Tag: embroidery

New hat, new options for a mannequin

Hand blocked wool felt baby pink cloche hat featuring a floral design with hand embroidery, felt flowers and vintage buttons

Here is today’s felt hat offering – now in the Etsy shop. I’m really pleased with how the flowers came out, although I learnt an important lesson about doing all the work in the right order. (Note to self: Yes, putting the flowers on first allowed you to check their placement. But it made for incredibly fiddly stitching of the stems!)

I had been vaguely planning to work on felt hats during my full days off work, and then do other kinds of sewing during my half days. Given how sore my fingers are from doing all of this hand sewing through machine-made felt, I think I might revise that plan. Ouch.

Excitingly, my previous hat (the bright pink one with the black guipure lace) sold out almost immediately, and was swiftly followed by an order for another one the same! So I’ve ordered some new felt hoods from Parkin Fabrics, and I’ll make a start on some more hats once they arrive. Perhaps without embroidery this time though.

Interestingly, after my earlier post contemplating the purchase of a new mannequin, I received a very helpful email from Equipashop.com, directing my attention to the existence of the lovely lady above. She’s perfect!

Okay, so she’s still out of my budget right now, but she’s much more affordable than the one I was looking at before, and she’ll be able to display hats, cowls, gloves and jackets. Brilliant! I’m now following Equipashop.com on Facebook, I’ve signed up to their mailing list, and I’ll be making a purchase as soon as funds allow. (And she’s SPARKLY. I mean really, how can I resist?)

Looking around the rest of the site (which turns out to be FULL of bargains!) I was also pleased to see that they offer a plus size mannequin, although she’s not in stock right now. Granted, at roughly a UK size 14/16 she’s at the smaller end of plus size, but that’s still several sizes bigger than most garment display options. Conveniently her measurements are almost exactly the same as mine (though she’s quite a bit taller), so she’d actually be perfect as a dressmaker’s dummy for my own sewing.

Hmmm.

Maybe it’s time to get on with having that pattern de-stash sale that I keep thinking about, to raise money for the newly instated Mannequin Fund…

Assam Tunic

Assam Tunic

Today I decided to take a day off from doing anything I “ought” to be doing (like packing the house ready for the move), or any kind of “useful” sewing (like more bloomers and summer tunics to wear in this ridiculous heat), and make something that had been nagging at the back of my brain for a few weeks.

This is a silk dupion tunic, with broderie anglais trim and bias tape edging, waiting to be dyed in the tea urn. The stitching is brown because it’s polyester and therefore won’t dye, so I wanted to use a colour that would tone in afterwards. (In future I’ll use cotton thread, but right now I’m using up the stash.)

Assam Tunic

The tunic is elasticated all the way around the waist, under the bust, and around the edges of the top. It wraps over at the back. The broderie anglais trim might be polyester, polycotton at best, so it’ll probably stay cream.

Assam Tunic

It has a fixed, ruffled halter neck, and wrapover back detail. The bias trim is polycotton, and won’t take the dye as well as the silk, so I chose a colour that would still look good with whatever dye it did take up.

Assam Tunic

First dip into the tea urn…

Assam Tunic

The tea itself had been brewing for about two hours. This photo was taken after about another two hours in the tea, and the fabric was already much darker than it looks in the photo! You can see that the trim is still very pale, but the bias binding tones in nicely. The machine embroidery on the trim represents the tea leaves in the dye. (Although I used bags in the urn, as they were left over and out of date.)

Assam tunic

Squeezed out of the tea, the bias trim has taken up the dye nicely, but the broderie anglais is still very pale. The white overlocking on the shoulders is unfortunately on the outside. I had a bit of a moment when applying the broderie anglais, so I made the executive decision that two little white seams on the back of the neck wouldn’t matter too much on an experimental piece.

Assam tunic

Rinsed until the water ran clear…

Assam tunic

Here it is dry, and just waiting for finishing touches. I hung it outside, in the shade so it wouldn’t get bleached by the sun, and it dried at record speed. (I suppose the heatwave has its uses.)

Assam tunic

I added gold ribbons at each side to fasten, and another one in the front for decoration.

Assam tunic

Ta-daa!

There is a little bit of a story behind this piece. The assam tea bags were bought specifically for a reunion with a long-lost friend, about three years ago. Said friend then always seemed to be too busy to come and visit me enough times to actually drink the tea, and we’ve since all but lost touch again. It wasn’t until I came to tidy the kitchen cupboards to sell the house, that I realised the teabags have actually been out of date for eighteen months. Rather than waste them, I thought I’d turn them into something pretty for myself.

Vintage embroidery transfers

Vintage Embroidery Transfers

My parents have been clearing out the loft before they move house, and my Mum had vaguely mentioned a box of embroidery transfers. Turns out that the box is about the size of a ream of paper, and crammed absolutely full!

Most of the transfers are from the 1930s and 1940s, with a few from the early 50s including a lovely set of Coronation designs for brooches. The earliest dated one I found was from 1915! Most of the transfers aren’t dated, but the majority of them have a company name and a number. Others have the name of a magazine and an issue number, so it should be relatively easy to track them down and date them properly.

Vintage Embroidery Transfers

There are lots of different crinoline ladies, as you might expect, ranging from the delightfully simple to the impressively large and complicated!

There are also patterns for cross stitch, broderie anglaise and cutwork. Plenty of floral designs, mostly for dressing table sets or chair backs. Lots of designs for brooches too, which surprised me. I hadn’t seen those in any of my 1930s & 40s sewing books, so I wasn’t expecting them. I quite fancy making some now though.

At first I thought the kiwi (the bird, not the fruit) was the most unexpected design, but on reflection I think that award might have to go to the chicken with the soda syphon…

Vintage Embroidery Transfers

Vintage Embroidery Transfers

Vintage Embroidery Transfers

Vintage Embroidery Transfers

Who knew that chickens could have so much fun at a cocktail party?!

I have some vague plans for using the transfers to actually embroider things, and I also have plans to scan them so that I can use the designs without destroying the originals. A couple of people have suggested that I sell the copies, but I’d need to double check the copyright situation. I do want to research them first though, to date them properly, and to put all the matching transfers together. Once I have a bit of Spare Time, I can feel a lovely project coming on.

Beth and Katy

Beth & Katy

Hopefully this parcel has arrived at its destination by now – I don’t want to spoil a surprise!

These little dolls are for Paul’s cousin and her husband, who are now the proud parents of identical twin girls. Catherine and Elizabeth are thankfully known as Katy and Beth for short – otherwise I’d have had a lot more embroidery to do!

Kaylee Aine

Kaylee Aine

Another embroidery for a another friend’s daughter – born just two weeks ago.

This one’s very simple – a nice flowing chain stitch, on silk.

I found it harder to embroider on silk than cotton, because the fabric’s not as stable. Even if you try very hard to keep an even tension, the fabric still likes to move about as you work on it. I’m not sure I’ll try embroidery on silk again, but I’m still pleased with how this turned out.

The parcel should have arrived in Scotland by now, so I hope Kaylee’s parents like it!

Rising Sun Art Market

REVEAL Showcase preparation

Oops, this is a bit of a last-minute announcement, but the Rising Sun Christmas Art Market is tomorrow!

Rising Sun Arts Centre, 30 Silver Street, Reading RG1 2ST
10.30am – 5.30pm

Skycarrots and I will be there, and there will be cake and mulled wine in the bar area – conveniently close to my stall.

Come and join us for some original Christmas shopping, away from the mad rush of the town centre!

(This afternoon I will be mostly mounting badges onto Moo cards, and backing my ampersand embroideries with felt.)

Embroidery & Typography

Catherine Elizabeth

This is my latest embroidery, for Catherine Elizabeth May who was born just less than two weeks ago.

The font is Bickham Script Pro, and one of the things I liked about it (along with most of the fonts that I buy) is that it has proper ligatures. A ligature replaces a sequence of single characters with a single conjoined character, as shown in the example below:

Ligatures

(Quick typography fact – the most commonly used ligature is the ampersand, where et becomes &.)

What I didn’t notice until I was almost at the end of the embroidery, is that there are two th ligatures in “Catherine Elizabeth”, and they’re both different! In “Catherine”, the t is a single stroke, joining to the h from the crossbar. The upper loop of the h is also very wide, extending over the top of the following letter e. However at the end of “Elizabeth”, the t joins to the h from the bottom stroke, and the crossbar doesn’t join at all. The loop of the h is also much narrower.

I’m afraid that I’m not going to unpick an entire night’s worth of embroidery in order to make the two ligatures the same. What I am going to do is fiddle around in Photoshop, and try to work out why it decided to render the two ligatures differently.

Laura’s beaded wedding bag

Laura's beaded wedding bag

I don’t like showing other people’s wedding things in their entirety before the wedding, so this is just a little snapshot of Laura’s beaded wedding bag.

The ivory silk dupion was already beaded and embroidered. I removed some of the clear beads, and replaced them with red ones. You can also see the pretty flower shaped iridescent button, there in the bottom right hand corner.

Laura and Rob are getting married in September.

Congratulations!

More embroidered ampersands

Embroidery examples

This is what’s been keeping me out of trouble in the evenings – embroidering ampersands. And a little flower made from a vintage button, just for good measure.

The larger ones measure 6 inches across, and the smaller ones are four inches.

In order to prevent my house from becoming completely over run by embroidered typography, all of these pieces are now for sale on Etsy.

I’m now in that awkward position where I probably shouldn’t really go buying any more supplies until I’ve earned a bit of money by selling some of these. I can’t wait to make some more, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that somebody out there likes them as much as I do!

Smocked and embroidered shirt.

Embroidered & smocked shirt

This is what I’m wearing today – a smocked and embroidered shirt.

It started life one of Paul’s old work shirts. It’s in perfectly good condition, it just doesn’t fit him any more. So I’ve smocked the sleeves and a bit on the back, and embroidered the button stand and collar.

I did this to see whether it would work as a project that could be taught in a workshop – how to revamp an old shirt with some simple decorative needlework. Unfortunately this was such a nuisance to make that I think the answer is no! There’s a reason why the smocking and embroidery is always done before you assemble your garment – it’s much too fiddly to try and do it afterwards.

On the plus side, I’ve gained a pretty addition to my wardrobe, and have every intention of wearing this with my huge floppy trousers. Also, it tells me that smocked and embroidered shirts made from scratch are definitely in my sewing future!