I just wanted to say thanks

It occured to me that I have not put much of my own embroidery onto this blog for a while and I wanted to thank you dear readers for sticking with me whilst I was decorating and broadcasting etc.  So I thought I would show you some of the embroidery I enjoy doing. I know some of you probably can't do this type of embroidery yourselves and so maybe mine will be an inspiration to you this year of 2010!

First up is a little piece I made which is a particular favourite of mine because it seemed to work out so well.

I took some artist's weight canvas and painted it with the blue silk paint you see for a background. then I took some silk paper I had made in shades of green with added pieces of white silk and cut a rectangle out of it. This gave me a framework with a shaggy outside and a good size rectangle for the inside. Onto this I appliquéd some pieces of fabric and some sheer pink organza and lastly I added 3 flowers I had made on my Janome embroidery only machine. I then added some pink fluffy Linton Tweed fibres taken from some material I had left over from them.  This was only the start. Next I placed all of this under my Bernina and started to embroider and it was stiff enough to not have to use any hoops, (the trick is to use strong artist's canvas for the background).  I usually do certain meander type doodles which seem to be my signature if you like and often add a large starburst, which you can see in the top right and bottom left corner in shiny pink. One more in the centre of the 3 flowers seemed to make the piece come together and that was that.

This next piece is much more complex but overall the idea was the same except I made 3 little fish on the Janome machine and cut one of them in two so that I could use the tail and the head to make it look as though more fish were swimming through the weeds.

I simply kept the silk paper loser and tucked the fish inside it here and there to give the illusion of depth. I also made some rather longer weeds down the left hand side by using some appliquéd threads and bits of ribbon.

Here you can see the idea I had about cutting one fish into two, it does mean I could get away with making less fish. I used the same type of machine embroidery techniques I described for the first piece but more densely.

This is the bottom of the piece and you can see I made a starfish and I worked more little scraps of fuzzy Linton Tweed fibres into the silk and teased it open here and there to push pieces inside so it gave the right impression.

Lastly, this is a more contemporary piece but still uses the artist's canvas only painted pale green, and onto it I dribbled some gutta percha in a sort of gold and let this set hard. Then I added sharp looking blocks of embroidered taffeta which I had cut into the shapes I needed after embroidering them. I attached these to the piece using machine embroidery and added a large swathe of  gold see through fabric across the front, as I wanted it to be bold. I embroidered it using my favourite glitzy threads from Madeira. This photo is just a detail of the centre area.

Well I do have more of this type of thing but I think you get the idea. I would add that I sometimes pad out the embroidery from the back before I frame it using quilters wadding and I never frame them  with glass over the top. I know they are more difficult to keep clean, but they do look better and if you just flick a duster carefully over them they seem to tolerate it very well. I love doing machine embroidery and I hope this has given you the confidence to have a go, it really is easier than it looks. You do not need to be an expert, just relax and play and let the needle do the drawing. Start by using appliquéd shapes or something if you feel your stitching does not stand up to close inspection and just couch them down around the edges with little swirls or lots of little circles joined with lines of stitching. Just keep trying and surprise yourself.

A day off

I stood outside the Moot Hall in Keswick this morning, dutifully kitted out ready to take a guided walk up Bleaberry Fell in the pouring rain and do you know only 1 lady turned up. So she and I agreed that we could postpone it and think again. She headed back to her B & B and I headed home to reflect on what to do with my day off.

So the beneficiaries are you, because I am now blogging away like a good un. I have updated the Keswick Rambles blog and now I am doing my other one. So its on to the second instalment of the Wainwright Quilt which came 2ND in the Rheged North West Regional Day Rosebowl Competition. Of course you all know that this is judged by you... so its very special to be awarded a prize, (I still have not spent the book token), so on with the details.

First up is one of my favourite bits on the little quilt, its the bit which started me off on the road to discovery because it pointed me in the right direction. So here is AW sitting on a sort of stile gazing over the quilt towards the centre piece which is a view of Angle Tarn Pikes with Brotherswater in the foreground.


I had great fun with this scene because I clipped around the piccie I had printed of him and just pushed him into place on a little calico creation I had made with Shirley McKeand which I had daubed with some green silk paint to blend in with the rest of the ink jet printed cloth I had produced. Then I added a few more colours to the cairn with Berol fabric pens and embroidered more french knots on his socks.

This next feature is self explanatory I think, I just loved the way he drew his doggie friends and had to include as many as I could.So 'Barmaid 'of the Melbreak foxhounds is shown with just a simple organza bushy plant behind her and some simple whip stitch grassy looking fronds ahead of her. To keep the continuity going I made sure she too was pointing in towards the centre of the quilt.

Next up has to be my favourite piece of the quilt, the Christmas scene. I had a wonderful time with this as you can see. I added a little torn patch to AW's bottom as if the little terrier busy shredding his trouser bottom had previously attacked his derriere ha ha. I made AW puff angrily on his pipe with a whiff of curly smoke going into the air simply with curly straight stitches. The Christmas tree was added because my own little terrier Bella had run across the quilt at that point a few days before and left a little muddy paw print. So I covered it up with organza and just machined in the branches of the tree with straight stitch and a zigzag trunk with the final touch, a metallic star on the top which I hoped would look very 1950's. That gave me the idea for the paper chain (whip stitch) and the lantern and I finished these with beads.

Next I went wild with whip and feather stitch and added as many effects to represent water and fells and stones as I could. I tried to make the raw edges of all the separate components come together rather like a medieval manuscript page. I doodled and dashed about and had a look at a medieval manuscript too whilst I was at it to make sure I was creating the right effect.The edge of the Great Gable page in the right centre of the finished piece shows this best.

The final stage came when I actually sandwiched the quilt with its wadding and backing fabric and just quilted it together in a very restrained manner, after all it was covered in machine embroidery and did not need to have too much quilting, just enough. You can see this best in the final piccie which shows AW staring across at Blencathra with some quilted gusts of wind in a much paler colour than the embroidered pieces. The little grasses at the bottom were done before I quilted in whip stitch.

Finally I added a couple of tabs for hanging which I made from fabric printed with his book covers. I had tried to put a book into the quilt but it did not work, so they were perfect hangars, you see the idea for the quilt all came from the books so it was only right that they were included. All said, this project was one of my most productive and creative times and I enjoyed every minute of it. I want to thank all of you who voted for me it was such a surprise and very kind of you.

2nd Prize at Rheged April 09

I have been away to Scotland, I wish I could say that I had been enjoying myself but in fact I bagged another Munro (Scottish 3000 foot Hill) and managed to be a good meal for a few midges as we camped in Glen Coe. Silly to camp in August I know but Bella came with us and she enjoyed her first real camp. For instance at night she was first into the tent and usually settled down into my sleeping bag with her little head on my pillow and always seemed to be peacefully asleep immediately. So I had to make the best of it. If you want to read the full report it is on my other blog which is here Or you can look at it from my bloglist below. (I know some of you ladies like to read about my adventures in the hills.)

You may remember I said I would put some piccies on the blog of my little quilt which won 2ND prize at Rheged in April at the North West Regional Day. I have shown the complete quilt before but no close ups, so this is the reason I am really blogging tonight. And I was up another 4 Wainwright fells today with a couple of clients and it seemed to be a good idea to give Wainwright his due because you know the subject of the competition was called 'Myths and Legends'. I chose Alfred Wainwright because he is a legend in the Lake District for writing his very famous guide books to the fells and they are in my opinion still as relevant today as when he wrote them starting way back in the 50's.

So the piccie above is Wainwright sitting with his back against a lichen covered cairn staring out over the landscape he loved so well, with his little terrier at his feet and puffing away on his trusty pipe. I made the quilt by scanning in some of the lovely little pen and ink drawings which he made for his books and then printed them on cotton fabric which I had treated with Bubble Jet 2000. Then after I played around with the design a bit I found the idea of grouping little vignettes around a central piccie of a Lake District scene gave the best way of showing off his amusing drawings. I tried to place him around the edges looking in as it were.

This next piccie shows him striking a pose against another cairn in his summer gear, note the braces....I could not resist putting beads on them for the buttons and then adding some chain stitch and a few more beads to the cairn with some French knots and also some special fluffy ones for the top of his socks.

Of course the one thing you notice around here are the sheep and AW rather tongue in cheek knew how to make fun of himself in his drawings. These two sheep are standing on the rough fellside which I embellished with some slanting whip stitch, a bit of zig zag and some odd bits of wool underneath to give the appearance of bracken.

Sometimes his images speak for themselves. So I just did some random straight stitch here and added a bit of colour to the man with Berol fabric marker pens.

I will show you more next time, until then, happy sewing.

Amy quilt - tips for layering a quilt

Hi all,

I just found this other photo of the Amy quilt from last week, before the builder knocked a hole in the wall and when I had layered the quilt and pinned it together. The photo shows me with Bella who had managed to sneak around the door and run across the quilt top to great me, I was aghast... her feet I thought.... but she had not just come in from the garden where she likes to dig holes, thank heavens! She was scooped up by me very quickly and Pete took the shot. If you look closely (all the piccies on the blog can be clicked on to make them bigger) you will see that Bella is giving me a friendly, sorry, type of lick. You will also see the safety pins in place where I have been busy layering the quilt.

TIP How to Layer a Quilt

If you have a big enough floor space with a fitted carpet it is easy to stretch and layer the 3 pieces together. Start with the base layer and make sure it is absolutely square and flat, no ripples must be present. Then pin with safety pins to the carpet below and stretch the fabric as you go to keep the base very taught. You do not, repeat do not close the pins, just push them well in and they will lay flat on their side. You should not have any that will stick up and prick you because you will be kneeling on the whole quilt sandwich later. These first pins stay in place and are all placed on the edges of the base layer, don't put any at all in the middle, just keep to the very edges and make sure they are all well pushed into the carpet. The idea is that the base layer cannot move!

Next lay on the wadding and flatten it and make sure it overlaps the backing fabric. Take time to smooth out any wrinkles because you do not pin the wadding at all. You don't really attempt to stretch it either and I know its hard when you are crawling about all over it but you must get it flat flat flat. (Obviously a big room helps but if you are like me then you end up on the quilt on your knees a lot.)

Next, very carefully lay on the quilt top and square it up and flatten it too. Try not to mess up the wadding as you do so, but because it was not pinned it should still respond to smoothing whilst the top will too, so you are kind of working with both. Patience is all!

So when no wrinkles are in evidence start to pin the quilt right through the 3 layers into the carpet with open safety pins like you did when you started with the base layer. Always start in the middle for this bit and work out in a circle from the middle. Keep working out gradually edging towards the sides, pin and smooth, pin and smooth. When all the quilt is pinned down stand back and assess, if any bits are not right, you guessed it, do that piece again.

Lastly, you need to close all the safety pins, start in the middle again and carefully pick up each pin, ease it slightly out of the carpet and do it up. This will give you sore fingers so be careful. Check that you have not missed any pins and that all are done up.

Now remember the base layer was first pinned round the edges only to keep it from moving so you need to go round the very edges of the quilt and remove the open pins which are just pinning the base layer only to the carpet. This frees up the whole quilt so then carefully ease the quilt sandwich up from the carpet. You have usually missed a 'middle' pin but you will feel it tug and then you can quickly do it up without any harm being done.

I have used this method very successfully and never ruined a carpet or my quilt, but obviously use some discretion, don't try it if you feel it is not for you. You need time, and good knees. The photo shows you the finished result as I had just done up the last safety pin when Bella decided to join me and you can see the surface is stretched tight and all snug.

Blocking out Crewel embroidery

One of the small embroideries for the 'item' was given to me to 'block out' and I thought those of you who do not dabble in Crewel would like to know how this is done. It is simple really, I use a large piece of blockboard which has been covered in cork tiles (basically an old kitchen noticeboard my husband made years ago). I covered the cork with a double layer of plastic and it was ready to go. You then pin the piece of work firmly down so that its flat with the pins angled towards the embroidery so they keep up an even tension and then you spray with cold water to drench the embroidery, and I do mean drench. Actually, I nipped upstairs and turned the shower on it then I left the board flat across the bath to drain for a few hours. The board needs to be kept flat so I moved it into the spare bedroom and left it for 3 days. Don't be tempted to remove the embroidery before it is completely dry.


We not only worked on the 'item' last Wednesday but also were supposed to bring along a star for swapping. The idea had been published in Stitch magazine and so we all made one, mine took me 3 hours and then I forgot to photograph it. So I have taken a photo of the one I chose from the swaps. Here she is, a red plush background with a gold lame star, red sequins and beading, rather jolly I thought and it will go on the tree a treat later. I did not take any photos of the other stars on the day but believe me they were all gorgeous and showed the diversity and talent of our ladies admirably.