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Wendy's Oneoff Weblog

13 July 2010

Speed Stitching?

This month, we are lucky enough to be featured in the Editor’s Choice pages of Good Housekeeping. Even though it is the August edition, subscribers were receiving their copies by July 1st.

One of the first of many orders for Regatta resulting from the Good Housekeeping appearance was posted to the customer on Monday afternoon – she will have received it on Tuesday. The following Sunday, she emailed me to say her stitched kit was packed and ready to be posted to me the next morning for making up into a cushion!

I could hardly believe it. Six days to stitch a 10½inch square tapestry.
I think this must be a record.

It arrived this morning. It had been beautifully stitched in continental tent stitch and the stitcher had worked in horizontal lines. It was quite distorted so I don’t think a frame was used and I can only assume that she stitched with the much faster ‘sewing’ style as opposed to the stabbing method one has to employ when using a frame. We can easily stretch the needlework back into shape and it will be made up into a cushion by one of my marvellous ‘cushion ladies’.

But it will probably take a little longer to make the cushion than it has taken our customer to stitch it!

26 June 2010

A Day Trip

This blog has nothing to do with needlepoint or stitching. For once, I left my tapestry, needle and wools at home!

Recently I was lucky enough to be invited along on a day trip to Jersey Zoo. We zoomed across the Channel on a big and rather rattley catamaran and after a short drive we were at the zoo. The first thing I learnt was that it is not a zoo but The Durrell Wildlife Conservation. There are no elephants lions or giraffes here, but rather a rare collection of endangered species, living and breeding happily in the grounds of a Jersey estate.

We saw dignified and elegant blue cranes, the hilarious bald ibis, gigantic fruit bats and colourful frogs less than 2 centimetres long.
In almost complete darkness we saw the shadowy shapes of aye-ayes which so enchanted Stephen Fry in his recent TV documentary.

The young macaque monkeys were a delight with their cartwheels and handstands while their parents were busy getting on with the next generation!

We saw gorillas in their grassy sunken enclosure into which in 1986 a child fell and the elderly Jambo (the first male gorilla born in captivity) lumbered over to the little boy to guard and protect him from the younger, more boisterous gorillas.
Pictures and film captured the whole story at the time.

But best of all were the critically endangered orangutans. They don’t swim so they live on two islands surrounded by a moat – maybe 4 metres wide. There are plenty of climbing frames, ropes and swings for them and though the orangutans are rather deliberate in their movements, we were richly entertained by the gibbons that share the islands.

Feeding time was great fun. The food – chunks of cabbage, whole carrots apples and parsnips - is put in large paper bags like a picnic and hurled across the moat. The gibbons get there first, then some female orangutans but they don’t touch the bags. They settle down and politely wait. Then in his own good time, along comes Dagu the adult male. He is seriously ugly with huge black pads either side of his face and under his chin. But to the females he is drop-dead gorgeous and gets first go at the picnic.

We had a wonderful day at the the Durrell, blessed with good weather and flat calm both ways between Weymouth and St Hellier. But it was a long one – 22 hours from our dawn start to our arrival home in the small hours! We were tired.

23 May 2010

A Patchwork Story

Some years ago I planned to make patchwork quilts out of old jeans for my two sons' beds. I rather underestimated how many pairs of old jeans I would need, but I made a start and various friends donated unwanted pairs to the cause.
One day I was stitching away and there was a knock on the door from a man asking to use the phone because his car had broken down. (This was before the days of mobile phones!)
We had a cup of tea while he waited for the AA and he asked me what I was stitching so I showed him my quilt.
Off he went when his car was fixed and the next day... I found a bag full of old jeans on my doorstep.

This is one of the quilts I was making.

27 April 2010

New from Old.

Recently, a friend entrusted me with some tapestry cushions stitched and made by her
late mother. The tapestries had never been stretched and were all quite badly out of shape.
One even had a whole corner completely missing thanks to my friend's new puppy!

My job was to straighten them out and make them into new cushions.

There were six altogether. Here are four of them.

The first thing was to unpick the tapestries from the backings ready for stretching.
But first there was the missing corner to put right.

I knew how to do it in theory but never actually braved it before - but it just seemed so worth having a go. In the end, it really wasn’t difficult.

First I unpicked some of the ragged stitching till I had some clear OLD canvas. Then I could pin a new piece of canvas to the back and line up the holes with the old. I matched the colours as near as I could and then began stitching through both old and new canvas to anchor the patch and then just carried on until the whole corner was complete.

Next, all the canvases had to be stretched. To do this, I wind wire spirals into the edges and
rig them up on this instrument of torture – the Stretching Frame. Because they had been made up, nearly all the spare canvas round the stitching had been trimmed and mitred!! Tricky.

Finally, they get thoroughly wetted and left to dry in the fresh air.

Now it's off to the cushion lady with armfuls of fabrics and zips. Well, I forgot the zips and had to do a return trip!

Two days later….

...Lovely square, plump cushions to remind my friend of her mother’s needlepoint skills for years to come.

3 April 2010

The art of Tapestry.

My research is sketchy, to say the least, since time is in short supply at One Off. But I have had fun tracking down just these few paintings of women doing their tapestry.

One thing I noticed in the following portraits is that it is not always clear exactly what the needlewomen are doing!

Portraits in the Country (1875) Gustav Caillabotte

Text Box:

This painting includes the artist’s mother, aunt, cousin and a family friend. These ladies are dressed in mourning and are losing themselves in a peaceful afternoon with their embroidery. However the one at the back is clearly sitting before a tapestry frame – even though she actually appears to be reading a book!

Woman & Child doing Needlework 1877 Camille Pissaro

Text Box:

This is more like it! This woman has left the mending to her mother in the doorway while she gets on with her wonderfully colourful tapestry in the sunshine.

Lydia Seated at a Tapestry Loom (1880) Mary Cassatt

Text Box:

The title of this portrait differs according to where you find it. But most frequently it refers to Lydia at her ‘loom’.

This is not a loom but a tapestry frame. The way Lydia is stitching with one hand under the canvas and one above to feed the needle to and fro is very typical. I would even venture to say that she is left-handed! I am right-handed and when I stitch, it is my more dextrous hand that stays beneath the canvas.

Half Sick of Shadows Said The Lady of Shalott 1915 John William Waterhouse

Text Box: THIS is a Tapestry Loom – and the tapestry is being woven, not stitched.

The warp threads stretch out of the picture towards the back of the loom and you can see one shuttle on her lap and two more ready for use. Her bobbin winder is beside her.

How her back aches! She is having a little stretch before rolling down her work. With weaving you start at the bottom and work up row by row and she has reached a point where she would be hunched over her work to see what she is doing. No wonder she is ‘half sick of shadows’

27 February 2010

We're in a magazine!

Classic Stitches asked if they could do a feature about One Off and I readily agreed to an interview with Eileen McCarroll Outram. However, although I am happy to chat about needlepoint all day long, it was a different matter when I was asked to talk about myself! The questions came thick and fast often about things I had never even thought about! "Where do you get your inspiration?" for example. I don't know - ideas just come. Sometimes quickly, sometimes they take months. "Why are so many of your design blue?"... They're not!! ...are they? Anyway, I babbled uncomfortably on for what felt like hours and that was that.

Then a few days later came the phone call. Something had gone wrong with Eileen's recording equipment and she had all her questions safely recorded and none of my answers! For a hideous moment, I thought we were going to have to do the whole thing again. Fortunately, that wasn't the solution. Eileen emailed the questions and I was able to type my answers.
Although it was a long interview, I really didn't expect three pages in the magazine and I'm childishly excited about it - a little bit like seeing yourself on television!
It's this one, published this month.

16 February 2010

The real value of needlepoint

I was chatting to a fellow stitcher on Twitter yesterday about needlepoint. She said “I can’t believe I have fallen in love with such an expensive hobby”
I had to agree - needlepoint is expensive and as I said to her, believe me if I could make it cheaper I would, because I suspect some would-be-stitchers are put off by the price.
However, buying a needlepoint kit is only the beginning! Thrown in for that price are hours and hours of pleasure. What would it cost you to spend that long in the cinema? What does it cost to have just one meal at a good restaurant? Is it less than your partner’s subscription to the golf club for example? Put in perspective, the cost of needlepoint is well worth the money and no more than you deserve!!
Then there is the second benefit. Once your stitching is made up into the finished item, you have an heirloom that will last for generations. In fact I often recommend incorporating the year’s date into the stitching just before you finish. If you do that on every project, you will build up your own needlework ‘blog’!

13 February 2010

Following a chart

Recently a customer ordered a Christmas Decorations needlepoint kit. Then a couple of weeks later she rang up to say she was a complete beginner and was having difficulty making her stitching match the chart.
Normally, I say follow the printed canvas and use the chart only occasionally as a guide, but her problem went deeper than that.
She didn’t know how to stitch on canvas.
The chart confused her because she thought the grid represented the canvas threads. It does look that way with vertical and horizontal lines and my instructions took it for granted that even a beginner would realise that one coloured square represents one stitch.
I did a little bit of stitching on a scrap of spare canvas, posted it off and she later rang to say she could see now exactly what to do. I hope she has gone on to finish her little decorations and we have a new needlepoint devotee!
But all this got me thinking. The ‘Friendly Instructions’ that go into my kits have drawn so many kind compliments that I did realise that for some, there was this fundamental problem. I should make it clear that on the chart, one coloured square represents one stitch. I am fixing that now although it may take a while to filter through in new kits. It has never cropped up before; I hope it won't again.

January 2010

The One Off Stitching Guide

At last I have been able to add my page of 'Friendly Instructions'. It is a Stitching Guide for anyone who has lost theirs or who has returned to tapestry after a period of time doing other things. Or maybe you are thinking of buying your first tapestry kit and would like to know what you are in for!

Tapestry (needlepoint) stitching is very easy to pick up if you are new to it, but perhaps it looks a bit daunting at first when you are faced with a stiff piece of canvas and a rainbow assortment of wools! Everything you need to know is in theStitching Guide which is a downloadable pdf. for you to have available on your own computer and to print or keep whether you are stitching a One Off kit or one from another designer.

December 28th 2009

Did you get a Tapestry kit for Christmas?

Once the hurley-burley of Christmas is over we really have some time in the middle of the UK winter to settle down to some serious stitching! Maybe you have been looking forward to this for weeks, or maybe you have been given a kit for Christmas and are wondering where to start. Either way, you can look forward to many happy hours by the fire with your tapestry.

Beginners are in for a treat. Tapestry (sometimes called needlepoint) is easy!!!
To begin with, the holes in the canvas are easy to see. If your vision is not quite perfect, look for 12 count or better still 10 count designs which have lovely big holes! That way you can relax as you stitch without straining your eyes or your patience.
Our own kits are packed with our much complimented "Friendly Instructions" but in the season of goodwill, I will shortly be posting those instructions on this website so that everyone can see them whether they have a One Off Needlework kit or not.
They are not long. They are not complicated. But they can give you a flying start to a pastime that will give great pleasure for a life time.
So do keep looking on this page --- Friendly Instructions coming soon.

November 13th 2009

Designing!!!!!!

For needlepoint addicts in the northern hemisphere at least, this is the time when, as the nights get longer and longer, we can look forward to many peaceful hours stitching. We can't be in the garden, or preparing barbecues and picnics so we have every excuse to snuggle up and enjoy the stitching season.
Christmas is nearly here and if you have stitchy friends, they will be thrilled to be given a tapestry kit for a present; if you do not, then the only thing for it is to do the stitching yourself and give the finished article.

At One Off Needlework the Christmas rush is well under way and it is not only Angels and Robins that are flying off the shelves.
But I am in the mood for Christmas and have a new idea that is taking a long time to get right. My idea is guinea fowl... I know they don't conjure up Christmas in most people's mind but they do with me! They look so very festive with their grey plumage covered in white "snow flakes" and the flash of red and bright blue on their heads. So I have been trying to translate all this into a Christmassy tapestry. It is not going well! However, I am not giving up just yet - I have a lot more stitching and unpicking and restitching before I do that. I will keep at it until I have design that works or that there is no hope. I will let you know the outcome...

Luckily, there is no shortage of Christmas (or otherwise) needlepoint kits for your winter stitching. Christmas Decorations and Stockings, Hearts, Angels, Music, and Pink Elephants. Something cheery to brighten up the darkest of winter evenings.

September 19th 2009

Left-handedness

The owner of a needlepoint store in America contacted me recently to ask if she may pass on my Left-handed Instructions to her customers. Of course I said yes because I believe the pleasure of stitching should be available to everybody. Those instructions, came originally from Anything Left-Handed in London. That company had stopped using them, gave them to me and after adding a few remarks of my own, I have been offering them to left-handed customers ever since. But this request from America made me look at the instructions again.
For linear tent stitch, after the first row is stitched, the work is turned upside down (through 180 degrees, not back to front) and the return row is stitched. Basketweave tent stitch fares a little better with no turning, but in both cases you must start at the bottom left corner of the stitch area. These methods mean that the stitches lie in the same direction as if a right-handed person had done the stitching.
Why such a fuss?
Needles, wool, canvas – none of these have a right and left in the same way that say, scissors do. So I cannot see why there is a problem. Surely, left handed stitchers could just stitch the other way round - Go in the opposite direction. If I would start in the top right hand corner, they could start at the top left. An exact mirror image.
The only difference would be that the stitches would lie in the opposite direction on the finished work. Would that matter? Who says which way they should lie?
So as an experiment, I have reproduced my normal stitch diagrams, and simply flipped the images. Would this work? I don't know because I am right handed; what do you think?
(Anything Left-Handed is now an online store.)

September 10th 2009

I'm not always in charge!

When designing, I often find at some stage that the design itself gets a life of its own and takes charge. There comes a time when the design dictates what happens next whether it is colour choices, size, imagery - more or less anything can happen! If all is going well I can surprise myself with the brilliance of what is unfolding, so when that happens I feel I can't really take credit for it. At other times, I can have a day when it all goes badly; the things I wanted to include just don't fit, the colours look awful etc.etc. I suppose then it is fair enough not to take responsibility for that either. The odd thing is that sometimes designing just seems to happen by itself and sometimes not - and I have no say in the matter!
When sportsmen say "I played well today" it is not as boastful as it sounds because one's performance is a completely separate entity and sometimes you just have to wait and see what happens. As a designer, I can be completely thrilled by one of my own designs and completely indifferent to another. Needless to say, the indifferent ones never see the light of day!

August 25th 2009

Four months to go for Christmas Gifts.

What can be nicer than a hand made Christmas gift? The hours of work devoted to it make the whole thing so much more meaningful and precious. There is still time to get stitching and make something personal for a grandchild, or maybe a son, daughter, parent or your best friend.
Perhaps there is a milestone wedding anniversary coming up. We have all the big ones - Diamond, Gold, Ruby and Silver but they could be adapted to any anniversary using the alphabet charts provided in the kits.
All our Christmas Stockings can be personalised and if you don't manage to get them finished in the next four months, not to worry.....Christmas will be back again next year.

August 3rd 2009

Christmas must be coming!

This is normally the time of year when there is so much to do that needlepoint hardly gets a look in. But not this year it seems. I cannot believe how busy I have been, sending out new orders for needlepoint/ tapestry kits. There has even been a rush for Christmas Stockings and Decorations, so stitchers are already planning ahead.

If you prefer to enjoy the summer before launching into Christmas, we have plenty of summery designs that are perfect for your holiday, whether you spend it at home or away.

Needlepoint tapestry is very portable. The printed canvas means you don't have to concentrate really, so you can take it with you whatever your plans for the holidays.

July 13th 2009

Summer stitching

The summer is here and whatever the weather, there is plenty to keep an eye on while you are stitching. Wimbledon, The Ashes, and at the beginning of August, Cowes Week. The Regatta Tapestry is a stunning sunny seasidey design that will keep you smiling as you stitch. It couldn't be easier to do, so if you are half watching something else at the same time....

June 8th 2009

10 count canvas

I have been busy stitching the new 10 count designs on printed canvases. As I said last month, this is new for me because most of my designs are on 12 count and I always stitch my new designs from the chart on plain canvas. When stitching on PRINTED canvases the following problem does not arise; but with the best will in the world, it does not work on 10 count plain canvas. The wider holes mean that the tapestry wool does not cover as well, unless you naturally work very loosely. Even then the result may not be perfect. So if you are the type of stitcher who prefers working from a chart, I recommend that you stitch the same design on 12 count canvas, to ensure complete coverage. The finished tapestry will be a bit smaller but it will be perfect.

May 24th 2009

New Needlepoint kits ready

The canvases have arrived, the kits are made up and we are delighted with the response.
I have already had to order more canvases from the printers!
Now I am happily stitching worked models for display in shops. Normally, new designs are stitched from a chart on to plain canvas. It means that for the photographs, every stitch is in the right place for those who find it easier to check the photograph than figure out the chart. Even with the best printers in the business, printing cannot be completely accurate because of the slightly wavy nature of the canvas threads. The good news is that pin point accuracy is Not Necessary. In most cases if you are worrying whether a stitch should be across one thread or its neighbour -- it will not make a scrap of difference and after you have moved on, you will never find that place again any way. The only time it might matter is where there is accurate drawing of an outline or in lettering; that is why we provide a chart and the photograph on the bag for you to check. What I advise you not to do, is try to follow both the chart and the printing. That definitely would not be relaxing and needlepoint should always be relaxing.
So now I too have the luxury of stitching printed canvases until the next bright idea pops into my head for 2010.

April 24th 2009

New designs update

During these horrid weeks and months of the credit crunch, more and more people have decided to stay at home this year. So I am delighted that the new needlepoint designs are about to arrive in time for a summer to be spent doing quieter things. What could be better than relaxing with your tapestry?
The printers promise that the canvases will be ready within the next two weeks and the new kits will appear here first.

Keep looking on the Latest News page.

March 4th 2009

New designs preview.

We have three new designs now at the printers and I am really excited about these.
They are a new departure for us, each being on 10 count canvas. This means the canvas holes are bigger, the stitching is easier to see and the whole tapestry is just a joy to stitch.

Two designs for cat lovers: Oriental Cat, based on a fabulous example of 18th Century Korean Art; Multi Cats, a jolly collection of cats just sitting - like they do; and Music, designed in response to a plaintive request from a stitcher -- "Do you have anything with a trombone on it?" I didn't then, but now I have.

If these are not quite up your street, there are more designs to come in the summer, on my usual 12 count canvas this time.

Feb 14th 2009

Tapestry or Needlepoint...?

The word Tapestry strictly speaking, refers to a woven form of textile art. It is done on a loom, weaving coloured yarns around warp threads. No needles or canvas are involved.
The tapestries and wall hangings we see in great houses and palaces all over the UK were done in this way.

It must be therefore, their colourful and decorative appearance that has led us to borrow the word for the much more accessible form of textile art that we call Tapestry, otherwise referred to as Canvas Work or Needlepoint.
In America, they use the word Needlepoint; but in the UK we have got ourselves into a further muddle.
I have gathered from talking to many enthusiastic 'Tapestry' stitchers that Needlepoint is frequently assumed to mean Petit Point and consequently too fine to be seen comfortably by many.

Petit Point is very fine. It is stitched on special canvas called Penelope canvas which is woven with the threads in pairs.
Petit Point is then stitched over the single canvas threads and Gros Point is stitched over the pairs. The two stitches are often mixed on the canvas to great decorative effect.

Petit Point and Gros Point are not for the timid and so far, it is not technically possible to print two different sizes of stitches on to one canvas in one operation.
So for now, let us return to the familiar: Tapestry... Needlepoint... Canvaswork...
They all mean the same thing.

Jan 20th 2009

Needlepoint is for fun-- not for an exam.
Have you noticed that so many people, when they admire a piece of needlepoint, turn it over and study the back.
Why do they do this? Would they check out your china for the mark on the back, or look for a hallmark on the silver? Well I suppose they might.
But I want to assure you, it really doesn't matter. FAR more important is the ENJOYMENT that you have in your stitching. There is no need to worry about the back of the work when it will not be seen on the finished article.
If the work is looking good on the front, just enjoy that and leave the back to take care of itself. Before you know it, your backs will start to look neat and tidy of their own accord!

However, a handy hint. If you can't stop worrying about the back, it is worth knowing that if you stitch in tent stitch or continental tent stitch, you will find it much easier to fasten off your yarn. But beware. Some kits from other manufacturers are designed to be stitched in half cross-stitch and you might run out of wool if you change that. In those cases you will just have to stop worrying.

Wendy Hope-Falkner

Telephone/fax +44 (0)1403 782200

email: info@oneoffneedlework.co.uk