A year or two back Mum gave me two doilies she and her sister embroidered as teenagers. She was 14 and my aunt 16. Not being a doily using sort of person, I decided to frame them, but spent a long time hunting for the right frames. Because the orientation of the pattern on the doilies is different they looked strange together, so I wanted separate frames, but I couldn’t find rectangular frames in proportions that looked right. Circular frames would be better, but there didn’t seem to be any of those available.

Eventually I hit on the idea of using embroidery hoops. I was going to sacrifice my own hoop, that I’ve had since I was a child, but once I saw how crappy the ones in Lincraft were I decided to buy two of those and keep my old one in case I needed to embroider something – something I’m glad I did now the stitching bug has bitten me.

Then lots of time passed with me trying to work out how to turn the hoops into frames. Simply stitching them onto cloth and stretching it over the hoops would have been easiest, but I wanted to put the doilies behind glass.

I found some pre-cut particle board circles close to the right size and I got the local glass shop to cut glass to match. Then I sewed the doilies to some calico and stitched that to the particle board. After bit of stain and varnish the hoops looked pretty good.

The hard part was finding a way to keep the glass and embroidery fixed inside the frames. I tried bending brass wall hooks into L-shapes, but couldn’t find nails or screws small enough for the frame. I wound up holding the glass in by hammering nails into the inside of inner circle and cutting off the heads, then using tacks on the back to hold the boards in.

I thought this project was going to drive me crazy a few times but, as always, it was just a matter of waiting for the perfectly simple solution to come along.

Then I was paralysed by indecision about what to stitch next.

Most embroidery is so far from my taste that you could build an entire transport industry between us and charge a toll for use. I am amused by more subversive kinds – burlesque and tattoo inspired – but I don’t want to make it myself. But every now and then I see something awesome. Not that I want to do the same piece, but it convinces me embroidery can be awesome.

There was also the issue of what to embroider onto. I’m not 100% sold on the idea of a wall of hoops displaying embroidery like artwork, though I’d probably come around to it if wall space for art wasn’t always in short supply in a house owned by an artist and photographer with many, many bookcases. I’d like to embroider clothing, throw pillows, maybe table linen and fabric from which to make bags, clutches and wallets. But what if I did a terrible job and stuffed up the thing I was embroidering?

I procrastinated by shopping for more floss and hoops and organising my supplies:

And taking inspiration from Pinterest:

After writing several lists I eventually decided to just stitch some fabric and decide what to do with it afterwards. I got some line drawings of Minis from Paul and decided I would see if it was true you could transfer laser prints onto cloth just by ironing:

Then while browsing through photos on my computer for something I could convert into a pattern I found this:

It was a design on a t-shirt that I grew out of. I loved it so much I took a pic thinking that one day I might screen print it onto a bigger t-shirt. But now I could see it would make a pretty cool embroidery pattern.

Of course, there wasn’t much point ironing a laser print onto black cloth so I rubbed tailor’s chalk on the back of the paper, traced it then went over the lines with a white gel pen.

And then started stitching:

I’m thinking I might be able to design one of Slinky in a similar style.

One of the suggestions I found was to make your own scent diffuser sticks. Now, I must have missed the diffuser stick thing. Probably because they look like incense, which gives me a headache. Or I saw that someone was trying to get me to buy what was essentially (pun not intended) sticks in a jar.

Other people out in the internets must have been as unimpressed as I was at the latter, and made their own by drilling holes in a jar lid and sticking twigs of bamboo skewers through it. I have an abundance of bamboo skewers because I’d experimented a while back on making my own hot chocolate pops.

I was all ready to find a jar to drill a lid into when, in one of those moments of serendipity, I spotted the plastic tube that had come off the long-stem rose Paul had recently bought for a photo shoot. The shape of a test-tube, but with a rubber stopper with, yep, a hole in the top. I have plenty of these from a bunch of flowers someone gave me a few years ago.

So here’s the ‘recipe’ for my Reused Flower Tube Scent Diffusers.
Add 20 or 30 drops of essential or scented oils to tube, attach lid, stick a couple of bamboo skewers in, tie a string around it (I used offcuts from weaving) and hang it on a hook:

Or a door handle

So now my workroom smells of rosemary and peppermint, the wardrobe of lavender, and the bathroom of cranberry and ginger.

And I’ve started another one. But this time on the mini inkle loom, and a different sort of pick-up.

As far as I’ve worked out so far, the method used for the braid pattern at the top called ‘Baltic’ in The Weavers Inkle Pattern Directory. The pattern (black) threads were additional to the usual tabby warp. The method for the current tape is called ‘pick-up’ and the pattern threads are part of the tabby warp. I’ve done one diamond by picking up the contrast colour and one by picking up the background colour, and next I’m going to try one that does both.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the book’s techniques an informal not-a-personal-challenge kind of way. Yonks ago I tried tubular inkle:

And more recently using one thick and one thin weft thread alternately:

Both of those were done on my little portable afro comb loom.

I’m looking forward to the Sunna heddle arriving, especially as I suspect that doing any kind of warp pick-up is easier with a heddle. It’s usually the lower part of the shed that you pick up, but the upper shed threads sit so close together that you can only see what you’re doing by peering in from the sides or parting the top threads. A heddle separates the threads, making gaps through which you can see what you’re doing.

When it does arrive I’m thinking of making a loom for it. Though that might have to wait until July. I have some big deadlines coming up. At the moment I’m working four days then resting for one. At least, that’s what I’m trying to do. These last two weeks I’ve had patches of exhaustion, unexplained depression (gone now, thankfully), vertigo, aches and pains and lots of little irritants like a mouth ulcer and a sty under my eyelid. The latter two usually indicate that I’m either run down or have a virus. But the sicker I am the further behind I get, and the more stressed I become.

Which may have something to do with why I have this sudden interest in embroidery. Getting completely lost in learning something new is a great way to de-stress of an evening.

So long as it only is in the evenings.

I also made these cookies:

That night I gathered all my inkle looms and The Weaver’s Inkle Pattern Directory around the tv armchairs so I could dabble and read. Like other kinds of weaving, it always seems there’s a mountain of techniques still to learn. I decided I wanted to at least get the pick-up band done and off the loom so I can try a few new methods.

Saturday was Craft Day, and we had a lovely, relaxing afternoon. At the end of a long, chatty lunch I brought out a quilt project, then after a rather bad attempt to teach crochet to the host’s daughter (I was trying to reverse everything because she’s left-handed and I’m not and, well, I just find knitting easier to explain) I moved on to a test portrait of a friend. Here is an in-progress shot:

When it got too dark I switched to the pick-up inkle band. I made a right mess of it and had to unweave half of what I’d done. Pick-up requires focus, which is frustrating as inkle band weaving is the most portable and could replace sock knitting as my out-and-about craft. I kept thinking there must be an easier way to do pick-up. My head spun with ideas of additional overlapping heddles and such…

On Sunday I finished the map coasters, continued with the embroidery hoop frames, and spent a few hours on the pick-up inkle band. I also followed a link I found on Pinterest to a wood turner who makes inkle looms and found a curious heddle with extra slots designed to make pick-up bands easier.

Well, that made me sit up and take notice. I followed a link to the weaver, Susan Foulkes, who designed it, then watched a Youtube demo video. In the video the heddles are plastic and called the ‘Sunna’, so I googled them and found they were made in Sweeden by STOORSTÅLKA.

Needless to say, one of these is now winging its way to me. I’m wondering if this means inkle weaving is my next temporary obsession. My fixations on the Bond and sewing both involved me coming up with modifications and new tools. Perhaps I’ll finally get around to making a tape loom out a wooden magazine file, and there’s that laser cut acrylic loom template sitting on my hard drive.

 
So much to do! What to choose? This weekend we’re having another Craft Day so I’m eyeing the projects that are the most portable and least messy. That could be the shirt pattern, inkle bands, photo frame inserts and a bookbinding project that doesn’t require glue. I could also work on the portrait I’m painting and the flannel quilt I’m stitching.

Perhaps I should concentrate on getting some WIPs finished. Or knock off some small projects that have been hanging around. Or take something to Craft Day that I can teach the host’s daughter, who has reached the age where she likes to join in.

Or maybe I’ll just load up the car with materials and tools for everything on the list that’s portable and see what catches my interest on Craft Day.

When considering what we throw out a lot of, my first thought was all the postage materials. In particular, these bags:

They often turn up with just one small parcel in them. Usually a parcel that has split open. The fabric is made up of woven plastic strips. A bag is about the size of a person. It put me in mind of burlap sack dresses or garbage bag gowns. So I cut the base out of one and put it on the duct tape dress form. A bit of pinching and pinning later I had this:

I wanted the ‘maximum load’ writing to go around the waist, covered by a belt, but this meant that the front of the bag didn’t quite go high enough to meet at the top so initially folded it so I had an off-the-shoulder design. Yet I also liked the idea of creating ‘straps’ by tying the plastic loops at the top of the bag with string. Though I wasn’t exactly sure how the top would go, I had a basic shape. I bought some polyprop and made the lining:

It sort of ended up with this neckline, which was easier to keep in place:

When I attached the lining I discovered a mistake with the way I’d cut the armhole into the bag. I considered making it strapless, cut across the top of the bust. But I’m no fan of strapless dresses so I cut the top off another bag, split it in half and pinned the pieces to the form so that the plastic loops matched the ones on the back. This allowed me to fit the bust better, too.

When I tried it on I found it very loose and bottom heavy, so I took in the darts some more and added a fringe to the front:

And I made these postage-themed accessories. A bangle and choker out of packing tape and stamps, and a clutch out of a bubble wrap posting bag:

It’s not very gothic – more Scrapyard than Cathedral – but it was a fun costume to make and wear. And dance in – though being essentially a plastic dress it was rather hot. By the end of the night the side seam had come apart on the non-zipper side, but this was unlikely to be a more-than-once use dress.

I found a basic pattern over at the Sense and Sensibility Patterns site and got it printed out on A3 paper. The sheets had to be stuck together:

Then the pattern pieces traced in the correct size:

After a bit of research I found that those pale, airy cotton dresses you see in period dramas were more often worn during the day. In the evening more luxurious fabrics were worn. Young, unmarried women wore light colours whereas older, married women could wear darker shades. Velvet was new and fashionable, too. In fact, I found four Regency era paintings via Pinterest of women wearing red velvet gowns, all trimmed with white.

That meant I could make a red dress in a fabric that didn’t need lining. Well, as it turned out it was easier to make the bodice lined because it allowed me to avoid overstitching or handstitching around the neckline and armbands. I found some cotton velvet in a subdued red and used cheap polyprop (65% cotton 35% polyester) as lining.

Back when I used to sew a lot and make my own patterns I always used cheap fabric I found on sale for the test ‘muslin’. This time I decided to try actual muslin for the test bodice. I didn’t like it as much – too flimsy – but it did the job.

After a bit of pattern adjustment and a second test bodice later I was ready to go. I spent a couple of days sewing it up, all the while suffering from camnesia so I don’t have any in-progress shots. I hand sewed the armbands, hem and trim. This is the finished dress wish cashmere shawl and past-the-elbow white gloves:

And a drawstring bag to match:

The hem was an easy fix – just a tube of the fleece overlocked onto the bottom then a string threaded through to tie it in under the form. The shoulders were a bit trickier. Paul and I searched through Bunnings until I found a solution: electrical cable clips stuck back to back onto a flat piece of plastic then inserted in the arms.

Redistributing the fabric to better match my body shape was a bit more time-consuming. I got Paul to take photos of me and the form from the front and side to I could compare. I was prepared for them to be a bit, er, overly truthful:

They match just fine from the front.

But are very different from the side. For a start, my back is not as flat as the form’s, curving out out at the upper part and in at the lower, and my belly sticks out.

I honestly thought I was standing straight for the pics.

The way the waist of my pants slopes down to the front was a complete surprise. It also explains why low rise pants don’t work for me. They are made to be a high at the back then low at the front to combat the occurrance of plumber’s crack, so my shape would exaggerate this. I’m wearing ordinary old cargo pants that ought to have horizontal waistband.

I had no idea I had such a rounded upper back. It’s not because my arms are out at my sides because the pics Paul took with my arms down are the same.

In my late 20s, when my neck first started playing up, the physio I first consulted said my back looked like it belonged to someone 20 years older. Seeing it in these pics, I recognise my mother’s back. I already knew she was where I got the genes from, as she had similar problems at a similar age, but we are different in so many other ways that this was a revelation.

I’d assumed the shape of the back of my duct tape dress form was due to it sagging. Not all, it turns out. I put it beside the new one to alert me to other possible areas to adjust:

I cut padding from the small of the back and stuck it on the front then I added padding to the upper back. I couldn’t get the latter to match my body without making the under arm measurement too big. The higher bust on the form means the front is a bit larger between the armpits than I am. So long as the measurement is right all around and I never make anything with close-fitting armholes it shouldn’t be too big a deal. I hope.

The finished form is much closer to my shape now, though the sock smooths everything out and skims over the waist a bit now. I didn’t bother shaping the underside of my belly since it’s never going to a suitable form to make pants on and skirts and dresses would fall from the widest point anyway.

The final test will be to try using it to drape or alter something on. Since I’ve recently become addicted to The Great British Sewing Bee I suspect it won’t be long before I do.