Days crammed and jostling cheek by jowl, gone almost before they started.
November, detail
In the chaos of our kitchen refurbishment, a little quiet stitching turned out to be a happy oasis of calm each day.
November, detail
As always, I’ve used mostly my own hand-dyed threads. If you want something similar, threads are available here until 6th December. The shop will re-open in January. I really like the random colour changes and subtle variations you get with hand-dyes. It makes any kind of stitching look more impressive than it really is.
The orange/red/green scroll stitch section below is in a Stef Francis variegated silk thread and is one of my favourite threads.
November, detail
The other side is almost as chaotic as our kitchen.
the other side of November
I can see all the Embroiderers Guild members throwing up their hands in horror. There are knots! There are thread floats! It’s such a mess! Well, some of us are a mess underneath our calm exterior, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I have no qualms at all about the back of the work, and I don’t try to make the back tidy. I let it be what it is, and I love its honesty. There is nothing hidden, nothing covered up, and nothing to be afraid of. You can see it for what it is.
November
The kitchen still isn’t finished, but there’s just the painting and the flooring to do, and hooray for that.
There’s a December-shaped gap on the stitch journal, ready for a few more tomorrows.
December ahead
If you’ve been thinking about starting something similar next year and want some tips on getting started, there is currently 25% off my online courses here. Use code BF2024 at the checkout; offer ends 5th December, so be quick. Courses are all prerecorded so you can start whenever you like and access the material as long as you want.
And here’s a little preview of next year’s templates, available from early December:
A very happy thanksgiving to my friends and customers in the USA – I hope you’re all having a lovely time today.
I have a few updates to share:
Firstly: I’ve created a coupon giving 25% off all my Teachable courses (that’s courses only, not PDF downloads) for one week only, which you can get by entering the code BF2024 at the checkout. Be quick – it expires at midnight on 5th December (and I think that’s midnight US time but don’t leave it till the last minute just in case it turns out to be GMT).
I confess to some ambivalence about Black Friday deals and coupon codes. It all feels a bit gimmicky, and it feels as if people do it because everyone else does it. It’s frankly annoying when you’ve paid full price for something only to find it reduced a few days later, but that seems to be the nature of retail. I like to think my prices are already accessible for most budgets and that they already offer good value, but if a coupon code entices the undecided, then I’m happy. I can only keep the prices this low for a few days, so if you’ve been thinking of signing up for one of my courses, now is a good time.
You can sign up now and access it later; you get lifetimeaccess to all lessons with no time limits. You can download the videos whenever you’re ready, and you can learn at your own pace as everything is pre-recorded.
My Teachable school is here and current courses are:
Intuitive Daily Stitching – two identical versions, one with (English) subtitles: a beginner’s guide to starting a simple daily stitching practice, including how to choose fabric, needles, and threads, and how to work a variety of basic stitches in a number of different ways.
Stitch a Little Landscape – no subtitles: includes a brief guide to painting your own fabric and thread, and instructions on how to layer and stitch scraps of fabric, adding details with hand embroidery to create a miniature textile landscape.
Creative English Paper-Pieced Patchwork – no subtitles: lots of content in this one – make a little patchwork box, practise piecing awkward shapes by making a patchwork sampler, and tips on starting a sketchbook practice and designing your own patchwork.
Secondly: My online shop will close for all physical orders (that’s anything that needs posting, so all fabrics and threads) on Friday 6th December. If you want thread or fabric in time for Christmas, now is the time. If you’re outside the UK and you leave it much later than 2nd December there are still no guarantees that your purchase will arrive before Christmas. I have five lovely sets of hand-dyed fine silk thread on sale at present; there are also the usual fabric scrap packs and various embroidery threads. I appreciate that I’m closing uncharitably early, but to me that’s better than having items go missing in the annual parcel scrum at the post office.
Fine silk thread collections
The shop will remain open throughout December for PDF downloads, which largely manage themselves. Contact me if you have any problems downloading or accessing anything.
Thirdly, and most happily, my new 2025 daily stitching template will be available from early December, for anyone who wants to stitch along next year.
2025 monthly templates coming soon
I worked a little sample just to see how it would look. Next year I’m returning to the long thin format, but the monthly template cunningly tessellates on all sides, so you can join the monthly blocks together in whatever formation you like.
Apologies for a long and self-promotional sort of post. Blame the time of year. The post of (unpaid) Marketing Manager is still up for grabs, by the way, if anyone wants to work for nothing 🙂
Today’s daily stitching is a triangle, and it really is a triangular tricksy sort of day. A case of art imitating life if ever I saw one.
This has been the week of New Kitchen, which I anticipated (correctly, as it happens) would be Quite Stressful.
I needed a little quilting/stitching task that wouldn’t take too much space, effort, or concentration, because of all the noise and disruption. Something that would keep me busy enough to be distracted but available enough to make regular cups of tea for the workers and be prevailed upon to make decisions etc.
This little chair has been in the conservatory over the summer. It’s pretty basic and uninspiring but has the advantage of folding out into an emergency bed should we ever need one. The conservatory is currently 2°C so we brought it into the house to prevent it getting too cold or damp. Due to lack of space it’s ended up in my work room, where it makes a very acceptable little reading chair. I may well keep it here.
the dull chair
This seemed like the week to make a more colourful covering for it. You can see I’ve started on the arms, just by wrapping some padded patchwork strips around them. They need the ends gathering and stitching to secure them better.
I was never going to completely reupholster the chair; it just needed something a bit more colourful as a throw.
patchwork throw
I’d bought a few cotton fat quarters a while ago. I very rarely buy new fabric, but this was my consolation purchase for the disappointment of not being able to go to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate this year because it was Kitchen Week. Somewhat incredibly, all nine fat quarters ended up sitting together quite happily. The fabrics are mostly Moda and Marcia Derse quilting cottons. The map fabric is Tim Holtz.
I didn’t paper-piece this one, of course, and you can see some little mis-matches here and there where my quarter-inch seams went a bit awry. Slightly imperfect, but it was just what I needed to see me through a fairly turbulent week.
Here’s how our kitchen looked on Monday, by the way:
alas, poor kitchen
It will be really lovely when it’s done. The upside is that there were a few meals out, so no cooking and no washing up. The kitchen should be finished next week, if all goes well, then it will need redecorating and new flooring. In the meantime it’s a case of keep calm and quilt.
You might remember this that began in June. It’s taken five months to put it together, in between other things, but it’s now one complete square, about 37″ or so.
removing the basting stitches – always the best job
I hadn’t originally envisaged ‘proper quilting’ it – as in backing, batting, and top, but somehow that just happened. Normally I would just have used a top and a backing. My batting of choice is Hobbs Heirloom wool, which is lightweight and very easy to quilt; I’ve never got on well with the cotton or polyester battings. The backing is cream cotton calico.
making a start
It’s very pale, and very neutral, and I’m currently undecided about whether that’s a good thing or a dull thing. It’s definitely quiet, and I like quiet. And it’s winter, which is a good time for quilts and quiet.
The circular outline (couched, black and cream silk bourette yarn) is a little thin, and the quilting so far is probably a little small.
silk bourette circular outline
But it’s a start. For now, it will rest on the chair while I look at it a bit more.
Gutermann cotton 12 thread
My problem generally, and this applies to painting as well as textile art, is that I usually like backgrounds as they are. I often have trouble adding the requisite focal point because I don’t want to obscure the background.
This little quilt has some really interesting patches, some of them made from layering sheer fabric over another, like this tea-dyed silk with a layer of dress net over the top:
layered patch, silk and net
And this vintage cotton with textured nylon chiffon over the top:
layered patch, cotton and spotted chiffon
I don’t want the quilting to trample all over the piecing and the more interesting patches, but I do need to quilt all the layers together securely. I may try tying the layers here and there. I think it just needs to sit on the chair for a bit while it thinks about what it needs (don’t we all!)
The sketchbook I’m plotting this (and others) in is an A4 landscape-format book, one of my favourite layouts.
Remember sketchbook
Everything in this sketchbook is about remembering, recollecting, and forgetting. There are spots of time, there are ghosts (from time past), there are attempts to turn something intangible and unfathomable into something visual and tactile. There are shadows from time past, and there is the light of time present.
sketchbook page
The thinking and the testing is all part of the finished thing.
sketchbook page
Today I will be mostly looking at a small quilt as it rests on a chair. And yes, I call that work now. It’s ridiculous really.
This week saw the arrival of this lovely book by Tommye Scanlin all about the various ways fibre and textile artists mark the passage of time.
Marking Time by Tommye Scanlin, published by Schiffer Craft
It’s absolutely full of wonderful textile art, and reading the artists’ statements has been inspiring and thought-provoking. It always amazes me how weaving can look like embroidery, patchwork, or even knitting, from a distance. It’s basically all magic with thread.
You know I don’t enjoy the whole self-publicity thing (the post of unpaid Marketing Manager is still up for grabs), but here’s my quiet corner of this lovely publication:
stitch journal 2022
Towards the end of the book, Tommye writes about her own textile art practice. I really like the way she uses dice to randomly choose a shape and colour for her daily weaving, letting chance play a part in the work, as it does in life.
It’s a beautiful book that I’ll enjoy returning to again and again.
In other news, I’ve been adding some little landscapes to the shop:
