Victorian Pincushion on spindle stand: 5 – assembling the needlebook

I’ve embroidered and assembled the Victorian pincushion on its turned spindle stand from a chart pack from Victoria Sampler, and now I’m starting to assemble the needlebook that will go with it.

First, I made a template of the front area of the needlebook from tissue paper by placing the stitching and the tissue paper on my light box and gently drawing the outline in pencil onto the paper.

Using the template, I cut the front and back stitched areas out (allowing a centimetre seam allowance on each) and a front and back lining piece from cream satin, again with a one centimetre seam allowance. I then cut two  iron-on interlining pieces to the exact size of the template, and ironed them to the reverse side of each piece of satin. The inner page of the needlebook was cut from white felt to the size of the template and then trimmed to be an eighth of an inch smaller all round, so that it won’t stick out at the edges when the needlebook is closed. I also cut two thick card pieces to the exact template size, to stiffen the covers of the needlebook.

I temporarily tacked the seam allowance of the satin to the reverse on both lining pieces.

I laced the front and back stitching over the stiff card with strong quilting thread.

This is the back panel of the needlebook once laced over the card.

Placing the stitching and the lining wrong sides together, I slip-stitched them together all the way round.

Finally, I removed the tacking stitches from the lining piece.

Holding the back piece, felt inner ‘page’ and front piece together, aligned carefully, I threaded narrow silk ribbon through the three eyelets. The two outer ones I tied in a small bow, and the centre one I looped through, knotted three inches from the loop, and then tied a bow at the end.

This shows what I did with the ribbon:

The needlebook can now be opened, and needles placed in the ‘page’ inside.

This is such a pretty needlebook, which can now be hung on the pincushion stand from a pin placed in the cushion pad on the top.

Now I’ve just got the ‘strawberry’ to stitch and assemble, and the whole project will be complete!

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Where Stitchers Gather etui by Victoria Sampler: 6 – stitching the smalls

I’ve finished stitching the main pocket of the ‘Where Stitchers Gather‘ etui  by Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler now, and I’ve really enjoyed stitching it.

Now it’s time to make the three smalls, to go inside it.

I first stitched all the designs on one piece of fabric, carefully measuring out the spacing.

I completed the scissor fob first, by gathering the stitched fabric circle over a round piece of mount board (2mm thick), padded a bit with a layer of thin wadding. Then I did the same with a second mount board circle, using the deep red silk the same as I’d used for the lining of the etui pocket. I stuck them back to back, and slip-stitched around the edges to make one disc. Then I made a very thin cord out of some DMC Perle 12 as shown below, and tried it first around the shape to make sure it would fit, and leave enough to frizz out the ends last, to make a tassel. I stuck the cord around the edge very carefully, a bit at a time, using PVA glue.

Here’s the completed scissor fob, attached to my cute little rose gold scissors.

This is the back, showing the deep red silk side.

I made the scissor pocket in a similar way, using stiff interlining instead of the mount board though, so that the scissor pocket is soft to hold. I laced the two sides together through the long back stitches that I’d stitched round the very edge of each piece.

Lastly, I made the needlebook. This, too, is soft, and not stretched over mount board, but stiff interlining.

I’d half thought to stitch the date on the back, but in the end, when I got to that stage, I forgot, so it’s blank!

The inside pages are made from doctor flannel, held in place up the centre with a line of running stitches.

Here’s the completed project, with all four pieces:

It was a gorgeous project to stitch – not too simple, with a few challenging bits (the hardanger!!! Cutting those fabric threads!!), but also with some simple cross stitching so that most of it  was completed quite quickly.

As ever with projects by Thea from Victoria Sampler, the design was great, the instructions in the chart booklet were clear, and the accessories pack with the threads and beads was full of interesting things to work with. This is well worth stitching, and has the added bonus of being something useful when you’ve finished it, so you can get lasting enjoyment from using it every time you sit down to stitch.

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Where Stitchers Gather etui by Victoria Sampler: 5 – completing the stitching, and assembly of the etui pocket

I’ve almost finished this ‘Where Stitchers Gather‘ etui pocket by Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler now, and I’ve really enjoyed stitching it.

Once the main panel was completed, I backstitched around the whole design with Perle 12 thread, over four threads. This will give me a clear outline for assembling the pocket later.

This is the whole piece, before being assembled. You can see that some of the lettering faces up one way, and some down the other way – this is because when the pocket is wrapped around itself, some will be on the back of the pocket and some on the front, facing the other way. It will all make sense later!

I fixed pieces of the maroon dupion silk in place with pieces of iron-on interlining. These go over the back of the drawn thread work and hardanger heart.

It looks like this when it’s done:

I trimmed the stitched piece to half an inch all round as a seam allowance, then cut pieces of dupion silk and thin wadding the same size.

I ironed the seam allowance to the reverse of the stitching, and then ironed the dupion silk to have similar seam allowances, so that they were identical sizes. I lightly tacked the thin wadding in position on the back of the stitching and then slip-stitched the lining to the stitched front, wrong sides together, using the back stitched border as a guide. The bottom of the ‘sandwiched’ piece was folded up to make a pocket, and the top part makes a deep flap.

Narrow sill ribbons are attached at the sides to keep the pocket closed when the ribbons are tied. This is the front:

And this is the back:

It’s quite a small pocket – about 5 by 7 inches – but large enough to keep the smalls and a few skeins of thread in.

It would make a lovely project just as it is, to keep other things in, such as jewellery, but I want to keep going and stitch the smalls for it now  🙂

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Where Stitchers Gather etui by Victoria Sampler: 4 – the cross stitch band and the bargello band

Once I got the scary hardanger section of this ‘Where Stitchers Gather‘ etui pocket by Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler done, I was all fired up to get on with it!

I did all of this next section in two days.

There are two swans either side of the hardanger heart, and two little frogs among the bulrushes. Then there’s a band of cross stitch, and then some pretty white bargello stitching.

As the theme of this pocket is ‘where stitchers gather’, it makes sense to feature some stitchers! Here they are, all sat around a long table, stitching on frames and hoops:

I stitched all the people before stitching the tablecloth.

Close up, you can see that this simple cross stitch variation makes a nice contrast to the more solid cross stitch of the women’s clothes.

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