Making up Kits

Long time, no blog post! Winter's unwelcome bugs made themselves felt here and things rather ground to a halt for a while. I have done no stitching for weeks but I did do something embroidery related.

Dresden Lily by Lyn Warner

Unfortunately I had to cancel my Dresden Lily pulled thread class that I was scheduled to teach at Ighali*. Talk about disappointing! I was so looking forward to it. Apologies again to everyone who had booked and who at the last minute had to transfer to other classes. It seems I missed a most wonderful embroidery convention this year. You can see some photos here on the Cape Embroiderers' Guild Facebook page.

Even though I would not be going to Knysna to teach at Ighali, I was very pleasantly surprised when I was asked to send along my kits. I had done some preparation and thought it would be quick to finish assembling them, but somehow kits always take longer to prepare than I expect.

Not feeling my best, I did a little each day and I even had my very sweet cleaning lady to help measure out the thread on the day when she came in to work.

In the end the kits were completed. Linen cut and edged, printing done, envelopes ready, threads labelled and notes tweaked.

Carefully checking the contents for each kit, almost there...

I intended to try and avoid any plastic packaging but in the end I decided that it would keep the materials clean and safe. Better safe than sorry - echoes of my mom and my gran there. The ziplock bags can also be used to store the work in progress.

Happiness is ... finally slipping the printed instructions and the materials into their prepared and labelled envelopes. I was so pleased to have this step completed that I forgot to take a photo of the kits all packed and ready to go. 

The other photo that I missed taking was putting the envelopes into a large Corn Flakes box for the car trip to Knysna!!! Well, maybe not elegant, but everything did arrive safely. I had lots of help, and offers of help along the way, and I thank everyone for the part they played in getting the kits to their recipients! 

By next time, I hope to have tracked down the little project I worked on some time ago but couldn't reveal at the time.

Till then, happy stitching!

_________

*Ighali means 'threads' in one of the 11 official languages in South Africa and is the name of a national embroidery convention held every two years.

Acknowledgement: The Lily was adapted from a photo with permission of owner and author Heather Toomer.

Ighali 2016 - Dresden Lace Pulled Thread Lily

This year the Ighali Embroidery Convention is in August. It promises to be a lovely event, set in beautiful Knysna, and with some noteworthy teachers and classes. You can find out more about it on the Embroidery Network South Africa website here.

At Ighali I hope to be teaching a pulled thread course, "A Glimpse of Dresden Lace - Pulled Thread Lily", using traditional Dresden Lace stitches and techniques - that is if there are enough embroiderers who would like to join us to learn about 18th century embroidery methods and some challenging stitches. All the details of the class are in the class brochure which you can download from the ENSA website.

Dresden Lily on linen - Lyn Warner

Originally, I experimented with using a very fine cotton muslin for teaching these techniques and although the results were good, I found that in a class situation, working on such fine fabric presented extra challenges for students.

Dresden Lily on cotton muslin - Lyn Warner

As a result, the class kits for the Dresden Lily at Ighali will contain linen which is both easier to work on and more forgiving of any hasty unpicking. I will also have a small quantity of muslin available for anyone that wants to try it out on their own at a later date.

Bookings for all classes are via ENSA but if you have any questions about my course email me directly at lynette[dot]warner[at]gmail[dot]com. Apologies for the cryptic address. It's to avoid spammers picking it up with their webcrawlers.

In the meantime, happy stitching!

---------------

Design adapted with permission of Heather Toomer, Embroidered in White: 18th century