Weekend Review: Modern Japanese Embroidery Stitches

 

Modern Japanese Embroidery Stitches / Noriko Tsuchihashi
Clarendon, VT: Tuttle, c2022.
112 p.

I really loved this book that I found in my library's online collection. I hadn't seen it when it was first released, so am really glad it appeared there -- it is a great book. 

The embroidery style here is a bit different than many of the stitch styles found in books over the last few years. It's motif based (with fabulous alphabets) but it has an ornate, dark & mysterious feeling too. Most of the examples are either unusual, like insects or symbols, or use dark fabric grounds or threads. I like the layout and the feel of this book. 

In her foreword, the author says she was always drawn to little things as a child, and with this book she's trying to share that connection and wonder. She says, "while [these designs] are not a precise rendering of that beauty, they recreate for me that sense of wonder, and I'm happy. I think this is what handicrafts such as embroidery are all about." 

The book is organized into motifs; each chapter simply shows gorgeous photos of projects, framed or made up into other items, with a brief into to the subject and a few words on each design. These 8 sections are followed by a section on materials, tools and a stitch guide, and all the designs and instructions are at the back of the book. She includes recommended stitches and thread colours for all the designs. In her recommendations, threads are DMC, and the ribbon embroidery ideas use Mokuba ribbon, while the beading elements use Delica. But as she says, you can use whatever you like. 

The chapters are: 

• Embroidering Patterns
• Embroidering Plants
• Embroidering Animals
• Embroidering Lucky Symbols
• Embroidering A Journey
• Embroidering Alphabets
• Embroidering on Patterns
• Finishing (pouches, brooches, bags etc)

I was particularly taken with the alphabet designs. I love a good letter! These are block letters with filling stitches and they are beautiful. She shows them in different colourways with differing backgrounds and I love them all. There is even a set of numbers to go along with this. 

I also liked the lucky symbols she included, and can think of ways to adapt some of her ideas to use any of your own favourite signs and symbols. All in all I really liked this one and found it fresh and interesting. 

Cover Designs!: #35 Look At Me

 

Cover Designs is a feature in which I try to match up the outfit on a book cover with a dress pattern and sometimes even potential fabric matches as well.

Today's pick is Look At Me, a book by an English author, Sarah Duguid.

Summary from the publisher:

Lizzy lives with her father, Julian, and her brother, Ig, in North London. Two years ago her mother died, leaving in a trail a family bereft by her absence and a house still filled with her things: for Margaret was lively, beautiful, fun, loving; she kept the family together. So Lizzy thinks. Then, one day, Lizzy finds a letter from a stranger to her father, and discovers he has another child. Lizzy invites her into their world in an act of outraged defiance. Almost immediately, she realises her mistake.

Look at Me is a deft exploration of family, grief, and the delicate balance between moving forward and not quite being able to leave someone behind. It is an acute portrayal of how familial upheaval can cause misunderstanding and madness, damaging those you love most.

There are quite a few lookalike patterns for this dual cover dress. First up is Butterick 5181. View A looks perfect, even with a waistband, but I think it may be OOP now. 

If you can't find this one, you could try the more recent Butterick 6759, which also has a similar waist yoke to the cover design, although this pattern has buttons down the front of the skirt. You could adapt that though! 

If neither of these Big 4 patterns floats your boat, there are a few Indies that might work as well! You could try the V-Neck Dress from DG Patterns which is quite similar -- but it offers a knit option while the cover design really says woven to me. 

Or you could use the V-Neck Dress woven pattern from Tailorpatterns on Etsy. It might also capture the shape of our cover design dresses. It's one of many classic designs from this pattern shop. 

As to the fabric choice, well, it's going to be a surface design assignment for you, or an opportunity for some creative piecing! Fabric paint, applique, scrap piecing or a lucky Spoonflower find might suit you if you want an exact copy of either one. I see some pattern hacking in the cards if you want to make your own version, in either colourway. Have fun if you do give this a try! 

Weekend Review: Creative Embroidery: mixing the old with the new

 

Creative Embroidery / Christen Brown
Lafayette, CA: C&T, c2023.
159 p.

I picked up this new book on creative embroidery via my library; Christen Brown is a well respected and prolific embroiderer and author, and so I was intrigued. 

The book itself is quite well done. It has 19 project ideas, 3 step-by-step projects, and a ton of inspo pictures. The approach in this book is to use your 'stashed treasures'. By this, she is referring to vintage buttons, lace, doilies, trims, notions, hankies and more. If you love Victoriana or country styles, you may really connect with this book! 

Unfortunately the projects are a bit too fussily vintage and whimsical for my own style, but even if I'm not intending to copy any of these actual projects, I still enjoyed reading the book. The techniques are interesting, and alongside the photos and projects, she includes a stitch guide (pretty standard but well illustrated) and of more interest to me, there is also a guide to using trims and buttons in new ways. 

This covers rickrack flowers, zipper embellishments, braids, rosettes, yoyos and more. And the button section shows different stitching and combos to really use buttons creatively on any project. These guides take up a large part of the book and are useful to anybody who can adapt them to their own kinds of projects. Brown is an expert on embellishment and it really shows here. 

There is one simple project from the book that I am planning on adapting however -- she has used vintage buckles and ribbons to make bookmarks, which I think are so cute, especially since I have quite a few old buckles in my stash from thrift store trips. She puts buttons on the ribbons, which makes them unusable as actual bookmarks, so I'd simplify and just use a nice flat ribbon or fabric scrap.

Anyhow, this was a book I enjoyed and sifted out some interesting ideas, despite the style of the stitching and projects not really being my thing. It's a well designed and thorough book, however, so if it is YOUR thing, you will love it. Fun to browse through in any case! 

Black Community Quilts at Toronto's Textile Museum

If you are in or near Toronto, make some time to get to the Textile Museum this month! There is a beautiful exhibit on until April 28, called The Secret Codes: African Nova Scotian Quilts, curated by David Woods. There are some gorgeous historical pieces as well as modern quilts, all with lots of context to learn from. 

I stopped in when I was in Toronto recently and really enjoyed it. There was a variety of styles and techniques in the more than 35 quilts on display, and there is always lots more to check out in the Museum shop and textile reuse centre. 

I was drawn in by so many details - stitches, quilting, colour choices, stories - and I love that the exhibit is big enough to have breadth but not so big that you feel overwhelmed. It's a great visit. 

One of my favourites was this one, called Amelda's Prayer. So beautiful! 

But there were so many to enjoy.

This traditional quilt was really interesting to me for the details. All that black edging on the stars is blanket stitch. I don't remember seeing this kind of accent before and love it. 

This was the only real abstract of the show and I thought it was great. 

So many representational quilts as well. All fabulous. 

I really enjoyed this show and wish I could have made it to one of the special events they had in conjunction with it. Oh well -- I did get to enjoy it! Try to get there if you can. 

Burda Swing Top in leafy print

The Make a Garment a Month Group on Instagram had a January challenge -- "Jungle January". I really wanted to make something as I had two excellent fabric choices in my stash. After some waffling, I decided to reuse a pattern for a swing top from Burdastyle magazine which I've made before (Burda 115-11-2018). I had just enough fabric for this easy top. 

My fabric is a light and stretchy knit, so I used straight stitches on the shoulders to try to keep them from stretching out too much. There is supposed to be a bit more gathering on the shoulder seams but I found that the weight of the shoulder seam has reduced the effect a bit. I'm thinking of going back in and stitching a small piece of elastic to the shoulder seam to regather and hold the gathers too! 

Otherwise this was a quick and fun make. I'm used to the pattern now, with all my adjustments (mainly adding 3" to the hem length) even if it does look a little different in each fabric I've used. I love the bright green (more vibrant in real life) and the rayon knit is super soft to wear. 

This is a fun silhouette and I do love an oversized top with a straight skirt. I'm wearing my staple knit skirt, the free Lindy Skirt from Itch to Stitch (with added pockets) which I wear constantly. Burda does have some fun designs and I'm glad I saw the IG sewalong to give me a bit of a boost to make this top. I got it done on the last day of January, so just squeaked in to the sewalong, but would definitely would not have finished without a deadline! Do you enjoy contests/sewalongs/challenges? I often find them stressful, but in this case, I had something in my long-term queue that fit into the challenge and this gave me enough of a kick to get going on it. I'm finding I like these deadlines more and more ;) 

Anyhow off to swish around in my flowy new top! 

Weekend Review: 365 Days of Stitches

 

365 Days of Stitches / Steph Arnold
NY: Abrams, c2023.
128 p.

February is also National Embroidery Month, and I'll share a few books on embroidery that I've been looking at lately! 

The first one is this clever little collection of motifs -- although it's probably a book best approached at the beginning of the year. Steph Arnold of OhSewBootiful has an online shop that sells embroidery patterns and kits, and is known for her embroidered journal process. This book explains how to keep a year long stitched diary, gives a few different examples of people's projects (showing daily or highlights or special event styles), and then most of the rest of the book is given over to small motifs that can be added to your own daily stitch journal.

These are sorted by theme - seasons, holidays, sports, etc - and are all notated with stitch and colour suggestions. She also suggests that you use one or two strands only, to keep the motifs small enough for a daily hoop. There are a few different kinds of hoop designs suggested there is also the preprinted colour blocked kit she sells in her shop, if you want to start with full colour and supplies. 

It's a fun idea, and would be a fun project to do, but like I mentioned, probably best to get this as a Christmas gift and be prepared to start on Day One. You could also just do a similar thing for a month, or a holiday, or something in particular, but the year-long model is what this is aimed at. The book is a little light on text or added content, it's mainly examples of finished projects for ideas and then a massive collection of motifs to inspire and use. If you are thinking of taking up embroidery, or want to do it in a group, this would be a fun way to do so. Just be aware that this is definitely a project book with not too much else to it. 

February Sewing & Challenges!

 

It's February already, and I have lots of sewing plans for the month. There are some regular sewing challenges that I'm planning to join in on, as well as some of my own sewing plans to come. 

I always love the #BHMPatternDesigners Challenge! It's hosted mainly on IG but you can find all the details and links to many designers, and the challenge sponsors and their February discounts, on the BHMPD website now, as well. 

I've made a few different items for this challenge over the years (even won a prize one year!) but this year I think I've decided to make the Nikki Blazer by Style Sew Me which I bought in 2022. Sadly, this shop is now closed but I have the pattern so will go for it. I'm really loving fitted jackets lately. I've even put this pattern on my MakeNine for this year, for extra incentive! I have two potential fabrics in my stash that I am wavering between. Now I will have to decide... 

Another pattern that I haven't bought yet but am very tempted by is the Ada Peplum top by Duana Studio. The sleeve, with its button detail, is so cute! 

And I really love so many of the patterns found at Les Lubies de Cadia like the Girna dress or the most recent Lysiane blouse. Swoon! 

Another focus of my sewing this month is due to an unhappy anniversary coming up. February 24 will mark the second year of Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is still going on, and still as awful as ever. I don't want to lose sight of that. 

I'm planning to continue my search for the perfect base for my own Vyshyvanka by making up the Poppy Blouse by PatternScout OR New Look 6704 this month. I want to make the basic pattern up to see if I like the fit and style enough to spend some hours embroidering it. I like my recent ITS Palermo but not 100% sold on it as a Vyshyvanka base yet... 

And I also want to make another project from my MakeNine list, Burda 6354 as a colour blocked top in blue and yellow. 

I think that this will give me lots to work on this month, alongside some art projects I'm starting to get stuck into! We'll see how it goes. Although I do have an extra day this year ;)