Log Cabin Pincushion
September 29, 2007 at 4:53 pm | In Patchwork, quilt | 2 CommentsTags: log-cabin, paper-piecing
The pincushion I started last week in need for some colour is finished! Here’s what became of the lonely block I posted last week:
The whole pincushion is just 10*10 cm in size and consists of four paper-pieced log cabin blocks. I used a blue fabric for the backside and filled it with pieces of leftover batting. It’s a great way to use up those small pieces of batting that won’t ever be useful for anything else. 
Anyway, I think this little project was just what I needed to get me back into quilting, I’m already planning my next project, this time a real pillow cover, and it’s paper pieced, too!
Colour Therapy
September 24, 2007 at 8:25 pm | In Patchwork, quilt | Leave a CommentTags: log-cabin, paper-piecing
After all this white-on-white embroidery and needlepoint lace, I started to crave some colour. On my worktable I found already copied templates for some paper-pieced log-cabin blocks, and I knew I had a collection of left over stripes somewhere. Both things were left over from my “Artist’s study” quilt. The paper-pieced blocks were intended to become a pincushion for the “tools” panel, but somewhere along the way I decided that this would be a bit too much. The strips are mostly left over from the colour palette. So, here’s the first block I sewed:
That’s enough colour, for sure! The finished block will be just 5*5cm in size. I still intend to make four of them and assemble them into a pin cushion. It is really a fun way to use up some left-over strips. Unfortunately it uses so little bits of fabric that I still have a lot of them left over.
Mountmellick Embroidery: Dog rose
September 22, 2007 at 5:22 pm | In Embroidery | 4 CommentsTags: Mountmellick Embroidery
I finished up the second design from the Mountmellick embroidery sampler in Pat Trott’s Mountmellick Embroidery. This little dog rose is done on the same fabric as the last one, but using perle cotton instead of the Coton à broder I used for the grapes. I wanted to see if I like the look of the padded satin stitch better with this shinier, softer thread. Here’s the result:
The most fun feature of this rose are the leaves worked in buttonhole stitch. They give the appearance of a veined leaf without much effort. And I have to say thatI really like the look of the satin stitch in this one. Here’s the same stitch in the two different yarns for comparison:
I think the difference is pretty clear to see. The softer yarn really makes a difference here. While I like the look of the coton à broder for the other stitches, I won’t use it for projects that involve satin stitch.
Work in Progress
September 16, 2007 at 5:51 pm | In Embroidery, Lace | Leave a CommentTags: Mountmellick Embroidery
I’ve got no finished work to show this week, but that doesn’t mean that nothing’s happening around here. I started a couple of new projects, and there is some follow-up to previous posts to do.
I wrote about my first attempts at Mountmellick Embroidery last week. One of the problems that came up was that of material, since the padded satin stitches looked less than optimal with the yarn I used. To try some more stitches and different materials, I started another pattern from the sampler:
It’s a dogrose, and you can see the tracing with the water-soluble pen here. I’m using a No. 8 perle cotton this time, which should be a bit softer. The stem is worked in Mountmellick stitch, which looks like little triangles in a row, thus suggesting thorns on the stem. On the flower you can see the beginning of the split stitch outline that will eventually become padded satin stitch. The leaves will be done in a very creative use of buttonhole stitch, and the center of the flower will be French knots.
Project 2 I started is another needlepoint lace motif. I took this one directly from the Encyclopedia of Needlework. It’s done in raised Venetian lace there, and I want to try this with this pattern. I also tried something different in preparing the pattern, hoping I’d solve the problem regarding getting dark spots from the black pen on the lace. I got some transparent adhesive foil (usually used for protecting school books) and covered the cardboard pattern with it. It is a bit reflective, so I was afraid I would have problems seeing and my camera taking sharp pictures, but luckily that seems not to be the case:
As a pleasant surprise, this adhesive foil solves another problem I wrote about in Part 3 of my needlepoint lace tutorial: I don’t have any trouble hitting the holes in the pattern from the backside anymore. I still use a pin from the front to guide the sewing needle to the right place, but now I’m hitting the hole with it on the first try, everytime. That’s a huge improvement in regard to the time needed to sew the outline. 
So I’m quite happy with how things are going at the moment.
Book Review: Mountmellick Embroidery
September 9, 2007 at 7:53 am | In Book Review, Embroidery | 1 CommentTags: Mountmellick Embroidery
One of the books I picked up in Ireland is A Beginner’s Guide to Mountmellick Embroidery by Pat Trott. Mountmellick embroidery is a white-on-white embroidery, usually using natural and floral designs. A lot of different stitches are used to give the work texture and a bit of dimension. I was immediately intrigued by the different stitches presented in the book, some of them I hadn’t even heard of before, much less tried.
Being sure that I had all the materials necessary for this kind of work, I decided to work a small design from this book before writing about it. Of course, if you’re sure, something always goes wrong, which I figured out when I tried to transfer the design onto the fabric using my trusty water soluble fabric-pen. It was dried out and only able to put scratches onto the fabric instead of colour. So, my plans got a bit delayed until I could buy a new one. Everything went quite well after that, so here’s the result:
This pattern of a bunch of grapes on a vine is one of 13 small designs the author uses as a sampler to teach the different stitches used in Mountmellick embroidery. I learned a couple of new stitches here: the cable plait stitch used for the main stem, which I really like, and the split stitch used for outlining the padded satin stitch areas for the grapes. I used a No. 20 Coton à broder from Anchor for the stitching. While the author recommends a drilled yarn for this kind of embroidery, I think this particular yarn isn’t optimal for working the satin stitches (or maybe it’s just my lack of practice). The alternative would be perle cotton, which I’ll try out for another of these nice and small sampler patterns.
To come back to the book, this really is a beginner’s guide in the true sense of the word. The author explains everything very clearly. The different stitches are presented each on it’s own page, with lots of photographs to show exactly how the stitch is worked. She also explains exactly how to transfer the pattern onto the fabric, use the different kinds of embroidery frames, and how to finish your work. There’s even a description of the knitted fringe that’s traditionally used for Mountmellick embroidery. There are lots and lots of photographs, all very clear, to illustrate every little step of the process and show the finished work. This is how I imagine a modern needlework book should look like, and everything else I get into my hands will have to measure against this one.
So, what will I do with the finished embroidery? I don’t know really, but I think it would look quite nice in frame on its own. I could make this into a fabric postcard, or put a border round it to use it as part of a quilt with its siblings that are sure to follow. For the moment, I’m undecided.
Finished Weaving Experiment
September 5, 2007 at 5:24 pm | In Weaving | 1 CommentI finished the weaving experiment I started last week, and I’m quite pleased with the result. Here’s a close-up of the fabric:
The fabric looks just fine, although the weft has not the absolute same density throughout, it’s pretty regular. The selvedges are a bit uneven, but I have the feeling that a bit of practice will help here. I really like how the colour combination works, what I’d probably do differently next time is the succession of colours. I think it would really help the look if the warp and weft colours at the selvedges wouldn’t have such a high contrast. I’d probably use the dark pink as a contrast stripe in the middle and not right at the edges.
Here’s a picture of the complete scarf:
To finish, I just used overhand knots to tie the warp threads in groups of four. A knitting needle or similar inserted into the knot before tightening helps to move the knot into the intended position. I also figured out that when tieing the fringe, the waste yarn should be removed just before each thread is used, not wholesale at the beginning, since the first couple of weft threads tend to become loose otherwise. The second edge I finished looks much more regular than the first because of that!
The scarf is quite a bit shorter than intended since I run out of the white yarn. Therefore, it’s not much use as a scarf (the colours are not really me, either) , but it was good practice and it gives me room for thinking about the next project I want to tackle with this loom. I think place-mats or a pillow cover are the kind of things I might realistically make with this loom, since the fabric will always be quite coarse with only 40 warp threads per 10 cm.
Counted Cross-Stitch: Book of Kells Initial
September 2, 2007 at 10:51 am | In Embroidery | 1 CommentTags: cross-stitch
I finished the second pattern I brought home from Ireland today:
The pattern is this one from Celtic Cross Stitch, who produce many more patterns of this kind. What I really like about this pattern is that it is very attractive while only using 8 different colours. Usually the more attractive and interesting patterns use way too many colours, making the process more work than play, since you have to be very careful about which stitch is worked in which colour. I still have a project lying around somewhere that got stalled in the flower areas because every stitch is in a different colour and you don’t know anymore where to weave in the thread-ends.
Now the only thing that’s left to do is to find a nice frame for the project and hang it in a fitting place on the wall. I’m definitely keeping this one for myself to always remind me of a very nice holiday in Ireland.
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