I taught for a while.  In writing reports we always tried to adhere to the sandwich method.  i.e start and end with a good comment and sandwich the “needs to improve” comment inbetween them.

I think I’ll use that method today.

First.  I am very happy with how my little embroidered Christmas tree turned out.  I stayed with the beads for this one as they were already on there,  (votes were split evenly between beads or no beads), made another one just like it and sewed it together  to make a stuffed Christmas tree decoration.  I edged it with Palestrina stitch.  I’m a big fan of palestrina stitch for edgings.

Second.  Dyeing? Much room for improvement.  I did try my hardest.  Iwas even consious of using blue and yellow to make green so that I wouldn’t be putting colours next to eachother that would bleed into one another to create a brown.

And yet.

So…maybe it doesn’t look that bad in the skein.

How about in the ball?

And…all knit up?

Well..it’s functional and it might be to somebody’s taste.  My DH said it was “unusual”.  I will admit that the cream background does nothing to highlight the colours.

Last. Thank goodness for lovely spinning.  Here’s the red/plumish sari silk and merino that I’ve finished plying up.  I really like this.

I received an early Christmas present.  I entered the drawing at Craft Blog to win a fabric pack from The Oz Material girls and I won!  I feel very fortunate and will try to find just the right project to make the best use of these beautiful fabrics using my novice sewing skills.    I’d like to try a simple patchwork project – I’ve never done that before.   I am so pleased with the fabric and they are all my favourite colours too.

I’ve been working on the chicken scratch stitch again and am relatively happy with this little Christmas tree.

I’m not sure if the beads add or detract from it.

But I think it could make a nice Christmas tree ornament.

 A few months ago I posted here about making lemon butter from an old handwritten recipe of my grandmother’s.    In the comments Just Gail asked if there was any chance of sharing the recipe.  I think there’s a chance of that…spread the lovely lemon butter around.

Yes, that’s the recipe as written by my Nana.  There was some guesstimating around some of the words.  I think this is what it says:

LEMON CHEESE (or curd, or butter)

Ingredients

2 eggs

8 full tablespoons of sugar 

Juice of two lemons

lump of butter

Method:

Beat eggs and sugar well.  Add lemon juice and a  good lump of butter. Cook on slow heat until boiling, stirring all the time. 

I should let you know that I used far less sugar than Nana did and it still tasted fine.  I think I used about 5 tablespoons. So I’d say…add sugar to taste….

NB: Now some of you you have squinted at the actual hand written recipe will notice that the last word on the second line that begins with the letter  “M”, seems to be an ingredient.  I have no idea what it is so naturally I didn’t include it when I made the lemon butter.   Anyone have any ideas as to what it might be?  Whatever it is, the recipe worked well without it.

Likewise the handwritten recipe states that you should “add lemon juice and good lump of  “f.ing”.  I’ve no idea what Nana meant by this.  I could take a guess…. but I’ve taken it to mean “add lemon juice and a good lump of butter”.  The substitution of butter for “f.ing” worked well.   Fancy that!

I love Lemon butter on toast with a hot cup of tea to wash it down.  I made a cute little tea cosy today, as I was feeling nostalgic. 

…just in case I forget what it’s for.

It’s a really cold Spring day in Sydney.  The sky is grey.  The rain is pelting down and I have nothing better to do than finish my Airy Cardigan by Therese Chynoweth from interweave knits  Winter 2004.  I’m happy.

I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.  Particularly because it was really difficult to measure the body and armhole length as I was knitting it – the fabric was so stretchy! 

 I think I like the cardi worn open.  It will be good for cool Summer nights.  It was quite difficult to choose buttons for it.  They needed to be really light so that they wouldn’t weigh the fabric down.  I longed to use vintage glass ones from my Grandmother’s stash.  But alas, though they looked like  raindrops they felt like sinkers.

In the end I went to the local Lincraft today and bought some “not too bad ones”.  I’ll keep looking for some nicer ones though.  The yarn was a christmas gift from my Sister – Annie Blatt fine kid.  I think this pattern is simple enough to handle the variagated colourway.  Big thanks to my Sister.

So…I entered a very cool giveaway at Salihan Crafts for two skeins of Malabrigo.   Imagine that my tongue is firmly placed in my cheek as I say….I really would rather not advertise this giveaway as I hunger after some malabrigo for myself!  Of course I could just buy some, but giveaways are fun, right – and of course Salihan is a friend…so drop by and enter.

Embroidery bits and bobs are less space hungry than yarn, at least in my household.  The finished or “nearly there badges/brooches have ended up sitting in a ceramic bowl.  I’m still experimenting with finishing – I think I’ve almost got it right.  Until then they sit patiently waiting and ocassionally accepting comments (both complimentary and bemused) from visitors to our house.   Anyone else have a pile of bits and bobs?  I can imagine that doll makers might have body parts littered around. 

I think this is the image I have of my teenage self.  My nose is smaller – but it’s really hard to get a fine nose over the fold in a journal.  My lips are thinner too…but it’s really hard to work fine lips with thick pastels.  Ahh…excuses, excuses.  I’m really enjoying playing with my pastels.  Gorgeous colours.   Of course I don’t look anything like this now!  (or do I?)

Please note that I do not have a big dark moley thing on my nose in real life – it’s just the hole where the book is bound.  Neither do I have flowers sprouting from my head.  But I used to wear them in my hair.  I also have teeth and a tongue in my mouth – not just a gaping black hole – though I do think my mouth opened in suprise at the world around me.

I’ve also been doing some work on my fairy images.  I like these designs better than the first.  The square one is done in linen thread so it’s a little bit knobbly.  I think I prefer the straight cotton for line drawings in embroidery, at least when the drawings are small. They are about the size of a 50 cent piece.

I like their golden wings.  I also like that they’re talking to the flowers.  My Mum always believed that plants grew better if you talked to them.

I am!  One of my favourite blogs,  Contemporary Embroidery, recently had a giveaway. I entered and won.  I was so suprised and delighted.  I really love Karen’s work and aesthetic.  It is fresh and …well…contemporary.    Thank you so much for your lovely gifts, Karen.

Here they are:

Gorgeous puffs!  In purple and green! Two of my favourite colours.  They also happen to be two of my sister’s favourite colours  – she has chosen them as theme colours for her wedding.  I may have to keep these lovelies out of sight or they may be snaffled up.

A beautiful, delicate brooch.  I love it.   The picture can’t quite capture all the textural elements of this piece.  It’s really beautiful. I have a very classic black and white dress that I think this will really go with.   The brooch rests on two business size cards with images of some of Karen’s other work. 

Some postcards featuring Karen’s work.  Isn’t it fantastic!  If you want to see more you can visit her blog or etsy shop.

I am tickled pink.  It was wonderful to find such beauty in the post today.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, as they say…here’s some of my stuff. 

I had a think today about why I haven’t kept up with the Take a Stitch Tuesday.  Not that I was ever really “on task” or on time with it.  But why did I stop where I did?  I think I may have been spooked by how poorly a couple of pieces turned out and consequently have taken a step back…or in my case, a running jump. 

Today I revisited the challenge.  I had to look up what stitch I was up to.  It was Bullion Stitch.  This is one of my favourite stitches – when it turns out.  It is also one of my least favourite stitches, especially, as I have discovered today, when using linen thread.  Linen thread just won’t pull through all those wraps smoothly.   Having said that, I’m quite pleased with the end result.  I did a whip stitch over an outline of small bullion stitches placed end to end.  I really like how the whiped stitch pulled the bullions , making them more like little coils.

I used some of the printed fabric that Elizabeth of Quiter Moments sent me.  I’m trying to become more comfortable with integrating a pre existing design into my work.  

I’ve also been doing some spinning and have finished one bobbin full of blue merino and sari silk.  I’ve just started another bobbin and then I’ll two ply it, like the green one.

I have been in a fey mood recently.  Salihan recently came over and I helped her start a redwork piece. We had a really fun day and I think she’s going great guns with her embroidery.  I’d never done a redwork piece myself so, inspired by Salihan, I decided to try a tiny one.

Can you see the fairy sitting on the toadstool?  I would like to try to redesign this a little so that there’s less fuss around where the fairy is.  It might be clearer then.  I would spend more time on the fairy’s face too…it looks like she has a really big nose!

Please note: If you are in a hurry to get to the giveaway link – just scroll down to the bottom paragraph! 

I liked my little attempt at Or Nue so much that I tried it again.  I went into Morris and Sons to buy some “proper” gold thread to work with.  The two shop assistants  didn’t know the type of embroidery style that I was talking about, but fortunately their male counterpart did and explained the style to them.  I was very pleased about this as the other women looked at me as if I was a little bit daft when I said I was doing some “or nue” embroidery and would like some threads for it.  They thought I’d said that I was doing some “all new” embroidery and no doubt wondered why I needed their assitance to find the threads that surrounded me.

Anyway, apparently Morris and Sons doesn’t carry a large variety of  Goldwork threads and so they pointed me in the direction of  The Crewel Gobelin at Killara, (which I’ve been to many times but I’m always a little intimidated by the ladies who work there, mainly because they do seem like ladies and I feel like an common intruder who never spends enough money).   I was also warned that the threads that The Crewel Gobelin carry are very expensive as they are the real deal from England.

In the meantime I bought some Japan Thread, which the Morris and Son’s guy said he’d used succesfully for Or Nue.

So here’s my next little sample.  I quite like it.  The  apple is made using the new Japan Threads and the butterfly is the one mentioned in my last post which uses metallic thread.   Unfortunately there is a mistake in the top one  where the threads crossed in the middle of a row.  I didn’t realise it until after I’d finished. Damn!

And here’s a closer look at the apple.  I still need more practice at turning corners.  Even though I used tweezers the threads still didn’t lie down smoothly.   I used a spring tensioned hoop for this and I’m really wondering if it holds the material tight enough.  I’m thinking of returning to a bound bamboo screw hoop. 

I’ve also been doing some weaving on my, (oops  – I mean Vivian’s ) knitter’s loom.  I am really pleased with the way it’s going.  I’m getting better at keeping the edges straight and I’m having great fun experimenting with the way the colours blend.

On the left below you’ll see where I missed a warp thread….On the right you’ll see it magically disapear.  I’m not sure it’s “legal” but I used a needle to correct the mistake by weaving a bit of the same colour yarn over the weft thread as if it were the original warp thread.

…And talking about colour blending…

Today  Salihan, of Salihan Crafts, came to visit and we had a great day dyeing and embroidering.  Salihan had generously given some “chibola”  to the cause. (Chibola is like Kool Aid)   I had a huge ball of yarn left over from my Mum’s jumper which I wanted to overdye.  The original colour is a rusty orange, which Mum loves but which I could never imagine wearing.  I over dyed it with “strawberry” and “cherry” Chibola.   I think it may still need another strawberry Kool Aid dunking, as when I inspected it this morning there were still some orangey strands peeping through.  Salihan dyed a skein of 4 ply wool purple and pink with “grape” and “strawberry” chibola.  She might have a picture on her blog…

….and speaking of her blog…

Salihan has a lovely giveaway on at the moment. Visit her blog to win one of her crocheted pears.  They are really adorable.  They’re  amigarumi…but huge!   She’s also got a great online store where you can buy one too.    Go Salihan!

I had a task to perform today and I started getting a little agitated about it,  so I calmed myself with some embroidery.   What better way to calm yourself than with a entirely new (to me) technique.   I saw a gorgeous project in  Stitch magazine – one of my favourites –  a while back.  It was of  some strawberries done in the Or Nue technique.  I couldn’t find my magazine but was pretty sure I’d committed the basics to memory.

I didn’t actually have the traditional ”proper” goldwork thread or silks at hand, so I tried it out with some gold thread and varigated cotton.  I was pretty happy with the results.

In the close up you can see that using the twisted gold thread isn’t quite a match the smoothness of traditional Or Nue, but we’ll just call it texture.  I like the effect anyway.  In the instructions it suggested colouring the fabric under where you plan to stitch the coloured threads so that any background material will be camouflaged and blend with the picture.  I tried this with the right wing. I coloured the area underneath the coloured stitching with a closely matched crayon which I then ironed over with a piece of ktichen paper on top to soak up the wax.  (See this tut  from gigle face studios on tinting with crayon)   I’m not sure if you can notice any difference.  Maybe a subtle one?  I stitched a whipped chain stitch around the circle.  It evened  the circle up a little and provided a bit of coverage at the edges where the gold thread turns back on itself.

and with a little post production…

I have to say that I really like it and will probably try this again sometime.  It may be some time before I work my way up to something like this though.

I have finished my Mum’s socks in time for her birthday.  In time and with days to spare! 

They are the Simply lovely Lace Socks by Karen Baumer from Interweave Knits , Spring 2006. This was a really easy knit and the 5ply Bendigo classic yarn knit up really quickly.  A great public transport knit.

I’ve also been doing some needle lace using the cordonet method – where you tack thread around an outline and then anchor your needle lace around the thread rather than into material.  Then you buttonhole around the thread outlines and lift it off the backing fabric.  It’s fiddly but fun.  I made a lovely rose inside a heart for my sister’s engagement card.  I forgot to take a photo of it so you’ll just have to trust me that it turned out quite well.

I practiced on this piece over the weekend.

My favourite piece of equipment when finishing this was my awl.  I used it to tease the blue thread outlines away from the buttonhole stitches and to neaten it up a bit.  I’m not sure if you can see properly in the second picture but it made a different to the centre (yellow) stitches. Please forgive the colours – the light was fading by the time I took this photo.

And here’smy lovely awl with the ergonomic grip handle.  I don’t have many tools that are  “ergonomic”  – but I think this one was worth getting.

I’ve also been doing some weaving from left over project yarns in my stash.  I really like the different coloured warp threads in this.  The pink 4ply baby yarn wasn’t really up to the job of being a warp thread.  It broke several times.  I also did some very dodgy weaving in the middle somewhere, and ended up with a really uneven and loose bit.  So I’m going to use this like I would fabric.  I’m going to cut it in three, weave the ends in and sew it together to make a cushion cover – that’s the plan anyway.  I’ve begun weaving the ends in and I’m really pleased with how this looks.