500 sweaters!

Fancy knitting that many sweaters?  Loes Veenstra did, and stored them in her home, and now here they all are.  She wrote a book about it as well.  You can buy the book here.

 

Student work

 

I am starting to see some of the work from my last Kogin class.  It is lovely to see the finished pieces and know that the students enjoyed the work.

Uneven count design stitched with 2 strands of Kogin thread.

Even count design stitched with Sashiko thread.

Last day of baby sitting

I have completed my last day of baby sitting for my daughter-in-law.  She has been teaching 2 days each week and I have been the carer.  It has been difficult.  I have to leave home by 6:15am and don't get home till well after 5pm but it has been a gift to be able to care for these two babies.

I have learnt some valuable lessons.  Don't give a 22 month baby a chocolate cup cake with lots of yummy icing.  The result can be messy.

I learnt that the little one likes dogs better than people and that the dogs love her.  Every time she smiles I see her father when he was a baby.

 She is only 5 months old but I bet she is crawling within the next few weeks. 

Both girls are very fair and that will mean shirts, sunscreen & hats, slip, slop, slap.

Monique has very fair hair and the baby is a strawberry blonde.

Nothing like their grandmother.  I have dark hair, eyes and olive skin.  All my children were fair, which looked a bit strange.  I suppose that dark gene will pop up again somewhere down the line.

The Brownie Class

Life swings on and I almost forgot to put up these pics.  The class was lots of fun.  All my little Brownies arrived just after that horrible storm all a chatter about how terrible the storm had been at their place.  No one had ever stitched ANYTHING before, with the exception of one Brownie.  That meant that the results were, well let us say different.

The Brownie who had stitched before had come to my holiday classes so she stitched the bag and a broach.  (Her stitching is very nice for a 9 year old.)

Everyone had a good time and they had lots of things they were going to do with their bags.  Some mothers got a new phone cover straight away.  Some thought that their Dad would love flowers on his phone cover.

Then  they all sang me the Brownie Bravo, which was so cute, and said they will be back next year.

Hishizashi Patterns - Oops

I put up the right PDF patterns but the wrong image. 

Pattern No 57 should look like this.

Frankie Magazine

This is the 50th edition of Frankie Magazine.  One cool cover.

And the cover folds out and there is the back of the stitching.  Not a knot in sight.

 I can't find any information about the embroiderer only that her name is Noela Siddens.  Which one?

Hishizashi Patterns

These are the last postings of patterns for this year, now I intend to do some serious stitching.

Hishizashi Pattern No - 55

Download No 55 - 56 - 57

Pattern No - 56

Pattern No - 57

A clever join

I came across a piece of Boro cloth at Sri Threads.  There were a couple of things that were interesting. 

Firstly the use of white and then blue thread to stitch the Hishizashi patterns giving a different appearence to the fabric.  (These two patterns, Plum Blossom and Pheasant Legs seem to be about the most popular.)

Secondly, it is an example of work where Kogin and Sashiko stitching appear on the one piece of fabric.

Thirdly, how different weights of fabric have been clevely joined together using different seam treatments.

Another way of re-using a scarce resourse.

Photos from friends

I said that I hoped my friends would send me photos of their tour of the Draper's Guild and then another friend arrives home and says,

"Thank you for recommending that we see Leighton House Museum while we were up in London here is a CD tour for you".

Just lovely.  (There is a nice tour on their web site)

What happened to Thomas Cromwell's London House?

After reading 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring up the bodies'  I have often wondered what happened to the London home of Thomas Cromwell.  Well it was taken by Henry VIII and sold to the Drapers Guild in 1543.  Their full title was “The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of  the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of the Drapers of the City of London.” 

After researching all this information, which took me years, today I find at the Spitafields Life blog the full story, along with the most wonderful collection of images of the building.

If you are in London you can visit the Draper’s Hall on 3rd December for the Wellbeing of Women Christmas Fair 11am-8pm.  I have friends who are visiting I hope they send me lots of photos.