Good Guy Prizes

When my son was little, I used to give him "Good Guy" prizes when he did something really nice or when he showed patience or was helpful to someone else--you get the idea.  Positive reinforcement.

It wasn't all the time, only for special occasions and when I knew the thing he did came from within.

I had a stash of little toys or novelties I would award. Sometimes by giving him a big, loud citation. Like:  "James Harris, for showing exceptional patience and self-control while waiting for a really long time at the doctor's office." Or "Being nice to your little sister by playing a game with her and saying funny things to make her laugh", you are hereby awarded this exceptional Good Guy Prize!"
Followed by a military salute and a presentation.

So one day I decided to take a pocket off one of his shirts, sew this Good Guy Metal in shish embroidery  and re-attach it to the shirt. He loved to wear that shirt!

And when it wore out, I took the pocket off and kept it.

What to do, What to do?

The antique kimono material on my sofa pillow is falling to pieces.    

That is to say, the Mon or Japanese family crest symbol, is deteriorating.

And I'm in a quandary as to what to do.  Do I sew a backing onto the underside to stabilize it and let it continue to deteriorate? Or do I put a backing on and embroider the surrounding fabric? Maybe I should put a contrasting color behind the Mon and let it lose threads creating a whole new process and design?

Or maybe I should locate some other fabric or motif and applique it over the Mon, creating an entirely new design?

The whole pillow is black and white.

I really don't want to trash it; I love the feel of ancient silk.

P.S.  I forgot to mention, the bottom of the Mon is down to horizontal threads in the lower 1/3; the top of the circle is totally coming unfastened and can be lifted up.

Any ideas?

More Eye Candy from the Files

I'm always grabbing images off the web to keep for reference.

Now my computer is complaining. So I'll have to print them off onto paper in order to uncrowd my image memory. So, here's a few goodies:

Certainly worth saving choicey bits of fabric, cording, beads, buttons, and frill-frall. Don't you think?

Antique Embroidery Hoop

This is a lovely thing.

So very simple. A well-made hoop, heavy enough in construction to not need fabric binding or alteration to make it fit snugly.

It's amazing that, at it's age, it is still kept it's 'round'.

Because wood shrinks at different rates horizontally and vertically, i.e. with and across the grain, whoever made this understood their material well. It is probably made of "Box" or Linden wood, possibly Scandinavian in origin.

There is absolutely no metal involved. A handmade wood screw still holds the hoop securely to the table top.

The attaching piece allows the hoop to rotate out from the clamp for ease of use.

An absolute pleasure to use.

Pincushions

I love pin cushions.
Here are three really neat ones......

The green heart is one I made using my shisha skills.

The second one (which seems to have cast off it's pompom, is one I bought somewhere.
I think it's a Hmong piece.

And the third one, I picked up somewhere.  

It looks like an Icelandic or Saami people shoe. 

I was thinking about putting it on a chatelaine, but it's just too cute to use. 

Badges? Badges? We don't need no.......

Delving into my sewing drawer the other day, I unearthed this little badge/bag.

It is about 4 inches long, 3 inches wide and has a long with a long, closed loop attached.

Why would you make that, you ask?

At one time I belonged to a quilt group that was just forming and we had no official name tags or badges.

And, being tired of writing my name on a paper badge and slapping it on my shoulder,

And because I always had trouble locating my embroidery scissors, I made this small permanent badge.

I could put my little scissors into it, just loop over my head and march off to the meetings.

The fabric is a delicious scrap of some kind of miraculous canvas. I have no clue where it came from, being the fabric hoarder that I am, but it is not all cotton.

It must be some kind of commercial grade poly blend. But whatever it is, I sure wish I could get my hands on more. It goes into the washer and comes out looking exactly the same.

The inner lining is another scrap of decorator fabric from a sample tablet I scrounged from somewhere. (I have boxes of this stuff.) It makes a very nice surprise when you lift the fold-over.

The strapping and trim is made from yet another scrap of felty-fake-leather-y fabric.

And the knot for the loop is made by taking a bit of this, making it into a tape and then tying it into a monkey's fist knot.

The logo on the front is made with Coats & Clark cotton embroidery thread over a free-hand pencil copy of my logo.

Previously, I used this logo for a metal dye and stamp made to mark my art books and books I want to keep in my collection.

Later on, the metal dye became a stamp for my clay pottery.

I still use it at times on my clay art, but only on pieces that have a flat bottom.

Mirror or Shishah Cloth - I

Shishah or mirror cloth is made in areas of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Wikipedia says:

"Shisheh (Persian: شيشه) embroidery, or mirror-work, is a type of embroidery which attaches small pieces of mirrors reflective metal to fabric. The term "shisheh" means glass in Persian, from where the word transferred to Urdu/Hindi and other related languages. Shisheh embroidery was brought to India by the Persian Mogul Dynasty and is now most common on the Indian subcontinent especially in parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. This type of embroidery lends a sparkling appearance to the brightly-colored clothes worn in the region, and is very popular for use on clothing, hangings, and domestic textiles.

Shisheh is also used to describe the small mirrors purchased for use in embroidery, which come in varying shapes and sizes. Traditionally, shisheh work was done using mica flakes, but was later subsumed by glass blown into large thin bubbles and broken into small pieces for this use. Contemporary shisheh work almost entirely consists of mass-produced, machine-cut glass shishah with a silvered backing."

Antique pieces are becoming more recognized as pieces of art and the price of good examples is rising.

Contemporary cloth artists are also incorporating shishah or shisha into their work. Linda Matthews of http://www.LindaMathews.com has a great tutorial and beautiful example of using shisha in embroidery today:

A well photographed and clear tutorial is also available on shishah stitching on: www.joyfulabode.com/2008/02/12/tutorial-indian-shisha-mirror-embroidery

Another Ring Pillow

This ring pillow was made of white batiste with antique lace, transparent sequins and white and gold thread embroidery.

The ring is really a plain, gold-washed band tacked down to the pillow. Symbolic only. The white ribbon is also lightly tacked in strategic places to keep the look of the bow.

The lace was so beautiful, I only wanted to highlight the shape of the design, so sequins were applied just lightly.

The gold thread is true gold, not Mylar. I took a gold-work class at one time and it came in handy when I wanted to make something super special.

The whole pillow is made to lie flat when the stuffing is removed. That way, it can be placed in a frame, with a little offsetting to allow the ribbons to stay three dimensional. Makes a nice bride's keepsake.

Click on the images for a close-up view.

Baby Smock

This is the smock I made for my grandson. It is a copy of one made for me by my mother.

The fabric is wool lawn, a very light and airy cloth.

I don't know if you can even find this anymore. It was from my stash.

The blue and white ribbon trim is antique and the tiny thistle embroidery was done by hand. (He has a Scottish surname.)

No pattern, just a flat cut-out with facings at the hem, neck and sleeves.

Click on the picture to see the detail.

Antique Lace, Pleats and Feather Stitches

This is my grandson Zachary's christening gown.

Forget the he's nearly six feet tall now, his voice is changing and his life's ambition at this point is to be a champion skate boarder, I still see that round, newly-minted baby face and the chubby waving arms and legs.

He was nearly too big for the gown.

The gown is all made by hand. It's made of Swiss batiste. It goes without saying that the batiste you use must be the best you can find. Why waste your time and effort on materials that are inferior?

I didn't have a pattern. But I had made a lot of wearable art garments based on ancient clothing patterns and began the gown with the yolk and neck and back piece. I started with the front placket. The collar arrangement, number of pin-tucks, insertions of lace and the kind of embroidery to use were the first decisions to make.

I have a large stash of antique lace that I was just itching to use. Some I had collected in England and some I found a whole shoebox full at a garage sale in Portland OR years ago. The large, wide band overlay at the bottom of the gown was bought from a fabric suppler and is modern. (Of course, the best, softest must be put on the neckband.) The gown opens in the back with a simple placket and button closure.

On this gown, the front and back the same. There is no shoulder seam. The embroidery, inserts, and tucks all continue over the shoulder to the back placket. I pulled the threads for all the pin-tucks, pinned them down securely, decided on the lace inserts and entredeux.

All the embroidery is done in white thread using the feather stitch.

The same pattern is repeated down the body of the dress and at the sleeves. I used ribbon insertion lace at the sleeves and on the front and back yolks so I could insert trailing ribbons. The only break in the design is the use of a very wide and intricate band of white lace overlay at the bottom of the dress.

This conceals an area on the inside where the name of the baby and the date of the christening can be embroidered in white thread. I hope the dress will be used by many babies and their names will be added to the list.

Maybe his first child will the the next name.

Wedding Ring Pillow

This Wedding Ring Pillow looks complicated, but it really isn't.

No special needle skills needed outside of basic embroidery and hand sewing.

The materials are a good bleached batiste, satin ribbon, manufactured rosebuds, some lace, in this case, out of my antique hoard, and a touch of some gold mylar cording I found on sale by the spool.

The real secret here is the rings. They're not rings at all, but plain earring hoops with the earlobe fasteners hidden under the rosebud and ribbon.

And the touch of color under the lace border is a wider purple ribbon laid down and stitched under the trim lace.

On the reverse, I added a strap for little hands to hold onto.

It's nice to make these in a way that the pillow filling can be slipped out and the flat pillow can be put in a shadow box and framed.

A Wedding Quilt

The theme for this wedding quilt was based on the bride's love of tulips.

Two of the fabric prints included tulips. A cabbage rose print picks up all the colors in the tulip print and freehand embroidery of a heart, the bride and groom's names and the date are in the center panel.

The quilting design incorporates tulips as well.

I wish I had a better set of slides for this quilt. It is much brighter than it appears. Since it was a king size, it had to be folded under to hang on the quilt show frame.

The center square is embroidered with the bride and groom's names as well as the date. The idea is that when the quilt wears out, the center square can be cut out and framed as a memento.

The Bisque Baby in a Basket

For as long as I can remember, I've had this tiny doll in a bassinet. She must be all of 1 3/4 inches long. She's made out of colored bisque and has separate arms and legs, wired together. She's packed away in tissue paper as she has always been until I can find a dome the right size to put her in.

When my mother gave her to me, her basket had no hood. I made the one shown using strips of cane bent over and attached to the basket. The bed is lined with cross-quilted satin lining, the bottom is a tiny pillow of cotton batiste. And she has an even smaller head pillow.

Mom made a set of clothes for her and I would carefully undress her, wash her bonnet, nightgown, booties, panties, and robe; all the bedding except the outside of the bassinet. Then, I would carefully re-dress her and put her away again.

Some years ago, I decided to make her a new set of clothes. The idea started when I ran across the beautifully embroidered handkerchief that now doubles as a coverlet. It was so wonderfully made, it spurred me to take a shot at making a new bonnet and nightdress. I had been hoarding a shoebox full of antique lace--some inherited, some bought at an estate sale in Portland OR. I had taken a course in French Hand Sewing and used what I had learned to construct the new outfit. It took a while to find a needle small enough to do this.

I had some very fine batiste that I had bought while taking the course, so I was set. I'm glad I bought a whole bolt. Really fine fabric seems to be getting scarce.

I would recommend sewing in the sunlight if you are doing French Hand Sewing--especially if the work is white on white.

Later I'll post some more examples of this kind of work.

Embroidery

Sadly, I don't have this shirt any more--totally wore it to death. It was old. Made in the era of embellished denim shirts. (If you click on the photo, the large slide will come up. Sorry about the debris on the slide; it's also old.)

I invented the design based a bit on old Pennsylvania/Dutch dowry chest paintings and English crewel work. And the feather stitch seam highlighting was another trick I dreamed up. I would rather invent my own designs than copy something else; it's far more interesting all the way around.

Haven't done a lot of embroidery lately, but am a big fan of white on white. It's best to do that when you have good, bright sunlight.

My Grandmother Manchester was a wonderful embroiderer. She taught me the basic stitches when I was a very young child. Even showed me how to do couched stitches and padded work. The first thing I ever made was a small scarf of cotton with the outline of a Schnauzer-type dog. I still have it.