A successful week’s dyeing: over 150 hanks of cotton and silk thread ready for winding into skeins.
18″ square cube full of thread hanks
But I’m not starting any of that until next week. I’ve discussed it with the boss (that’s me) and she’s reluctantly letting me have the bank holiday weekend off.
In the meantime as a special bank holiday treat, there’s about 20% off selected hand-dyed cotton thread in my shopthis weekend only – offer ends around tea-time (UK time) on Monday. Pick yourself a bargain if you like hand-dyed DMC stranded floss, perle cotton (size 5 and 8) and finer cotton. I’ll aim to post weekend orders out on Tuesday next week. I’m so sorry but I can’t currently post items to Europe, Northern Ireland or USA.
Tea-drinking is a national sport here in the UK, but I like it best for dyeing fabric scraps and trimmings.
tea-dyed fabric scraps and threads
I thought while I was about it, I might as well dye some thread for the shop as well. I’m often asked for tea-dyed thread, and my usual answer is ‘dip some white thread in a pot of tea’ – it (almost) is that simple. But if you want the convenience of having it done for you, I now have a few tea-dyed threads in the shop. The silk threads have come out particularly nicely, a lovely golden dark cream. The cottons are much paler – in fact that’s how I like them, very subtly coloured – but if you want them darker, just let them steep in some black tea for a while until you get the colour you want.
I have some lovely space-dyed DMC threads still available, in most of the specified colourways:
Some of the other lines are becoming a little depleted, so I’m in the process of preparing more thread for another dye session, probably later this month. Good job I haven’t got time to sit on this chair, it’s piled high with thread.
thread winding in progress
Very sadly, shipping to the US is suspended for now – I hope temporarily, but we will have to wait and see what options become available. Royal Mail has issued some rules about collecting the necessary tariffs, but with no clear instructions on how to do that. They also make no mention of the $80 admin/customs/processing fee, which to me is much more of a worry than the 10% tariff. If you’re in the US (or anywhere else, for that matter) and you have friends or family here in the UK, there’s nothing stopping them ordering threads for you as a gift to be sent initially to their UK address. Something to bear in mind for birthdays and Christmas, perhaps.
In the meantime, more thread-winding for me. Have a lovely weekend.
Mostly small (approximately postcard-sized and smaller) pieces; there are some nice varieties, colours, and textures that will make lots of beautiful little collages.
representative sample
There’s also quite a lot of thread still available, plus some very pretty silk thread sets:
silk thread sets – delicious
I’ll be taking a break next week, so the shop will remain open until 2pm (UK time) this Friday after which it will be closed for a week or so.
I’ve been sorting through my fabrics and scraps, and I’ve put together a couple of options that are now available in the shop.
The first is a sheer and semi-sheer/textured fabrics scraps pack that looks a bit like this:
FSH – sheer fabrics scraps pack, example
You can see average contents here:
sheer fabrics collection
The second is a lightweight fabrics selection, mostly hand-dyed, and mostly cotton with some scraps of silk and/or linen:
lightweight fabric scraps, average contents
And one in the making:
lightweight fabrics
Both packs are good for layering, to create little landscapes or stitched samples. I used some of the scraps to create a very long cloth, which I’m starting to explore.
a long landscape
Not sure where this one is going, but it looks like a long road. It’s about 4″ wide by about eight feet.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks: over 950 skeins of thread, wound and labelled and coming soon. Soon-ish. I’ve just got to list and describe a couple more batches, then I’ll take a couple of days off, and after that they’re all yours.
I picked out some of my favourites – I call it dyer’s perks. Hank ends, oddments and leftovers, and all mine. I wind any skeins that are for me onto rolls of paper to keep them reasonably neat.
threads coming soon
These are some of the thread taster sets:
delicious!
Be patient. Not much longer to wait, maybe a week or so.
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For transparency, buying your VIP pass from the links on this page will result in my earning a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps enormously to support my work as an independent artist. Thank you so much.
And a reminder that you can watch my Making Zen interview with Kate here
I’ve been busy producing this over the last couple of days:
hand-dyed threads and fabrics
It will take me a while to sort and wind the thread, as each skein has to be made by hand on this rather Heath Robinson contraption:
Patent thread winder
It’s basically an upended chair with a yarn swift fixed onto the seat, from which I can unwind a skein from the hank onto a niddy noddy (and the autocorrect wanted to change that to giddy body, which made me laugh). A niddy noddy is a hand-held frame that allows you to wind a set number of yards of thread into a skein. A somewhat ridiculous name, in my view, for a very useful gadget.
In the meantime, the shop is open for the remains of the last batch of threads and fabrics. A few announcements:
The global price of silk and cotton has completely sky rocketed and I have no choice but to increase my prices when the new batch is listed. I’ve managed to keep prices the same for a couple of years now so an increase is probably overdue. The existing threads in the shop are still at the old prices, so last chance to buy at this price.
Silk perle 3, extra-fine silk, and extra-fine cotton will all be discontinued when current stocks have gone. Silk boucle is currently under consideration but if I can no longer buy it at a reasonable price then that may well be up for the chop too. I haven’t dyed any more silk boucle in this batch, so what’s in the shop is all there is for now.
SLLD and SLLU fabric packs will be discontinued when current stocks are exhausted. Commercial fabrics have increased in price as well, and I have to buy the fabrics for these packs at retail prices because I don’t have the means to store wholesale quantities. I’ll continue to offer general fabric scraps packs when I can, and these will probably have broadly similar content to the SLLD packs.
I am sorry that I am currently unable to post items to Northern Ireland or Europe.
fabrics for ironing and sorting into packs
I don’t know how long it will take to get these fabrics and threads processed, but I would estimate they could be ready somewhere towards the end of the month.
Have a wonderful weekend while I attempt to find a way up the thread mountain. The colour-coded tags that you can see in the picture, by the way, are knitting markers and they’re there to tell me what kind of thread it is. It can be hard to tell what’s what when it comes out a different colour but these make it easy to see at a glance.
thread mountain
PS – If you haven’t got your Making Zen ticket yet (you’ll need it if you want to access the free extras from me and 31 amazing artists at the end of May), then you can get it here:
Seven days into a new year, and already I’ve broken my No Working after 7pm and No Working at Weekends rules. Must try harder!
I rearranged the practical corner of my workroom with a wire rack thing that has lots of hooks and clips. I’m looking forward to filling it as the year goes by.
An organised corner
The shop is now open again for threads and fabrics. Threads are disappearing quite quickly (thank you for the recent orders) but I hope to dye some more in the spring.
I am currently unable to post anything to Northern Ireland or Europe. I am truly sorry about this but it’s a consequence of the recent update to GPSR regulations, and as a one-woman cottage industry I just haven’t the means to comply with all the rules.
In happier news, there is a new stitch journal in progress.
January 2025
It’s the same vintage French cotton/linen sheet I’ve been using for the last three years, but this is the last of it so next year I will have to think again. I had meant to tea-dye the fabric before starting but I never got round to it, so white it is.
Although winter is probably a good time for quilting, I like to knit at this time of year. I’m no expert knitter, but I do enjoy it. I find it’s a very relaxing evening activity.
I recently discovered the brilliant Åsa Tricosa and her ziggurat knits. I was lucky enough to find a reasonably-priced secondhand copy of her book, which I think might be out of print.
Åsa Tricosa, jumper in progress
Her patterns are for top-down seamless knits with integrated fitted sleeves. Most top-down seamless knits have raglan sleeves or circular yokes, which I find aren’t as flattering and don’t fit as well. Having converted to circular knitting some time ago I no longer knit flat pieces that need sewing up. I love the way a garment comes off circular needles practically ready to wear.
The instructions are very clear but the process is quite complex until you figure out where you’re going: there are lots of short rows and picking up stitches to begin with, but the way it all works out is pure genius. You can also find Åsa’s patterns on Ravelry.
I guess knitting is a kind of stitching too, isn’t it?
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.
In my last post I mentioned the online course I was doing with Suzanne Allard, and that bright florals weren’t really my thing. Figurative painting – as in proper ‘doing a painting’ of an object, like an artist – isn’t really my thing either, for that matter. I’m usually happier with needle and thread and abstract marks.
And then I said to myself, who doesn’t like flowers? I had a go at some flowers with collage, which I find more approachable than painting. What I like about collage is that you can take some shapes and colours and move them around on the page before committing to anything permanent.
collaged flowers, mixed media
Like I said, flowers aren’t my thing, bright colours aren’t my thing, etc etc. And what do you know, I quite like it.
flower collage, mixed media
What are sketchbooks for if not to try stuff and have some fun?
I had a little go at painting leaves with a watercolour sword brush. Definitely need more practice with that, but it’s a really lovely brush.
watercolour with sword brush
And I really like the way the scrap of paper forming the centre of one of these flowers just happens to have the word ‘blooming’ on it.
blooming
My desk is looking a little chaotic, but I am having some serious fun here.
paper everywherewatercolour with Faber Castell Pitt pen
If you’ve ordered threads and/or fabrics (thank you), they’re on their way. Rummaging in the stationery cupboard, walking to the post office, and playing in a sketchbook or three have brought me to a very happy place indeed this week.
I’m still up to my ears in thread but in the meantime I’d like to share my newly-updated shop policies, in the interests of clarity and consistency. These apply exclusively to customers outside the UK, so if you live in the UK most of this post won’t apply to you, and you can happily skip forward to the picture at the end.
If you are overseas (that is, not resident in the UK), please take the time to read the following:
When completing the checkout, please ensure that you pick the correct country from the drop-down menu. Any orders where the address and country do not correspond (for example, a US address with UK as the country) will be cancelled and refunded and you will need to place your order again. Choosing UK, when you don’t live in the UK, will cause the automated checkout to apply UK shipping rates, and this is insufficient to cover posting overseas. You must pay the correct shipping rate for your country. In most cases, the ‘everywhere else’ shipping option covers USA, Canada, Australia and mainland Europe; shipping costs to these destinations are almost identical. It costs the same to post one small item (e.g. a thread skein) as it does to post several, so the more you buy, the more cost-effective the postage charges become. If you are in any doubt about the postage costs, please contact me before completing the checkout.
Your purchase may be subject to additional customs charges depending on your location. You can use online import tax calculators to estimate what the additional import charges will be before you buy. Please be aware that I have no control at all over how much you will be charged in import duties; it is your responsibility to find out before making a purchase.
Your customs office may occasionally open and inspect your parcel before delivering it to you. While I appreciate that this can be disappointing (because they usually don’t repackage your parcel as attractively as I did in the first place) please understand that I have no control over this.
When paying by card, please try and remember your purchase when your bank statement arrives. The amount will look different because of the currency conversion. If you initiate a dispute with your bank because you don’t recognise the amount, I then have to prove to your bank that you did make the purchase, and I am charged a non-refundable fee even when the purchase was genuine. Please contact me before initiating a dispute if you are in any doubt about your purchase.
And there we are. I hope that’s clear without being unnecessarily heavy-handed.
In the meantime, we have this (among many other delights) to look forward to:
‘Randoms’ thread collections
It will be done when it’s done (actually it will be done when our bathroom’s done, as I still have to paint the ceiling again). It’s been a very busy few weeks.
