The Birds and an Experiment

These have been in my sewing cupboard for a very long time. If you remember the Knitting Bar in Benoni, now long gone, you may have seen something similar in their window. They were not only a wonderful knitting shop but also sold embroidery supplies. I want to see whether I can use them again.

On another note, spring seems to arrived quite suddenly and we have been sitting out on the patio watching the rainbow lorikeets zoom past. Then there are the kookaburras with their amusing laughing call who are swooped mercilessly by the noisy miners, an extremely territorial bird. This little kookaburra sat cheekily eyeing the fish in the fish tank - until the noisy miners spotted it and chased it off.

Lately the galahs with their bright neon pink chests are back, waddling around hilariously in the park. It's interesting to see how carefully they choose which grass seeds to eat.  

Spring is also the start of the rainy season here and we have had our first lovely rain. The lorikeets are far too quick to photograph, but before the storm there were about fifteen fussing and squawking  in the big trees and then racing off across the park. 

Brisbane has had an unusually cold winter and the lovely warm weather is very welcome, not only for  for the birds, but for me as well. 

'Till next time, happy stitching.

Oblong Pulled Thread Pincushion

This little pulled thread embroidery sample became my first oblong pincushion. With no fixed plan in mind, the pincushion grew from this small design as I went along.

I damp stretched the embroidered flower sprig before deciding what to do with it. Most of my pincushions are square. This time I wanted to try something different.

The embroidery seemed a little plain on its own. Perhaps it needed some lace on either side to soften it? Cotton lace looked too heavy, so I went with a lighter synthetic lace instead. I would normally stick to all natural fibres, but the synthetic lace gave the delicate effect I was looking for. Backstitch over two linen threads secured the lace to the embroidery.

I had to iron the linen very carefully after I added the lace. With the high heat that linen requires, the lace would have shriveled up under a too hot iron. Once the lace was stitched in position, I withdrew a thread, four threads away from the backstitched lines.

Hemstitch would open up the gap left by the withdrawn thread a little further and give the lace an 'anchor'. The first row of hemstitch is on the left in the photo below. It needed more than this.

I finally settled on a row of hemstitch on both sides of the withdrawn threads. The hemstitched rows finished off and balanced out the design, 

When developing a new pattern, I sometimes stitch a number of samples to adjust the design, or test out stitches, tension or finishing ideas.  An oblong pincushion was the my initial idea for the flower sprig design, but I eventually chose to stay with a square pincushion shape. Instead of adding lace as I did for the oblong pincushion, I chose four-sided stitch to border the central motif.

Visitors to my Etsy shop Lynlubell may recognize the Flower Sprig pincushion which is available in the shop as a digital pincushion pattern. Click here to visit the shop and view the pattern.

Till next time, happy stitching!