Drawn Thread Fillers

At my local lace group some months back, one of our members asked me if I could teach her how to do "that". "That" being a corner in a beautiful drawn thread tablecloth, pictured in a magazine that someone had brought for show & tell. No, not the whole piece, just the corner, as a brooch. Of couse I could. So with some thinking, we organized what had to be brought for the following meeting so that we could make a start. Come the next meeting, both of us forgot things, and of course we did not have the magazine anymore, so I rummaged in my bag & found pencil & graph paper & quickly sketched up a design. There were scraps of fabric in my bag, as was some thread, so we went to work. So the above little square is the result, really too big to be a brooch, but that really depends on taste. It is yet to be cut from fabric, & I think it will still become a brooch or bag clip or some such item. As far as a design for a corner, it really is not strong enough to be a corner design in a table cloth. Worked on even weave linen with my own hand dyed threads.

I did have plans for doing three of these little squares, all in differnt colours, but by the time I did the pink one, I wanted a different design. The problem that I had was that the border stitching had already been done on the others, so I was left with a limited space with wich to work. So I just filled in the spaces with laid threads, coral knots & woven wheels. I quite like the effect, and feel it could be a very interesting filler on something.

The third colour is yet to be worked. The ouside border is done but I have to think of something to put on the inside yet. That's tonight's plan.

2009 Challenge Update

Yesterday I sat down & set myself my 2009 challenges. Guzzisue has already been reading them & has handed me another challenge, well not really another one, but something to spur me on with my bobbin lace. It has been suggested that we work through the book together. How cool is that? Having someone to spur me on & help me achieve my aims, even across oceans. I have until March I think to get my current piece off my pillow & practice my basic stitches again, before delving into the book. So guess what I am working on, in between everything else.

Blog Award

Over in my side bar I have a list of blogs that I visit every day to see what people have been up to. This morning I noticed over on Carol's blog that I had been given this award. So big thanks go out. I feel really chuffed at recieving it, so to continue the spirit, here are the five people that I would like to pass this award on to.

1. Guzzisue
2. Marg B
3.Textile Dreamer
4. Margaret
5. Adriana

2009 Challenges

Each year at this time of year I like to set myself some new challenges for the following year. Sometimes I achieve them & sometimes I don't, but at least it gives me something to aim for. Usually I give myself too many challenges & that would be the main reason why I do not achieve what I set out to do. The list that I set myself for this year was a perfect example of that, way too many large projects. So my list for 2009 reads like this.

1. One quilt. This is left over from this year. It was supposed to a present for a family member who was celebrating a special birthday. Needless to say the birthday has been & gone & all I have done is purchased & washed fabric. I have promised it by November 2009.

2. A piece of reticella, which is also another challenge left over from this year. I've started to have a look at this already, but the fabric that I have chosen to work the piece is different than I used for my failed attempt earlier this year. So consequently I have had to do more samples to make sure that the fabric/thread combination will work, as this fabric is a higher thread count than before.

3. To start learning Bedfordshire Lace. This is a form of bobbin lace that just makes my toes curl. I have the book pictured above, which seems to take the learner from the beginning. To achieve this, I will have to finish the piece that I currently have on my pillow, or aquire a new pillow from somewhere. I will also have to go back & revise all the Torchon techniques that I have previously done so as to refresh my memory on how to work some of the stitches. Note, the operative word in this challenge is to "Start" learning.

OK, so I have only given myself three challenges for 2009. Personally I think that is enough, considering I did not get though all that I set myself for this year. I do tend to overdo it occasionally. So that is why I have steered myself away from signing up for the Stitch Explorer challenge that Sharon B has going. I will follow this one with interest & may even participate in my own way. We shall see. There is also the fact that I really want to explore pulled work. I have in mind to do a sampler of stitches, but this might be just one of those things that continue from year to year. It may even get to be started in 2009. Just another "We shall see".

So watch this space to see if I achieve all the challenges that I have set for myself for 2009.

A Treasure Found

I just had to share this gorgeous piece of work with you all. Recently I have been away, and as I always do, I went looking through antique & bric-a-brack stores. I never know just what I might find. I just love to go through the piles of doileys that these shops seem to have, & on one particular day I could not believe my luck to find this for a bargain. It is all buttonhole stitch & wrapping in what I believe to be the Aemilia Arys style. Just beautiful! I have no idea as to the origins of this piece, or who has made it, but it is now mine & I will treasure it while ever I walk this earth. I take it that some very talented lady has passed on, & her family have been left to sort through her things. Such a shame that they have not appreciated the time & effort that has gone into making this piece. I am such a lucky little vegimite!

A Treasured Gift

It certainly has been a while since I have posted anything here. It's not that I haven't been stitching, because as you all know I stitch just about every day. I have just been busy with real life stuff and playing with my garden.

So today I thought I would share with you all a little gift that I recieved from a very good friend. It's a thimble holder, beautifully crocheted in my favourite colour, ready to hang on my scissors so I will be able to find my thinble at all times. This has come just at the right time. With the little project that I am working on now, I am reaching for my thimble all the time, and it is constantly getting lost in amongst all the other stuff in my sewing tin. A gift to be treasured for a very long time.

Just some more fill in type stitching today. This is the beginnings of a little bag I started with one of my classes. The idea was to strip some scraps of fabric together & then add stitching. We would open a stitch book at any page, & take the stitch from that page & play with it. The idea was to extend my student's knowledge of stitches & see how creative they could be. I have had enough of stitching on this & now need to make it up. Just something else that my sewing machine is waiting to do. When it is finished I hope to use it as a thread bag, as lately my project threads are all over the place, unwinding themselves into messes. So I thought this might help to keep them tidy.

More Patchwork

Just another "flower" block today. I figured out that I would need at least 50 of these if I want to make a quilt. M......, is that what I want? Not sure. I have plenty of scraps of fabric that I can use to make all these blocks, but I think I would get very bored very quickly. If it is going to be a quilt, then it is going to be a very long time happening. This is only the fourth one I have done. I need to re-think that one.

I am really only filling in time whith this patchwork while I get my next major project underway. I want to do another piece of Reticella, but the fabric I have chosen is different to what I have used before, it is much finer. So all the counting & graphing that I have done has to be re-done to fit the fabric, otherwise my spaces will not be large enough to fit the fillings in that I have chosen. I am in the middle of experimenting, but the piece of linen is patiently waiting for some fabric strips to be atached so it can be put in a hoop. Just something else to add to the "must do" list.

Time Out

What a year! I'm saying this now & it is only October? Well................................................................

One of my challenges for this year was a wedding. Yes, a wedding. That means one wedding gown and three bridesmaid's dresses, all patternmade & made by Your's Truely. Well, challenge it certainly has been, in more ways than one. Today, though, I officially class it as "challenge complete"! The bridesmaids dresses are all packaged & have left the house. The wedding gown is all packaged & ready to be collected by a courier to go 300miles up the coast to be professionally pressed, ready for the big day. Photos ? Maybe later, the groom may be reading.

At this point I would personally like to thank my friends Robyn & Christine for being at the other end of the phone when I got stuck, & needed both technical advice & moral support. Without them this dress would not be at the point that it is today.

That said, what am I to do with myself now? I am not sure. I have so many things that I want to do I just cannot make up my mind. I do still need to stitch though, and lately it has been some mind numbing English Patchwork. The piece above will be added to my collection of "Grandmother's Flower Garden", and may one day be made into a quilt.

A New Book

Look what I acquired! I am so excited! I have wanted to do some Teneriffe lace for some time , and even borrowed this same book from the Embroiderer's Guild library. The library book has been sitting on my coffee table, just looking at me waiting for me to start, but I have other more pressing matters at the moment. The book also has to be back at the library in a week. Then yesterday I attended my local lace group and one of the ladies had just come back from overseas with two copies of this book that she was hoping to sell. One was instantly mine, brand new, at a bargain price. So now it can reside on my coffee table, taunting me to start, and the other copy can go back to the library for someone else to enjoy.

Needle Lace Autumn Leaf

On one of my on-line groups someone commented about the use of colour in needle lace and that they would not like to see a piece in more than one colour. So I just thought I would dig out my needleace leaf that I did years ago in a workshop with Margaret Stevens, a tutor with the Australian Lace Guild.

This little leaf uses about five different colours, including a variagated one, and personally I think it looks fine. To me, the use of colour, and more than one colour, in the same needle-lace piece, just depends on the end use of the piece. Just my take one the subject.

Just A Snippet

At the end of last year, the Stitcher's Plus group that I belong to decided on a major project to celebrate our group's 10th birthday. I have been madly stitching trying to get my section ready on time. Two nights ago I finished all the stitching & now have some final decisions to make with the piece. The little piece above began here & is just a tase of what my section will be like. Yes, you will all have to wait some more to see the final product. What do they say? Patience is a virtue?

Just filling In

Anyone who knows me knows that I have to stitch every day. If I don't, there is something seriously wrong. I am at the point now where I really need to plan my next serious stitching, because I am just filling in with fiddly things. I am on the down hill run with all the wedding sewing, with just hems & fiddly bits to do, the stitching on my Stitcher's Plus Challenge (which started here) is finished, my wrap for the wedding is finished, & I am looking for something to stitch in front of "the box" at night. So last night I pulled out a stitch challenge I gave to one of my classes some time back, and stitched this eyelet. Well, I stitched a few of them, and really want to stich more. The piece really needs some more fabric strips sewn to it before I can do too much more. Mmmmmm.................. maybe that is something to put on my "to do" list. Now I just need to find something to stitch tonight.

It's A Wrap

I finally finshed my wrap today. It has been waiting for me to knot the fringe & cut it even. I was hoping to have this all done by last Saturday so the girls at Stitcher's Plus could see it finished, but this was not to be. They will just have to make do with the pics like everyone else.

Below is a closer view, and as you can see I didn't do anything too fancy. I felt the coral knots were a too heavy in my experiments, so I just kept to darning. It is after all to wear to a wedding, so I wanted it kept simple & elegant. By the way, the colour in this post is more the real colour, rather than what is in the previous post.

Now all I have to do is hem my skirt, & make a top to wear with everything. I better get cracking.

An Experiment

Away from the garden now & onto the stitching front, I have been making slow progress on I wrap that I want to make. Last year I purchased a piece of blue raw silk to make a skirt and had rather a lengthy strip left over down the side . So I thought I would draw some threads out, & make myself a wrap to wear with the skirt. The pic above is of my experiments with different stitches & threads, but alas, is nothing like the true colour. This pic has way too much red in it, while the real piece is more blue with a slight touch of green. Anyway, the real thing is nearly finished, and there should be a pic soon.

A Bugs Playground

When I first set up this blog over two years ago, I wanted it purely to show off my stitching to the world. Over time, parts of my garden have shown up on it as well, especially in my last post. So yesterday I made a decision to keep both my garden & my stitching seperate, and started another blog just for my garden. I am not sure how often it will be updated, only time will tell.

Spring Has Sprung - finally

After officially recording the coldest August in 60 years, spring has finally arrived in Sydney. Currently we are on 25 degrees, the warmest day in quite some months. So to herald the sunshine & the warm weather, I thought I would share with you some of my garden.

My Bobbin Lace Story

Over the last few days I have had a wonderful discussion with Norma on Stitching Sisters about bobbin lace, so I thought I would share what I have done so far.

I was introduced to this craft over 25 years ago by a work collegue at the time. I had to send to England for supplies as there were no suppliers in Australia at that time ( or so I was told). I managed to work 2 samples of various stitches in my lunch hours at work before falling pregnant with my eldest son & shelving eveything for nearly 20 years. As I played around in the textile world more, ( with kids in tow), I realized that it was lace that made my toes curl more than anything, all forms of it. So a few years ago I decided that everthing I did the following year would involve lace in some way. Come January, I recieved in my letterbox a news letter from my local craft store (now sadly no more) advertizing none other than bobbin lace classes!

So I signed up for 2 terms of lessons, then had a few more private lessons, and finally joined the local lace group which meet once a month. Through this group I discovered the Australin Lace Guild & found out about Lace Days at Linnwood.

So below are my total pieces of bobbin lace that I have made over the years ( minus one that I gave to a dear friend). These first ones are my first samples, going from right to left. My first sample was in Perle thread, then progressed to tatting thread which is much finer. In the far left samples I learnt spiders & gimps.

This next ones show various grounds, spiders, diamonds & more ginps.

This next one shows more spiders, various fans, a footside edge and square tallies.

And this final one is my square corner sample which is mounted to some fine cotton voile.

At the moment my pillow has this snail trail on it in black Gutermann silk machine thread. I am totally bored to tears with it but really must get it finished & off my pillow so I can do some more. I think I will have to go back to the beginning and start again as it has been so long since I have done most of the grounds, spiders and tallies that I have forgotten how to do them. Maybe after the wedding.

Challenge Update

Back in November 2007 here I set myself some personal challenges for 2008. As it is getting on in the year I thought I would do an update.


Challenge number one was a wedding. I might add at this point that this challenge is totally consuming me. Progress is definately happening. More on this much later in the year.


Challenge number two was two quilts. Yes well, one is finished & is loved more than I can say, the other is still just fabric pieces and an idea. This has been postponed until all wedding sewing is out of the way.

Challenge number three was a piece of reticella. Well, those of you who are regular readers will know what happened to that piece. The end result can been seen here. I am, however slowly working on a creative piece of Reticella/drawn thread work using the fabric & thread pictured here. This piece is for a major project with the Stitchers Plus group that I belong to.

Challenge number four was the filet lace. Yey! Accomplished! Can be seen here. I really want to do some more but that also will have to wait until wedding sewing is complete.

Challenge number five was the TIF Challenge. Yes well, a girl can dream can't she? I signed up with all good intentions thinking it would provide some light relief in my stitching. Unfortunately, the wedding has totally taken over & this challenge has definately slid down the list. Maybe I might pick up where I left off sometime in 2009.

OK, so to keep a long story short, if there are no posts here for a while, that is because I am busy with challenge number one, the wedding.

By the way, the beautiful cat at the top is Lucky. I posted this pic of her because visitors to our home very rarely, if ever, see her. She is a little sensitive to strangers.

Lace inspiration - A New Book

Last Saturday I had a day with my Stitchers Plus group, & my dear friend Robyn presented me with this book. What a treasure! The front cover alone has inspiration enough to keep me occupied for a lifetime, so I'm sure you can all imagine what is inside. A treasure chest of photos of the most amazing buildings including:-

The Alambra, Spain
The Roman Forum, Italy
Heidelberg Castle, West Germany
St Peter's, Vatican City
Temple of Amon, Egypt
The Imperial Palace, Japan
The Binnenhof, the Netherlands
Edinburh Castle, Scotland

My instant reaction is of course lace, & I want to start a piece now. The reality is though that I have more pressing matters to attend to, so you will all have to wait a while before you see anything inspired from this book.

A Cutwork Bookmark

This little book mark was made as a sample to a major piece I am working on. It was to test a pattern that I had designed but when I worked it, I didn't like it. I have since changed the design & the major work is happening on this fabric. It may not be the best bookmark that I have made, but it will get used, even if only to mark a place in a stitch book. It used scraps of hand dyed linen & thread from my stash.

I've Been Published!

Look what I found on my doorstep this morning! A copy of the local Fairfield Advance Newspaper with this article written by Joanne Vella.

TIF Challenge - June

All year Sharon B has been running the TIF Challenge. I had good intentions of completing something every month but things have got a little out of control lately & I have let the TIF challenge slide. I have completed January, February, March & April, but got stuck at May. I have an idea, & got all my fabrics ready to do the challenge, but that is as far as it got. Now the challenges are up for June & July & I am getting further behind.

The June Challenge is about "Stash Busting - Stories That Are & Stories That Are Possible'. So while I have been working on the RR of my previous post, I had to sample a new stitch, and guess what I dug into to do this sample? Da da........ my stash of course! OK, so while I was working the RR sampler, I also started turning my sample into a book mark. It only took me a month to think that this was actually stash busting, and that there is a story behind the stash of fabric and also the thread. So here goes.

About 8 years ago I wanted to make a hardanger sachet, (above) so went about designing it & worked out that I needed a meter of Belfast linen. Any hardanger worker will know that a lot of the designs are worked on the diagonal, and this one was no different. So consequently I had a lot of fabric left from my meter, just odd shapes. The shapes were definately big enough to do something with so they went back into the "Stash" for later use.

About 4 years ago I dug into this "stash "to see if I had enough fabric to make my tissue box cover. Yes! One piece was just enough! The pattern for this was also a strange shape, with funny corners cut out. To do the drawn thread work, I had to withdraw the threads & work the ends back into the fabric. When the piece was finished I had more odd shaped pieces (just smaller than before) , but this time with ends woven back into the fabric. These woven ends can be seen still dangling in the pic below.


OK, some of the pieces are big enough to make small doileys, parts will make book marks & some really small parts might just squeeze in a scissor fob or tassle, so back into the stash they went. It is one of these pieces that I pulled out to sample "single cross eyelets" on for the RR. The sample has since decided to become a book mark.

Then there is the story behind the thread. This story begins also with the meter of fabric and the hardanger sachet. I wanted the stitching to be pink & green , & was game enough to dye my own thread. The problem was that when I dyed it, I wasn't happy with the colour, so wound it all up on empty machine thread reels & placed it in my thread stash. When I started sampling the single cross eyelets, I pulled out this thread from my stash to use, after all it was just going to be a sample.

Now the book mark is nearly finished. It has used fabric & thread from my stash, and combine this with a new stitch to me, I am very happy with the result, even the colour of the thread! So the story began eight years ago with a meter of fabric, and will continue well into the future with many stories to come. The book mark will mark my place in many of the novels that I like to read before going to sleep, as well as references to new & wonderful stitches that I want to try.

Sarah's Band Sampler

Another band for the Stitching Sister Counted Thread Band RR finished. This one is for Sarah in Texas. This one was a little more difficult for me to design for than the previous ones that I have done. Initially I thought that I would work some cherry blossoms, or maybe some Chinese scrolls, but when the sampler arrived, I didn't think these were suitable at this point in the sampler. Sarah had already worked scrolls in the previous band, so they were out, & the cherry blossoms were curvey & I felt this needed something geometric. So I looked to the card that came in the package for inspiration.




My eye instantly went to the key design in the border on the Emperor's robe, so I took one section, mirrored it, then flipped this to form my basic motif, which when repeated, reminded me of Chinese lattice work. Design decided on, I now needed to think of stitches. The fabric lent it'self to pulled work, something I have not done very much of, so I found a stitch called "Single Cross Eyelet" which I thought would work. So I graphed the key pattern over three squares on a graph, supposedly working the eyelets in a checkaboard pattern, only to find that this made the whole design much wider than what I intended. So then I marked the key pattern in just a single row of eyelets & it worked fine.

I worked the eyelets in two strands of DMC Stranded thread, & when they were finished I felt they were a little bland. I tried to outline them in back stitch but the eyelets are worked over five threads & this did not work out mathematically, so I tried over one thread (yuk!) and also over all five threads ( also yuk!). In the end I woked tiny cross stitches in blue over the single cross formed in the center of each eyelet.

So now this sampler is ready to continue on it's journey. Sarah, I hope you like what I did.

A New Major Work

It has been over a week since I posted anything here, so I though I would give you all a teaser as to my next major piece for the Stitches Plus Group. The linen pictured here is one which I hand dyed last week, along with the perle 12 thread on the white reel. The linen is one which I purchased cheap about 2 years ago. I knew it had a stain on it, (I thought that was the reason why it was cheap!) so I avoided the stained piece when I put it in the dye pot. Over the last few days I have started stitching on this piece & have found that it is not an evenweave linen, (another reason why it would be cheap). This now leaves me in a delema, whether to continue stitching & see where the uneven weave will take me, adjust the stitching to make it uneven, so counteracting the uneveness of the weave in the linen, or start again on a new piece of linen, which I know will be even weave & give me what I want. Decisions, decisions!

Lace Exhibition

Later this month the Fairfield City Museum & Gallery will be host to an exhibition of works by Western Sydney Lacemakers. There are ten of us in all, ( including myself) that will be exhibiting a number of our works. Techniques include Bobbin lace, Needlelace, Tennerife, Chrochet, Wire lace, Romanian Point lace, Batternberg lace & Reticella.

The exhibition will be officially opened on May 31st at 1pm, & will be open for viewing until the 28th June. So for anyone in the area, it will be a feast for the eyes,

Band Sampler Round Robin

Way back in January of 2007, a group of ladies from around the globe started a Counted Thread Round Robin. My first band can be seen here & my second is here. Then there was a very long wait until the next one arrived for me to work on. This sampler is for Norma in the USA & I have worked the Wessex band at the bottom.

May TIF Challenge

The May TIF Challenge is out on Sharon B's blog. This month the theme is "what do you call yourself and why?" This could prove very interesting!

Initial thoughts go to wife, mother, teacher, dressmaker, stitcher, lacemaker. So many names, I could go on forever, but I think I will go away & think some more. Let's see where this month's challenge will take me.

"Seasons Of Change" - April TIF

" Seasons of Change" is my April TIF challenge complete. It began here & continued to this, which I wasn't entirely happy with. So I cut out my leaf & appliqued it onto a green background. I think it looks much better & has more life than before. I tried to portray the changes in colour & shapes that Mother Nature gives us as she changes the seasons. I have used digitizing, applique & machine embroidery to achieve the result.

Filet Lace

Back in November I listed my personal challenges for 2008. One of the things on my list was to have a play with some filet lace. Behold! Challenge complete! The two pieces pictured here are both worked straight from the book "Filet Lace - Stitches & Patterns" by Margaret Morgan. I must admit I was a little scared of trying as I was worried about all that under & over stuff & ending up where you start. It was not as hard as I thought. I am only up to page 40 in the book (there are 168), but I feel like I am ready to tackle a design of my own. The only problem is that the mesh has been very hard on my fingers, giving me a small dose of dermatitis, which I think has come from the dressing that has been used to stiffen the mesh. I will just have to withdraw threads from fabric & make my own mesh to avoid this problem, something that has been an aim anyway.

Autumn Leaf Update

After some show & tell with yesterday's Autumn Leaf, Trish from on of my on-line groups gave me a hint about fixing up the spots on my leaf. I knew the ones I had done were very regular, & I had thought of a few ways myself on how to get them more irregular. Trish offered me another way which is what I have used here. I have also changed the left side of the leaf so that each layer is a different colour so I will get more colour depth in my leaf. I have not stitched this one out yet, not sure that I will, but it is one design to be saved.

April TIF - A start

I worked on my April TIF this morning. I had the idea to digitize a leaf to symbolize the change in seasons. I wanted one side to be one colour & the other side another colour, showing the changes in colour that a change in season will bring.

I found a leaf pic that I had scanned into my PC in an Autumn gone by, imported it into my digitizing program & off I went. I remembered that I had a colour blending tool & thought that would be good to try to see if I could get subtle changes in colour. It worked on one side of my leaf but not so well on the other. This was the first time I had used this tool & I learnt heaps. I found out that I could create many layers of colour using this tool, also edit the stitches & fills. On the final layer on the left, I edited the stitch to be a candlewick one, so giving me spots on my leaf, the type that appear as a leaf ages. What I didn't change however, was the colour. So consequently when I did the stitch-out, my spots are the same colour as the layer before, & are not as visible as I would have hoped.

I am not exactly happy with this but it certainly has been an interesting exercise. Now I have to decide whether to start again, or make something of what I have done. I think it will be the latter as I should really be doing wedding sewing instead of playing, and time is precious.

Creating Patterns for Digitizing

Today I am a Happy Little Vegimite! Ever since aquiring my digitizing program I have been wanting to create a hexagon fill for use in my digitized lace. This morning on one of my Yahoo groups there was some discussion about creating circle fills without jumps stitches. So with a little play, and lot of thinking I have created this! The best part is that there are no jump stitches which tend to take away from the look of the design. This design would not stand up to digitized lace as it would all fall apart in the first wash out test, but the technique of creating the pattern without the jump stitches is inspiring.

With the press of a button I have produced this pattern which would pass the wash out test for my lace.
This led me to trying again to digitize my hexagon lace fill. I still have not been successful for what I want but I am closer than before. The fill below would not pass the wash out test,

but this one would.

I haven't tried to stich any of them out yet , I have been too busy playing on this PC. Time I got off & tried to do some stitching!