Pipers Silks arrived!

Thursday was a great day - my order from Pipers Silks arrived!  It was way faster than I thought it would be as I hadn't thought of even hoping for it before this coming Monday, but the despatch note hit my in-box on Tuesday evening and the package arrived less than 40 hours later.

Above you can see the new arrivals.  There are 4 of the 'Embroidery Packs', which are good value collection builders at 10 cops for price of 9.  In the centre row: 'Nature' (various brown-based shades) and 'Summer Fruits' (purplish pinks and deep reds); and the bottom row: 'Autumn' (golds and oranges) and 'Plush Pinks' (reds and red-based pinks).  I used the colour lists from other packs as well as the on-line colour chart and Susan Peck's helpful advice to select the greens, blues and purples etc that you can see at the top.  I managed not to overtly duplicate any shades I had, although one or two are remarkably similar and there may have been one or two name changes since my first lot were made as I noticed, for instance, that I really couldn't tell any difference between 'rhubarb' and 'dark rhubarb'. 'Dark lettuce' and 'leaf' are almost the same too, as are 'champagne' and 'deep cream', so those are to bear in mind when it comes to time to restock.

This is now my whole collection of Pipers Floss Silks.  Which section does your eye go to?  Mine's really drawn to those lucious pinky purples part way into the middle row (from the left).  I think I bought that set simply as I love that type of colour so much!  Now I'm longing to find a use for them.

I also have black and white of the fine twisted silk 2/20 and a black 4/20.  I've become quite curious as to how all those numbers work!  I can see that the lower the first number, the finer the thread, but what happens when the second number changes??  Anyone know?

When I came to arranging the whole lot in my box, I ran into something unexpected:

If you read my last post, you might remember that I thought I would be able to get all these floss silks into the first two layers of my box, thus leaving the third for finer gauges of thread that I hope to get hold of later on.  So, what happened?  Susan tells me that the company who make the cardboard core of the cop (they call them 'cops' as opposed to 'reels' or 'spools') have increased the width of the tube a little.  So, whilst they fit into the sections nicely still, I can't get three layers in as expected, but only two.  Where I have a mixture of older, narrower cops and newer ones, I can get about seven in each section - eight at a push, but only six of the new ones.

At first, I was a bit disappointed about that, but then I realised that it really has its good points as putting fewer in each section means that it's both easier to see more of the colours and is likely to preserve them in better condition as there will be less fidgeting around in each section to get to the shade I want and the cops rubbing against each other tends to lead to a slight 'fluffing' of the silk (I had to rewind parts of some of my old cops to reduce this after long storage).  So, I've decided it isn't so bad after all.  For those of you who expressed an interest in this type of box as a storage solution for Pipers cops though, please note that you can only store about 108 in it as opposed to the previously advertised 160+.

I can fit about another sixteen cops into these three layers and then I need another box to store finer gauges in.  Oh, what a shame!!!=)LOL.  Watercolour paints, you're getting your own box soon!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

My new thread box has arrived

When I was putting together an order for Pipers Silks recently, I was also wondering where I was going to store them as, frankly, my workboxes are already packed and I had to move the metallics into the top drawer of another fixture in order to fit things in.  Looking around on Amazon UK, I found this little box, which seems to be used mostly for jewellery making supplies.  Each of the 18 sections measures 7.5 x 3.5 x 5 cm, which fits Pipers Silk cops beautifully, as you can see!

Although my order of threads will take a while to arrive, (Pipers is, basically, run by one lady - Susan Peck - and she does more or less everything herself and so, sometimes, things take a while to get to), I organised the shades I already had into the box to see how it worked out.

So far I've got (from top left to bottom right, across both tiers) blue-ish greens, dark greens, lighter greens, reds, oranges, yellows, blues, purples, pinks, black - white, dull browns and yellow browns.  Whether or not I'll be able to maintain these divisions when the 58 new shades come, I can't tell as yet, but, as the lions share seem to be in the red and pink category, I think I will have to play around with sections somewhat.

The two in the tier you see top right are incredibly fine 2/20 twisted silks and I plan to use that tier for more of those shades and some of the 4/20 ones, one of which (black) I have on order at the moment.  I'll post something showing the gauges against each other and a strand of regular stranded cotton when I have them all to hand.  For now, suffice to say that one strand of Piper Floss Silk (most of the above) seems to be about half the thickness of one strand of Anchor/DMC and that 2/20 seems to be about a third of the thickness of that!  For future dolls house work, it seems that one strand of 2/20 fine twist will be about the 1/12th scale equivalent of two strands of regular floss!  Tiny!

From the dimensions given on the Amazon page, I was able to work out that I could get 9 cops in each box section and that the whole box would hold a total of 162 cops, 54 per tier.  It's possible that another one could be squeezed into the six central sections, but I'm not sure that's too wise an idea.  The top two tiers I plan to keep the regular silk floss in and, when the newbies come, I'll have room for only another half a dozen.=)

It won't surprise anyone to read that I'm already considering buying a second box!  The tiers are made in such a way as you can add on as many as you like (vertically, of course), under one lid.  So, if I began to 'spill over' into a fourth tier, it's not out of the question to get one.  I also realised that threads weren't the only things that I could use this sort of box for and that my watercolour tubes could find a new home too:

All the smaller ones and all but five of the larger ones fit into this one layer, so there is a potential use for a second box with just one or two tiers as need be.

So, I'm now waiting eagerly for Postie to bring me a lovely packet from Pipers!  I've to allow 10-21 days, so, as I was only able to put in the order for this last Thursday, I can begin to look out for them from a week on Monday.  This box will soon be a good deal fuller....

BTW, Pipers Silk cops are somewhat shorter and a little narrower than those use to wind Japanese silks onto, so this sort of box may not be too useful for other brands.  If in doubt, measure first.=)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Work in Progress Wednesday - 7 Aug 2013

It's that time of week again and I have two sessions' worth of progress on the eternal 'Sunshine and Flowers' sampler to share with you.  Above you can see the cross stitches complete in the lower area of roses.

Below, you'll be able to see where I added in three fly stitch leaves, one cream woven rose, a larger cream and beige flower and made a start on the lower ribbon.  Sadly, I managed to miscount something somewhere along the way and the ribbon doesn't quite match the pattern.  Having said that, I don't think that will be a serious problem, but I plan on taking out the start I've made on the second 'run' and starting again from the bottom centre part.  Then, even if I find I don't have enough space at one or both sides for all the stitches the pattern leads me to expect, at least the important parts will be even,

Floozina, you asked me what the white flowers were, and so I've taken this close up for you (assuming these are the ones you meant).  They're woven roses.  You start by making five 'spokes' in a circle and then weave in an out of them with whichever thread you like to create a nice, raised effect rose.  They can look really nice when worked with thicker threads too and are especially good with ribbons.

So, I hope that helps to demystify what those are.  I plan on writing a tutorial for creating these very effective little flowers soon.

I haven't made a start on the Helen M Stevens' piece(s) yet as I've only just received the answer to the colour enquiries I made of Pipers Silks, which I needed to know before I can even order the floss!  Then it's up to three weeks before it comes.  So, perhaps my estimate of putting in that order not being the hardest item on my goals list for this month was far from accurate!!=)  Having said that, I've had time to look and see that, yes, Pipers do some wonderfully fine gauges of thread which I intend to order samples of for future miniature (1:12 and 1:24, even 1:48 scale) pieces.

Floozina, I have to disillusion you on something though: Ms Stevens is British.=)  Unless anyone knows anything authoritative to the contrary?  She says so little about herself in her books and on her website.=(

After finding links to three of my stumpwork element tutorials on someone's page (or 'lens' as they call it there), I signed up with Squidoo and have written a couple of 'lenses' of my own: One on stumpwork and one, just today, on designing and writing a good needlework (or art/craft) blog.  Feel free to check them out!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Korean Embroideries

On the way home from our second year in Taiwan (2009/10), we made a 3 night stop in Seoul, capital city of South Korea.  Whilst we were there, I naturally took every opportunity of getting to know traditional Korean textiles and embroidery.  Sadly, we didn't have a lot of time and the Korean Embroidery Museum we went to didn't allow any photography at all, but here are some of the shots I managed to get (some not very straight, or with the glare of artificial lighting - sorry!) at the Korean Knot Museum, the Korean Folk Museum and in various souvenir shops near to our hotel showing embroidery, patchwork and traditional costume.

At first glance, many of these pieces may seem to resemble both Chinese and Japanese work, but there are distinct differences, one of which is that, unlike much of traditional Japanese work, only twisted silks are used to work the pieces, no flat, gloss silk.  Quite a bit of metallic outlining features as well.

Most of these patchwork pieces are worked using multi-coloured fabrics with a similar, self-coloured floral design, which you may be able to see in the white outer fabric of the cushion/pillow covers on the right.  Some are, as seen on the left and in the two cushions/pillows below, translucent/sheer fabrics.  Traditional Korean patchwork came about as a way to use up left over fabrics and even the tiniest pieces are used to make a pattern (see 3 photos above).  Both economical and attractive!  Who could ask for more?

I got a number of photos of traditional costume, including the wonderful embroidered panels that were made to be worn on the men's clothes.  A future post will showcase many of these.  In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed this brief insight into the stitchcrafts of a nation often overlooked in favour of its more prominent neighbours, China and Japan.  Whilst they still maintain a distinctly Oriental flavour, Korean embroidery has a style of it's own and is truly beautiful.

I do hope we can visit Korea again and that I can get to visit the larger Korean embroidery museum and learn much more!  Have you been?  What did you see/like?  What other countries' traditional stitchcrafts most appeal to you?

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013