Hello world
Hope you are well and happy and getting in some stitching time. Firstly my apologies I inadvertently said we were experiencing Spring last week when in fact it is Autumn………….. dear oh dear one of those blonde moments!
Beating Around The Bush 2014. This week as promised I wanted to share with you the designs I will be teaching at Beating Around The Bush convention in Australia this year. I know most of you attending will be from Australia but I do remember last time we had students from New Zealand, Singapore and United States and I would love to see you there. It is one of those events that you have to go to at least once in a lifetime – not only do you get to learn a new style of embroidery or brush up on an existing skill, but also meet teachers from all over the world, shop for embroidery products and spend a few idyllic days with like-minded people in a purely stitching, heavenly environment without any of the stresses of our normal routine!
I am offering three classes the one day beginner Blue Tit & Apple Blossoms and 2 x two-day classes, Blue Tit & Wild Rose and Sweet Peas From My Garden. Details of the convention and booking for the classes can be found here BATB. I believe that if the teacher’s name is not on the list then the class has been filled but you can still contact them to make sure.
Magic Pens. This is something that I am very excited about and would like to share with you. In the last issue of Inspirations magazine Susan O’Connor talked about Pilot Frixion pens and how you could use them for embroidery and I decided to try them out. These are erasable pens that my daughter uses for school – they are wonderful because although they are ballpoint pens you can erase them so no messy work for the teacher to mark! But I did not know that they can also be used on fabric and erased – YES THEY CAN!! There are different types of pens in the range including ballpoint, gel ink and marker pens in a variety of colours and sizes.
I used the Frixion point in light blue which has a thin nib approx 0.5mm so you get nice, fine outlines and because it is gel ink it glides on beautifully. Basically you draw your design onto fabric and then either use the rubber at the end to erase any unwanted lines or iron it /put into the deep freeze and the lines will vanish. Just like that gone. It works with friction, heat or cold. To prove that this works I drew a design outline onto a piece of cotton fabric and then ironed half of it so you can see how it erases the design in the examples below.
You only have to hold the iron over the design for a few seconds and it is gone. If you look very carefully you will see a slight white mark left but this is not visible when viewed with the naked eye and also you can use it on any type of fabric or paper. It is fantastic for needle painting or any other form of embroidery but works especially well for whitework as you can use the pale blue, it does not bleed while stitching and if the lines are not well covered erase them afterwards.
Whitework. Thinking of whitework I have been dabbling………………. As you know in the past I used to teach both needlepainting and whitework but decided to concentrate my efforts on needle painting. However, I have always loved the French style of whitework, particularly monograms and the Portuguese Madeira work. Occassionally I do a little sideline project as a gift for someone and it has remained a passion. Seeing all the examples on Pinterest as shown below revived the urge, so I dug out my old whitework threads, (you know those secret drawers of stash that we all have) and have been in my element, fiddling with different types of whitework.
I wanted to use the whitework theme but include a bit of colour to enhance it and make it more practical for use in todays world. This is ongoing work in progress, and I hope to share some of these designs with you soon but in the meantime I would love to hear your views on surface whitework embroidery – is this something you would like to see revived? Would you be interested in learning this style of embroidery and have kits made available? Your opinion is helpful so let me know what you think.
Meantime wherever you are be it Spring, Autumn, winter or summer have a wonderful week and many happy stitching hours. Trish