Holly Wreath

Many years ago a lovely lady called Pauline started to run a Holly Wreath Class in the community hall of Llanasa. She advertised it through the W.I. and it was incredibly popular. Obviously, being near Christmas, the weather was cold, and the hall was equally cold and totally charmless! We huddled near the wall heaters, sat on hard benches etc.. but came home with some beautiful wreaths.

Pauline ran these for many years and then took the odd holiday (from the UK and from the classes!) and so, when she phoned me to say she was doing another one last December I jumped at the chance of going again. Although I know how to do the assembly myself, and certainly could manage without her tuition, the very act of sitting in a nicely decorated and warm room (same hall having had some money spent on it) with a bunch of other ladies making holly wreaths is a great start to the ‘Season’ and sooooooo much fun!

So, on December 18th Jan and I drove along to Llanasa, met up with Denise and Sue and sat in our ‘naughty corner’ ( I don’t know why Polly – she’s changed her name – thinks we deserve to sit at the back of the room on our own, we’re not really disruptive ) and were met with the usual strange collection of items.

Necessary items!

Garbage bag?

Are we all confused?

The base ring

Closer view

The bin-bag

………is used to wrap around the hoop as a base for the greenery. It was cut into strips, tied on at one end, wrapped and then tied off again when completely covered. Once that was done then the fun starts. A huge mound of ‘green’, foliage which smelt wonderful but which I can’t remember the name of!!! was added in smallish bits around the whole of the plastic-wrapped wreath.

I almost forgot! Before we started anything we had to have a cuppa and a warm, handmade mince pie and Mum, sorry – Polly – insisted we drank the bottle of water she’d provided too!

So, after the base layer of green was firmly attached then we got to add some holly. The variegated leaves and the lovely red berries made a super contrast to the plain greens of the base.

Denise and her holly

Always in threes

Holly added

The Holly and the Ivy, now they are……

sorry, must remember that it’s January and I shouldn’t be singing Carols any more Obviously, the next step was adding some ivy, Polly and her family managed to find some lovely pieces with the berries (seeds? not sure what you call them really) and although they didn’t look awfully exciting at first we knew that with a few squirts of paint later on they would really stand out proudly.

Adding Ivy

Sue + holly & ivy

Pretty already

The ladies

………did look very serious but it was purely concentration, there was a lot of laughter and chatter. There were far fewer ‘students’ this year than previously and it was lovely – so much more intimate and it gave Polly time to visit all who needed her.

Lunch Time

The first year or two we took a packed lunch, then Polly started providing soup and rolls for our lunches. We used to have to clear a space in front of us and eat there but now…. how upmarket is Llanasa? A separate room, tablecloths, tureens and posh soup bowls! The soup was every bit as delicious and it looks on the photos and there was masses of it. We had to follow this with a cuppa and mince pies.

Politely waiting

Thick, hot & hearty

Jan playing 'mum'

Back to work

……all refreshed and ready to go. Pine cones, cinnamon sticks, dried orange slices got wired and nestled in amongst the foliage. Again, these looked so very different when sprayed with paint but lovely in their natural state too.

Pine cones

Here? or here?

Closer view

A Bow

….is all that’s needed to finish the wreath. I am notoriously bad at making bows and have always had to have help but this year I arrived with mine all prepared! I have some glorious ribbon from CostCo and a bow-maker so mine came ready tied in my basket.

My Bow

How pleased am I?

Denise is happy

This one's lovely...

...so is this one

Sue's is pretty too

Jan is concentrating

Getting help with a bow?

Chaos versus Calm

…try as she might, Denise cannot be untidy or unruly with hers. I am the opposite – my wreath is always rather wild! It really doesn’t matter, each and every one of the wreaths was different and each beautiful. A quick blitz with some gold or silver spray paint and the cones and berries got a lovely highlight.

Then, we were forced to have another cuppa and eat more mince pies!

That was before making a table centrepiece using a candle which we had been told to bring with us and more foliage etc… unfortunately, I don’t have a single photo of any of them! Must have been too busy trying to get it right that I totally forgot to chronicle it.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Polly/Pauline, the day was fantastic. Also to her family; two daughters who helped us all out with everything and to her husband, Peter, who knows his place is in the kitchen and stays there brewing-up and washing-up with the odd foray out into the cold for more supplies when requested!

Comparing chaos & calm

Chaos!

Calm!

Welsh Anthem

When I was a member of our local W.I. (for about 10 years), I discovered a competitive streak which I didn’t realise I had!

Every year there is an agricultural show which encompasses two neighbouring counties, Flintshire and Denbighshire, and my local village had not been entering much. When I found out about this (and was cajoled onto the committee!) I put a lot of pressure onto our members to join in and make stuff for these shows. We did quite well, on the whole, for such a small membership.

I had been going to calligraphy classes for a couple of years, evening class once a week, and so tried my hand at that part of the competition (as well as lots of other crafty/baking/sewing/embroidering entries) – calligraphy being the only ‘arty’ thing I could even attempt. Put a paint brush in my hand and, unless it’s a large wall, I go completely to pieces – I really cannot draw or paint but I am not bad with a dip pen and some ink or gouache.

The photo above shows the Welsh National Anthem written in uncial font which is quite ‘celtic’ looking. I like to write on a curve as it’s easier to hide the odd mistake such as letters not being exactly the perfect heights etc..!

The paper I wrote on is pale green with an image of a tree which I decided was quite apt due to the W.I. logo being a tree. I used black engrossing ink for the wording and then printed out a few copies of the Welsh Dragon which I painted (yes, OK, I know I said I can’t paint but I can colour in the lines!) and then decoupaged below the verse.

The Celtic-knot border around the mat-board was drawn in pencil first and then inked over with a wide dip pen and the same black ink – that really did make me cross-eyed!

I won first prize

Welsh words

Decoupaged Dragon

The Night Will Never Stay

Night

The black paper I used for this was ‘splattered’ through a circular mask with a silver metallic pen and my ‘blitzer’ – this is a bulb-like contraption with a place to attach a marker pen, with which you blow the ink from the tip onto whatever medium you want.

Closer view

I stencilled silver stars around the ‘moon’ and penned the words with a yellow gouache which was watered down and applied to a dip pen with a brush. This is an italic script with quite a fine nib and you may notice that it’s written on curvy lines, again.

I won first prize

A Nursery Rhyme

Magpie

‘Magpie’ was written again in an italic script with a slightly fatter nib than the last piece. I used watercolour paints on my dip pen this time and watercolour paper to get the fading appearance. The numbers were coloured-in with well-watered-watercolours and I added the odd little flourish here and there (using the pen with its natural angled nib) to take away the starkness of the background. You can’t really see from the photos but, for example, the words for ’5′ read ’5 for silver’ and the silver was written in silver ink.

I won first prize

1 thru 7

1 thru 6

5 thru 7

An Old Adage

There was a lot of research to be done to find an adage which I liked and which I thought would translate to a piece of calligraphy nicely.

The purple mat gives quite a regal feel to the piece when teamed with the gold paint of the illuminated letters. Gold gouache for them, green gouache for the uncial lettering and then simple flowers painted (no, I still can’t paint!) over the gold base. There are little tiny dots done with a very fine nib all around the large letters, and the lettering this time used a much broader nib.

Glitters

Closer view

I can’t say if I find it easier to do fine or broad lettering – when applying paint to the nib with a brush it’s very hit-and-miss. You can run out of ‘ink’ quickly and at an inopportune moment when doing large letters and can very easily overload the reservoir of a fine nib and make it too thick to flow nicely etc…

I won first prize

Jerusalem

This time we were asked to pen the first verse of the W.I. Anthem which is the wonderful ‘Jerusalem’. I used watercolour paper onto which I (painted) hills and mountains green. The lettering is gouache again with a medium-nibbed dip pen and Carolingan font. This is a lovely, spreading font and quite decorative – I love the letter ‘d’ – which seems to be based on uncial.

I actually wrote in straight lines for once.

I won first prize

Jerusalem

I bet you're singing!

Better angle?

A Proverb

The proverb

Oh my, I’m beginning to think I should go back to the beginning and remove what I said about not being able to paint! It’s true really and yet I seem to have ‘painted’ on most of these pieces of artwork. Believe me, it doesn’t come easy and it’s mostly copied……

This is quite a nice simple proverb and I colour washed a piece of watercolour paper in a golden-yellow before writing it in a simple italic with a few flourishes on some of the letters.

The words are framed with a thick red line and the painted flowers which overlap it here and there and also spill out onto the matboard. I rarely put these behind glass, but then they’re not even out on display anywhere yet so they don’t need protecting. I do plan to hang them in the calligraphy area of my craft room ….. one day!

I won first prize

Top corner

Closer

Bottom images

A Celebration Poem

Festival

I spent so long trying to find a poem for this theme. I failed in the attempt and so resorted to choosing a celebratory word – FESTIVAL – and finding words which meant celebration and which began with each letter of the main word, I suppose you’d call them acronyms. I tried to find festivals from all over the world to put here, some were a little obscure and I guess I was clutching at straws but it worked in the end. The paper is parchment and the initial capitals are painted with a copper medium and outlined in black.

Again, I used gouache to write with and double-matted the whole thing – looking at it now I think I should have decorated the cream mount board as it’s rather stark.

What does it mean?……

‘F’: Flowers on Jersey; Fantasy Feelings; Foreign funeral feasts.

‘E’: Easter excitement; Evil spriits; Enlisting supernatural aid.

‘S’: Sabbath; Saturnalia; Shabuoth or Pentecost – harvest of the wheat crop.

‘T’: Thanksgiving; Transfiguration; Tet – celebrating Indochinese lunar New Year.

‘I’: Independence day; Invocation; the Iliad – mythical King and harvest festival.

‘V’: Vernal equinox; Vikings and Jorvik; festivals for the Virgin Mary.

‘A’: Abundance at harvest time; wassailing of the Apple trees.

‘L’: Licentious ancient festivals; Lent

….all this and more.

Wow, reading this back after all this time I really was stuggling wasn’t I?! Never mind…..I won first prize

Close up

The poem

There wasn’t always a calligraphy entry in the schedule, some years they did without and put other skills in like painting on china, silk painting etc….. but, as I was on the committee, I did insist now and again that they put it in the schedule. Unfortunately, they got really sick of me winning all the time and used to try not to have calligraphy in the show at all, I thought that was quite mean-spirited of them

Calligraphy doesn’t flow easily from my hands I’m afraid, it takes me weeks of practising before I’m ready to start on the real thing and lots and lots of screwed-up trial samples. I am left-handed and therefore really struggle with some scripts and yet find others quite easy – the main difficulty is smudging. Left-handers have to follow their pen across a page and can therefore smudge the work very easily, right-handers drag the pen behind them and so don’t have that issue. It’s true of all handwriting, not just this decorative type, and so something we all have to learn to deal with from an early age. There are special nibs available, angled the opposite way to the normal ones, to make it easier and, if you’re thinking of taking up this wonderful hobby, then I heartily recommend investing in the correct tools. Personally, I can’t use a calligraphy felt pen to save my life! Well, I can do rough stuff but have never managed to achieve a classy-looking piece using one. I do find that the chunkier the marker, with a large chisel tip, the easier it is.

I used to volunteer at the infant/junior school which my boys attended and Friday was craft day – we did all sorts of different things and I did show them how to do calligraphy at one stage. We used large felt-pens for this – obviously they couldn’t handle dip pens – and they all did pretty well and loved it when I wrote their names in large fancy letters for them to take home with them. I also had to give a ‘talk’ to a class full of 10-year-olds all about calligraphy once, what a nerve-racking experience that was! Don’t think I was cut out to be a teacher but I loved doing the volunteer crafty stuff with them.

Other Pieces

At the class I attended we tried our hand at all sorts of different techniques, not just penmanship. The photos below show a letter A drawn on A4 black card with each section patterned differently and with a couple of pieces cut away completely and then lined with yellow film.

A

Closer view

Can you see the film?

Pessimist

A Pessimist

I love the sentiment behind this verse, just a random piece which has sat in a folder for many years – written with a dip pen and black ink in an italic hand.

Easter Bonnet

Easter bonnet

The Easter bonnet is also just a project from class, guess I had been painting again!

Grandad Tommy

This last item was entered in the W.I. competition but didn’t win!!! I wrote the words on tracing paper in yellows and greens and laid it over a photograph which my husband had taken of his grandad some years ago. He was a wonderful character, a coal miner all his life, and was a great joke-teller. The biggest problem I had was that he was a Yorkshire man and I was born in Lancashire – I had to have someone translate his jokes for me!

“I am the family face, flesh perishes, I live on, projecting trait and trace through time to times anon, and leaping from place to place over oblivion”  Thomas Hardy.

Grandad

Close up

3-hour-shawl

I saw this idea in Threads Magazine (Issue 119, June/July 2005) a few years ago – it was shown on the cover in much the same colours as I have used here. I was attending a family wedding and had worn the same dress a year earlier at another wedding (that time with a pink shawl and a big hat!) and thought I could alter the appearance by changing the accessories. It was only my sisters at both weddings so it didn’t matter that I was wearing the same thing (he he).

Pinks and Purples

I’ll post a photo of that wedding also – my niece married her soldier in Cambridge  – so you can see the difference (not much I know, but I like the dress!). Actually, the pink shawl in the first photo is lovely too, I bought it in Scotland and it’s silk and packs away to nothing but…… it catches on everything! My handbag had a few little diamantés on it and the shawl stuck to those constantly and caused numerous snags. With the breezy conditions it got caught on every passing button too – what a pain!

Katie's Wedding

Louisa's wedding

Construction

It really can take only 3 hours to make this shawl – assuming you’ve got a PhD in mathematics! I read and re-read, folded and re-folded but still couldn’t get the hang of how to fold the fabric to cut it into bias strips. Once I’d involved my husband in the process, it was easy!

The strips are cut on the bias, as I mentioned, and then overlocked (serged) together whilst stretching the fabric slightly. This gives that lovely wavy edge you can see.

Qverlocked seams

Close up

What to do with the ends?

After I’d stitched a lot of lengths of fabric together I noticed it was getting very long at one side – maybe I should have been staggering the start points? I’m not sure. Anyhow, I did start to pay more attention then and the final shawl ended up with one long point on one side and a forked bit on the other! I wasn’t sure what to do about this but after playing around with it I found it looked nice (and stayed in place) if I knotted the ‘forked’ end and threaded the ‘point’ through it. What is it they say? Necessity is the mother of invention!

Uneven ends

Knotted

Gallery

These other photos show the shawl in different views and differing light – it changes colours depending on the surroundings!

So many people asked me at that wedding where I got this from and I would jokingly reply “Oh this, I made it!” and would be always met with – “no really, where did you get it?”. I could have sold it a dozen times over. I guess I could go into production but then, it wouldn’t be unique and also, I would probably hate it by the time I’d finished!

BTW, my sisters and I are very close in age, Jacqui is the eldest, then Gillian, then Susan and then me, Mum had the four of us under 5 years of age at one time!

Me, Gill, Sue, Jacqui

In the sunshine

Jo & Jacqui

It's a long shawl!

Jo & Sue

See the colour now?

Getting dusk

What a lovely day

We had such fun that day, the wedding was in the Lake District and for once, the weather was perfect! We sat outside until after midnight just talking and laughing together – the shawl (actually, I’ve just found out that Threads call it a scarf, not a shawl!) was actually just the correct warmth!

Inside again!

Sisters

Our 'better halves'!!

Competition entry

Blues & Greens

I have mentioned in other posts about the WI competitions I have entered in the past. One year, an entry called for “A fabric item using shades of green, blue plus one other colour of your choice” so I made another of these shawls.

The strange thing was, I was in the marquee during judging (although you mustn’t tell a judge that any item is yours so that it’s all fair) and I saw all the other entries for this category being taken to the table for judging and all the time my shawl was lying on said table. It hadn’t been judged and therefore hadn’t been taken back to the show tables! It stayed there until the end for some reason, I was getting worried that the judge may have decided it wasn’t ‘according to schedule’.

Well, finally it was looked at by the craft judge who then called over a couple of other judges to have a discussion about it – can you imagine how hard it is to stay away from a conversation going on about something you’ve made?

It got first prize after all that – the judge said she’d known that it was the winner from the very start but the issue was……she couldn’t give it 20/20 as she wanted to! (I think it got 19.5). After spreading it out on the table she found a length of the seam – about 1.5″ long – which the overlocker had not caught so, quite rightly, it couldn’t get full marks as it had a hole in it! I swear I’d gone over every seam checking for this!

Anyway, she loved it and, when I admitted (after judging was over) that it was mine, she apologised for finding the hole. I had my pink one in the car with me and she loved that one too!

As you can see, I used organza in a couple of shades of green, a couple of blue and then a hairy purple for the ‘one other colour’ and I finished the ends of every seam with some beadwork. It’s not as long as my pink version, nor as wide, but I do like it a lot. Haven’t had chance to wear it anywhere yet though…maybe for my anniversary next month.

Hand beaded ends

Close up

Beads close up

Can you see the colours?

Addendum

I’ve been asked about the yardage for the scarf – the following was taken from a discussion about it some time ago, hope it helps:

The scarf takes 2 3/4 yards of 45″ fabric—that produces a parallelogram that is about 64″ long.

A three color scarf — 4 x 3″ wide strips of each color requires 1 3/4 of each, a total of 5 1/4 yards!  The reason: when you fold up one side of the fabric and cut it at the true bias, you lose 45″ across the length of fabric and you need 12″ of length to get 4 x 3″ pieces—so you need a total of 57″ ( i.e. 45 + 12) or 1.6 yards.

That’s why, in the original article, the writers dyed the organza strips rather than using almost twice as much yardage.

If you can find 55 inch fabric, you can make a scarf/shawl that is 78″ long–you will need about 3 yards. If you used 3 colors, you would need 1.85 yards of each color.

Courtesy of : Marijo Rymer, Professional Association of Custom Clothiers

Oriental Box

Another entry for that agricultural show I mentioned (Christmas Angel) was for a fabric box. I have a wonderful embroidery machine and so decided to utilise that. The fabric I chose was a gorgeous, purpley brocade onto which I embroidered several different oriental designs. It’s quite subtle but very effective. You can see a couple of close-ups showing some of the designs – there are a couple of different fans around the sides and the foliage is quite evocative of the Far East. I stitched the bird for both the top and the bottom of the box and hand-stitched the side panels together to form the hexagon. The bottom was stitched to all sides and some lovely brown beads glued on to give it ‘feet’.

The lining was a real chore! I lost count of the number of times I gathered the silk and then tacked it in place – decided it wasn’t neat enough so took it out and started again! The W.I. are very picky and I knew it needed to be perfect.

The lid is lined in the same silk and hinged just at one side with a couple of large beads to show where to lift it – it doesn’t need to fasten. The gold braid around the edges was hand-stitched (recognise it from the Christmas Angel?) and I twisted some embroidery floss to make the ‘stay’.

It won first prize!

Base & Beads

Fan

Fan & Foliage

Floss Stay

Lid

Base

Beads

Silk Lining

Leafy Box

Leafy Box

Another year, another box. This one is my own design again, I drew out the shape of the panel and then embroidered different leaves onto the cream fabric. I kept the card tempates behind the embroidered panels to give it ‘body’ and then lined each one with that lovely paisley fabric. They were stitched together with several strands of embroidery floss in a large stitch which needed to look just as tidy on the inside as the outside! The same floss was used to make the tassel. This ‘box’ is an octagon and each panel is different from the next and, as you can see, the inside has a ring of leaves stitched in there just to make it more special.

I’m ashamed to say that I can’t quite remember what this one won – it did place!

Inside base

Stitching

Another side

Inside

Close-up