Kasia’s Weekly Threads - Issue 69
Welcome!
Here’s a whole new way of connecting together every week!
For months I’ve been thinking about how to bring you the Weekly Threads so that we can connect better and so that, as many of you have asked, the publications are easy to find and you can read and reread old copies.
The format stays the same so we still do the “Close Up” the “Maker Of The Week” and “From The Tribe”, but now I can also include more of my own personal stories, more images and the best thing is that you can easily leave a comment below, no need to log in. I’ll reply, other’s will reply, you can ask questions, give feedback or just say hello!
Think of this as your weekly magazine with connections.
I hope to inspire you with project ideas and share useful tips and techniques for your embroidery work. To entertain and bring you joy through my own personal life stories. To share your work so others around the globe can see what your beautiful hands have made.
Thank you for being here. I hope you love it.
xxx
Story time
A few weeks back I said I would tell you about how my grandmother Helena kept her tiny flat immaculately tidy and well organised.
It would be dismissive to say that the reason it was so tidy was because it was small and she owned few things compared to what we own today. I’ve lived small and owned not that much, but immaculate is not what I would have ever called my house.
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Helena was a woman of purpose.
Purpose while hanging up a tea-towel onto the oven handle, smoothing it out and making sure both sides hung evenly.
Purpose when wrapping boiled cabbage leaves around perfectly formed clumps of rice and mince meat when making gołąbki (cabbage rolls). Purpose when her bent arthritic fingers guided the fabric under her pedal powered sewing machine.
Even though I was little when visiting her place during school holidays, the order and calm that permeated her home was not lost on me. She did things in an unhurried manner and seemed to only ever do one thing at a time.
As though the thing that needed to be done next didn’t even exist yet.
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Her rubbish bin routine was something to behold. I know that sounds absurd, but you’ll see what I mean.
Of course as a kid I wasn’t in awe of it. It was just another matter of fact thing that my grandmother did. But seeing her now, inside my memories and through my adult eyes it’s really something else.
And it’s not even that it was the thing that she was doing but the manner in which she carried herself with grace and calm as though nothing in the world ever bothered her.
Which I imagine was far from true for a woman who lived in Poland through WW2.
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The rubbish bin was a metal bucket, one of the ones with the rattly metal handle and wooden grip at the top. She would line it with old newspapers that were kept in a neat pile near the front door.
(I feel like I should also add here that those were not JUST old newspapers. They joined the pile after she read them, filled in the crosswords and folded them neatly to be used again.)
Each newspaper sheet was folded in a special way and the sheets were placed in rotating diagonal order so that the bucket ended up being perfectly lined.
When it was full, she would take another sheet and kind of twist it and cover the top so that while carrying it outside you would never know it was full of rubbish.
As if that wasn’t enough, before going to take the bin out, she would take off her apron, pat her wavy pinned hair into place, put on lipstick and then take out the rubbish.
There’s no need to describe in detail about how tidy and ordered her flat was, or give you specifics of her cleaning routines. I bet you can imagine the rest. The thing that’s worthy of attention is the way she honoured even the most mundane tasks.
I imagine now that every item in her home would have felt special to live with her and be taken care of by her. If teacups, rugs, scissors or stools could have thoughts and feelings I bet they would have loved living with Helena.
I think about my grandmother often especially when I get the urge to organise and tidy up.
I don’t know about you but when my surroundings are organised and neat I feel a sense of peace and calm. And when I feel stressed or anxious about something, if I do a quick tidy up it actually makes me feel better inside even if it has nothign to do with the cause of the anxiety.
Close Up
Since we’re on the topic of simplicity and care, I thought I would share my solution for lots of scraps of embroidered fabrics and small unfinished projects.
You may have seen this before, because it’s one of my favourite projects, and such a great solution to a common problem of unfinished bits. I’ve got several more of these already lined up and will be making them over the next few weeks.
Below is my collection of tests, unfinished projects and demo pieces from teaching classes.
While this pile was still small it didn’t bother me, but as it grew I realised I didn’t just want to leave it, or throw out these pieces but it was way too much work to turn each one into a separate project. And no way was I going to be finishing each one off individually.
I cut up all the small pieces without much thought into any kind of design. As you can see the shapes are random and not symmetrical. I used the bigger pieces as the backgrounds and decided on a shape and size for each “page” of a soft book that these would be sewn into.
I sewed the small pieces on top of the big pieces using my sewing machine. Then I turned them into soft pages by sewing them back to back. Finally I made a cover that was just made out of a large piece big enough to wrap around the front and the back of the soft book. I hand stitched the spine sewing the pages and the cover together.
I made a three minute video of the process if you’d like to see it in action, you’ll find it here.
Maker Of The Week
- BRONWYN STACEY -
On Tuesday this week Bronwyn joined my monthly fellowship group where we meet at my home once a month for embroidery, chats and…. cake.
I’ve seen Bronwyn’s work before as she’s been to my classes and lives nearby. Below are two of her quilts that she made from my printed quilt collection. I remember the first time I saw the blue one with the mustard border I was in love! Her colour choices for the fabrics on both quilts were stunning.
Bronwyn says she is not a quilter, in the traditional and technical sense. Fair call, neither am I technically, although I have a few of my own hand made quilts. But the result of these two beauties goes to show that you don’t need to be a professional quilter to achieve fabulous results.
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Both the quilts are made by the addition of the borders and backing fabric. The centre squares are all in one piece and stitched through the layers to create the quilted look. There is no wadding inside so these are what I believe referred to as a “coverlet”. Beautifully embroidered, gorgeous choices of additional fabrics and both beautifully finished.
Amazing work Bronwyn!
From The Tribe
We are happily moving month to month in The Wednesday Tribe. The below photos are just a few of the finished pieces of our June pattern. Everyone does as little or as much as they want. The patterns are completed in their entirety, broken up into smaller chunks or re-arranged into a different look. The creativity and inventiveness of the members makes my heart sing!
Our July pattern was a symmetrical floral layout with a focus on buttonhole stitch as a filling stitch. Below is a version in pink by Clarinda, and next to it is my original that I presented to the tribe in yellows on an orange background fabric. I always love seeing colour variations especially because I am quite limited in how much I am able to produce over one month.
Since I usually do two colour variations for each months design, it’s very exciting for me to see the patterns emerging in different colours.
Note that Clarinda also cleverly changed the top and bottom flowers to give her design a more elongated look.
And while we’re on the topic, if you’re part of the Wednesday Tribe and are missing any past patterns, flick me an email and I’ll send them right over.
Till next week!
I’m nervously holding my breath in anticipation of what you think of this new format.
The main reason I moved it here from inside the inboxes is because you will easily be able to find past issues here, search for topics and categories and of course, leave comments below.
Also, I haven’t forgotten that it’s been three weeks since my last newsletter to you, and I have photos from my time away.
Johnny and I had a wonderful holiday away in our new camper trailer. We explored the east coast of Australia about 800km north of Sydney.
We saw whales migrating, koalas in the wild and put the camper through rigorous rain testing on the first two night. Geeeez there was a lot of rain!! We had an amazing time seeking out camp sites as wild as they came and away from civilisation.
Enjoy the photos, leave me a comment!
Lots of love and catch you next week.
Kasia xxx
P.S. see that orange half circle thing I’m holding? I bet you can’t guess what that is.
