BLOG 36

I find it hard to believe that there is only 1 more week until the end of January. Where does the time go? Most of mine went on sewing the side panels for my quilt. To this frenzy of sewing, add a trip to Warwickshire where I was the after-dinner speaker for a Christmas lunch, and a demonstration at Chester Ps & Qs and you will see that I have had a busy week. I am not a fanatical sewer but I do like to spend a couple of hours a day in my room.

Side strips

There is a lot of intensive work in these 2 strips. The pleasurable and creative part is the decorative stitching on the Jacobean flowers. The mundane and repetitive part is the zigzag sewing around the cut edges to prevent them from fraying and to join the layers together. Intensive work or not, I look forward to getting to my sewing machine in the loft, tucked away at the top end of the cottage. The coloured fabric and threads act like a magnet drawing me there on a regular basis. I know I can leave everything out and about, in the sure and certain knowledge that no one else will need to go in there. Being aware that I can just pick up where I left off is conducive to progress.

The threads constantly need changing on the machine for the decorative stitching, so they are always at hand. I use a variety of makes of rayon threads. Also to hand are the ready filled bobbins, with all the colours to match the rayon threads. I generally use a lightweight (50) thread in the bobbin.

Work in progress

This is the super little reference book that I use when I need ideas for the decorative stitches. It has a wealth of useful information inside its small covers. My designs and stitches won’t be the same because I am intent on using set machine stitches rather than hand sewing, but I can emulate the ‘flavour’ of the floral shapes.

Book of stitches

I am aware that so far I have made no reference to the creatures that habitually appear in this style of embroidery. They certainly came into my research and here are some of the simple sketches that I have made for future reference.

Creatures 1

Creatures 2

Creatures 3