Happy Dance: Tudor Purse

Two finishes within a week! Never mind that I actually finished a seminar piece within 6 months of the class.

The spangles went on fairly quickly. I'm a little disappointed that they look more silver than gold, but they're cheap plastic spangles. I'll save the expense of metal spangles for a piece that will be displayed or used more frequently than this will.

Mary mentioned something about the openwork look of my plaited braid. The gold thread I used is referred to as "No. 7 gold passing thread" in the kit instructions. The thread might be a bit thinner than what might authentically be used for plaited braid in this situation, but it's not completely baseless. In the collection of photos of historical pieces studied in the class, Chris Berry included a close-up of this panel. The peapods in the center are similar to mine. The plaited braid used on those leaves was somewhat open too, though not quite as much.

The assembly of the Tudor Purse was a bit more complicated than that of the Blueberry Pocket. There is a layer of thin quilt batting between the outside and the liner. Both the outside layer (inside out) and the liner (with batting attached) were sewn up the sides. The outer layer was turned inside out, then the liner was inserted. The top seam allowances for both layers were folded in and stitched together. Handmade braid was used to trim all of the seams, with handmade tassels attached at appropriate points along the bottom. More braid was used for the strap. Yes - that braid took a long time. It's made of 5 strands of purple and gold thread.

The time it took to put this together was worth it in the end. I hope you agree!

On a related note, I need to reply to Annie's question about the Jane Zimmerman Elizabethan piece. Sorry, Annie, but those instructions were only available during Jane's Christmas sale that ended on December 28. It was a bit cruel of me to post a picture after it was no longer available. :-( UPDATE: Jane Zimmerman is offering this again through March 31! See her site for details. (And thanks to Megan of Elmsley Rose for letting me know!)

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Pregnancy ticker: 32 weeks, 4 days.
Yes, DH brought another project in to me. Hopefully BJ can hang in there until I finish Catherine Theron's Examplar IV, which really won't take too long!

Plaited braid on Tudor Purse

I was so glad to read that Mary Corbet of Needle 'N Thread, who executes some gorgeous surface embroidery, has trouble with the plaited braid stitch. I was feeling like a bit of a dunce when this stitch proved so difficult to tension correctly.

After several doodle attempts, making sure I consulted the stitch diagram with each pull of the needle, I finally felt comfortable enough to try the plaited braid on the little leaves at the top of my peapods. The fact that these change in width along their length just made it a bit more difficult!

All in all, I'm pleased. What isn't apparent is how long these took. I'd guess the first leaf took at least an hour (with me still checking the stitch diagram with every movement), and they took about 4 hours in all. Each leaf is only about 1/2 of an inch tall!I've also been able to finish the stitching on the back of the purse, which is an outline of the same design, executed entirely in spangles. I've only got to add some random spangles to the front of the purse, and it will be ready to be assembled! As soon as I'm done with the spangles, I'll post more pictures.
I'm sure some of you are wondering. No, folks, you will NOT get a stitch study on plaited braid from me, at least not until I try it on several more projects. I was very glad to hear that Yvette Stanton will be including detailed instructions on this stitch in her left-handed stitch dictionary. While I'm not left-handed, I look forward to reading her details "About the thread thickness, and about the spacing of the stitches. And about starting off on angles, and things like that." I really hope she makes the instructions for her sweetbag available, too.

On a similar note, I ordered the instructions for Jane Zimmerman's The Art of Elizabethan Embroidery project during her Christmas sale. Goodness only knows when I'll get around to doing it, but I couldn't resist this lovely project!
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Pregnancy ticker: 32 weeks, 1 day.
Getting past 32 weeks is a VERY BIG DEAL in terms of maturity, according to the doctors. While there still might be some complications, most of what needs to happen now is growth. We'll have another check on BJ's size next Wednesday during my next ultrasound.

Tudor Purse progress

As of this past weekend, my Tudor Purse was in the same state as when I last posted about it in October. Since then, I've finished the open (or spaced) Ceylon stitch and added tendrils in Ceylon stitch.

I debated a bit about further adorning the open Ceylon with some wrapping or other decorative stitch, and decided to try it. I wasn't sure it would work, since the open Ceylon is less than a quarter inch wide, but I'm very glad I did.

I chose to do a simple backstitch wrap, bundling the stitches in groups of two. I was surprised at how much it made the design pop. The upper picture here is the wrapping in progress. Below is the design with the vine complete.The only gold stitching left to do is the tops of the peapods, which I hope to have finished tomorrow. Then I can add spangles to the design, and make up the purse. It seems silly that I put off this little bit of work for so long!

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Pregnancy ticker: 31 weeks, 5 days.
I'm really getting tired of getting IV's put in "just in case"! They have to be replaced every 4-5 days, and my arms are starting to look like a battlefield!

Blog catch-up, and other news

While I haven't been blogging much lately, I have been stitching, and, unfortunately for my pile of WIPs, planning to start new things.

First, an update on the Tudor Purse: I was making good progress on this, when it became apparent that the "scooping" motion of the Ceylon stitch was starting to aggravate the carpal tunnel in my right wrist. So, while this piece isn't very big, I've put it down for a bit. I'll have to work on it only a bit at a time.



When I put the purse down, I decided I hadn't done much sampler/linen work lately, and that was calling to me. Of course, instead of picking up Catherine Theron's Examplar IV, which is much further along, I dug out Martha Wilkins from The Scarlet Letter. I last worked on this piece back in December, and it was still in the same state as in the photo in this post. As you can see, this week I finished another band of lettering and almost the entire next band. At this rate, I might be done in the next 10 years! :-P

On Wednesday, I attended our local ANG meeting. I didn't really feel like working on notebook stitch samples with the rest of the group, so I started the outreach project that was announced last month. We're stitching heart-shaped ornaments with a centerpiece of a cancer ribbon. I can't remember the details, but we're donating these for some cause or another. (And I know MIL is cringing as she reads this since she's the outreach chair!) Anyway, I'm doing a purple ribbon for pancreatic cancer, in memory of my two grandparents whom I lost to this fast-acting disease.

I wanted the center ribbon to stand out, so I did it in detached buttonhole with a heavy thread, in this case Shepherd's Wool from the Thread Gatherer. Apparently this thread is no longer being made, since it's not listed on TG's website. I received this skein in a grab bag a few months ago, and thought it was perfect for this! The background is a couched stitch, specifically Aristeia couching (diagrammed in SuZy's Lite Stitches, one of the books I picked up at seminar), with a Brazilian embroidery rayon thread as the couched thread, and 4 strands of floss as the couching thread. I thought this would work up faster than trying to fill the entire background with stitching, and so far it has. I've only worked on this at the meeting Wednesday night and at our Thursday night LNS stitch-in. I hope to finish it this weekend.

I have a few upcoming projects, too. Tomorrow, I'm attending a class for a Bargello needlecase. Since our EGA chapter is hosting the region meeting today (though I'm not going), we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to have one of the visiting ladies stay for an extra night and teach this lovely project. One of the chapter members had taken the class from her in the past, and it's lovely. Today I need to rummage in my stash to find fabric and threads for it.

Carolyn Mitchell is visiting our LNS for a 2-1/2 day class in the middle of November, and I've signed up for this class, too. She's teaching a canvas piece called My Way, which looks like a six-patch quilt design. We need to have the borders laid out as prework, and from what I've heard, this is fairly time intensive. I've got my color scheme picked out (see the collection of threads I brought home from seminar), but I'm waiting for a pair of Evertite stretcher bars to show up in the mail. They were shipped over a week ago, but the USPS website only shows them as being received into the mail stream. Goodness knows where they might be now!

Lastly (I think), I need to get started on Luan Callery's Summer Dream, an EGA GCC that some in my chapter are doing in conjunction with the Buffalo chapter. It's due in January. I've been following Pat's progress on this same piece, and I'm looking forward to it!

In other news, I believe I did mention that I had received my pieces (and ribbons!) back from the ANG seminar exhibit. Also in the package was a little card telling me to call the Boehm porcelain factory, because they had the rose that was part of the Princess Grace award. I made that call, and this week the package arrived. The box was huge - and full of foam peanuts! Inside the box was another box, with more peanuts. I finally found the porcelain rose taped to the bottom of the inside box, and I understood the need for the extensive packing. The petals are amazingly delicate. Here's a picture of my stitched Lilacs, its ribbons, and the rose.

And last, but the most important news of all (now that I've finally told everyone locally who might be reading this blog). I've got another work in progress: 19 weeks along, 21 to go. Yes, I'm expecting(!), due the first week of March. This is our first, and DH and I are very excited. No, we don't know if "The Kid" (shortened to "TK") is a boy or a girl, and we're planning to be surprised! This news is the main reason I'm taking classes now, because I know I won't be able to for a while. :-) I'm sure finding the time to finish any of these pieces is sure to become difficult though! :-P

How-to: spaced Ceylon stitch

One of the main stitches I'm using on the Tudor-Style Purse is a spaced Ceylon stitch. Basic single Ceylon stitch looks like a chain stitch but with the threads crossed at the pointed end of each stitch instead of being in the same hole. It is worked the opposite way of a chain stitch, too, with each stitch looping under the previous stitch.

The spaced version (my terminology) of Ceylon stitch is done with two of these loops spaced some distance apart. You can start with two straight stitches separated by a gap and loop the first Ceylon stitches through these. (My apologies for not getting a photo of this!)

Each subsequent stitch is worked into the previous stitches. If you're working the stitch toward yourself, bring the needle through the fabric on the left side, a little bit away from the previous stitch. Insert the needle under both legs of the left loop of the preceding stitch, and pull the thread through.

Repeat this on the right side loop of the previous stitch, and pull the thread toward yourself. The tension is a bit tricky. You don't want sloppy loops, but you also don't want the loops pulled so tightly that you won't be able to work the next stitch. Sink the needle into the fabric on the right side, and come up again on the left for the next stitch.

The Plimoth Plantation is using this stitch on their 17th century embroidered jacket. For more details on the stitch, they have a much more detailed tutorial (in PDF format) written by Tricia Wilson Nguyen. I'm guessing it is easier in the silk thread used there than in the metallic I'm using!

Edited to add: Megan a.k.a. Elmsley Rose, who's working an Elizabethan sampler (and just mentioned Ceylon stitch in her post yesterday - though I didn't know it until just now!) asked about the difference between Ceylon stitch and ladder stitch. Since ladder stitch was unfamiliar to me, I looked it up. I found that Mary Corbet has a great video on ladder stitch. It looks the same as this spaced Ceylon stitch, with a couple of minor exceptions: it starts out differently, and the stitches on the back are straight across, whereas mine slant slightly down to the next stitch. I try to make the start and end of each stitch straight across on the front. The difference in this case is likely only the preference of the stitcher.

The other difference is the name "Ceylon stitch" actually encompasses more than just this spaced version. As I mentioned above, it can look like a single chain stitch, or several can be done next to each other. The latter is a bit like detached buttonhole but worked into the stitches of the previous row rather than between the stitches of that row. Thanks for asking!

Louisville 2008: Tudor-Style Purse class

My four-day class in Louisville was fantastic! I took the Tudor-Style Purse, taught by Chris Berry. Chris is the chairman of the Embroiderers' Guild in the UK, and has obviously done oodles of research on historical English embroidery. In our class, she focused on the silk-and-metal scroll work typically done in the Tudor period in the 16th and early 17th century.

The class started off with two days of working sample stitches to put in a notebook. We learned several variations of detached buttonhole stitch, as well as trellis stitch, detached up-and-down buttonhole stitch (both corded and non-corded), ceylon stitch, filling in shapes with all of these, and making tassels and two types of braids. Chris provided us with pictures of these stitches used in historical pieces.






I really liked Chris's idea for the stitch notebook. She requested that each of us bring a small, unlined journal. We could then write our comments about each stitch, paste in the historical pictures, and stitch in our sample stitches. I found a spiral bound journal that was a little longer than specified (at 70 pages), but I'm glad I did. I'm actually pasting Chris's instructions in it, along with comments, pictures, and my samples. Since the stitch samples make the book a bit thicker, I'll be able to rip out the unused pages and it will still fit nicely within the spiral binding.

The second two days were dedicated to the purse. Each of us decided upon a design, out of 6 options (or we could design our own, if desired). I chose to do a scroll design of peapods, partially because I liked the idea of doing an open pod, and partially because I didn't really want to do a purple flower on purple fabric. Each of us only had purple background fabric (wonderful stuff called silk noil), purple and green cotton threads, and gold metallic threads. I wanted my design to stand out, not shrink into the fabric. I was able to get all of the green done on the design before the end of class. This design is not very big - only about 3" across. Chris provided all the instructions we need to construct the purse (or sweet bag). It will probably never be worn, but I do intend to complete it!

I cannot speak highly enough of Chris Berry as an instructor. She was great, answering individual questions, checking on each student in turn, and explaining some things multiple times. When asked on Friday, she even revisited the slides she showed us at the beginning of class so we could have a better appreciation of where some of the stitches we learned were used in historical pieces. I was concerned that I would not have enough of the green thread to finish my peapods, and mentioned this to her. It turned out I did have enough, so I didn't go back to her to get more thread. She remembered, though, and mailed some more thread to me before she left Louisville! I thought that was very classy.

Thank you, Chris, for a great class!