I hope everyone had a great Christmas! This year, I had a very stitching-focussed Christmas, with some really lovely presents which will keep me busy well into 2015.
This book, ‘Crewel Twists‘ by Hazel Blomkamp, is one I’ve had my eye on ever since it came out a while back. That’s not a black and white image of the cover – it really is that colour!! Hazel has taken the traditional ‘crewel’ or ‘Jacobean’ style of embroidery, and modernised it for the 21st Century. It’s a wonderful book.
This is a quick preview of one of the projects from the book. I’ll do a proper book review of it for this blog as soon as I’ve read it properly.
I had two gifts which came from a French shop called Les Brodeuses Parisiennes. They have a beautiful shop, filled with goodies, and a website with English translations. Their range is quite large, but so are their prices 🙂 This is a ‘semi kit’ (i.e the fabric pouch and a colour block chart with thread suggestions for DMC, but no threads). The flap of the bag is linen, and the lining has been left open so that you can get your hand in behind it to do the stitching, then you can slip stitch the lining closed. It measures about 12 inches by 9. I’m planning to use it to carry my small embroidery projects in when I’m travelling, as it will look better than the Sainsbury’s carrier bag that I usually use!
As I was cooking the Christmas dinner, I pulled the threads that I’ll use to stitch this with (as you do!). That annoying brand label on the right hand side has been snipped off now, by the way.
The other gift from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes was this multi page chart for an alphabet on the theme of dressmaking. It’s really detailed. I’m planning to make a tote bag for carrying larger sewing projects, with the whole alphabet stitched around it.
This scissor keeper ‘pattern and print’ pack (i.e. another half kit with no threads, but printed linen pieces and muslin backing fabric) is from Lorna Bateman. It’s really gorgeous. The cottage garden flowers are stitched in lots of different surface embroidery stitches, with the option to personalise it on the reverse with your initials. The pretty gold handled scissors are to fit inside the scissor keeper when it is finished, and were also a present. I realised I needed some new embroidery scissors when I was cutting the threads for the hardanger windows on the Gingerbread Stitching House that I’ve just finished, and the blades wouldn’t cut neatly. My old stork scissors were over twenty years old, I reckon, so it was time for some new ones, and these are really good!
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Janet Granger's Blog 
What a wonderful haul! I’ve got Hazel Blomkamp’s Crewel Intentions which I love. I’ve just got to get started on the projects. I’ve also been eyeing up some Les Brodeuses Parisiennes projects but at present they are too expensive. There is so much lovely stuff out there…
I wish I could manage with just the one pair of scissors, if I don’t loose them down the back of the sofa my idiot cat runs off with them!
Beautiful things. I love the French bag and will be looking at their website. How easy do you think it will be to embroider the flap? What part is left open exactly and how easy will it be to put one’s hands behind? It looks so pretty.
I too love the book and have purchased the beads from Hazel Blomkamp’s website, but not done the projects yet.
It’s fairly easy to embroider the flap. The flap is lined with the dotty cotton fabric (the same as the reverse of the bag). Where the flap lining joins the lining for the interior of the bag, there is a seam which has been left open for about nine inches, with only the extreme ends near the side seams still stitched together. I ripped these end bits open to make it even easier to do the embroidery, but I’ve found it wasn’t really necessary. When I’ve finished the embroidery, I can just slip stitch the whole length back together.
I look forward to seeing it when it is finished. It is stunning and so good to see something really useful. Like you said, to carry small projects.
Snap I got that book too, it’s very exciting with lots of projects for me to aspire to. I am also working on a Lorna Bateman scissor keeper and really enjoying it.