Kimberly House Embroidery - Bridal Shower Gift Ideas

My niece Genae has just visited from New York.  She is now part of the on-line store Kimberly House and brought with her some of their beautiful hand embroidered items to show me.

Genae also gave me an embroidered kitchen tea towel and a guest towel from the Kimberly House range that I will show you below. Having just been to a bridal shower and kitchen tea I thought what a lovely and special gift these hand embroidered towels would be for a new bride.

My tea towel is made of soft 100% cotton waffle-weave fabric and it is embroidered with satin stitch peas. 

It's not easy to embroider on waffle-weave cloth, but as you can see in the close up photo of the peas above the satin stitch lies neatly and smoothly on the uneven surface. I'd love to be a fly on the wall and see how it is embroidered.

You can see the rest of the range of kitchen towels on the Kimberly House website here. (Don't you like the strawberries and the radishes?)

My guest towel is embroidered with a spray of lavender on a fine white linen fabric. Look at the elegant little touch of drawn thread work on the hem.

It's so pretty that I don't want to use it and have put it away for a very special visitor to use. The guest towels are available in both white and the chic natural colour linen shown here.

I had previously seen the Kimberly House website and liked their range of embroidered items, but I was particularly impressed by the finish on them when I actually saw the real thing. If you are looking for a gift for a new baby, there is also a sweet and stylish selection of hand embroidered gifts for babies here.

My ex-Zimbabwean readers may be interested to know that all the embroidery was originally done in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately the factory there no longer operates and the embroidery is currently done by hand by embroiderers in Vietnam. Genae is currently on a visit to the factory in Vietnam to find out more about it. I did drop some broad hints about accompanying her to carry her suitcase, but no luck there. I'm sure it will be a fascinating visit and I wish Genae much success.

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Photos courtesy of Kimberly house.

Disclaimer: I received a gift of two towels, but I do not benefit in any way from publishing this review.

Easter Egg Sampler of Stitches - free pattern

This is a bit of fun I am having with stitches and colours to make up into a quick card for a friend for Easter. I am going to whip the stem stitch outline to smooth out the curves and then stick it into a window card. If you are in Cape Town, Merripak keep packs of window cards.

I changed the stitches slightly as I stitched, but here is the original pattern I started with. For a free copy of the pattern below, right click on the image and choose the 'save as' option. Print it out, then use a photocopy machine to enlarge it or make it smaller to suit your card or project.

Easter egg sampler of stitches - Lyn Warner

I used a blue tailor's pen to trace the pattern and mark the position of some guide-lines for stitching. The blue lines washed out well in plain cold water afterwards. The embroidery for the card was done on a 32 count linen, but any firmly woven fabric like calico would be fine.

Colours are DMC 3844 & 3845 (blue); 726 (yellow); 3348 (green); and 349 & 350 (red). I used mostly 2 strands of thread.

Suggested stitches for the pattern were from the top:
1. Chain stitch
2. Back stitch, laced running stitch, back stitch
3. Horizontal fly stitch. Turn the work 180 degrees to work the second row of horizontal fly stitch.
4. Tied herringbone.
5. Lazy daisy flowers with small French knot centre . Make centre with 1 thread and 1 wrap.
6. Stem stitch, large French knots made with 3 threads and 2 or 3 wraps, stem stitch.
7. Laced running stitch
8. Chain Stitch.
9. Outline of the egg: stem stitch or whipped stem stitch.

If you need any stitch instructions or ideas for stitch variations, visit either Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread or Sharon Boggon's Pintangle and search for the stitch you want. Both websites are excellent.

Let me know if you embroider a little sampler by leaving a comment below, or email me at lynette [dot] warner [at] gmail [dot] com, using the usual format of name1.name2@gmail.com. I'd love to see your stitched version of the pattern.

'Till next time, happy stitching!

Kaffe Fasset visits South Africa

Kaffe Fassett will visit South Africa again in June-July this year. I first came across his work in his book Glorious Knitting and I was immediately hooked by the wonderful colours and designs.

With the new book Glorious Needlepoint recently out and a visit to London coming up I wrote (snail mail back then!) to Kaffe's publisher and asked if he'd be giving any lectures at the time of my visit. Yes, came the reply, at the Albert Hall in Nottingham.

Albert Hall, Nottingham

To book my ticket, we had to phone the organizer in Nottingham. When she heard we were phoning via an international call from Cape Town South Africa there was just a long stunned silence. Later when I collected my ticket from her - at this lovely knitting shop - she told me that she was so surprised by the call she had to sit down.

My biggest surprise was when in a packed hall Kaffe opened by welcoming everyone and then welcomed the 'lady who had travelled all the way from Cape Town'. Not just that, he then asked me to stand up and thanked me for coming! Overseas travel for South Africans was fairly unusual back in 1989.

Albert Hall interior

While my new stitching friend Janice Jowett very kindly kept my seat in the third row from the front, I dashed to the back of the hall to capture the moment. The gentle classical guitar music was hair-raisingly beautiful. And then, after checking his watch Kaffe, on the left in the photo above, began by sharing the story of his introduction to knitting with us.

The lecture was inspiring and there were long queues up on the stage afterwards for the book signing. My accent must have stood out because when I thanked Kaffe for signing my book, he stopped, looked up and we had a few words. I wanted to know if he had any plans to visit South Africa. But at that time he said no, not yet but maybe one day.

Kaffe Fasset

Since then Kaffe has visited South Africa a number of times and on one occasion my daughter and I were lucky enough to see some of his marvellous quilts at a lecture here in Cape Town.

Together with Brandon Mably, Kaffe Fasset will be present both knitting and patchwork workshops and lectures at the South African National Quilt Festival in Durban. He has scheduled visits to Johannesburg and Pretoria too and you will find more about the tour in the calendar of events on his website here. How I would love to be going to Durban in July! A quilt festival and the opportunity to hear Kaffe speak and see some of his work are not to be missed.

Till next time, happy stitching!

Egg Cosy and Table Mat

These are the egg cosies and table mats I have been working on for Easter. The embroidery was quick to do, but getting the pattern ready took a little longer.

One of things that I always find challenging when putting together a pattern are the photographs. This time I set everything up on the end of the kitchen table where the light is good for my little point and shoot camera in the afternoons . For about four afternoons in a row, the cloud was heavy over the mountains in the west and at just about the time when the light is usually fairly good, the sun would disappear behind the thick clouds. I took a number of photos which were just too dark to use, but eventually the sun shone brightly at the right time and I was able to take some reasonable photos.

The lacy border of Australian Cross Stitch on the egg cosies and the place mat is quick to embroider and the pattern I have drawn up is suitable for both beginners and more advanced stitchers. You can find the pattern in my Etsy shop Lynlubell.  

Till next time, happy stitching!

Australian Cross Stitch for Easter

An egg cozy may seem like an unusual thing to embroider but with Easter coming up that's what I have been working on - egg cozies and place mats embroidered with Australian Cross Stitch.

If you are not familiar with Australian Cross Stitch, it is a simple form of embroidery worked on gingham - like the typical design on the pincushion below.

Australian Cross Stitch

The concept of using the squares of the gingham as guides to lay out evenly spaced stitches is similar to the more well known Chicken Scratch, but the end result looks rather different. I have written about some of these differences in a previous post and you can read about them by clicking here.

Chicken Scratch pincushion with simple design

The egg cozies and place mats are done and I plan to put everything together into a pattern. Drawing up the pattern has taken much longer than I thought it would but I am almost there. I am aiming at instructions detailed enough to enable a total beginner to tackle the project with ease. The pattern will be making it's way into my Etsy shop in the next few days.

On a personal note, I have started doing the set exercises to get my foot back into working order. Its going to take a bit of time but it certainly is nice to be able to put weight on my foot and to get all the joints moving again. I have also been able to return to Shine, the literacy programme where I volunteer to teach reading. Its good to be out and about again.

Till next time, enjoy your stitching!

Cape Town fires and heat wave

In Cape Town this week the news has been all about the dreadful fires and the heat wave - when temperatures reached a staggering, record breaking 43 degrees. 

We have experienced 5 days of absolutely devastating mountain fires. Its been one of the worst fires that I can remember. 

Constantiaberg and Tokai (Photo sent to News24 by James Puttick)

A number of friends have had to evacuate their homes in the middle of the night as fires raced down the mountains towards them in the strong winds. Thankfully they have now been able to return safely. Others were not so lucky and there has been some heartbreaking loss of property. 

Fires have raged through Muizenberg, Noordhoek, Tokai, Constantia and Hout Bay. The mountains are blackened and devastated and the fire fighters, scores specially flown in, continue to fight the fires. The weather has now cooled and there were a few light showers of rain yesterday and this together with the relentless water bombing by helicopters and planes and the work of the fire fighters on the ground has helped to bring the fires under control. 

It is very sad to see the mountains go up in flames. The only positive thing to say about such a disaster is that the natural fynbos vegetation requires a fire every 10 years or so for its long term survival and regeneration. 

Embroidered Scenes by Teresa Lim

Most of us take photos when we travel, but Teresa Lim has a unique way of capturing scenes and memories from her travels. She embroiders them.

Hanoi

Charles Bridge, Prague

Big Ben, London

Click here to read more about Teresa and see more of her work.

Making Another Rag Doll

Some while ago I made a rag doll for my granddaughter which you can read about here.  This is Goldilocks and her bear. Perhaps she's a cloth doll rather than a rag doll?

Sylvia, the lady who comes to help me clean our house, saw it one day and her eyes sparkled. She loved it. As I originally bought enough fabric for two dolls, I thought I'd make up the second doll for her little girl. And a whole year passed by...

Recently with my foot recovering from surgery and some time on my hands it was time to make the second doll. Still lying on my back, I started cutting out the pieces, just one or two at a time. I found it a nice break from reading. It is awkward though lying on your back and trying to work. I don't know how my friend Tricia managed to do some serious embroidery in a similar situation and go on to win an international embroidery competition.

Later, still taking things easy, I reasoned I could sit at my sewing table for ten minutes at a time - with foot propped up inelegantly on a stool next to me and use my left foot to work the sewing machine pedal.

It turned out that my left foot is not quite as clever as my right foot. I'd press down on the pedal. Nothing happened. Check the switch, press a bit more. Still nothing. Press a bit more. Oooooh! This time the sewing machine would spring to life, roar threateningly and sew at top speed. Lucky I got my fingers out of the way.

Not being familiar with the making of rag dolls I found the construction method interesting. Below you can see Goldilocks and her bear almost finished. I made some adjustments this time to the arms and legs. They are a bit narrower and in better proportion to the body.

A nice thing about this doll is that the arms and legs all move. Attaching the legs was easy. Tuck them into the lower seam of the body and machine stitch all the way across.

 The diagram in the instructions for attaching the arms looked straightforward.

I found it rather tricky. Eventually Sylvia had to help pull the needle all the way through the arm, across the body and out through the second arm while I squeezed the whole lot together and kept it in place. Rod and his pliers came in handy then too. I couldn't get a photo of that manoeuvre as all three of us were occupied.

It seems an unusual way to construct a doll because the top half of the doll can't be undressed. The arms are slipped into the sleeves and then attached to the body.  But I do like the final effect once everything is in place.

Goldilocks and her bear are already in the train and on their way to their new little owner.

There's another week to go before I can start physio for my foot. In the meantime I have trained my left foot well and can now sew on the machine at a fairly steady and predictable speed. Also, the doll fabric has been in my cupboard for a long, long time and its good to see it sewn up and on its way to someone who will enjoy it. Incidentally, it always surprises me how working at something in seemingly insignificant segments of time - like ten minutes - does get the task done.

I hope to get back to some embroidery again soon.

Tokyo International Quilt Festival

If you want to see some extraordinary quilts shown at the most recent International Tokyo Quilt Festival take a look at Queenie's Needlework blog. There have been a number of posts over the last week or so of the quilts entered, as well as some bags and embroidery too. The links to all the posts are below. The close up photos really show the incredible subtlety and detail of the quilts. All photos shown here are by kind courtesy of Queenie.

1. Partnership quilts
2. Flowers
3. Thread play
4. Framed Quilts
5. Building Quilt Scenes
6. Bags
7. More quilts and other things

Quilt by Yoko Sekita. (Photo courtesy of  Queenie's Needlework blog)

Some of those landmarks look kind of familiar, don't they?  

Detail of Yoko Sekita's quilt

And the action!

The Tokyo Station quilt was made in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the station and its an interesting record of some of the architectural features.

Tokyo Station Quilt by Chizuko Naito. (Photo courtesy of Queenie's Needlework blog)

The top of the quilt represents elements of the roof of the station. You can see a photo of the roof here. I do wonder if the centre of the quilt is based on a tiled floor or mosaic. Queenie has said she will look when she next goes through the station.

 

Detail of Tokyo station quilt by Chizuko Naito

The International Tokyo Quilt Festival is a juried show so only the best of the best are selected for exhibition. I would love to be able to see all those amazing quilts up close, but what a difficult job it must be for the 5 judges to make the final selection - and I'm very glad that I am not one of them.

Thank you Queenie for sharing your photos!

Still here

The family have returned home safely to Bangkok after a lovely Christmas with us. To say the house seems quiet is an understatement after having two under-three's rushing around and keeping us delightedly busy.

We do however have some magical memories to cherish. As well as two rows of radishes to look after that Liam planted in the garden. Grandpa updated Liam on the progress of the radishes the other day with a little YouTube video. We won't say anything about the parsley that was accidentally called 'mint' in the video. No comment from Liam so far about that little oops.

After a year of delays for various minor medical and family reasons this has been my view for the past two weeks.

As well as this!

 

Another four weeks on crutches with foot up is on the cards. At least I can now get around - somewhat.  And I can sit without my foot being raised above my shoulder - very awkward for doing anything besides reading and just lying around. In future I shall be very careful about trying to 'jump' over a very small, shallow, muddy stream in the forest and so avoid breaking any further bones.

Plans for the next couple of weeks are to start going through my stash. It was was randomly 'stashed' in the cupboards to make space for our dear family. I need to find something to keep my fingers busy. Oh yes, and there's a foot to nurse and a prospect of physio to look forward to as well.

I did reopen my Etsy shop and am still looking into that...

In the meantime enjoy the summer if you are in Cape Town and happy stitching!