Cover Notes

Kirsten and I are obviously both fired up by this latest project, having ideas for the next month while the previous one is still in progress. It was lovely to get her parcel this week whilst Rosie was still here, so we could look at the Flat Gift together. This was published in 1972, and women's liberation was beginning to take off ...[including taking off and burning bras, and shedding our suspender belts in favour of tights]. But you will find none of that nonsense in here, oh no! this is definitely a book for unliberated little girls

• Your first project, a hairband [Ask Mother for a piece of elastic]
• Another project, as decimalisation has just happened, a pocket money purse [perhaps Father will give you a bright new 1p coin to put in it]
• Make a ball for baby and stuff it with cotton wool [or old nylon stockings cut up into small pieces]
• Or a pencil case [ask Mother to press this well under a damp cloth]

Rosie and I had a good giggle. Then we looked in detail at K's stitching. She had used another scrap of her Laura Ashley fabric, but this time done rich, dense embroidery to resemble Kashmiri rugs, with their rows of chain stitching. K said it reminded her of her Oma's house.

My piece was a sashiko wave.  It was a free download from here but I did my practice piece and decided I wanted the wave going the other way! I used a perle thread in shades of blue

Here it is alongside Kirsten's first Laura Ashley Patch. A surprisingly different interpretation of the same pattern. 

Now Rosie's left us, and the house is quiet, I am going to start my next patch. I think this one needs a practice panel too.

K's 2nd Flat Gift was a piece of the LA for me. I am keeping that in reserve for another time!

Crafternoons!

 Rosie is having quite a busy week with us. On Monday she had her swimming lesson, then we made some birthday cards, then she went shopping with Grandad.

Tuesday, after swimming, we delivered birthday cards to one neighbour, and then Ro had a date with another neighbour to meet the two huskies. I have to say she was absolutely thrilled to spend time with these two beautiful animals

In the afternoon we went to the library. By 2.30, the place was heaving with children [43, plus 23 adults] making their John Craske sea pictures.
Someone had kindly donated a box of wooden frames, and the Heritage Society had received a grant for art materials. Children painted a sea picture and then decorated a frame.

The brushes were a little thick for doing delicare work imho! But Ro was happy with her piece

In the evening we had a great family bbq - seven of us [Adrian and Marion, Jon and Rosie, Julian, Bob and me] and despite the earlier heavy rain, Bob cooked outside and we sat round the patio table to eat.

On Wednesday we made a pencil holder together. I'd found this for £1 in a CS recently - clearly a present which had never been opened.

It had loads of fiddly pieces, and as soon as all the legs were slotted on to the horse, one fell off! 

The picture looks like the base is a rectangle, with a squared based pen pot - but they are all parallelograms, so slightly skew-whiff. All joints needed a spot of glue to keep them secure. And we glued the spare strips of wood underneath, to stop the whole thing rocking!

But she is pleased with her achievement. I'm afraid I vetoed painting it - but now I am wondering if Bob might help her coat it with spray varnish...

The Cover Stitching parcel has arrived from Kirsten. Details of that to follow [and I foolishly posted mine without taking a picture first!] I have an idea for my next patch, but that will wait till the weekend the departure of our two house guests.

The Beginning...

When we were in Paris, we visited Musée Carnavalet, dedicated to the history of the City. We went there back in 2006 and loved it, and wanted to spend some more time there. It is set in two adjoining mansions, on three floors - with a courtyard and gardens in the middle. I realised that on every floor there were leaded windows looking out onto the gardens. And they were all different geometric designs. I took some pictures

When I got home I decided to reproduce one of these patterns on a rectangle of fabric for our latest project. I found a scrap of Sanderson Honeysuckle print in my stash - a favourite print of my MIL [she made sofa covers in it] Once stitched it was reminiscent of looking through the Museum windows at the flowers.

I was happy with it and wrote notes in the travelling logbook and posted it off to Kirsten on Monday. 

Today I received her parcel.

She had used a piece of vintage Laura Ashley Curtaining and made a cover for her travelling book with the same fabric. 

Look at the superb way she has picked out the design by outlining it in a variegated thread, and adding French Knots to the flower centres. So charming. I am sure this latest collaboration is going to be as enjoyable as the last two. We are no longer constrained by the regularity of evenweave cloth - and we can enjoy Slow Stitching to our heart's content.

The Cover Version

In musician's terms, a 'cover version' is a reworking of a song, maybe by the original singer, or perhaps by someone else. Occasionally the cover version becomes better known and more popular than the original. If I mention the theme song from the 1982 animated film "The Snowman" "Walking In The Air" you will probably think of Aled Jones - but his was a cover version, whilst the original, used in the film, was sung by a choirboy from St Paul's Cathedral, Peter Auty. [Aled's version led him to instant fame. I'm pleased that Peter also has a great career as an international operatic tenor]

Then there's that song "Unchained Melody". First written in 1955, The Righteous Brothers achieved a hit with their cover version in 1965. At the time I was baffled- there are no chains mentioned anywhere in the lyrics. I found out later that the name came from the fact it was the theme song for a prison film called "Unchained". This has had over 1500 cover versions recorded in the last 70 years, by loads of people; BBC DJ Jimmy Young 1955 , Elvis Presley 1977, Robson and Jerome 1995, Gareth Gates 2002, Barry Manilow, Bono...

Kirsten and I decided our next project ought to be something other than just a stitched piece of fabric, and as we are both collectors of notebooks, a pair of notebook covers [A5 size] seemed a good idea. "You could call it The Cover Version" said Bob.

We have both been making notebook covers in recent months. First Kirsten did a lovely handstitched patchwork cover.

And then I created a machined cover for a sewing journal, to record all my projects, as try out the fancy stitches on my new machine.

These had regular square pieces - for variety we are going to attempt different sized rectangles. A bit like Victorian Crazy Patchwork.  Each piece will be sewn down with neat almost invisible stitches and decorated as it is affixed.

We will work in a hoop to keep things flat and not the decoration over the seams till the very end. There will be flaps folding inside to hold the covers in place, and one will have a blank panel where we can add names, dates and details.

This our third collaboration. Watch this space!