Made me smile

Normal life will return at some point, I’m sure, but quite how October’s diary became quite so full, I have no idea.  It’s probably because the things I’ve been invited to do are so lovely, I can’t say no! 

I mean, how could I refuse the chance to have a privileged look at exquisite things like this?

Just one corner of a whole bobbin lace tablecloth, it makes that bit of machine embroidery I did look a bit pathetic, doesn’t it?

As one parcel after another was opened, the treasures just kept coming.  Who knew what would be the next beauty we’d get to see?

As always, the judge’s task isn’t an easy one but with my two colleagues Jane and Linda, we considered each entry carefully before making a decision.  My recent experience with my new sewing machine gave me an insight into the skills which had gone into stitching this cloth and I was impressed.  Very impressed.

But small surprises like this little face were a delight, too.

And a tiny motif in the corner of another entry was the kind of feature I think of as a judge’s reward… so easily overlooked but a real joy to spot when looking very closely, as we do.

No, I’m not going to tell you who won and why…for that, you’ll have to wait

I had more reasons to smile at home yesterday, when a pile of cards was waiting for me when I came downstairs.  They were especially cute this year, I thought!

Lucky girl that I am, there was a pile of presents too – new slippers, a pile of books, bath oil, chocolates and sewing machine accessories from sweet family and friends.

There was also that lovely treat of someone arriving at the door with an Interflora box – a huge bunch of lilies from Tra.  Each time I went to look at my computer, there were more “pings”; ecards from friends and Facebook greetings.  What nicer way to spend the day than being reminded of what sweet friends I have?

All of which was almost as effective a cure for my birthday cold as the Benylin and box of tissues. 

Thank you all – I am a very lucky girl indeed.

All in the detail

I’m involved in a couple of things right now which, on the face of it seem fairly straightforward but closer consideration reveals rather more than was immediately apparent.  In some cases, that means more work.

Oh well.

In others it opens up new challenges, new opportunities and a whole lot more fun!

I was hoping to create a bit of quick “bobbin lace” on my Bernina the other day.  When we were out judging a few months ago, one of my colleagues came across a beautiful lace bookmark which we all admired.  It was so perfect, each thread carefully managed to a well balanced tension and not a single join in sight.  Certainly made by an excellent lacemaker – or?  Only on the way home did the thought strike us that it possibly wasn’t bobbin lace at all, but some well managed machine embroidery worked on soluble fabric. 

With the 2014 Craft Judges training in my diary next week, I thought I’d create a sample to take along, to raise awareness of such things and to give them an idea of what’s possible.  Of course, I wouldn’t dream of trying to fool them into thinking it was real bobbin lace

(If I was, I wouldn’t have blogged about it, would I?!)

Actually, this would fool no-one, because having pinned it out and sprayed with water to dissolve the “fabric”, the threads don’t resemble bobbin lace in any way.  I need to learn how to discriminate when buying off-the-peg commercial machine embroidery designs to find one which looks a bit more authentic when stitched out.

It’s all in the detail.

I suspect the participants in the new WI/Kingston University collaboration will agree with that as they begin quite an exciting project.  I was there at the briefing day on Monday to learn more and to identify how I can play a useful role – how lucky is that?  The project is intended to promote the sharing of traditional and contemporary craft skills and is most certainly something which “floats my boat” (spoken in the best Hull accent, of course!)  The idea is that each fashion student will work with two WI members to create an outfit which celebrates the rich history the WI in its centenary year.  The students bring a wealth of creative talent, innovation and modern craft techniques and the WI members were selected for their outstanding technical skills in a wide variety of traditional handcrafts. 

Put all of that creative energy and enthusiasm into one room and you can imagine how wonderful it was to stand back and watch!  Students and members had brought along pieces of their work and having been assigned partners, spent the day getting to know one another and exploring the potential of collaborative working.

There was a lot of “ooh” and a fair bit of “aaah” as the heirlooms got another airing and portfolios were opened up.

Hopefully, over the next few months there will be progress to report, but for now, it was enough to sit and observe as people who had arrived as strangers discovered they had rather a lot in common.

There were some rather nifty details in the clothes many of them were wearing too.

Not quite the same elegant touches to observe in Cheltenham last evening, sadly, when (we estimated 1500) festival goers and Radio 4 fans found their seats in a huge marquee for the event entitled “Just a Minute”.  We thought we were going to a recording of the show, or at least a genuine game but we were mistaken.  Instead, Nicholas Parsons introduced three women (the first all-female panel, we were told) Pam Ayres, Shappi Khorsandi and Jenny Eclair rather than the usual combination of four regular participants (we were hoping for Paul Merton)  After a short and rather more polite game there followed a discussion and book promotion which shouldn’t really have come as a surprise but which was not quite what we were expecting.

Of course, had we but looked at the detail in the programme, we’d have known what to expect.

Kirschblüte & Edelweiss

If ever there was a theme to tick all the boxes, then an exhibition about textiles influenced by the Swiss textile industry and Japanese design was going to be the one.  I’d read about it on the Bernina blog last week and printed off the details, because it was in St Gallen and maybe, just maybe it would fit nicely with a visit to the Bernina factory?  Of course, this part of Switzerland is the home of fine textiles; that Bernina is based in Steckborn is no accident and on previous visits we’ve found ourselves in assorted factory shops including Wolford a couple of years ago.   The textile museum in St Gallen is home to a wonderful collection of Swiss made lace and fine fabrics as well as a comprehensive library of specialist printed books as well as samples.

We squeezed the car into a tiny spot and made our way down the street.  Finding the museum entrance was rather easier than we’d anticipated!

We loved the tickets, printed on scraps of fabric and were especially pleased that the elegant lady on the reception desk carefully found us two very different designs.

The panel at the top of the stairs summed up the theme nicely, with a vignette of Fuji-san framed with edelweiss flowers!

The exhibition began with a few examples of oriental fabrics followed by a display of traditional Swiss designs.  I loved the way these were presented, for although the light was dimmed the sheen on the embroideries was shown to great effect by these curved mounts.

Some of the Swiss whitework samples depicted a familiar motif: that of Wilhelm Tell and his son, in the same pose as the monument in Altdorf.

Our breaths were taken away by the display of katagami patterns in the next room.  A video showed how these Japanese stencils were cut by hand and used to print textiles.

The precision was exquisite – this section would be around four inches wide and it was these patterns which inspired some of the fine Swiss embroidery and printing.

At the same time, the European fashion for flowered collars was being followed by Japanese craftsmen and as roses were appearing on textiles n the Orient, in Switzerland the chrysanthemum and camellias began to appear.

Here too, the displays were attractively presented and the story really well told, although it was becoming difficult to tell if we were looking at Swiss influenced Japanese work or vice versa.  I think that was probably the whole point!

There were so many beautifully arranged collections, I took way too many photographs!

When my camera battery died, I switched to my phone!  Sadly, the single light above each of the displays features in each of my photographs, however.

The last room featured contemporary textiles, mostly made in Switzerland but made for a Japanese market.

Japanese taste and fashion is so curious!

The next room held the library and though we didn’t have a great deal of time to linger here, I simply had to go in and take a closer look at this wonderful structure.

Those books on the table contain a wealth of samples- just opening one at a random page reveals such treasure!

Very temping to slip one in my bag… if only they were not so huge!

Before we left, we took a look inside the room at the end of the corridor, finding a huge machine in there.  Though it looked like a loom, on closer inspection it appeared to be some kind of embroidery machine.

There, beside it was the paper design, drawn out on graph paper with a sample of the actual finished embroidery alongside.  This appeared to be an early equivalent of the printout from the digitised design I recently completed using my Bernina Embroidery software, but how was this going to be used to embroider?

The answer was soon to hand, because a member of the museum staff appeared, hopped onto the stool and began to operate the machine.  Painstakingly, she placed the point of the plotter on a point on the graph paper with her left hand and wound the handle of the machine with her right.  As she did, a series of fifty of so needles made a single stitch in fifty or so small, individual motifs.  She then wound the handle to return the needles to their original position before moving the plotter to the next point and repeating the process.

Though my photograph shows only one line of motifs, there were actually two, one above the other, so although the process was incredibly slow, a large number of motifs were embroidered at the same time.  But when I spoke to the embroiderer about changing the colour of thread in each of those fifty needles, she raised an eyebrow…  Bearing in mind the ease with which my machine will stitch out a design, the speed with which it will operate and the accuracy of each stitch, it’s remarkable how far we’ve come in little more than a hundred years.

The end result was mounted into greeting cards, for sale in the museum shop. 

Our last photograph in the museum was a beautiful display of katagami patterns, possibly machine cut, larger than the originals and hung in the light of the windows behind them.  This was a stunning museum, full of the most fascinating exhibits and we had really enjoyed our visit.

 

After a walk around St Gallen, thinking of Mary and our last visit here,  we took the scenic route home, over the alpine pastures and waving as we passed by Appenzell.

Someone was rather proud of her enormous bell and posed beautifully by the roadside as we drove past.  Love her!

This evening, we chose one of the many restaurants by the lakeside to enjoy Zürcher Geschnetzeltes with Rösti and watched as the sun went down over the lake.

We are so lucky to be here.

Made in Switzerland

It’s a while since we had a Bernina post around here, but this morning gave me plenty to fill in the gaps, because we went to Steckborn, where “the greatest sewing machines in the world” are born.  First, however, I had an errand to run at the post office here in Rapperswil.

I couldn’t believe my luck when I found an empty counter, but my jaw dropped in amazement when a well dressed lady walked straight past me and “pushed in” to receive a warm Gruezi from the clerk.  Huh?  Being a stranger in these parts, I didn’t feel able to do my “Ahem! I believe I was here first” act, but that was just as well, for I then realised that I ought to have collected a ticket as I entered the building and followed the directions on the screen above the counter.

I went back, collected the ticket and stood behind the three customers who had arrived in the meantime.  That’ll teach me:  When in Switzerland, do as the Swiss do – or, do as the English do and join (or form) a queue!

Anyway, errands run, we set out in the car, over the hills and far away.

Well, not really that far – just hour or so due north, to the shores of Bodensee, almost as far north as one can go in Switzerland, in fact.

Though we set out on the motorway, we continued on smaller, country roads and as we always do, we wound the windows down to listen to the cowbells and breathe in the fresh, clean air.

In not much more than an hour, our goal was in sight.  We arrived shortly after 11am to find the whole workforce standing out on the lawn in front of the factory and offices, taking part in a fire drill!

As they filed back indoors, I wondered just which one of them had signed my sewing machine?

We weren’t so sure where to go, but knew from an email conversation with a member of their staff, that there were no factory tours on Fridays, sadly.  But the Creative Centre was open and that was where we headed.

Straight up to the first floor then, to a showroom full of sewing machines, samples and displays – but not a soul in sight.  We tentatively stepped inside and wandered around, calling “Hallo?” to no reply.  Oh well, we thought we’d take a few photos and maybe someone would appear.

My hero had set off around the corner, into a kind of classroom and called me over.  “Good grief”, he said, “just think of how much that trolley full of sewing machines is worth!” (There were five 880s, five 780s and ten embroidery units underneath – somewhere around £50K then?!)

As we ogled the riches, a young woman appeared – no chance of running off with them!!  After a short conversation, she invited us to make ourselves at home, to spend as long as we liked looking around and when we needed her, she’d be right there for us.  The machines were there because she was setting the classroom up for a weekend course for Swiss purchasers of the 880 – the same course as I will attend in November, in London.  I can’t imagine the London environment will be quite so inspiring, however – we’ll see.

It was fun to look around and to see the real life examples from the website and of course, to see ideas and gather inspiration.

I’d not seen this indigo quilt previously, nor had I seen the accessory it was used to promote.  But whilst there, our new best friend, Frau Gross explained it all: the Spanish Hem Stitch attachment was one of the featured accessories.  Oh and yes, it seemed that she had made most of these samples, too.

She explained how this small attachment allows the use of the decorative stitches to create openwork seams like the orange stitching on the book cover above.  I’d not seen it before and knowing there was a video explaining the use online as well, then maybe this gizmo would be my souvenir?  Needless to say, however, I had another couple of other feet on my wishlist (held on the Bernina App on my phone ) and seeing those on the display, I soon had a small collection to purchase.

As we completed the transaction, Frau Gross passed my hero a small gift from Bernina.

I’m not sure how often he uses a tape measure, but rest assured, when he does, he will have the perfect tool for the job!  As for me, well, I had a copy of the latest Inspirations magazine – and of course, the pleasure of seeing the source of the many projects and resources which I can view online.  Needless to say, I felt inspired to go back and switch my sewing machine on immediately, but we had other plans for the day.  Coincidentally, they were also inspired by Bernina in a blog entry I read just before we left home….seeing a theme here?

I’ll continue the story in the next post.

Fiddling about

I’d been admiring the work of Angie Lewin and the St Judes Print Studio for some time and when a friend sent me a card along similar lines, I thought I’d take similar shapes to build a design to play with.  I began by drawing a quick sketch and considered what techniques and processes I could incorporate.  I wanted to put some of the things I’ve been learning from the Bernina Workbooks in there, but also, to try and put a little Silhouette trick or two in there as well.

There’s no point in making things easy if I can build a little difficulty in there, is there?  So, I took a photograph of my drawing with my Note and then used the Samsung Sketch app to trace the design in layers and then copied it to my pc by means of dropbox.

I fiddled about with the layers and tidied the drawing up a bit in Photoshop Elements before importing each shape into the Bernina V7 software and digitising them.

I discovered that much of the detail is lost when importing a .png file.  Like all of it!  From then on, I stuck with .jpg files.

I imported the solid shapes to the Silhouette software and arranged them tightly in the corner so I wouldn’t waste any of the precious rubber stamp material, because here I was going to cut the shapes out so that I could print them onto the fabric if I wished.  All the time, I kept an eye on the relative sizes – it’s so easy to switch resolution settings and so on when moving from one program to another.  So far, it was looking ok though.

I hit “go” and four rubber stamp shapes were cut.

Whilst I was at it, I cut three sets of shapes from some lutradur I had on hand, thinking that I could spray that any colour later and maybe applique them in the design.

I continued to work my way around the design, fiddling about with the settings, trying to change the order of stitching so that the machine would stitch an outline in which to place one of those applique shapes before it went on to do something else over the top.

Just before we went for a spot of lunch, I thought I’d print out the design and discovered, quite by chance, that doing that creates a perfect sewing plan.  Yes!

After lunch, things began to get exciting.  I realised that I could use the grid supplied with the embroidery hoop to line things up, and using the print out (which had markings for the centre of the hoop and for both axes marked, too) I carefully marked my gridded stamp block and lined it up…

Time to begin sewing.  In no time at all, a lovely oval shape was being filled with a delicate blackwork pattern.  Was that green paisley stamp going to be in the right place?

Too early to tell, but sure enough, the machine stitched those placement shapes out and stopped for me to put the sprayed bits of lutradur in place.  I used a bit of Pritt stick to hold them down for the time being.

As it happened, that green paisley wasn’t in exactly the right place but I don’t think it mattered one jot.  Everything had fallen into place otherwise and I was feeling pretty pleased with my day’s work!

Once the sewing was finished and all the joining threads cut away, I felt even more delighted with the outcome.  Not only had everything remained in the right place, but the silhouette cut shapes had fitted in perfectly too.  There’s a bit of a muddly area in the centre, where the grey flower head overlays the paisley shape but that could be easily sorted.  I particularly love the blackwork filling though and will stitch this one out again in different colours, swapping around the applique pieces and the stamped areas, too.  Having saved all those stems individually, I can also move them around and create a different arrangement as well.

I also think that this design doesn’t look quite so “manufactured” as my earlier efforts.  Just that little bit of (inaccurate!) hand printing and a little bit of flappy fabric not completely stitched down makes all the difference, don’t you agree?