Stumpwork with Jane Nicholas

Jane rocks.

This was my second workshop with Jane Nicholas. And it was marvelous.

Jane's work is absolutely beautiful, impeccable and precise.

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

And so is her teaching style.

Jane's classes have movement. She expects her students to experience certain accomplishments and she maintains a cadence to her class that ensures that result. Yet her class is warm and open and not pressured.

If you are lagging behind, she provides an excellent materials list and written instructions to assist you. She expects struggle and builds in time for her students to climb their own learning curves.

She reminds you to stop and pay attention when she emphasizes an important point...she reminds you to put your work down and take notes so that when she is gone, you'll remember what you're supposed to do.

I love her classes because I come away feeling as if I've learned a ton and that I've made some accomplishment myself.

And the visual smorgasbord of her work laid out on the table is enough to make you swoon...

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

She keeps her pieces covered in plastic for protection so all of the pictures are taken through that plastic covering.

And all of the following pieces appear in her latest book, Stumpwork & Goldwork Embroidery Inspired by Turkish, Syrian & Persian Tiles...

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

You can read a review of the book written by Mary Corbet on her Needle 'N' Thread blog here.

Stumpwork is stitched by making many separate components which are cut out and then applied to the main fabric once they're completed.

So raspberries, dragonfly wings, leaves and flower petals are all created on separate hoops...

In fact it's a very hoop-intensive activity and the fabric needs to be as taut as a drum. So a good quality hoop like these from Hardwicke Manor work best -- they are made from birch hardwood and have brass screws so that you can tighten them with a screwdriver. It also helps to wrap the inner hoop with muslin strips or bias tape to give a more snug fit.

Jane also brought along pieces from her Stumpwork Medieval Flora book which I adore. Mary Corbet also reviewed this book on her blog...read her glowing opinion here. Thank you Mary!

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

Designed, Copyrighted and Stitched by Jane Nicholas

It was sweet of some of you to think that the picture I posted yesterday was actually my work. I've corrected that for the future.

Alas, as a student of stumpwork, I have a pile of embroidery hoops with the beginnings of a hellebore flower...leaves...and raspberries.

And one dragonfly who doesn't have his antennae or legs yet...

That's why I'm the student.

I hope you all get a chance to meet Jane one day and see her work. I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do.

And thank you Jane for giving me my own set of stumpwork "wings"...

You're marvelous! And now I'm taking myself to flight school...

Have a great weekend.

Charm School Week Five: Stumpwork

Perseverance

It's Thistle Week here at Plays with Needles. It wasn't intentional, but I've stitched two versions of a thistle within one week...very odd. Wonder what that means??

I really enjoyed hearing your stories about thistles from yesterday. It seems, for their prickly exterior, there must be something awfully sweet about the thistle blossom itself because horses gobble them like candy; hummingbirds and butterflies flock to them; and, gold finches can be seen covering them this time of year.

Picture courtesy of A Wing and a Prayer

But I digress. This week I explored Jane Nicholas' Dragonflies book.

All of Jane's stumpwork books are fabulous but I chose this one because it houses the design and instructions for this week's charm.

This week's charm is not my own design. Because of all of the supplies needed for stumpwork, I decided to work on a unfinished piece of Jane Nicholas' design. I had previously finished the dragonfly so I just needed to stitch the thistle (which Jane refers to as a cornflower but, for me, it's a thistle...) and convert it to a charm.

I stitched the thistle using a stitch called Turkey Work. It's a method of securing loops onto fabric, stitched in rows. The closer your stitches, the thicker the pile. I use my fingers to hold back the previous loops while I stitch the next row.

You'll often see this stitch used for fuzzy bodies, and thistles but I like to use it for puffs and dots as a background or pom poms, and it makes a great afro! Mary Corbet has a wonderful video tutorial for turkey work that you can view here. And lots of other great tutorials for other stitches as well. Thank you Mary!

When you're finished stitching all the loops, it's a mess until you give it a hair cut and trim the pile in the shape you desire.


I always go slowly here because you can't add any back. Trimming also makes a mess too but it's easily cleaned up with some tape wrapped around my finger.


Here's what I learned this week:

• I forgot how much I missed fine surface embroidery and stumpwork. I think I could work a stumpwork sampler and be very happy. Every one of Jane's books is exceptional.
  
• Stumpwork takes some set up time to properly hoop your work, find the wires, etc. but once you've amassed the supplies, it's a joy.
• There's more to the thistle than meets the eye so I'll have to ponder on that a bit.

Congratulations for persevering through this post. See you next Tuesday for Charm School when I'll be exploring this book...


It's a BEAUTY!!

Class in Session

Hi everyone.

Today was my first of a two-day workshop with Jane Nicholas working on this project...

This piece is copyrighted, designed and stitched by Jane Nicholas....not me!

She's a delight. I promise pictures and highlights after class tomorrow.

I have a lot of homework to do...

"O" -- One of the Monkeys on My Back

Stumpwork has been on my work table this week.  This project is one of those monkeys on my back that I mentioned earlier this year.

I'm re-imagining a stumpwork design from a class I took with Jane Nicholas a few years ago.

If you ever get the opportunity to take a class with Jane, you should do it.  So much of my base stumpwork knowledge has come from her.  Her new book, Stumpwork Butterflies and Moths is a real treat, with very detailed and precise instructions.  The only thing you need to add is good light, good magnification and tons of practice.

What this piece will be used for will become clear in my next post, suffice it to say that it is a project for my Embroiderers' Guild...and it's very late.

This has been a great exercise in warming up my stumpwork skills for the completion of Mrs. Rose...I hope to get to her as soon as I get some of these smaller projects complete.

One of the tricks I learned from Jane was the use of a very large-eyed chenille needle to sink wires into the base fabric.

Pulling the needle to where the eye is halfway above and below the fabric creates a "channel" through which you can place the wire and pull it easily through to the back side...

I've also been making a few more of these three-dimensional berries that I learned from her.  They're so simple it's almost a sin.

Fill an oval on muslin with french knots and beads, baste a running stitch around the oval, and cut them out.  When you pull the running stitches, it makes a "berry" that you can applique to your background.

Easy peasy, right?

Japanese embroidery has gotten me in the habit of embroidering with two hands.  My right hand above the hoop and my left hand below.

When I'm working on something in a hoop, I find these clamps from the home improvement store to be invaluable.

Unlike many clamps, they can open up very wide to fit around the lip of any table, including those portable ones with the big wide plastic top.  These are about 8" long and cost about $5.75 apiece.

That's it for today.  Just giving you a peek into my world today.  I'm off to finish off my composition and attach all those petals!  That's the fun part.  

The Road to Ribbonwork

Sometimes I dream of a project...and it might take me years to collect the skills, supplies and ideas for that dream to become a reality.


And no, my dream project isn't a dress like this. This is just a dreamy dress that happens to have beautiful ribbonwork.

See, I've been wanting to improve my skills at finessing and manipulating ribbons.


So, in five weeks I'll have the opportunity to travel to Connecticut to meet Maureen Greeson (Woohoo!) , founder of The Adventure in Crazy Quilting (sorry, it's full...) and owner of that great online store Maureen's Vintage Acquisitions (vintage heaven!).

Who will be hosting a Ribbonwork Workshop with Candace Kling, author of the The Artful Ribbon (pinch me!).

I know, I know. First Stumpwork with Jane Nicholas and now Ribbonwork with Candace Kling??

Lest you think I travel from amazing workshop to amazing workshop....it just so happens...that, even though this year has been a bust for the economy, it's been a boom for me finding great teachers. It doesn't happen like this very often so you just have to jump at the opportunities when they come along.

Candace has asked that we bring any examples of antique ribbonwork that we might have to share with the rest of the class. But I want you all to be in on it too.

So over the next four Mondays, I'll post about ribbonwork.


And by the time I get to the workshop on November 4, we'll all be in the ribbonwork spirit together!

And if any of you own a piece of antique ribbonwork , I'd love to see it.

Post it on your blog and leave a comment on this post or one of the Monday ribbonwork posts and I'll include a link for all of us to enjoy.

P.S. I think Maureen may still have space available for the workshop...check it out here...

P.P.S. Alas, I do not own these beautiful gowns shown here today...they are all from this gorgeous book.

Enjoy!

Blueberries: In the Hand and On the Brain

Last week we took the kids to pick blueberries at Larriland Farm.


The picking was considered "fair". That's because, when the pickin' is "good", the berries fall from the bush in large ripe clusters right into your hand with little to no effort. We actually had to hunt and pick them...


There were still plenty of great blueberries to be found and we had a great time picking, eating and getting lost amidst the bushes.


Then, thinking we were lost, calling out -- only to find out that everyone was only a bush or two away. It's also a great place to eavesdrop since it's very easy to hide in a blueberry field...


Not that we did any eavesdropping or snickering or giggling about it, no way, not us...

By the time we were finished, the day had gotten pretty hot...


But leave it up to the kids to find water. They were amazed by the size of the super giant sprinkler that was watering the pumpkin patch so they had to run through it...


After we got home, I was very inspired by our berry harvest so I tried a blueberry cake recipe from Apples for Jam...But, I didn't like it...


It looks pretty but it was too cake-y for me ( in this pic, I'd already cut away the bottom half of the cake). Turns out, I like the berries the best. The more berries the better. So instead, I've taken to eating them directly from the freezer.


They're like tiny blueberry popsicles which are a delight for the mouth on hot, July day.

The beautiful colors of the berries got me thinking again about how you might interpret them into needlework.


I went hunting for examples and found that there really weren't that many that I could find -- there were lots of examples of strawberries and raspberries, but blueberries in the needlearts seemed to be slim-pickin'.

Jane Nicholas interpreted blueberries into stumpwork by stitching detached buttonhole stitches around a small wooden bead...top right under the butterfly.


Of the few examples I found, my favorite, by far, was this interpretation in canvas by Needle Delights called Blueberry Torte -- it's the fourth design in the Edibles Collection. Cherry Cordial is just as yummy!


And lastly, I found lots of blueberries fashioned with felt but these by Ann at Harvest Moon by Hand were my favorite...


This ends my blueberry tour for now.

May the Blueberry of Happiness shine down upon you and be gracious to you, and may you have the chance to hold Happiness in the palm of your hand...