Month: April 2009

Smocking Sampler – part one

First attempt at smocking

Yesterday evening I did some smocking.

From top to bottom:
Cable, Stem, Honeycomb, Surface Honeycomb and Van Dyke stitches. 

Ta-daaa!

Tonight’s endeavour is going to be trying out some fancier stitches – Wave and Trellis. Then I should be able to pretty much replicate this panel, from one of the reproduction smocks at the Museum.

I notice that the pleats I’ve made are much deeper than those on the reproduction smock. It seems as though the more stretch you want, the deeper the pleats should be. If the work is primarily decorative, the pleats can be much more shallow.

The stitches themselves control the amount of stretch. Cable and Stem stitches hold the fabric pretty firmly in place, although they do allow a little bit of give. Honeycomb is the most stretchy of the stitches on this sampler – I suspect that the travelling stitches like Wave and Trellis will also stretch quite a lot.

The size of the stitch in relation to the depth of the pleat also makes quite a big impact on the work. I’ve made quite small stitches on deep pleats, which allows for a lot of stretch. If my stitches had been larger or the pleats less deep, the whole piece would have come out completely different.

Smocking actually has some things in common with knitting – it matters which direction you’re working in, it matters which direction you put the needle into the stitch, and if you get all twisted up it just won’t work out right.

Working on gingham is pretty easy, because you’ve got ready made guidelines to follow. The real test will be making something neat on a plain fabric. There’ll be a few more samplers to make before I’m ready for that!

Coveting clogs.

Ever since my visit to the Museum of English Rural Life, I can’t stop thinking about clogs.

The pair above (which I believe are the same ones that you can try on in the museum) are an eight-eyelet farmer’s style clog made by Walkley Clogs. I’ve been coveting a pair of these for years and years, although I’d probably cheat and go for the padded derby style instead.

Back in 2001 I had a stall (selling waistcoats and jewellery) at a clog dancing festival. I took just enough money on the stall to buy myself a pair of clogs. They were a gibson style, black at the quarter, but with a fabulous crackle printed black and purple vamp. I was told that they were made with offcuts of Dr Martens leather, hence the unusual pattern.

I sold the clogs to a dancer a few years ago, after I was told that I shouldn’t be wearing any type of footwear without an orthotic inside, and my insoles wouldn’t fit into the clogs. I also worked as a Library Assistant at the time, so I didn’t get to wear them very much. Despite the full rubber soles, they were still a bit noisy for the library!

I’ve found out since that these were the one pair of shoes that I could have safely worn without the orthotics, and I very much regret getting rid of them. It seems unlikely that I might find another pair in such an unusual style.

I’m quite tempted to buy a new pair of Swedish clogs to wear in the summer – and to remind me of my student days. I thought that I’d end up with a plain black pair, and then I found these! Now I can’t decide between flowers, spots, dinosaurs or skulls – or perhaps I should go for the plain black ones, and then paint them. Decisions, decisions…

Poor wet wood pigeon…

Wood pigeon in the rain

Yesterday was a good day for my newly-planted vegetable garden (six large pots and a bag for potatoes!), but not such a good day for anyone who doesn’t like getting wet.

You can just see a tiny raindrop bouncing off the back of this poor wet wood pigeon’s head. Bless him!

I might add this picture to my Etsy shop, along with some that I took at the weekend.

I need to figure out a way to generate a bit of interest in the photos. Perhaps greetings cards would be a better medium than prints?

Museum of English Rural Life

Smocking

On Sunday afternoon I persuaded Paul to wander round the Museum of English Rural Life.
I hadn’t been since it moved location (in 2005!), and it’s in a much bigger space now. It’s a slightly strange museum – laid out more like a store room than an exhibit, with things shoved up corners and hanging from the ceiling – but it’s an amazing collection, and there’s a wealth of information to go with it.

The highlight of my trip was getting to play dress-up with the reproduction linen smocks. They didn’t have a pair of farmer’s clogs in my size, otherwise I’d have been wearing those as well!

(I used to wear slip-on clogs all the time when I was a student. My friends kindly referred to them as “those sawn-off wellies”. Charming.)

The highlight of the trip was tagging on to the tail end of a guided tour, and being allowed upstairs into the archives – and they have MASSES of textiles! Lace fans, embroidery samplers, tatting, and LOADS of clothing.

I’ve taken a large number of photos of the reproduction smocked coat and tunic, although I was so over-excited that I completely forgot to take pictures of the inside. These garments would have been made entirely by hand, so I’d like to have a look at how the seams were finished.

I can’t help wondering whether there’s been an extensive study made of all the garments hidden away in the archives. With the exceptions of craft books and sampler patterns, I can’t find anything that’s been published on the subject in more than twenty years. (A study was done in 2001, but it’s out of print.)

The next time I go over to the University library, I might have to browse around the clothing and folklore sections, and see what I can find out. This smock collection is crying out “PhD” to me. I wonder…

Vivienne Westwood Hammer Head shoes…

Yes, I know – yet another pair of pink shoes that I can’t wear!

These are by Vivienne Westwood, her men’s Hammer Head style in bright pink. I first saw these in a magazine advert, and scoured the internet to find a place where I could buy them.

As always with men’s shoes, they’re not available in my size. But if you’re a UK size 7-10, you can buy them from Hervia. Even better – they’re in the sale!

Snapshot of my afternoon.

This afternoon I walked to and from my acupuncture session, and took my little point-and-shoot camera with me. These are just a few little snapshots of my day.

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  1. Spot the heron! (It’s worth clicking through to the larger versions of this one – you can see his face ever so clearly!)
  2. Terracotta elephant on my acupuncturist’s desk.
  3. Brand new leaves, lighting up the tree like candles.
  4. GIANT BUMBLE BEE beneath my window.

By popular demand – birds!

Well, I asked for feedback on yesterday’s flower photos… and the feedback I received was “where are the birds?”.

So, by popular demand, I now have some photos of birds for sale on Etsy!

A photography experiment.

I’ve decided to try an experiment, so I’ve listed half a dozen of my photographs on Etsy.

I’ve chosen two sizes which are easy to mount and frame – 12″ and 6″ square.

I won’t be selling mounts and frames with the photos, because of the difficulty of sending the frames in the post.

I’ve never offered any of my photography for sale before, as it’s never been of a high enough resolution to print. This is a bit of a shame, as I have some lovely pictures that I took before I had access to an SLR.

Never mind – I’ll just have to keep going out and taking more!

Preparing the garden.

Trachelospermum jasminoides

Yesterday I forked over the area behind my Shed, dug three enormous holes, and planted the Trachelospermum jasminoides (Star Jasmine).

*fingers crossed*

The lady in the garden centre said not to release the ties that are holding the plants to the sticks until they seem nice and happy in the ground, so I’ll check on them tomorrow and see what’s going on. I need to run wires or string all across the back of the Shed first, as the plants aren’t self-supporting, but I’ll probably need an extra pair of hands to get that sorted.

I could have done without finding half a woodmouse floating in the watering can though. That wasn’t the highlight of my morning.

I had been planning to prepare some containers for planting vegetables today. Unfortunately my back is still so sore from yesterday’s hole-digging that I think it would be a really bad idea to go lumping containers and compost around the garden. As long as I can get the pots ready by the weekend, then I can hopefully convince Paul to drive me round to the garden centre and buy a bunch of plants. (Maybe next year I’ll get myself organised in time to plant seeds. Maybe.)

Don’t know what to plant. Tomatoes, definitely, but maybe a plum type rather than a cherry. Peas, would peas be alright in a pot? Apparently you can grow potatoes in a bag, maybe I could try that. I’d like to have a go at blueberries and cranberries as well, if I can keep the birds away from them for long enough to actually pick the fruit. I remember my Dad’s ongoing battle with the blackbird who was determined to eat his raspberries!

Oscar Edward’s embroidered birth announcement

Oscar Edward

Oscar Edward

Oscar Edward arrived on Easter Sunday! Which was the 12th. Not the 13th, as I originally embroidered. Oops!

Thankfully I realised my mistake before the piece was mounted and framed. Now to pop it in the post, along with a little hat.