Stitching tip: embroidering on a light-weight Róza blouse

By on May 11, 2013 in embroidery, Friday stitching tip, how-to, materials, products, Róza pattern, sewing patterns

The lovely Dora had the following question about embroidering on the Róza blouse: how do you support the weight if you sew the blouse out of a very light-weight fabric, like cotton voile or gauze?

I’ve just stitched straight onto voile before and was fine with the results but, depending on your fabric, you might not want to just wing it. There are a couple things you can do.

First, you can use tear-away stabilizer, any kind you prefer. Some type of iron-on and tear-away is probably the easiest to use like Sulky, but Stitch’n Tear would work too.

Or you could go with the t-shirt stabilizer by Sublime Stitching, should you want to support another embroiderish small business with your purchase.

What’s neat about this stabilizer is that if you want to stitch on dark fabric you can put it on the TOP of the fabric – the right side, that is – and transfer your pattern directly onto the stabilizer, getting around the problem of how to transfer embroidery designs onto dark fabric. Check out this tutorial by Sublime Stitching for how to do this. Works for denim just as well as t-shirts.

Another thing you can do is what I did for this blouse:

white voile Roza with blue embroidery from Buzsak

 

Sorry – not the best picture! I’m working on that. Here’s a closeup:

buzsak blue embroidery detail

You see how the blue embroidery is on a different fabric than the rest of the blouse? The body of this Róza blouse is a soft, lightweight, striped voile. But for the piece that has embroidery on it (the flat front inset: pattern piece D) I used a matching cotton broadcloth. Full disclosure: this piece of embroidery was made by a lovely old lady in a small village in Hungary though I am working on learning how to do this style of embroidery myself. I love the geometric design and the combination of stitches used to make it.

Being able to embroider on some of the pieces separately, before you sew the blouse together, was a major reason why the center front has either the small square inset or the flat long one. It’s just easier to stitch on a smaller piece of fabric than a whole blouse. (Not that this would ever stop me from embroidering on a finished blouse.)

There you go – I hope that helps!

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Chelsea Bazaar Cinco de Mayo redux

By on May 7, 2013 in accessories, elsewhere, Róza pattern

First, a confession: this was the first fair I’ve ever done as a vendor. And hey, I survived! In fact, I had a good time, met some great people, learned a lot and, oh yeah, sold a few things.

There were some indie businesses I really liked, I want to mention three of them. Right across from me was Forma de Ser, with an amazing selection of handmade gifts, jewelry, baskets, bags made by artisans in the Americas. I wound up buying a hand-appliquéd zipper pouch that I’ll carry around my embroidery in in my handbag (up until now I used ziploc bags and had been looking for something more special):

blue-zipper-pouch

Isn’t the applique amazing? Similar to the front of this version of the Róza blouse (available on Etsy and Craftsy, as modeled here by the lovely Sarah):

roza blouse with buzsak applique

 

Then, there was Dani Rose, who designs amazing fascinators and headbands, like this one:

Dani Rose headband

Oh, and the Brooklyn-based lingerie brand Nais, whose designs are awesome and also ethical: made with sustainably sourced materials, in local factories. I don’t have a picture of my own of their items, so go check out their web site – my favorite was this bra top, for which they also had matching shorts. When I first saw them I thought, how lovely, but this is for people 10 years younger than mel… And then I realized: no one is ever too old for good lingerie!

 

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Chelsea Bazaar’s Cinco de Mayo edition

By on May 3, 2013 in buy elsewhere, elsewhere, embroidery kits, news, sewing kits, sewing patterns, styles & garments

I’ll be vending at Chelsea Bazaar’s Cinco de Mayo edition this Sunday (May 5), from 11 am to 6 pm at 135 W 18th Street (between 6th and 7th avenues) – do come by!

I’ll be taking some hand-embroidered t-shirts & skirts, sewing patterns (yay! paper patterns are here!) sewing kits, made-to-order samples of my blouses, dresses & skirts, embroidery kits, sari scarves… even a tiny sample sale! Look, pretty blouses:

 

for Chelsea Bazaar Cinco de May edition

 

 

Hope to see you there!

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The new Roza blouse and dress pattern: buy it on Etsy or Craftsy!

By on May 2, 2013 in news, products, sewing, sewing patterns, shop

 

It’s finally, finally here: the Róza blouse and dress sewing pattern! A brand new, downloadable PDF pattern available on Etsy and Craftsy:

roza blouse & dress pattern

The Róza pattern is three styles in one: two blouses and a dress:

Roza pattern flats

Let’s take a closer look. Continue Reading →

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Psst… pattern launch tomorrow Monday!

By on April 25, 2013 in products, sewing patterns, styles & garments

Something to sew, something to stitch on – in silk, rayon, cotton lawn or voile, so many possibilities…

pattern sneak peek

More tomorrow Monday!

UPDATE: I lost the 3 hours of uninterrupted work time I’d counted on today, which 3 hours I need to finish up last-minute details for the pattern launch so… Monday it is!

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Progress on the embroidered 1920s style pouch & sneak peek

By on April 22, 2013 in embroidery, free embroidery pattern, Hungarian Matyó motifs, news, products

I am making slow but steady progress on the embroidered 1920s style pouch. Look:

matyo embroidered 1920s pouch

 

 

I look forward so much to when it will be done. 15 minutes here and there really gets things done, doesn’t it? Otherwise, I’m working on something in the background… a sneak peek:

black floral silk crepe de chine

 

This sweet black floral silk crepe de chine is going to become a peasant blouse. More on Thursday!

 

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Friday stitching tip: stroke that thread!

By on April 19, 2013 in embroidery, Friday stitching tip

The other day I came across a couple sentences quoted on Jenny Hart’s blog:

We used six-strand cotton for the Jacobean work. The instructor taught us to pull out no more than an arm’s length of thread. Then to take each strand out separately and put them back together (however many you needed), holding one end in one hand and pulling down on the threads several times. This gave the cotton a silky look to it along while making the threads tangle less.

I’ve been using silk floss for my embroidered 1920s style pouch, and I’ve been doing much the same thing. Here’s where I’m at with the pouch as of today, by the way:

1920s style embroidered pouch

Most people in the US will suggest you pull out and cut half your arm’s length of thread, so from your hand to your elbow only. This is not what I do but I learned to stitch in Hungary, and every place has very specific ideas of what is the correct way to do things… It turns out there are many, many correct ways to do things! So here’s what works for me: I use a full arm’s length of thread, almost double the length of hand-to-elbow. But, but! I also always stroke the thread for a while to smooth it out before I thread the needle and start stitching.

strokethread

I find that’s really important when I use this length of thread: otherwise it gets tangled, worn, caught and twisted up in itself, and there’s a lot more wear and tear on it as you tug it through the fabric. (Trust me, I’ve tried.)

 

What happens is this. First, letting the thread hang down and stroking it in a downwards motion releases a lot of the tension from when it was twisted up. Second, stroking with your fingers smooths the fibers and coats them with a little of the oil from your fingers. This works for silk thread as well as cotton, and perle cotton as well as floss – try it, you’ll see!

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Embroidered 1920s style pouch: a work in progress

By on April 17, 2013 in accessories, embroidery, free embroidery pattern, Historical Sew Fortnightly, Hungarian Matyó motifs

This week I started working on a little reproduction drawstring pouch, in my 15-minutes-here-and-there embroidery time (of which there is far less than I would like).

The design is based on an embroidered 1920s style pouch I saw on eBay a while ago. The listing isn’t on eBay anymore, but I have the image in my Pinterest. If you follow my ‘Embroidered’ board, you’ll perhaps recognize it as the cover:

embroidered 1920s style pouch

 

 

I got the idea to make a little pouch like this through the accessories challenge of the Historical Sew Fortnightly, as I believe this design is from the 1920s. The pouch was originally described as a Hungarian Matyó pouch, made with silk embroidery on (what looks like) silk. I don’t remember if the listing had said much more about it, I somehow suspect not. So pretty, right? I rather suspect that the real story with this pouch is that it’s an urban rendition of the traditional Matyó embroidery style. I think so for a several reasons: the flowers are rather larger and somewhat less detailed than on traditional peasant clothing, it is not a “Sunday best” or wedding-related clothing item but rather a more bourgeois accessory, which was embroidered with silk, which was usually rather too expensive for village folks to use. Mind you, this is just what I theorize based on what I know about the embroidery of Northern Hungary, I don’t have any academic proof.

Regardless, it’s a very pretty little pouch, right? And, you may not believe this, it’s actually very, very easy to make.

I made a combined embroidery+sewing pattern (just a line-drawing, really, I did it quick & didn’t fuss with making it perfect) which I then traced onto a piece of golden-green fabric I had on hand (Moda cross-weave, I think, but it’s really kind of just a scrap of which I had enough for both sides of the bag). I wanted to use silk thread to stitch it, but I don’t have a whole lot of experience with silk and didn’t really like the Trebizond silk I tried before. So, I ordered a few colors of Splendor strandable silk thread, which I like much better. It’s made up of 3 plies of 4 strands each, which you can separate any way you like. So it’s really a lot more thread than you’d think. And it’s smooth and shiny and easy to stitch with. Then a few weeks ago I came across some silk knitting yarn (Karabella Empire Silk, it might still be available here), which turned out to be just about the same thing: strandable silk thread, twisted into three plies of six strands each. And, because it’s a ball of knitting yarn, there is tons and tons of it. So soft and smooth, such a pleasure to stitch with! I wound up mixing & matching colors from both yarns for the bag:

silk threads for fringed pouch

I decided to stitch with a pretty thick thread, partly (I have to confess) so that it would go quicker (it does):

Fringed Matyó style Pouch

In the picture above you can see that I start threads by anchoring with a few tiny stitches in an area that will be covered with embroidery. Here it is again later, in a hoop:

Fringed Matyó-style Pouch

(Yes, yes, I’m a bit inconsistent: I use a hoop but the sewing instead of the stabby method for stitching.)

The embroidery itself is not complicated: it’s just a very casually done satin stitch. The curved kind, which is also not hard to do (there’s a tutorial in the last post of the Hungarian Sampler), it kind of just takes a bit of practice to be able to gauge the distance between the end of one stitch and the beginning of the next one. There are the two stems for the smaller flowers at the left and right of the design that I will do in stem stitch, and I’ll finish the top, scalloped edges with blanket or buttonhole stitching. And then there’s the fringe and drawstring loops. This is where I am with it right now:

FringedPouch3

If you’d like to try your hand at this design, you can download a PDF file of the pattern here (should print on both US letter/A4 size paper). Please link back here if you use this pattern, not least because I’d love to see what you make with it!

I think it would look pretty just outlined all around too – with stem stitch, split stitch, back stitch, chain stitch…  And with plain cotton embroidery floss, if you don’t want to get all fancy with the silk! I’ll post more about completing the pouch in the next week or two, along with variations for stitching.

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Friday stitching tip: try a new embroidery stitch on printed fabric

By on April 12, 2013 in embroidery, Friday stitching tip

I’m starting a new series for the blog: Friday stitching tips! One simple little something to try over the weekend, or whenever you feel like taking a needle & fabric in your hands.

This week: try a new embroidery stitch using printed fabric. Getting started learning a new embroidery stitch can be daunting if you don’t have a sampler with detailed instructions on hand. (Come to think of it, learning new stitches can be daunting even if you DO have a sampler with detailed instructions…) I get held up by things like having to decide what colors to use, what shape to stitch, and so on. Decisions that aren’t exactly complicated but that make me put off starting to play with a new stitch because, well, they’re just a couple of decisions too many. And there you go: I have stitcher’s block!

Here’s an easy way I found to get past that block and get going with stitching: use fabric with a colorful print already on it. Quilting-weight cotton is an ideal choice for a lot of embroidery, and there are so many gorgeous, colorful, inviting patterns on them. All you need is a little scrap of fabric, just big enough to  fit into your embroidery hoop comfortably (if you use one).

open chain stitch practice

See? All I did was grab a bit of fabric (less than a quarter of a fat quarter), find some DMC floss in colors that match, and I was set to try this stitch.

large-written stitch backwards

I’d been meaning to give this stitch a go for quite some time – it’s called the “large-written” stitch in Hungary, a kind of wide-open chain stitch. You can find instructions for this stitch here. (Yes, yes, I know, in the picture I’m doing it backwards. I’ll have to post a tutorial about how to do this kind of open chain stitch backwards – Jenny Hart has one on how to do the regular chain stitch backwards – the truth is, I’ve found it’s easier that way!)

embroidery stitch play

 

The print on this fabric worked well for this kind of stitch: simple circular flowers. If you’d like to give this stitch a go too, Spoonflower has some prints that would work pretty well with it – like this one, a steampunk-style design with bicycle parts. Or you could try some of Kaffe Fassett’s prints (scroll down the page for large circular flowers).

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Back home from Hungary, and: what is blue-dye cloth?

By on April 11, 2013 in inspirations, materials

We just got back from Hungary last night – it was mostly a family trip but we also saw some amazing folklore-y things. This trip turned out to be instructive about blue-dye cloth in all sorts of ways. We visited the Tolna Blue-Dye Workshop and Museum (or Tolnai Kékfestő Műhely és Múzeum – note: all images fabric and printing blocks below are from their collection). We also ran into the owners of another blue-dye cloth manufacturing workshop (Kovács Blue-Dye Cloth Manufacturing Workshop in Tiszakécske, Eastern Hungary) at the spring craft fair in Budapest, on Vörösmarty Tér (where there’s often a fair like this, whatever time of year you happen to be in Budapest).


 floral-geometric blue-dye cloth, Hungary

Okay – that was a lot of long words with tons of accents, just the way we Hungarians like them! On a serious note, I’m planning to write up a brief guide for where to go if you’re interested in various kinds of folklore, embroidery, weaving or fabric dying techniques, and so on. Inevitably, it will include suggestions for where to go wine-tasting as well… How could it not: wines are excellent and plentiful in most of Hungary.

But back to blue-dying!  Continue Reading →

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