Wessex embroidery class work

Hi everyone,

A little late with my post but there is lots to show you all.

Sunday the 28th was the second of the Wessex Embroidery classes. I had 5 students and we all had a great time stitching, learning and chatting.

Jackie, Margaret, Diane and Joyce (1 student missing from photo)

I am always amazed at the way colours can change patterns and the colours the students chose were really an eye opener.

Wessex embroidery -class pieces

More

Another colourway

And still more

Lots of choices of colourways

Thank you to all the girls for making the class so enjoyable and I hope to see some finished pieces on display at the Embroiderers' Guild in July. (No pressure, lol.................)

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

You can teach an old dog new tricks.......

Hi everyone,

This Sunday 27 April is the 2nd part of my Wessex class. All went well last Saturday and everyone went home happy with the colours they had chosen and with samples of the stitches ready for homework if time permits. I am hoping to show some photos if the girls will allow me and my camera in class.

There was a little stitching done during the week, some more birdcage and santa's village but not enough to show. But.....

I have been thinking about joining an Embroiderers' Guild course called Back to Basics for sometime. It is self paced and focused on construction. Some by hand and some by sewing machine. You might say why? Well me and my sewing machine have had a love/hate relationship for many years so I thought with a lot of help from fellow tutors at the Guild we may fix this.
The first piece is a pincushion, the original was on Aida cloth but the group have allowed me to use 32 count linen. After tacking construction lines we were asked to embroider the top with straight stitches with some that were whipped. The construction edge is then created using a row of chain stitch. The pincushion will be filled with real sheep's wool so I hand stitched an inner liner bag. (Yep I know I skipped the sewing machine, don't worry I wont get away with it for long)

Back to Basics- Project 1, Pincushion

The photo shows the sampler of stitches, my inner lining and the pincushion outer piece. The next course day is the 4th Monday in May when I will filling the cushion and closing the final edge. This then goes to the assessors of the course and I will get back a critique of my end result. So you see I will learn lots and lots. There are 6 projects in all, so by the end my sewing machine and I will be great friends. (well that's my hope anyway).

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

PS: Silkstone Designs Australian houses can be purchased and Ozstitch.com.au

A little quiet time

Hi everyone,

No I haven't emigrated to Santa's Village. I have been quietly stitching and working on several projects which have deadlines so there was not a lot to share.

I managed to finish the diagrams and notes for my Wessex class on the 20th April which I had left until I knew if the class would go ahead. It is, so everything is ready to be photocopied for the students. Here is a little bit of the design.

Part of Wessex Embroidery class piece
Carol J Young Designs, 2013

This week I had a lovely day out with a couple of friends at the Adelaide Central Market. All sorts of yummy foods and goodies. For anyone that has been to the Philadelphia Reading Market this would be the sister of this market. We had Asian food, I opted for Sushi (tuna of course) with no wasabi. Friends had Chicken with plum sauce and Tofu with vegetables and noodles. Topped it all off with green tea and Korean custard tarts. Yum Yum, this is making me hungry. Great day but no stitching, so here is what has been stitched this week and a bit.

Milady's Needle
All stitched up waiting for construction

and

Indigo Rose-Peek a Boo Pin Cushion
All stitched up waiting for construction

Pretty designs aren't they. Indigo Rose has always been a great favourite and I have enjoyed stitching many of Catherine's designs over the years. Love the idea of using a canvas stitch on linen. Catherine calls the stitch "Jack in the pulpit" and canvas folks call it "Amadeus stitch". There you go its official anything is possible.

I had a comment about Silkstone Designs, unfortunately I wasn't able to find them on the net. Like so many Australian designers they don't seem to have been able to continue designing. Sad because we need more Aussie pieces.

Thank you everyone for your kind comments and although I don't always get around to posting comments on your blogs I do read them all.

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

PS: Sending my best wishes for a speedy recovery to all people injured in Boston and to the families that have paid the ultimate price of losing a loved one.

Aussie house stitching

Hi everyone,
This week has been a very good one. I caught up with family and my Aunt from Western Australia for a lovely lunch and chat. Found out that I will get a income tax refund (Always a good thing) and received some special emails from friends overseas.

I have managed a little stitching. The first one is an Australian design by Silkstone Design called "Oaklands"

Oaklands by Silkstone Design
Blackwork on 26 Lugana

Stitched with DMC brown 839 on a Platinum Lugana. This is a very familiar style of Australian house with its wide front verandah and leadlight panes of glass alongside the front door. The only  departure from the reality is the shingles on the roof most of these homes have corrugated iron roofs. I enjoy blackwork and its grows nice and quickly.

The second piece is a set of needlework accessories.

Le Jardin Accoutrements by Milady's Needle
40count Ivory linen 2 over 2, DMC cotton

This has been in the to do box for quite a while the chart is dated 2009. It has been in and out of the box several times but this time it made it out for good. It would have been nice to stitch it in the Soie Cristale silks but I am trying to use up what I have in the stash so cotton was the go. When they are finished there will be a scissors holder, pinkeep and a Needlebook. I have stitched 2 other pieces by this designer which are always very pretty and feminine patterns. Click here to go see more of Gloria's designs, her website in undergoing update so I have linked the blogsite so you can see her designs there.

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

Needleroll experiment

Hi everyone,

Happy Easter to you and your family! Try not to eat too many chocolate easter eggs, just keep it  down to no more than 10. Well, what do you expect from a chocoholic, abstinence? NO WAY, this is the only time of the year they tell me that chocolate has no calories and is good for you. Well this is my story and I am sticking to this myth.

This week I dug out of the mystery to do box a needleroll by Mary McLeon of M Designs, this one is called Country French. I decided to play around with the finishing. The design was stitched using the DMC colours recommended and are perfect summery colours.

Country French Needle Roll
M Designs
35 count Antique White with DMC colours

The original was stitched on 30 count White linen so I changed it over to 35 Count Antique White. The long seam was finished as a french seam so the edges don't show then I withdraw 3 threads and replaced them with stranded cotton to form the stripe on the edge. The outer edge is a row of double backstitch then a row of 4 sided stitch with gives a nice crisp edge and you can cut away the excess linen right back to this edging. Next I made up 2 long twisted cords and threaded them into the withdrawn thread space and tied them off. The ends of the cords looked a little woeful so I attached 4 tiny hand made tassels to finish. Viole!!! its finished.

As this took a bit of time I was only able to stitch a start on Santas Village, North Pole Post Office.

Country Cottage Needleworks
Santa's Village, North Pole Post Office
35 count Natural,  1 over 1

The colours in this one are quite interesting with names like Bluecoat Red  and Louisiana Hot Sauce (Weeks Dyeworks). Don't you just love the inventiveness of the person who named these. So clever.

Well I am off to tidy up some notes and photos for my next class I will be teaching in April for the Embroiderers' Guild of South Australia. A Wessex embroidery linen mat on 30 count linen with stranded cotton.

Bye for now, Happy stitching, Carol

Christmas? but its only March...........

Hi everyone,
This week I finished up my Christmas exchange piece for The Common Stitch Group in Camberley UK and the piece for our Thursday night guild group. Wow, this is the first year I will not be stitching until midnight before the exchange time. Mary will be sooooo pleased but sadly I will be called an overachiever by some others (Sorry Anne I know). Lol...................... Well girls the challenge is up so set to it. Here are the pieces.

Santa- UK exchange, Lizzie Kate, Merry Friends Santa 03
Scissor fob- Aust exchange, The Sweetheart Tree,
The stitchers favorite fob

The Sweetheart Tree designs are great but they always have lots of part stitches so they look really delicate but do take time to stitch. I have tracked down a companion piece to this one so I can stitch another set. This design is double sided and so as not to miss the other side I stitched them separately. The Sweetheart fob was stitched on 32count Antique Linen over 2 threads and the Lizzie Kate on 32count Natural linen over 1 thread. 

My next installment of Santas Village arrived so I have 2 more waiting to be completed, North Pole Post office and Mrs Claus's cookie shop. Looking forward to these they are sooo sweet.

I dragged out my canvas piece for the exhibition to work on this week. It took a while to get back into the swing of canvas stitching and to work out where I was in the pattern. Here is where the piece is currently.

Threedles, Looking Glass
18count yellow (Buttercream) canvas

I had a try at fixing the colour image to a more realistic yellow but this the best an amateur photographer like me could manage. The canvas is a very bright yellow with orange,gold,copper,purple,brick red and turquoise threads. Very bright indeed. Kurdy the designer has just released 2 more new designs. Click here to see more of her beautiful works of art. Be prepared if you love canvas designs this may be dangerous to the budget.

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol

Yippee the roadwork is complete

Hi everyone,
Yesterday the roadwork outside my window was finished. It has taken a couple of weeks surprising really as the weather has not been kind to the council workers. 11 days straight of above 30degC. Finally my world can get back to some sort of normality, well the housework at least. No more grit and dust everywhere.

On the stitchy front there has been an addition to the christmas ornament tree stash.

All six tree ornaments
New ones Fa La La and He's a Flake
on 32 count Natural 1 over 1

I decided to switch over to 32 count linen on these to make the stitching a little easier and to save my sanity. It makes them every so slightly bigger but they still are a great size for hanging christmas tree ornaments.

Also I dug into the mystery box of things to finish and came up with this one.

Textile Heritage Collection
Arts and Crafts, Carnation and Feather

This was at the 2/3rd finish mark so it got a little more love and attention and voile it is now in the finished basket. These little designs come from Edinburgh Scotland and they have lots of pretty and small designs to chose from. It was supposed to be a scissor keep but because of the finished size it makes a better pin pillow. Pretty blues, they are so blue the colour shines.

I managed to stitch a little more on my 3D house, so this is where this one stands at the moment.

The Nutmeg Company
The Castle Inn

March is always a busy time in my family with lots of birthdays and family celebrations and currently we also have our nephew visiting from the UK. So lots of good food, drinks and great company. Looks like I will have to add a few more minutes to my daily walk to compensate for all the goodies eaten over this time.

Our Guild has an exhibition next year with the theme of Venice. Although I don't have anything really Venetian I was thinking Kurdy Biggs Looking Glass canvaswork piece might fit as it is really colourful and it would hopefully fit the theme. So I am off to do some work on this piece so I don't have to stitch it at the last minute (well that's the intention, LOL.................)

Happy stitching, bye for now, Carol