A Brightly-Coloured Embroidered Piece

Having a bad day today with my ME, probably as a result of everything that went on last week – going to the hospital was a bit stressful, and being left in limbo regarding whether or not I have to have further surgery. I’ve also been pretty busy with things, and this week doesn’t look too different, with two separate visitors.

I spent most of the day resting on the recliner, trying to catch up with some of the TV recordings that have been mounting up, and being on the computer. I did manage to do another piece of embroidery for the bed half-tester, though.

I am very pleased with this brightly-coloured piece. I didn’t put any sparkly thread on this one.

Here’s a detail shot.

I really wanted to spend some time in the studio today but I was just too wiped out. Hopefully tomorrow I shall feel better again.

A Beautiful Gift

The first of two posts today.

I am currently experiencing major problems publishing blogs from Windows LiveWriter into Blogger. According to a forum on the Microsoft website this is due to changes by Microsoft and Blogger and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. Until it is sorted, I am copying and pasting from WLW into Blogger's own (awful) "Compose New Blog" so if the layout comes out all wrong, I apologise. It appears to be impossible to get consistent paragraph layouts with this and it's a real pain. 

As this is the final week of my regular 3-weekly chemo cycle, I am feeling considerably better (just in time to feel horrible again after Friday!) so the timing of this was perfect: on Monday my hubby agreed to take me out for a bit – I have hardly left the house these past weeks and months, except to follow that well-worn path to the hospital and all its attendant joys!

One of the friends I gained while in hospital had contacted me to tell me that she had several pictures in an exhibition held in Dunsford Church over the weekend. Dunsford is a very picturesque village in the Teign Valley, and every two years they put on an art exhibition which is open to all comers, and my hubby and I are both keen to enter something next time! We spent the afternoon in the church having a good look around and meeting some interesting people, and we were very, very impressed with the standard of work, in all media. The bulk of the exhibition was pictures, but there was a large craft section with items laid out on trestle tables the entire length of the church on the further side. Wood carving, embroidery, quilting, stained glass, pottery, etc. etc. At the further end of the table there was a special section showing a collection of the most exquisite textile boxes, many of which featured cats in the design. They opened in the most intriguing way and I fell utterly in love with them! The lady who made them is called Suzanne Shave. She doesn't seem to have a website (yet) which is a shame because it would be great if you could see her other work.

My hubby was as taken with them as I was, and he offered to buy me one! I reminded him that he never did get around to buying me a birthday present this year (there being plenty of other things occupying our minds!), and he agreed to buy my favourite box from the collection, and it now graces our sitting room mantelpiece. Yesterday I took some photos of this beautiful object to share with you now.

The cats on the boxes are all inspired by cats belonging to the lady who made the boxes, either currently or in the past – or should I say, cats to whom she was enslaved? This particular box is in honour of two very handsome cats, Laurence and Leo.

Here is the side view of the box. Suzanne told me that she sources her materials from wherever she can find them – charity shops a lot of the time – she buys scarves and cuts them up. You can see the combination of hand and machine embroidery on this box, and the addition of clusters of small gold beads.

A view from the top, showing the fastening which keeps the box closed.

Underneath, the box has four dinky little stumpy feet! Not strictly necessary but they add such charm to the piece! You an see that they were constructed from rolled up fabric, like the toggles on the closure thread.

The box, open. For the purposes of the photo, I put a couple of small bottles underneath the sides to stop the box form opening fully. Normally the sides would rest on the table.

Looking inside the box, you can see what amazing attention to detail Suzanne shows, with the quality of her finish.

I told my hubby I thought it would be fun to make a few little textile cats to go inside this box, and he suggested taking a leaf out of Suzanne’s book and making representations of all our ktities, past and present! What a lovely idea.

It would be fun to open the box and find it full of cats! I attended several courses on fabric box making back in Plymouth days when I belonged to the Westcountry Embroiderers, and the amazing teacher always said that a box should contain a surprise.

Having had experience of making boxes, I know just how much work has gone into the construction and embellishment of this one. Suzanne said she was delighted it was going to such a good home – to someone who appreciated the work, and who was also a cat person!

Isn’t this a beautiful object? I love its construction, the unusual way it opens, its bold colours and the stylised cats which seem to fill both sides of the box. Happy cats!

Decorations for Half-Tester, New RUBs and a Health Update

I haven’t been blogging much lately because we’ve had major problems at home with Mum and I’ve had a bit of a reaction and felt very poorly, and the stress has made my creative mojo take a walk! However, I’m feeling a bit better now, and now I’ve started the embroidery on my bed decoration pieces, this is something I can do while in the sitting room, and I am making slow but steady progress, and really enjoying it.

Embroidery

I have completed the embroidery on a few more pieces – one or two I had worked on before, but felt they needed a bit more, and some starting from scratch on the machine applique. Here are the four latest pieces:

and here are the detail shots of each one.

I added a lot of French knots on this one! Love the bobbly texture.

It’s very disappointing how photos never show up sparkly stuff – the metallic threads look quite lost in these photos, looking more like raffia! The top one has red and gold lurex thread, the second two gold, and the bottom one has copper. The little shi-sha mirrors don’t show up that well, either, but they really twinkle in the light.

If you look closely at them, you can see that the shi-sha stitch encases the edge of the little mirror, like the setting of a cabachon jewel. The stitch is a variation of chain stitch with two parts to it – you stitch alternately around the four-sided scaffold you work initially to hold the mirror in place, and into the background fabric. I love doing this stitch. You can use it to attach other things too, and I’ve done experimental pieces in the past, attaching shells and flat pebbles. I’ll have to dig out the piece sometime and photograph it, because I don’t seem to have any photos. I did a talk on shi-sha at the embroidery group I used to belong to in Plymouth and this was one of my demo pieces. I also made this purple bodice with a mount-board frame as an example:

Here is a little box I made, using the technique. To open the box, you squeeze the ends together. There is a shi-sha mirror on each of the three sides.

Looking back at this work, it makes me think I really should be getting back into embroidery again – I love it!!

Hopefully I’ll have some more photos of the bed decorations to show you soon. I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can start making them up, and then I shall make tassels to go on the end of each one – something I am really looking forward to doing, and I am already collecting images on Pinterest for my inspiration.

ARTHaven Organisation – RUBs

I have started adding to my existing collection of Really Useful Boxes (RUBs) again. Eventually nearly everything in my ARTHaven will be stored in these, and I am also collecting them for the shelves under the counter in my en-suite bathroom. I am delighted that after doing a lot of research and endless measuring and comparing, I have discovered that there are boxes that fit exactly in the various spaces I have! The effect is so much tidier than my endless scruffy cardboard boxes; they also keep the stuff better, and you can see through the box to see what’s in it. They have a nice uniformity of appearance whatever their size, and are starting to make my ARTHaven look really good! As the pennies allow, I shall add more in time.

On the RUB website, the prices are quite reasonable, but you have to pay postage if your order is less than £500 (and I certainly can’t afford to pay £500 all at once for boxes!). I have discovered a lot on Ebay, and you can sometimes buy multiple packs (2, 3, 5, 10 etc.) of a particular size, and many of them have free postage. Even when the price per individual box is a bit more than on the RUB website, in the long run it saves money because the postage on the RUB website bumps the price of each box up quite a lot, and also, you don’t have to buy a whole lot at once, and there are some good deals to be found.

In this photo of the floor units under the window, you can see I’ve supplemented my 9-litre collection, and also got some of the 9-litre XL boxes, which have tall lids. These are very good for storing bottles and jars, and anything that sticks up above the top edge of the box. The capacity of the box itself is the same as the regular box. The shelves in the floor units are just right for both these sizes. On the left, this large pull-out unit on casters had been a complete mess since we moved, full of a mixture of Dad’s old workshop tools, some of my tools, brackets and fixings, and my decorating stuff. This has now gone into the RUBs and once I manage to spend some time organising the contents properly, I should be able to lay my hands on what I want with ease.

I love how the blue handles clip in place, locking the lids.

Moving over to the storage area on the other side of the room, I have the free-standing cabinet that the previous owner of the house left in my bathroom. I am delighted that each of the open shelves in the centre exactly accommodates one 19-litre RUB. I had a couple of these, and have now completed the set.

Unfortunately, because the doors occupy some space, I cannot get them in the cupboards, but that doesn’t matter because when closed, the contents don’t show anyway. The cupboards are full of fabrics, picture frames and Ikea mirrors for altering, amongst other things.

On the wall opposite the window is the large wall unit, and in this picture you can see the progress I am making. On the left, the shelves are filled with plastic containers that I got years ago from our local supermarket – they had contained things like coleslaw for the deli counter, and I asked them to save them for me, and some of them had margarine in them – I used to buy large quantities for baking, and saved all the boxes which have been incredibly useful over the years – in their first incarnation they were kitchen storage boxes, and like many of my kitchen things, eventually found their home in my ARTHaven! These containers will remain, and not be replaced by RUBs. They contain haberdashery. The centre shelves now house two 9-litre RUBs end-to-end, and one of several of the long 22-litre boxes I have, which are useful for storing rolls of paper. Not all the RUBs stack with each other, but I have found that I can stack two 9-litre boxes end to end on top of a 22-litre box. The contents won’t necessarily stay as they are – the whole thing is still in a state of flux.

I am so looking forward to replacing the untidy cardboard boxes! I shall be getting some 25-litre boxes to go on top of this wall unit, and on top of my mixed media wall unit over the other side of the room as well. The shelves on the right of the large wall unit will continue to be used for drawing stuff (my Zentangle stuff is there) and I shall keep the pretty box on the top shelf, which houses my metallic embroidery threads and embroidery sequins and beads. It all just needs tidying up and organising a bit better.

The bottom shelf in the middle at the moment holds all my soap making stuff. The brown plastic box on the left has essential oils and other liquids for soap, beauty and cleaning products I am going to make. The rest of the soap stuff will go in RUBs once I get them.

Once I get the large black shelf unit in the storage area better organised, I will show you photos of that. I am very thrilled that this unit, which is all that remains of a much larger unit which came out of a shop that was closing down, is exactly the right size for some under-bed storage boxes I had (not RUBs), and also accommodate the 22-litre RUBs end-wise, and the 9-litre and 19-litre boxes.

Health Update (Not TMI, I hope!! No need for the more squeamish among you to read on…)

I am now in the throes of preparation for my regular two-yearly colonoscopy which is taking place on Monday morning. On Wednesday I stopped taking my colitis medication and also my iron, and yesterday was the first day of the special low-fibre diet you have to go on. Today is the second day. During these two days I am not allowed any fruit or vegetables, and can’t have my lovely breakfast porridge (oatmeal) and have to have cornflakes instead – I always say there’s more nourishment in the packet than in the actual cornflakes! They are soooo boring… I can have white bread (I am eating French bread which I love) and butter and other dairy stuff (milk, yoghurt, rice pudding etc.). I can have potatoes with no skins, and white rice but no whole grains or nuts. I can have protein such as chicken and fish, and I can drink apple juice, tea, coffee and plenty of water.

On the final day (tomorrow) I cannot eat any solid food except jelly, for 24 hours before the procedure, but if I have my breakfast at a reasonable time that will be OK. For the rest of the day it will just be clear soup, apple juice, water, tea or coffee without milk (which I don’t like so will avoid, apart from green tea with honey). I am allowed jelly, and jelly babies for energy! I am encouraged to drink plenty of fluids right up to the time of the examination.

Tomorrow the worst part will be taking the powerful laxatives to purge my system. I have to take a bottle of senna, and then twice during the day, a sachet of Picolax dissolved in water. The effect of this is severe and acute diarrhoea, so I intend camping out in the bedroom so I can make frequent quick dashes into my en-suite bathroom! Previous experience has shown that my rear end gets very sore, and they recommend the application of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) to soothe the skin, and I am also prepared with two packs of unperfumed moist toilet tissue. The whole business is most unpleasant, and to make it easier, I am planning on surrounding myself with my laptop, a collection of DVDs that I’ve been saving for the purpose, my embroidery, books and my iPod!! Also containers of jelly, jelly babies, a Thermos of my best Jewish chicken soup (of which I could drink gallons, no problem!) made in advance, and jugs of water and apple juice!! With the kitties for warmth and company, I should be fine.

On Monday morning my hubby will drop me off at the hospital, and they will give me a sedative before inserting the camera into my bowel. They usually need to pump you up with CO2 (they used to use air, but with the muscle relaxant drug they give you, this caused an unacceptable amount or discomfort from wind retention afterwards – the CO2 is absorbed painlessly into the body). Because people who suffer from ulcerative colitis are at higher risk than the normal population of developing bowel cancer, they will look for pre-cancerous polyps and remove any they find, and will probably take a biopsy as well. The procedure really isn’t too bad, and afterwards, because of the sedative, one remembers very little about it. There is a recovery period, and then they will give me some food. Last time I asked for brown bread egg sandwiches and a cup of tea (I had two large cups) and it tasted like a king’s banquet – even the disgusting hospital tea!! Once I am home, I can start eating normally again, and go back on my medication.

I’ll let you know how I get on…

Decorations for Half-Tester

My first post in 2015! One of the things I have resolved to do this year is to try and clear the backlog of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) in my ARTHaven, and also to get back into some more textile-based work. One of my oldest UFOs was a project to create decorative drapes for our pine four-poster bed – something I started and never finished. I made the curtains but not the decorative top part. Last autumn I got a new adjustable bed to help with my various medical conditions (I am sleeping a lot better these days) so the four-poster had to go, which I was very sad about. The whole of the top section lifted off and could be disassembled, leaving the bed intact, so we kept the top and disposed of the pine bed base. A local carpenter used the timber from the upper part to create a new half-tester which is attached to the wall above the bed.

As before I have a small strip-light wired to the inside of the frame, and in the picture you can see the pull-cord hanging down. You can also see the velcro strips attached to the framework, to attach the fabric drapes – I will need to add some more for the decorative top part.

When I started making the pieces for the top, I also cut some smaller pieces in the same design and fabric, and used them to decorate a bag that I made:

You can see the separate flaps, each embellished with machine applique and hand embroidery, and each one finished with a different style of tassel.

These are the card templates I made for the bed project. At the back, underneath, you can see the two templates for each piece – the larger one is for cutting the fabric, and the smaller one for cutting the heavy interfacing. After cutting these out, I tacked the fabric onto the interfacing so that the applique and embroidery would go through both layers, and to finish each piece off, the edges of the fabric would be turned in over the interfacing, and a backing piece added.

The smaller templates are used for cutting out the applique pieces which are first ironed onto some Bondaweb.

What I have decided to do now, is to make each finished piece double-sided, and to attach the tops to the outside and the inside of the frame, respectively. Hopefully they will hang properly, but if not, I shall have to make separate pieces for the inside and outside, and maybe add tassels only to the outside pieces.

The next picture shows the pieces I have already started, with the machine applique. Top right is a pile of more pieces – no room to spread them all out to be photographed.

The next photo shows some of the embroidery materials to be used to embellish the pieces. I have a collection of coloured threads with lurex – as usual the photo doesn’t show the sparkliness of these yarns – they are the large spools at the back. In the front of the basket is a selection of different coloured embroidery threads, and on the table in front, scissors, my mother-of-pearl stiletto and some crewel and chenille needles, and on the left, a selection of Indian shi-sha mirrors.

I have done a lot of embroidery using these in the past, including on my wedding dress. These little circles of mirror have quite rough edges, and no holes for sewing them down as you’d find with sequins; there is a special shi-sha embroidery stitch which anchors them onto the surface of the fabric, rather like a rubbed-over setting of a gemstone in jewellery. When these tiny mirrors catch the light, they wink and flash, which is very dramatic on any fabric in motion such as a curtain, and they give a very rich, exotic look. I love them! Originally they would have been made of flakes of mica, but they are made of glass these days – the mirrors are far from optically perfect and look rather dull and grey before they are attached, but they do reflect the light wonderfully well.

Here are the pieces to which I have added embroidery so far. Some of them require further embellishment. The stitches I am using are fairly simple ones – chain stitch with variations, and stem stitch. I have never been any good at satin stitch or long-and-short stitch, and love using chain stitch to cover areas with colour, and for outlining shapes.

As I progress with this work, I shall be showing some detail shots of the embroidery, but at this stage, this is just showing what I have done so far, after opening up the box and reminding myself what I have already achieved. I did all this so many years ago that I couldn’t really remember at all what I had done, and when I opened the box, was surprised to find my book on tassels, and also some wonderful notes from an embroidery day I attended when we lived in Plymouth – probably back in the 1980s! It was like Christmas, opening the box and finding all the lovely fabrics and shapes. This has to be one of the oldest UFOs in my possession, and high time it got an airing and was finished!