not in beads, which would give me laundering headaches, but in thread.

The most practical way to transfer the design to denim is using water-soluble plastic. It isn't my favourite method but it wasn't a big project.         I dug around in my thread stash for colours in the range of the Navaho project and chain-stitched the design

This worked well until I realised I would not have enough of the darker brown thread to finish - at which point I switched to stem stitch to conserve a little thread.






















I'm pleased with the result and have been wearing the shirt in the evenings since our Spring weather set in.

It is now a shirt with even more layers -  an acknowledgement of the power of shared ideas, art, culture - and friendship.

Bird hand towels

A couple of years ago I bought a supply of hand towels to embroider. I was looking for usable hand towels - terry towelling for absorbency and big enough to hang on a small towel rail without falling off.

I found a couple of pair about 15"x30" with a panel devoid of loops and printed for embroidery
as well as some that had in Aida panel inserted. The other day I needed a grab-and-go project so grabbed one of the towel pairs printed with a cross-stitched bird. 

It came with thread so all I had to do was follow the chart.

This proved to be less than satisfactory. Cross-stitching on to the cotton panel didn't give good coverage. Accuracy wasn't easy. I didn't much like the result.

So for the second towel in the pair, I used the shape, but not the crosses. Instead, I tried chain stitch for the bird - a much better result.

I completed the bird and greenery in chain stitch and the flower in buttonhole stitch.

This was so much better that I then over stitched the cross-stitched bird with chain stitch - an altogether better result.   I now have a pair of usable hand towels!

More Hexagon Centres

Here are a few more of the embroidered centres of my hexagons. The first two are couched daisies - picked up from a project in an embroidery magazine.








This is a spiral using reverse chain stitch - another idea from Mary Corbett. I'm not sure this is any faster than regular chain stitch, but it may be more even, and I enjoyed trying it out.








I also played around with strawberry leaves and a whipped stem stitch.








Niamh took me up on a suggestion she embroider her initial on one centre. This is the centre she chose and she managed a very creditable couched initial.




The one on the right was not embroidered by me. It is one of my late father's initialled hankies.






Since last posting I have added four rows to the quilt - two black and two coloured. I have eight more rows to go and it now looks like this:

Further hexagon centre embellishments

I haven't embroidered all the hexagon centres with a specific motif. For some I have made up the embellishment as I went along.

This one, for example, is a buttonhole flower using variegated thread in shades similar to the surrounding fabric.

This one is a whipped chain stitch circle.

Mostly the embroidery is flat, but I did succomb to small bullion buds for one.

I managed a whipped chain stitch wheel with button hole spokes on the fabric left  from Fionn's snack bag.

In some, I just continued the lines of the fabric.

Some are more successful than others, but it is a lot of fun just playing around with such small motifs and breaks the long sessions of stitching he hexagons together.