Embroidery and Brisbane's Centenary

The Embroiderers' Guild Queensland challenged its members to create an embroidery to celebrate Brisbane's 100th anniversary this year. The embroideries had to include a Brisbane icon and as well as the Brisbane colours of blue and yellow.

The embroideries were on show for three days at The Nest, a busy shop run by volunteers that collect, sort, and sell recycled craft supplies. Later this year the embroideries will be displayed at the Brisbane City Hall. 

The 28 Challenge entries were displayed together on one long table while old treasures from the Guild's embroidery collection were laid out on the other. The tables were surrounded by items donated to the Nest.

The CityCat ferry and the Story Bridge

The jacarandas in spring

Who knew that Brisbane had its very own spider? 

The noisy rainbow lorikeets are everywhere in the city.

Hailing the bus!

Bluey the much loved Brisbane cartoon character was there too.

Riverfire the city's annual fireworks show

Who could forget the koalas?

The EGQ building in Brunswick Street - embroidery from the Guild's Collection

Thanks to my daughter Bronwyn for use of her photos! We had a lovely morning admiring the beautifully worked embroideries and identifying some of Brisbane's famous features. 

Threads Draw Us Together.

I'm doing a few stitches on my fish today. It is World Embroidery Day which falls each year on 30 July.

The Embroiderers' Guild Queensland invited two speakers to a get-together at a special Guild meeting on Sunday in anticipation of celebrating World Embroidery Day. 

First we heard about a small irregularly shaped piece of embroidery that was spotted in the Guild's collection. It turned out to be part of a stomacher worked in fourteen different types of gold thread! And the thread still gleams beautifully too. It has been dated to the mid 18th Century and must have been much treasured and kept in ideal conditions of humidity and temperature. 

The subject of the other talk was a quilt that made its way to Brisbane with an early settler. The various owners of the quilt can be traced back to the original maker who made it for her wedding trousseau. The quilt, having been well used but lovingly kept for over a hundred years, is now being carefully preserved by a team of dedicated stitchers.

The threads of those old embroideries tied us together in so many ways as we marveled at the techniques, explored their history, and thought about the makers and the people who preserved them.

I hope you find time to stitch today and celebrate being part of the worldwide community of embroiderers.

Happy Embroidery Day!

Samplers with Australian Links

In learning to embroider, young girls learnt to stitch decorative motifs of trees, flowers, images of places and maps as well as numbers and the letters of the alphabet. These elements on their embroidered samplers may not only pique our curiosity, but also supply us with historical information.

Margret Begbie Sampler, Courtesy National Museum of Australia

Mary McGillivray, in this ABC News article, discusses a couple of samplers held in Australian museums. She raises the question, Why would a ten year old Scottish girl, Margret Begbie, embroider a sampler of Botany Bay, Australia? The possible answers are fascinating. 

Choosing Cheerful Colours

One of the fun parts of starting a new embroidery is choosing the colours. There's something beguiling about sorting through the threads in my cupboard and imagining all the possibilities.

It's winter here. The light is less intense and the days are short so I'm going to use bright, cheery threads. I think I'll add more warm colours as I go along.

We are having a very cold snap in Queensland. There was half a metre of snow with blizzard conditions in the Snowy Mountains way down south, and icy winds are making sure we can feel the cold here too.

I'll tell you more about this project as I go along.

'Till next time, happy stitching!

Winter sunset

At my desk on Friday evening, I looked out the window to see a soft pink sky. I rushed outside for a quick look. 

Turning to look west towards the sunset the sky was aflame!

The sun sets really quickly now. A few minutes later the colour was all gone and the chill of winter settled in the for the night.

Sandbags, Cyclones and Sewing - Part 2

Yesterday we returned our sandbags to my son-in law. He had bought and filled them with earth when after two days - early in the week before Tropical Cyclone Alfred arrived - we were unable to get sandbags from the council or state emergency services. More arrived every day at the depot but we were taking no chances. By Friday a million sandbags had been filled and distributed in southeast Queensland. These ones protected my sewing room.

Much to our surprise the cyclone hit us with a lot more force on Saturday night when it crossed the mainland 50 km north of us. Then we lost power, and internet connection for 3 days. Although Tropical Cyclone Albert had been downgraded from a category 2 to a category 1, and then to a tropical low, we were battered by gale force winds and heavy rain until Monday. We borrowed camping equipment, and were treated to dinner each night by my daughter and son-in-law who live nearby, so we were fine. (My PC monitor decided to go 'pop' and stopped working when the power was reconnected on Tuesday!)

Thankfully we had very little storm damage - just a few small trees had broken branches. It was sad though to see two big mature trees come down in the park behind us. We really felt for all those who bore the brunt of the storm and the catastrophic flooding.

With the upheaval over the last two weeks, not much sewing happened on my Easter egg embroidery.

There are still lots of ends to finish off and perhaps a short row or two to stitch at either end. That will be quick to do.

An especially big thank you to all my lovely blog readers for your good wishes and very kind messages after my last blog post. It was a scary time and I appreciate them all! 

'Till next time, happy stitching!

Easter Card & Tropical Cyclone Alfred

This little Easter egg is a fun, quick project to stitch and it looks perfect on an Easter card. I started with a pattern I drew up and posted about on my blog here. Feel free to use it with the lists of colours and stitches. This version looks a bit different to the original. I seldom follow a pattern completely - even one I created myself! Its much more interesting to choose colours and stitches randomly as I go along. 

On the weather front, Tropical Cyclone Alfred sat ominous and threatening off the east coast of Australia for five long days. That provided plenty of time for preparations at home and by the state and authorities. The wait though was difficult. 

Last night the eye of the storm passed within 40 km of us. I am very relieved that we have escaped safely so far. We were spared the really stormy weather. The barrier islands off Brisbane's coast provided us some protection.

Sadly not so for thousands of others who are now dealing with the effects of wind damage, severe flooding and power outages. Over 250,00 were without power this morning, some without water and some without  telecommunications. Before the storm, huge manpower was put on standby and they are working to help those worst affected and restore services as soon as possible. 

Although the wind is still very blustery and there is significant rain forecast in the wake of the storm I hope the worst is over where I am. With the grey and damp hovering outside I'm thinking of all those who have already suffered damage and loss. I hope the remaining weather clears up soon for all of us.

'Till next time, keep safe and happy stitching.

Sample finished off

It's been a slow and happy start to the year after lovely few weeks when the whole family gathered here for Christmas and the New Year. I hope its going to be a very happy 2025 for all my blog readers.

My little sample of Ukrainian whitework that I wrote about here and here in previous posts has been stitched up and made into a little pouch. 

 I hemstitched the two short ends of the sample so I could leave an opening at the back. 

The opening would make it easy to eventually fill with sweet smelling herbs or lavender.

I like using lines of backstitch, and then whipping the two sides together for finishing off. It leaves a nice clean line of stitching.

Finally I slipped a little blue satin pillow inside the pouch. It contrasts well with the white drawn thread work for photographing. 

'Till next time, from a very hot and humid Brisbane, happy stitching!

Happy Holidays!

Christmas 2024 has come and gone and I hope it was a happy one for you!

We were busy with house maintenance and home improvements that stretched out and finished only just before our daughter and son-in-law arrived with their two boys for the holidays. 

The four grandchildren were delighted to see each other again. They got together to decorate the tree and make sure it was up a couple of days before Christmas. It was marvelous to be able to leave that task to them this year!

Christmas Eve saw me doing a little last minute sewing. I originally made a couple of these Christmas stockings for my daughters when they were quite young. As our family grew, I added new ones so that there is now a stocking for each family member.  

This year I had to refurbish two of the stockings. I kept the original band of Christmas fabric at the top and replaced some stained red fabric. The family tradition is that we put these stockings under the tree on Christmas Eve. There's something quite nostalgic about taking out and using the same Christmas stockings every year.

The days have flown and it is almost time to pack away the decorations and the Christmas stockings.

 Enjoy the rest of the holiday season, and I wish you a Peaceful and Happy 2025!

Beaded wedding veil

Years ago I trimmed my daughter's wedding veil with beads. She had collected some beads on her travels and planned to use them to add a glimmer of light along the edge of her veil.  

The veil has been in storage and needs ironing but I would nevertheless like to keep a record of it so I photographed it as is. 

Unfortunately with time, the silver tube beads have lost their shine. As the bride walked down the aisle they added a little sparkle that twinkled along the edge. 

There was lots of fun and to and fro by email to find the perfect look! The spacing as well as the size of the beads and sequins made a big difference to the delicate effect we were after.  These are a few of the drawings and samples I stitched, together with the eventual pattern. 

To transfer the design for the veil - which is circular - I drew up the pattern for one quarter of the veil. I covered the pattern with plastic and then tacked it under the tulle. The plastic overlay ensured that no black ink markings were transferred from the pattern. It also provided stability to the fine net while I worked on it adding the beads. 

One half of the circle was embroidered on the front of the tulle and one half on the back. This was so that the circle of tulle could eventually be folded in half and all the beading would be on the right side. Finally, I beaded a white hair comb, gathered up the net, and attached it to the comb. 

It simply looked like a continuation of the beaded edge of the veil. 

It dawned a glorious summer's day for the wedding too. In typical Cape Town fashion, it was windy! But not even the howling Cape southeaster could spoil it.

The bride was radiant and beautiful! 

What a wonderful, happy day!