Love in the Garden

I've been stitching a new canvaswork pincushion to add as a digital pattern to my Etsy shop. For some years I have been wanting to embroider a small design that included a heart. Finally sitting down with graph paper and a pencil I came up with three little hearts as the centre.

Around the centre, small pink and green cushion stitches reminded me of a picture on an old fashioned chocolate box, so they stayed. After all, why not have some fun and indulge in a bit of nostalgia?

Then I added a round of flowers, five on each side, also based on cushion stitch. Cushion stitch is a straightforward canvaswork stitch but with heaps of possibilities.

It was only when I started taking photos and looked more carefully at the finished embroidery that I found the mistake in a row of pink half cross stitch.

And I unpicked the wrong row!

Luckily that was easy to fix.

Now came a difficult part. I don't have much imagination when it comes to naming my pincushion patterns. Hearts and Flowers seemed to fit quite nicely. Descriptive yes, but it did seem a bit mundane. Thinking hearts in the name was apt, I Googled hearts and eventually half-heartedly(!) settled on 'Hearts Desire'. That was the name I worked with as I wrote up instructions, labelled photos, drew up stitch diagrams and even started working on my final Etsy shop listing.

Then I put the question of the name to my family. My youngest grandson, who is 6, thought 'Squares and Circles' was a good one. Really?! I'm still thinking about that idea.

Love in the Garden

Instead of Hearts Desire, my husband came up with Love in the Garden. It's a more romantic name he said. My daughter reponded to that with 'Oooh that's a good one', so, that's the name of my new pincushion pattern, 'Love in the Garden'.

You can take a further look at it in my shop by clicking here. The pattern is a digital download and it is available for you to download from Etsy as soon as payment is confirmed.

There is still time if you wish to stitch a pincushion before Mother's Day. Or if your mother or grandmother is an embroiderer, perhaps print out the pattern for her and add some pretty threads as a thoughtful gift. The design was stitched with Paterna wool, a favourite thread of mine. But because of travel restrictions and difficulties that you may have in getting supplies, I have included suggestions with the pattern for using DMC stranded cotton or choosing a selection of five different pinks and one green thread from the embroidery threads you may already have.

For now, I hope you are stitching happily and making something lovely that will remind you of how you successfully navigated your way through the lockdown and this very uncertain time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

'Till next time, be careful and stay well.

Fine Needlelace

If you are a fan of needlelace you may want to watch this short video from the Musee des Beaux-arts et de la Dentelle in Alcernon, France. I've watched it a few times.

The video is on the Museum's Facebook page. Click here to see it.

Lace was a much prized luxury in the fifteenth and sixteenth century in Europe and it attracted high import taxes in countries where it was not locally made. A lace-making workshop was established in France to produce lace similar to the renowned Italian needlemade laces and so reduce the expenses of the extravagant French Court. A unique style developed and the lace became known as Alencon Lace.

 Although the production of labour intensive handmade lace declined with the introduction of machine made lace, a small band of dedicated embroiderers are working to ensure that the tradition of Alencon Lace continues. 

The video shows some of the steps in the creation of this most exquisite lace that is painstakingly embroidered with a needle and thread. The attention to detail and the level of perfection is a joy to see. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did.