Saturday Stitchery!

This week's Saturday Snapshot is a kind of follow-up on Alyce's photos of peacocks last week, because they reminded me that I once did a little peacock embroidery, using blue and green shiny threads, and beads, and a variety of stitches, including eyelet stitch, straight stitch, Rhodes stitch and herringbone. I bought the design and instructions at an embroidery exhibition some years back, and it sat around for a while until I got round to doing it, and it's not all that big - about five inches across. It may not be as spectacular as the real bird, but I had great fun creating my little peacock, because I love messing around with different stitches and threads. Anyway, I hunted it out and took a picture.

And, since Christmas is on the way, I also took photos of some of the seasonal embroideries I have stitched over the years. I never seem to have enough money to have my work framed, so I have dozens of embroideries stashed away in a big plastic box, which is not really the best way to store them, because they get horribly creased, and it seems such a shame not to have them on display. Perhaps I could have a go at framing them myself, but I've always been worried about wrecking them.

The photographs haven't really come out all that well. I think a different camera setting may have helped, or scanning might have produced better results. 

As you can see, I enjoy stitching samplers - I've completed several for other seasons of the year, and a few traditional 'house' designs, and a lot of Noah's Arks (I like Noah, although it's Mrs Noah I always feel sorry for when I think of all the feeding she must have done, and the cleaning and grooming, and mucking out, and trying to keep the peace between all those creatures). 

This Christmas Angel is not my usual style at all. I saw it in a magazine, and it looked so pretty I thought I would have a go, but it drove me demented working on it, and I'm still not happy with it, and I really can't work out why. It's like a book that you don't like, but you can't pinpoint why you don't like it.

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alice's blog at For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog at http://athomewithbooks.net/

Cupcake heaven - stitched and baked!

And now for something completely different. Cup cakes! I have been making edible and non-edible varieties. The ones intended for consumption came courtesy of a recipe in The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days: Recipes to make every day special, by Tarek Malouf, which I came across when I visited a friend who had been given a copy for Christmas. It really is a beautifully produced book, with wonderful pictures, and some lovely ideas for cup cakes, muffins, and something called whoopie pies, which I hadn’t encountered before. Conversation came to an end while I copied some of the recipes and sampled her Coca Cola cakes.

My cup cakes - next time I'll use a recipe from an old book.

 Today I finally had a go myself and the cakes are wonderful, but the icing was too runny, so I added more icing sugar, and it ended up much too sweet and not the right texture, so I tried piping it on to the cakes, to see if it improved matters, but it didn’t.  Anyway, I topped them off with carob-coated raisins rather than the suggested Coca Cola sweets, and I am sure they will get eaten. 

The '50s housewife decorating her version of
of cupcakes (from the Good Housekeeping
Cookery Compendium)

And lovely though the Hummingbird book is, some of the recipes look a bit fiddly for what my mother scornfully refers to as  jumped-up fairy cakes, and I haven’t even tried her with whoopie pies, which appear to be a variation of the sponge drops she used to bake for my brother and I, sandwiched together with buttercream or home-made jam.  

Sponge drops : were these an early form
of whoopie pie? (from the Good Housekeeping
Cookery Compendium)

Anyway, I’ve ended up sitting reading the Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium, published by Waverley in 1954, when my grandmother bought it as a present for Mum, and she gave me when my father died. It may not have the allure of modern celebrity cookbooks, but it’s packed with basic information; fool-proof, fail-safe recipes, and scores of pictures, including some in colour, and it’s one of the books I fall back on time and time again when cooking.  It’s not just the recipes that I find so appealing, but the association with childhood. As I turned the tattered pages today I swear I could smell ginger biscuits baking in the oven, and egg curry on the stove! And it made me recall my very first efforts at cooking, when I was so small I had to stand on a chair to reach the kitchen table – and the evidence of a terrible accident involving an egg can still be seen on the opening pages of the section about small cakes (queen cakes, assorted kisses, honey buns, melting moments and chocolate cakes).

Children's sponge cakes also seem similar to
modern whoopie pies.  (from the Good Housekeeping
Cookery Compendium)

Oddly enough, a pristine copy of the book was recently donated to Oxfam Books and Music, in Lichfield (where, as I’ve said before, I am a volunteer) and I did wonder if it was time to replace the old copy, but it wouldn’t be the same because it wouldn’t have that connection with my past.

A plate full of goodies. Tiny 'bottle-top' muffins, and
colourful cup cakes - actually they look more like those
whoopie pies, which really intrigue me - it's such an odd name.

And talking of Oxfam leads me to the non-edible cupcakes. I have been stitching them in pink and purple felt, as requested by a fellow volunteer who is also busy sewing. Decorated with beads, buttons and embroidery, they will make the window look decorative for International Women’s Day on March 8 – and we also hope to sell a few (they make nice pincushions) and boost Oxfam’s funds.

Balancing act! Put a felt cupcake on a cake case
and it looks quite eye-catching.

The charity aids women all over the globe by helping to improve education and maternity care. It also provides support for women to establish businesses in their community, so they can provide better opportunities for their children – details about the work being undertaken can be found at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/womensday?pscid=ps_clk_IWD+2012 

The Creation in Stitches and Paint

I had other commitments on Tuesday, and couldn’t do my volunteering shift at the Oxfam bookshop, so I popped in today, spent the morning tidying shelves in the storage area, treated myself to curranty, sugary Derby biscuits from the baker’s next door – and bought this beautiful book, Creation: A Celebration, by Sue Symons, who uses painting, calligraphy and embroidery to depict the story of Genesis.

The project, which has around 40 panels, took her two years and on completion was displayed at Bath Abbey, where her earlier work is housed. With their vibrant colours and intricate designs, the panels call to mind those highly decorated ‘carpet’ pages in old illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells or the Lindisfarne Gospels. All but one have a central painted panel, surrounded by textile borders worked in a variety of stitches and techniques, using hand and machinery embroidery, appliqué, canvas work and beading, to name but a few. The overall effect, even in this two-dimensional format, is incredibly rich and textured – and the ‘real thing’, as it were, must be absolutely stunning. It makes my own embroidery look very clumsy.

 The book includes Sue’s design notes on the panels, describing the techniques she has used and, as with the panels themselves, each of these printed explanatory pages is set in the centre, with an embroidered border running around. Sue’s work is even reproduced on the endpapers, which show painted and embroidered butterflies.

 Published in 2010 by independent firm Shepheard-Walwyn (which regards books as food for the heart and mind), Creation: A Celebration appears to be one of 500 copies signed by the artist, which would normally make a book more expensive. Sadly, however, one of the endpapers had been cut in half – perhaps to remove a dedication or the owner’s name – which reduced the value considerably.