RSN Tutor in Brisbane

I had a lovely afternoon at the guild on Saturday. It's not often I get to a meeting and this one was really special. Sally Randle gave us an illuminating insight into her three years at the Royal School of Needlework.  She trained as a tutor at the RSN headquarters in Hampton Court Palace, London and has recently returned to Brisbane to teach embroidery.

Several beautiful embroideries of different techniques such as crewelwork, canvaswork, blackwork, whitework and goldwork were on display. All were accompanied by detailed workbooks. These included the design ideas, thread samples, stitch samples, records of the project's requirements and finally the evaluations. Also noted were the hundreds of hours each project took to complete! Catch a glimpse below of Sally at work over her embroidery frame at the RSN.

Besides her own embroidery, Sally was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and have the unique experience of working with the RSN team on some of the embroideries for King Charles and Queen Camilla's coronation. How amazing was that?!

Visit Sally's website here to find out more about her new studio and the classes and services she offers. You can also see more about an upcoming RSN Christmas class, suitable for everyone including beginners, that she will be teaching in person here in Brisbane. I've no doubt you will be in good hands.

'Till next time, happy stitching!

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Photos courtesy of Bryna Black from the media team of the Royal School of Needlework

The back of the Embroidery

This is the back of my Daisy Band Sampler Pincushion. There was quite a lot of unpicking on that daisy row because I wanted a sequence that I could repeat all across the row and keep the back looking uniform. Below you can see how the thread enters and leaves each eyelet in the identical way. (Those little fluffy threads on the lower edge of the band of diagonal cross filling were snipped off when all the stitching was finished.)

Because the fabric used for pulled thread is usually a more open weave, threads carried across from stitch to stitch on the back may show through to the front. Any haphazard stitching on the back can often be picked up and it detracts from the finished embroidery. You can check for this by placing the embroidery over a dark background. It's then easy to make sure that no threads are either showing through holes or where they are noticeable and look untidy.

On some types of embroidery where the fabric is more closely woven, it's quite acceptable to carry thread across short spaces, but with pulled thread a little more care is a good idea. For neat pulled thread work it's important to keep a rhythm or regular pattern to the stitches. Each stitch should be worked in the same sequence, and pull in the same direction. 

Daisy Band Sampler Pincushion

Here's the finished embroidery. You can see more about the Daisy Band Sampler Pincushion in a previous blog post here.

Co-incidentally just after I finished writing this post, I listened to the latest interview with Yvette Stanton on Fiber Talk. Yvette and Gary discuss how useful it is to look at the back of the embroidery, not to check how neat it is, but to see exactly how the stitch was worked. There's a lot to learned on the back. 

'Till next time, happy stitching!