Haven't Posted in a While

Recently I have been pushing myself to get the craft area cleaned up and organized.  It is really coming together after a lot of hard work.  Most of the work has been sorting through stuff.  But it has been hard to do especially the bending down part!  But it has been worth the effort!  Being able to find supplies is wonderful and gives me more crafting time.  This lovely Barbie sweater set was in with the doll making supplies, I made this years ago.

 

Knitted Barbie sweater set.

 

Mountmellick work at padding stage.

In the last few days I have been working on the Mountmellick embroidery. It is coming out very well but being whitework is hard to photograph.  Apparently part of Mountmellick is heavy padding.  The padding starts with seed stitch, then two layers of satin stitch and then a final layer of satin stitch.  All the layers make the embroidery quite thick and the fabric needs to be strong.  The pattern I'm doing is Dog Roses and Blackberries, from "Mountmellick Embroidery" by Pat Trott.  It is a beautiful pattern and I may try making it as a Crewel embroidery next.  I thought it would be really pretty having the same pattern with and without color as matching pillows.  The curtain scarf I've been working on has finished edges in crab stitch now.  I plan on adding a border in crochet lace and maybe a few crocheted flowers, all in white of course!

The last couple of weeks I have also been doing research on Hedebo embroidery.  Hedebo seems to be an obscure form of embroidery.  It is a form of white work that is roughly similar to Schwalm.  When I'm finished I will post links to the few links I've found.  While doing all this research I found the best site www.archive.org  Some libraries having scanned out of copyright books and made them available for downloading in several formats.  I've had lots of fun at the site getting access to old books.  This is especially helpful when researching needlework.  So many embroidery and lace instructions are hard to find in modern books.  In fact I had to purchase two magazines from 1906 and 1916 to find detailed hedebo instructions.  Hedebo was already obscure by the early 20th century.

With some luck I hope to make a tutorial on Dorcet Singleton buttons.  I've made a few and want to make a set for a shirt.  These will have to be washable so it limits the supplies and embroidery used.  Button making is really fun and a good skill if you make 16th century style clothing!  Now to get back to some research!