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.

Nightdresses

I have begun work on a couple of child size 8 nightdresses for a birthday present. I am using a pink polycotton batiste from Country Bumpkin, highly recommended by Monique Johnson as very washable and not needing ironing.

The pattern is Primrose Lane, Victorian Dreams for Girls, purchased from the Garden Fairies Trading Company in the USA. I must say, that, although they have a great selection of patterns, I had difficulty with delivery from them, only succeeding after I lodged a dispute with PayPal. From postings to various forums, my experience is not uncommon.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

For the first nightdress I used  smocking design Emilee from  AS&E 74.











In both cases I have smocked the back as well as the front, but only embroidered the front.

This is the finished Emilee adaptation. The lace trim on the bodice and hem are from my mother's stash.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

For the second nightdress I have used the smocking design suggested in the pattern, but with two extra rows added.   This one is not yet finished.

                                                                                             

                                                                                                      

    

Sunday 16 January 2011
I have just finished embroidering the yoke for this second nightdress. I had hoped to do a shadow bow, but the fabric wasn't quite sheer enough, so I have used satin stitch, not my best stitch!

  If I block the smocking tonight I might be able to put the second nightdress together tomorrow.      










Wednesday 19 January.  The second nightdress is finished.









                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Smocked top for adult

In the Christmas period I finished a smocked top for myself. This is entirely experimental. I have some beautiful  ikat bought from Pertenunan Berdikari Handwoven Cloth Factory, JL. Dewi Sartika 42, Singaraja, Bali, Indonesia. I thought I would make some of it into a tunic top with a smocked front panel but couldn't find a pattern of exactly what I wanted.


In the end I adapted a nightdress pattern - MecoModes' Simone, which I eventually got, with some difficulty, from The Garden Fairies Trading Company in the USA. MecoModes patterns are designed by Kathy Barak of Australia, but the adult patterns are hard to come by.

I elimated the belt and neck frill and shortened it to the mid-thigh. In order to test it out, I made it in a white lose-weave heavy cotton, rather than try it on the ikat.


I have a bargello smocking pattern in mind for the ikat, but tried the first attempt with a simple colour gradation.

I think this was probably a mistake - a  pattern with more vertical interest,  would work better.


I also made a mistake setting in the sleeves by not reading the pattern carefully enough. I need to cut a curve into the back gathered section below the yoke. It is, however, quite wearable, will be useful and help me to do a better job on the ikat when I get to it.

The Christmas Result.

 This blog revisits our Christmas in photos to show the results of  bag-making and embroidery.

Round Bag Therapy

Last weekend the Embroiderers'Guild of South Australia had their Christmas Sale of Work. There was an amazing array of beautiful embroidered things for sale. In a coals-to-Newcastle activity, I bought some bags!

One was a round one - a bargain at $5 - in a very peaceful washed-out blue floral. It is lined in a lovely plain blue cotton. I have been using it all week to hold my current embroidery project and it is terrific.

I also took a pattern from it. The base is a 15cm circle (including seam allowance). The body is a rectangle approximately 100cm x 27 cm. The rectangle is gathered along one long side and joined together along the short sides, to form a tube. The gathers are stitched around the circle. Lining is made in exactly the same way and size.  You put the right side of the bag to the right side of the lining and stitch around the open top, leaving about 6-8cm to turn it in the right way. You then stitch around the top edge, stitch again about 1.5cm down to form a casing, thread a cord and eh voila!  If you use two pieces, 50x27, joined together, rather than one piece 100x27, it is easy to use the seam joins to thread cord, otherwise you need to make an eyelet.

So this weekend I raided my stash for pieces of a suitable size. I now have 6 new round bags. One is batik, lined with a caramel coloured cotton, one is a rayon stripe, remnant of a pair of long shorts I made years ago, line in the silk I used for my smocked dress.

 This one is from a piece of Japanese cotton in gold and pinks. It is also lined with the Vietnamese silk.











This one is a voile, left over from a dress I once had - must be the sixties, lined in an aqua cotton.



The only difficulty with the pattern is in getting the gathers more or less even around the circular bottom. It is a little tricky manoeuvring the machine around the base, but not too bad in this size.






This one is a pink I used for curtains about 30 years ago, lined in pink gingham bought at a school fete.

I went to Hetty's Patch yesterday and got some help to buy the caramel cotton lining and some cord for about four of them. I had a nice time making my choices and discussing projects.

There were inevitably some bits left over which I ran up into small bags.

Finally, I used up a piece I bought in Elizabeth St Croydon, and some left-over orangey-yellow batik from one of the Christmas dresses to make a bag that was appliqued rather than lined. A little trickier, but not much. The top is folded over to form the casing and I needed to do a version of French seams to avoid raw edges on the inside.

It is appliqued as one long piece on to the batik backing fabric, which then forms the inside as well as edging and base.

All in all, a good weekend's work - from a five dollar investment in a bag I will use over and over in its own right!

My mother's stash

“Your mum must have thought she would live forever”, was what mum’s neighbour said to me. Hazel  belonged to a Church Women’s Guild and I had offered her some of the material, wool, notions that didn’t make it into the suitcases my daughters and I were packing to take home, interstate, after my mother’s sudden and premature death.

We were sorting her belongings, coming to terms, as daughters and granddaughters do throughout the world, with our grief and loss through the handling and respecting of  the things a woman had chosen, made and dreamed of creating for her family, friends and herself.

A craftswoman of necessity in the first half of her life, Sylvia’s decade of retirement from paid work was packed with projects of possibility, desire and hope.

In the weeks following her funeral I finished two cushion covers I didn’t much like, finished knitting a jumper that had been intended for one of my university-student daughters when she was about two years old and advanced some embroidery I remember my mother starting when I was around eight years old. I was obsessed with finishing her work. The sadness of a life cut short and my obligations overwhelmed me.

I bought a camphor wood chest to store the most precious things – the ones valued by my mother and those made and used by her over the years.

Into that chest also went the things I had inherited  a decade before, from my mother’s mother, Nell;

crocheted hankies, milk-jug covers, knitted bedsocks, a bag of knitting needles, a tin of buttons, a needle book , thimbles - remnants of the life of a migrant woman who arrived in Australia withthe Great Depression.    

                                                                                                                                                                                                    

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The fabric, wools, threads and patterns I brought home from my mother's stash – went into the cupboards  with my own similar supplies.  

A couple of pieces I used immediately – made into shirts I knew I would wear for years, feeling good and nurturing memory and gratitude.

There were many times when, tempted to buy more fabric (cotton might become scarce, silk is so cheap in Vietnam) I stepped away, reminding myself of my now expanded stash and of the words of my mother’s neighbour.

It is now 17 years since my mother died. I have four grandchildren and a bit more time to spend with needles of various kinds. I have used quite a bit of my mother’s stash and had time to reflect on the role it has played in the continuity of our lives.

The Divine Dropwaist AS&E37

I used a piece of white broderie anglais to smock a dress for my eldest granddaughter to wear to her twin sisters’ baptism. 

 I used some lace to make the second christening dress for the twins.

I used thread in  embroidering a dragon on my grandson's jeans

                   

and a piece of viyella for a between-season dress for a granddaughter.

Pattern from The Worlds Most Beautiful Bishops

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Just recently I have made a peasant blouse from some hail-spot voile, a smocked skirt from a butterfly cotton print,











and smocked a dress with stars from a stripped cotton, with tiny stars in the stripes.

from Fruit Tingle, AS&E 80

I've also adorned more jeans with picture smocking using threads from the stash.

So some of her great-grandchildren's clothing is connected in some way to my mother, whom they never met, but whose choices and inspiration contribute to their well-being. We all have glimpses of my mother in the fabric of our everyday lives.

Slowly, her stash has merged into mine. I can't always identify the origin of a component. While I try to keep my stash to manageable proportions, it doesn’t seem to diminish. I often remember Hazel’s words and ask myself, “Do you think you will live forever?”  My mother’s early death is a constant reminder of the need to make the most of every day.

I am a great finisher, but now, it seems to me, less an issue that my mother died with so many projects still in the pipeline. 

Perhaps that is the way of women’s lives, always creating, always conceiving, always seeing the possibilities and taking opportunities to prepare for the future, touching with our hands the raw materials of future possibilities.

I’m glad my mother had that pleasure. I’m glad to be able to pick up some of the ingredients of her dreams, add to them, and use them to create things for yet another generation.  I’m glad, too, to have those worn knitting needles, thimbles and precious humble tools of my grandmother’s, testimony to what she needed to keep building her family’s future. 

I try to use my stash to do justice to their legacy.