More whitework embroidery

In my last post there were photos of some of the exquisite embroidery on display at the Jubilee House Textile Museum in Stellenbosch, just outside of Cape Town. Here are a few more photos of the whitework embroidery on show there. The work is in cabinets behind glass making it difficult to photograph, but I hope you will enjoy seeing what I managed to capture.

 

The tea cosy designed and stitched by Hetsie van Wyk was worked on pink linen which showed up the stitching beautifully. Don't you just love those two dainty little triangular areas across the centre?

 

 

 

 And look at those eyelets on this richly embroidered cutwork cloth!

 

Another of Hetsie's embroidered works, this one in a shimmering silk thread and combining surface embroidery and a variety of openwork techniques:

 

There was so much to admire that I will have to pay the museum another visit one day. I didn't get a chance to look closely at the collection of Emily Hobhouse's lace though I did notice a couple of pieces of very fine needlepoint lace - well worth going back to see.

Textile Museum

Jubilee House in Dorp Street, Stellenbosch houses a collection of beautiful embroidery and lace. The building, originally the annex of a hotel next door, is now a National Monument and the headquarters of the Cape Women's Agricultural Association. If you are particularly interested in whitework or know of Hetsie van Wyk's rich and beautifully executed embroidery and would like to see some of it, then this is a little treasure of a museum to visit when you are in or around Cape Town.

The museum is open Monday to Friday 9-12am, with a small entry fee. It has few visitors so if you find the doors locked, like Gill and I did this morning, just knock or ring and the secretary will open up for you.

On the way upstairs a stop in at the committee room revealed a tablecloth made of 18 separate embroidered squares, joined with lace insets, and each one a different design and technique. The photos are unclear but they do give some idea of the amount of work in the cloth.

Then we noticed a Hardanger cloth in use on a trolley with large (did I say large?) openwork areas. The beauty lay in the evenness of the tension.

One room is dedicated to embroidery with 30 examples of Hetsie van Wyk's work in the glass cabinets. This was what I had come to see. You should have seen Gill and I on our hands and knees examining some of those treasures on the bottom shelf!

 I just loved these two christening gowns.

The christening gown on the left is Carrickmacross, the technique similar to the embroidered lace on Kate Middleton's wedding dress when she married Prince William. And the one on the right is delicate shadow work. The lace was also made by Hetsie, some of which is hidden underneath on the petticoats! Here is a closer look at the Carickmacross gown:

Carrickmacross embroidery detail - the flowers are appliqued and then fine patterns are darned into the net. The picots on the edge are known as 'twirls' and the eyelets are 'pops'

This is the shadow work gown with a glimpse of the lace on the petticoat showing through the fine fabric:



This post is growing rather long. I'll put up more photos in the next one. Till then, happy stitching!



Free pattern - Sew a Girl's Bag

Sew up a little shoulder bag in an afternoon from scraps of cotton fabric from your stash. Its simple to make and just right for holding a little Easter surprise. The finished bag is approximately 14cm x 16cm.

Materials:
20 cm bag fabric (115cm wide)
20 cm lining fabric
Batting or interlining 16cm x 36 cm
15cm Flower trim or lace.

Cut:
1.Bag fabric:
Outer bag 16cm x 36cm
2 straps 5cm x 50cm
Pocket 10cm x 18cm









2. Lining:
Bag lining 16cm x 36cm
2 Straps 5cm x 50cm












3. Batting: 16cm x 36cm

To make up:
Seam allowances are 1cm.

1. Fold pocket piece in half and sew along two opposite sides. (Open side is on the left here.)

2. Turn through to the right side and press. Pin pocket to lining with the raw edge about 12cm from top of end of lining (shown on the left below). Stitch as pinned.

 

3. Flip the pocket over towards top of lining (left). Top of pocket is about 6cm from edge. Stitch 3 sides of pocket, keeping the top open.

 

 

 

4. Pin flower trim 6cm from top of bag fabric and stitch in place.

 Optional: To highlight the trim, lay the batting under the bag fabric and pin. Sew one line of stitching above the flower trim, and one line of stitching below, through the two layers.

 

 

 

 

5. Place the lining down with pocket underneath. Lay the batting on top. Finally lay the bag fabric on top with flower trim facing upwards. Pin the 3 layers carefully together.

 

6. Fold the bag in half with right sides facing. Pin. Stitch along the two sides. Neaten the edges.

 

7. Turn the bag to the right side. Neaten around the top open edge of the bag. Fold down 2cm and stitch in place.

 

8. Make the straps: (If you prefer narrower straps, trim 1cm off one long side of each strap and lining piece.) Place the lining on top of a bag strap. Sew down the long side, across the short side and up the other long side. Leave one short end open for turning. Turn through using a large blunt knitting needle (or dowel stick). Gently feed the closed end onto the needle first, turning the fabric in as you go.

 

Pull the fabric through to the right side. Press. Neaten off the open end of the straps.

9. Pin the straps to the bags, tucking in about 2cm. Adjust the strap length if necessary. Stitch in place.

Enjoy sewing up the bag from this free tutorial and have a Happy Easter!

 

 

Olive thrush nest

I have been rather distracted from my embroidery in the last few days. Out in the garden near my little compost heap, I turned around and there in the tree behind me I looked straight at an olive thrush sitting like a statue on her nest.

This thrush is a forest bird but it has adapted to living in leafy suburban gardens here in Cape Town. I'm thrilled to have the nest here with the chicks. Also thrushes eat worms, snails and spiders, all of which I have plenty in my slightly overgrown garden where I try not to spray or put down poison for the creatures that chew up my plants.

Waiting till the thrush had flown off I managed to stand up on a stool and get a quick photo.

As I clicked the camera I heard a soft cluck clucking behind me and there was the thrush, on the fence with a big fat worm in her beak. The little chicks were so fluffed up that all I got was a picture of feathers and fluff in the nest with no idea of what I was seeing or how many there were. Later I could make out two little beaks pointing skywards on the far side of the nest. Can you see them?

This morning I was a little luckier.





I wonder why that little beak on the right is aimed at the sky?

 

From inside our house, now that we know where to look, every now and then we can just see the little heads bobbing up above the side of the nest. I wonder if we will see them when they venture out of their nest and start to fly?

 

 

 

 

Embroidered lettering & teddy bear remnants

Two pieces of teddy bear print fabric, but neither quite enough for a whole cushion cover and each too beautiful to cut up. What to do?

I chose two toning fabrics, but they looked rather plain and needed something more. Perhaps the name of each grandson on a cushion? But, what lettering to use? This is where computers are magic and I had several fonts to choose from. Something unexpected and a little fun? Yes!

 

 Transferring with a light box and a dressmaker's white pencil proved the best for the dark fabric.

 

 Then stem stitch for outlining the letters. But, they looked a little empty and plain.

 

 

Seeding, or little random straight stitches, gave the letters more substance and a spider web wheel to dot the 'i'.



 

 And another spider web wheel on the 'J' just for fun and because it looks like a happy little sun.

Then I turned the embroidered names into pockets which filled up the gap where the teddy bear fabric didn't quite cover the whole cushion.

By Christmas morning each little boy had two different coloured teddies in the pocket of his teddy bear cushion (Sorry I didn't get photos of that). How the two little two year olds enjoyed taking the teddies out and putting them back into their pockets! And they knew exactly which cushion was theirs.

Leafy green canvas work pincushion

My friend Beryl has been busy designing some new canvas work pincushion patterns. The Leafy Green Pincushion pattern is already in my Etsy shop Lynlubell, so do take a look over there.

The pattern comes with detailed stitch diagrams and instructions for embroidering and finishing the pincushion. It has over 7 different canvas work stitches or stitch variations and this variety makes it interesting to embroider and also to look at.

Now I am putting together the pattern for another of Beryl's pincushion designs.  It is in muted pinks and green with a pretty eyelet stitch design. If you haven't tried eyelet stitch before, the stitch instructions come with a clear diagram that makes it easy to learn. The Pink Eyelet pincushion should be available in the shop in a couple of days, so for me its back to work...

Home, and in the garden

I'm home again after a wonderful visit to family in Brisbane for the birth of my granddaughter Lila. She looked like an angel on Christmas day and smiled sweetly at anyone who stopped by. The dress she wore is hand embroidered on a soft cotton fabric and originally came from Portugal in about 1980 - worn then by her mom. How time flies!

 

Back home in Cape Town the weather has been hot, dry and very windy. Some of the plants in my garden have taken a severe beating, but there are a few spots of colour here and there. With some extra watering, the hibiscus have suddenly come to life.

 

I love the blue of this barleria.

 

The first flowers on the wild orchid...

 

 

When I left in October the frangipani had only just put out its new leaves. Now the little tree is covered in blossoms that I can see outside the kitchen window from where I stand cooking at the stove.

 

Little stitching

There has been little stitching for the last few weeks as we enjoyed the arrival of our dear little granddaughter Lila. She is one month old today and too sweet for words. 

In between all the baby sitting I did make my grandson some pyjamas, but unfortunately I am not able to get the photos from my camera onto the iPad I am using, so I have no photos to show you. I will post again when I can upload some photos.

In the meantime, have a wonderful festive season and happy stitching!

Felt Teddies

These little teddies are part of a bigger project I've been working on and which I'll show you in a future post. The pattern for the teddies is from the August 1989 issue of Your Family magazine.

I embroidered the faces of the teddies with stem stitch and satin stitch, making sure that they looked smiley and friendly. Then I used buttonhole stitch around the teddy shape, to join the front and the back together and I put in a little stuffing as I went along.

After my last post I flew to Brisbane and am visiting here for a few weeks, so you may not hear much from me until after the holiday season. My days are filled with looking after my grandson who turns two in December and he should soon have a new baby sister too.

Smocked dress and dots

I visited family last weekend and took some handwork to do. I also learned something. Not having my smock-gathering machine with me I used the traditional method to pull up the gathers. I ironed on a transfer of evenly spaced dots on the reverse side of the fabric, then picked up each row of dots with a gathering thread. Although its a lot of work, this method does give beautifully evenly spaced parallel gathers.

I haven't used this method for years and in my effort to make sure that the dots transferred well and that I'd be able to see them, I got a bit carried away with the ironing bit. Not only did the dots transfer well, they transferred so well that they are quite visible on the front of the fabric! I decided to keep going.

Which colours to use? I started out using colours that toned closely with the fabric. After seeing how the green and blue almost disappeared into the background, I realised that for the smocking to show up, I had to use something that would stand out more and added in the red row.

Overall the embroidery does seem to camouflage the dots and I hope they will fade further with washing. To be safe I'll probably add in a row of cable stitch at the bottom to further hide those blue dots there. More progress next time.