Russian Goldwork Pouch

Last Saturday was an Embroiderers' Guild Certificate Course Workshop taken by Jackie Denniston on Russian Goldwork. Jackie had done quite a bit of research and a lot of preparation for what was a really engaging and fun workshop. I won't share her work, but I can, I think, without compromise give some idea of my experience. 

Jackie had prepared kits we could purchase and I had a choice of cream silk with edges neatened or blue silk not edged. The cream was ready to distribute so I went with it. Most others went with blue.   

                                                          

The method of transferring the design was by dressmaker's carbon. I managed to dig out a packet I reckon I bought in the 1960s. It must have been after 14th February 1966 as the price is in decimal currency!

The instructions were very clear and Jackie was on hand to help. We used a range of metal threads as well as pearl beads. It was slow and meticulous work. 

I didn't get it finished in class, but it only took me an evening to finish at home. This is as it came out of my hoop, a bit crushed and with a few marks remaining from the carbon.

It's a pity I didn't make sure I aligned the silk and the calico backing before putting it in my hoop. The mis-alignment meant I had to trim and manipulate in order to construct something from the result. Nevertheless I proceeded with my plan to make a jewellery pouch.

I didn't have a gold zip, but after a bit of consideration and trial I decided a fawn one I had would work quite well. I folded the piece so the zip was in the centre back and machined the ends.

The lining is from a piece of gold silk in my stash. I dug it out this morning and finished it off.

I'm very pleased with the result. I have worked most of the techniques and threads before, but it's not an area at which I am very competent. I'm really pleased to have a chance to practice and learn more.

Plus I now have another pouch for pearls or other jewellery to either use myself or give to someone else who would use it. 

Wins all around. 

Thanks Jackie.

Harp Needlecase: Jenny Adin-Christie

Those who followed my travel blog in March will already know a bit about Jenny Adin-Christie’s Harp project that I and my fellow Retreaters worked on inWindermere. Jenny designed the Harp Needlecase to replicate (and improve on) one held by the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere. The original was made by Edith Southey, the daughter of the poet Robert Southey, while staying with the Wordsworths in Dove Cottage. It is an amazing tool that we saw, and fell for, at the Wordsworth Museum in 2017.

Jenny’s work to reproduce it is extraordinary. It combines so many skills of embroidery, design and construction. Having achieved that, she patiently taught us, in tiny meticulously explicit, steps, how to make it.  Unusually, the kit for this has been made available more widely after the retreat, for anyone interested.

We began by stitching the design on silk, in both silk and gold thread.

The rod and its finial  was a lovely and enjoyable piece of work, completed during class.

I finished off the last of the embroidery at home late last week.





The construction began in class. It involved a bit of careful ironing,

a lot of pins, a bit of glue, and fine, delicate stitching.

  

I didn’t attempt the construction until I got home, had unpacked, attended to accumulated tasks and could clear an afternoon and a morning. The pinning and glueing took an afternoon. The night before I had been through the kit to re-identify and organise the many component parts, all in plastic bags carefully labelled. It would be very easy to lose something -especially while travelling. The only thing I was missing were some little pins to sit in the underside of the sound box to act as little feet. A pity, but fortunately the harp is stable without them.

Inserting the needles ( bespoke -manufactured in Japan to Jenny’s specifications) was challenging. I hadn’t expected it to take so long but the placement needed to be quite precise and I needed pliers to do it. I don’t think I will be taking them out to use on a daily basis (probably not in any basis!).

The final result took my breath away. I’m not sure, confident as I am, that I believed I could really make this. It is exquisite. I have ordered a dome to go over it. It won’t arrive until October.  I don’t usually go in for display items but this project warrants it, I think. 

How amazing is that?

Thank you so much Jenny! 

Australian Bush finish

This is where I left the Australian Bush project at the end of the class in Summer Week at the Embroiderers' Guild. I had added one gold leaf in Alison's double sided brick stitch.

I decided against adding more leaves worked the same way. It's a great technique, and I can see myself using it again, but I did not want to invest the time at the moment on this project.






I used a bit of the left-over dyed silk to make a couple more gum leaves.










I then visited the very peaceful spot where Jim's ashes are buried under a flowering gum and collected a few of the leaves and a couple of the gum nuts. I came home and painted them with gold glitter paint and attached them to the piece. Jim always liked to be included in my embroidery projects!

I was reluctant to put this behind glass and hang on my wall. I am not keen on hanging much embroidery, especially behind glass. I hit on the idea of hanging it in a hoop.

I had a conversation with the helpful staff at Create in Stitch and purchased a wide-edged Nurge hoop.
On their suggestion I mounted the piece on the inside of the hoop, rather than having the embroidered surface flush with the frame.















I have added a removable hook to my front door and, for the moment, this hangs as a welcome to guests. This isn't a long-term solution, but I'm not sure this is a long-term piece.

For the moment it is welcoming ,a reminder of a very enjoyable class and a bit of a tribute to Australian flora and fauna.

Opus Anglicanum: Roger the Little finish

Since the Embroiderers' Guild Summer Week of classes, I have been doing my best to finish the four pieces I started as part of the classes I did. The box with the acorn embroidered on velvet  in my last post was finished in time to house some jewellery for my eldest granddaughter's birthday last month. 

I then moved on to Roger the Little, a horse head embroidered on linen, also part of Alison Cole's Opus Anglicanum class.

This was a lovely piece to work on. I won't go into the detail of stitches. It is Alison's design and I'm sure she will be offering it in future classes.

The only difficulty I had was in shading. I would have liked a couple more transition colours between the dark and light greys.

Nevertheless, I am pleased with the result.

I had, all along, planned to use this on the lid of the companion box to the one I used for the acorn. Once it was finished I went in search of an alternative - a box with a round mounting space of the right size - but I was unable to find exactly what I was looking for, so returned to the original  plan.

I padded the back of the roundel and backed it with another layer of linen, couching a gold thread around the outer edge to give it dimension .



The box I had is not easy to work with, having a very narrow edge to which to affix an inset. There is also a shallow allowance for the lid to fit the box, so the inset needs to fit high and tight into the lid.

In order to minimise the thickness of fabric at the edges I mounted the edges in silk and cut away as much of the linen as I could.













In process I pricked myself and added my blood to the linen!

Again, attaching the inset to the lid was difficult. I can't find tacks short enough, and getting even a small staple gun into the space is difficult. I managed with the help of pliers. I am sure there are better tools for achieving this, but I don't have them.





I have a bit of a plan for this box - but will set it aside for several months.

Now for Mary!

Guardian Cushion 4: Colcha Angel

The last of my Guardian Cushions is rather different in style. I really wanted to work one of Esther Vigil's colcha angels - from her Colcha book. Somehow, batik didn't seem to suit and I searched my stash for something more suitable, coming up with a piece of rusty red dupion silk.This set me thinking, so, rather than stitching the figure in the colcha stitch, I made a pile of my silk fabric pieces and chose some that I thought would look well on the dupion.
I then traced the pattern, cut some pieces and played around. I used an adhesive backing to attach the silk cut-outs to a cheese-cloth backing.


I decided this would look better if machine-appliqued rather than hand-stitched (I am stepping well outside my comfort-zone here!) so set to work using some gold synthetic thread.




When I had the pieces outlined and stitched together I plunged into stitching it to the background silk. The gold thread was clearly designed for use in an overlocker, or machine that held the reel upright, so I had many breakages and rethreading but got into a pattern of intervening in the thread feed to minimise the problem.

I modified the halo shape as it seemed a bit small. I'm not sure this was the best idea - but I stuck with it. The original shape was more in keeping with the oval stylised head, whereas the round shape halo might be better with more flowing angel hair.

Although I love the Dijanne Cevaal panels and the challenge of finding the right thread and embellishment, I was pleased to turn to the purity and vibrancy of silk for this final cushion. It's as an angel should be.

During January, while I have been posting these Guardian cushions (which could not be posted until after Christmas) I have been to the SA Embroiderers' Guild Summer Week - and also on holiday. I will begin posting those projects towards the end of this week.

Blackwell Roundel

My last post on this project was from Windermere in March. This is the Jenny Adin-Christie project that we worked on at the Lady Anne's Needlework Spring Retreat. While a small piece, it is very detailed, with many steps and techniques. We had done something from each step but there was a lot of work to do to complete each one. My last photo from Windermere shows where I was up to.  

                                                                                                    I did not carry my work from the retreat with me while travelling. I didn't have a sitting frame with me and the work demanded greater care than I could give it. The Crewel Work Company kindly packaged and sent my projects on after I arrived home. It was only in early May that I had the instructions and projects set up and ready to go. I have been working on this one ever since - and not taking time out to write up my progress!

One of the things I love about a Jenny Adin-Christie project is the bag it comes in - a calico bag with a clear photo of the project firmly pasted to the outside and an identifying tag. These are so useful for working, storing, identifying and managing projects. I have all my projects in bags - since I love making them, but am  tempted to make myself a pile of simple calico bags that can be tagged in this way, or to find a way to adapt the concept to my existing bags.                                                                                                                              I have had the product I am aiming for constantly in front of me on the bag (This, of course, only works if you know what the end product will look like!). 

Jenny's instructions are also very detailed and sequenced. I went back to the beginning and worked my way through the project in order of the steps Jenny laid out. It mostly went smoothly - but in one place came close to disaster! 

The photos show my progress. It is delicate work - requiring (for me at least)  good magnification. I used a number of different magnifiers before settling on one attached to my daylight floor lamp.

I was doing quite well to this point. Then my attention faltered and I made an error in identifying the gold pearl purl I needed to couch down around the leaves and stems. Instead of the pearl purl, I used the cut purl, struggling to couch it (unsurprisingly, since it is designed for threading!). I persisted and got it almost finished with the wrong purl before I worked out what I had done.  

Some of it I could undo. Other sections, however, I was very reluctant to try to undo, given the silk organza on which the project is worked and the closeness of the fine couching. I opted for undoing where I was confident of not damaging the fabric,  and laying the real pearl purl over the other where I was not confident. Here you can see the real pearl purl laid around the outside, or on top of the wrong one. I then covered the mistake with gimp or the second row of pearl purl, or removed what I could.

I am writing calmly about this, but it rattled me and I am wincing at revealing the error in photographs. I had been so careful and followed Jenny's extensive and meticulous instructions so carefully, but made an assumption about packaging that was quite wrong - and in retrospect foolish. It came close to ruining the project. I recovered, but not without making significant compromises that a skilled needleworker's eye will pick up easily. I have progressed the project with some further imperfections - but nothing so dramatically wrong.. I tell myself that there is no way I would get this perfect with the limited experience I have of goldwork, and working on my own.

Here is the finished piece. I've learnt a lot from doing it, and am pleased to have finished it.  It isn't going to become my favourite kind of embroidery, and my eyes will be pleased to get back to  more forgiving techniques (not, however, before I finish the Nicola Jarvis whitework piece from the same retreat!).


I have ordered the small round box Jenny has designed for this project - it isn't the kind of thing I can put on a bag!

I am also grateful to Jenny for proof-reading this post and fixing my terminology. It is the generosity of a busy and committed expert. Thanks Jenny, on so many fronts.