Sadia’s Blog

The past few days have been a complete blur for me. Sometimes I wonder where time goes. Here it was just January and I was planning my design collections for the year and already we have entered July. If my days could be about 48 hours long, I think I could manage to accomplish quite a bit…but as that is an impossibility, I have to make do with the 24 hours. Some while back I had written about Spannyshwork and its place in embroidery history. As I kept on envisioning more and more bolder designs and creating them I had to revise my thinking of creating completely blackwork designs mimicing the Elizabethan era.

While creating the designs, I realised that somehow I had unknowingly diverted my creations to more eastern type designs. That brought my designing to a complete halt as that was not the purpose of this collection. Seems like no matter what I draw I am always somehow showcasing eastern artistry (is it any wonder???). LOL. Then I started to do some research and found out the reason why….

Al-Hambra or Al-Andalusia Castle is known throughout the world for its exceptional architecture. The castle was the seat for the Muslim rulers and is located on the moors of Granada in Southern Spain. The artistry on the walls of the Al-Hambra is typical of the Islamic culture, based upon geometrical and floral designs. Everything started to come together for me then. Ofcourse, the English brought the blackwork to England as the embroideries were so stark and brilliant against pale backgrounds and with the geometric designs they gave the impression of lace work which was a rarity indeed only to be owned by the richest.

Now began my biggest concern, how to combine the designs together so they blended. This led me to create three separate collections within a collection giving the variety to be combined together by friends. With this in mind I started thinking of projects that could showcase the designs well. Somewhere I had this long “Nehru” jacket in the back of my mind with embroidered collar and some sprinkling of embroidery in the front. Using wool crepe I created a suit and embroidered the designs on the hemline of the pants, sleeves and the collar. I then decided to continue with the designs going down the lenght of the front but stopping a bit around the hipline. It looked a bit too plain so I decided to go ahead and embroider a simple design on either side. The whole outfit simply came alive.

While I was creating the outfit I happened to mention the designs to my friend Carolyn of Creativeneedlecraft and sent the designs to her to come up with some imaginative project. Lo and behold, tonight I received an email from Carolyn with some pictures. Not only did she create a new purse pattern but her embellishement is superb! Not only is the purse pattern quite different but also the purse has large areas to embellish with embroideries.  Allover embroideries are quite the rage and viewing the latest fashions I see several hundred dollars worth of bags created using all over embroideries. Btw, the purse is quite a large purse and I’m dying to receive my pattern as soon as she gets her website updated. The name she has given to the purse is “bobbi”. Wow…wonder if it is named after Bobbi Bullard!!

She had made not one but two samples using the designs and what a different look they both showed! Looking at the second purse I realised that she had created outside pockets which I had dearly been asking for. Thank you so much Carolyn.

Although the designs originally had been planned to be used for blackwork, I realised while working with them that not everyone prefers black and that is when I had to start thinking of other colors. One color designs should be able to take off using any color. As far as stabilizing is concerned, the designs are rather airy and therefore only a tearaway is needed. The trick is not to hoop fabric at all rather only hoop the stabilizer pinning the fabric to it making sure that the pins are not in the way of the embroidery.

Some days ago a friend had emailed me asking my trick to warp free embroidery. She had been trying to do some very light density designs on cotton fabric and no matter  how many layers of tearaway she used, the fabric still had puckers. My first question to her was whether she hooped the fabric along with the stabilizer. The answer was ofcourse. That is one thing we need to be careful about. When hooping, it is natural to pull on the fabric removing any wrinkles etc thinking that smooth fabric will not create any puckers. Now what happens is that when one removes the fabric from the hoop, one has puckers and they just do not go away. The more we try and steam etc, the more they keep on  happening. What happens is that due to that gentle pull on the fabric we stretched the fibers of fabric therefore creating a wonderful area for puckers. One can keep on adding more and more stabilizers to avoid the puckers but that only worsens the situation. The best method is to simply hoop the stablizer and pin the fabric to the stabilizer itself making sure that the fabric is not stretched rather secured. In this manner I had a piece of silk organza which I had been eyeing for quite some while. The fabric is rather flimsy and extremely delicate. I decided to use metallic thread which is a bit heavy to embroider the designs from Part 3 to it. The results were fantastic. There were absolutely no puckers (I used water soluble stabilizer as I wanted both sides to look the same). After finishing the embroidery I realised that I needed long fringe around it, preferably about ten inches or so. Well….that necessitated my making fringe especially for that part of the collection.

Shawls are in now or should I say wraps of any kind. No matter it is summer time but a shawl or wrap can jazz up any outfit any time of the year. Going along with the idea of using another color than black I chose the brightest aquamarine color that I could find. Some while back I had purchased a bolt of black Dupioni silk. I had ideas of using it for my ASG/Simplicity contest but had changed my mind at the last minute. Now I’m ever so glad I did. As I opened up the bolt, I was shocked to find that the silk had definite flaws like missing threads all the way across the width (about 2 mm wide). As the silk was rather expensive and was supposed to be of good quality from a reputable internet source I was horrified. Sending off a letter to the company has to this date done absolutely nothing and so I’m stuck with Dupioni silk which really is not worth much. Well, when one has lemons, one makes lemonade….and that is exactly what I decided to do. I used it as lining for the Nehru jacket above and then decided to create a Kashmiri shawl with it. Kashmiri embroideries use natural dyes and aquamarine although is not a natural dye color yet it is bright enough to give the look of Kashmiri embroideries. The basis of all Kashmiri shawls is embroidered edges on both sides with either a floral or a geometric design or an allover border design. I really did not want to embroider too much on the fabric due to its flaws so I decided to embroider on the two edges with some of the Vintage lace 4 laces on either side adding Swarovski crystals to the designs…. btw, the Vintage Laces 3 and 4 will be introduced at the ASG later on this month. I am rather pleased with the designs but more on them at a later time.

So much on wearables…btw, I’m working on dh’s shirt at the moment as the designs from part 1 are perfect for using even on men’s clothing! So, I decided something along the home decor had to be created. One of the Yahoo groups that I belong to have a Placemat swap going on and I’m part of it. Deciding that I needed to test out the designs to create a placemat I took the edge cutwork designs and blended them with designs from part 2. For fabric I used the pre-quilted cotton which is easily available anywhere. To my surprise the edge cutwork was not too light for the designs…I did have doubts about the quilted fabric being easy to work with but it was like a breeze….only thing…the placemat is a bit small for dinner plate so I guess I will have to go back to my drawing board to create something else for the swap…and I need to hurry as I leave in about a week’s time.

I am an antique buff and so is my husband and throughout my house I have several antique furniture pieces. My greatest fear is of wet marks left from cups and glasses etc so I do create quite a few large doilies, coasters etc to place around. With that as an  idea, I created a large round doily to place underneath a bedside table lamp. Using the cutwork edge designs I decided to make it an overall design by using the same motif around the center motif and then filling in the areas with a smaller motif. The ideas are endless and I could go and on. As to the release of the collection….it is now!

For several days now, Dianne has been going on and on about a “Secret” that she had…and then calling me and telling me that she is not telling….LOL. Well, Dianne, here is the secret, it is out and about. Yes, the collection is quite useful and as July 1 through July 7 is Digitizer’s Appreciation week, I have a special on it during the time frame. It had to be fate as I go offline on July 8th!!! I have tons to do yet and tons to get together….maybe the days will go by a bit slower for me. Btw, those friends in Florida near Pensacola, come and join my Embroidery party along with Allene Snow at Ruthie’s Notions. Two days of fun and sharing ideas and visiting with friends… Meanwhile “Marrakesh” as my blackwork is called is released.