Bustle & Sew Magazine Issue 74 March 2017 Sampler

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A Bustle & Sew Publication Copyright Š Bustle & Sew Limited 2017 The right of Helen Dickson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Every effort has been made to ensure that all the information in this book is accurate. However, due to differing conditions, tools and individual skills, the publisher cannot be responsible for any injuries, losses and other damages that may result from the use of the information in this book.

First published 2017 by: Bustle & Sew The Cottage Oakhill Radstock BA3 5HT UK www.bustleandsew.com

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Welcome to the March Issue

Helen xx

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Tips for Stitchers Eyes are one of the most important parts of your softie. Take your time marking their position with glass headed pins and observing them from all sides to make sure they’re level. Their positioning will totally affect your softie’s expression - a common mistake is to place them too high up the head. Be especially sure you’re happy with their position when you’re using safety eyes as, unlike beads, these can’t be snipped off and repositioned.

When you’re stitching them in place take the thread right through the centre of the head and pull fairly tightly so that your beads will sit in small depressions - or your eyes will sit in sockets. This avoids the horrid bug-eyed effect you get when the beads just sit on top of the softie’s head.

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Between this month’s covers …

Tips for Stitchers

Page 4

Miss Matilda Gosling

Page 40

March Almanac

Page 6

Taste of the Season: Spring Onions

Page 43

Let’s Stay Home Banner

Page 8

Daffy-down-Dilly Spring Sunshine

Page 44

Lovely Idea: Magnetic Needle Minders Page 12

Lovely Idea: Mason Jars

Page 47

Meet the Maker: Betty Armitage

Page 13

Work in Progress Pouch

Page 48

Mad as a March Hare?

Page 16

The Countryside in March

Page 51

Applique Leaf Cushion

Page 19

Meet the Artist: Nina Stajner

Page 52

Out and About: Pond Dipping

Page 24

Welcome British Summer Time!

Page 56

Enjoying Vintage Transfers

Page 22

Best Mum in the World Applique

Page 57

Poetry Corner

Page 27

Lovely Idea: Spring Printable

Page 59

Signs of Spring: Muscari in Jug

Page 28

Home Comforts

Page 60

Blast from the Past

Page 31

In the Kitchen: Conversion Tables

Page 61

Fabrics for Applique

Page 32

Templates

Page 62

Rosie’s Recipes: Eggstraordinary!

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March Even if March is still cold, wet and windy - seeming to bring yet more of the same grey winter weather we have been enduring for months, the days are still lengthening and along with this comes birdsong, fattening buds on the trees and all the other signs of spring that we look for eagerly each year. The daffodils in the Lake District that inspired Wordsworth to write would have been his famous verses so long ago of the delicate wild variety rather than the sturdy yellow trumpets that burst into glorious bloom across the land this month.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

I do think that, more than almost anything else, daffodils symbolise our English spring, though that other symbol of the new season, lambs gambolling in the fields comes close as well as the first butterflies of the year that are also beginning to appear.

Whilst we regard March as the first month of spring, astronomically it straddles the seasons as the first twenty days leading up to the equinox belong to winter.

In many respects it’s a month of preparation and anticipation; for farmers it is the sowing season and in the Christian Church the month is largely dominated by the Lenten fast and the approach of Easter. For many birds and animals March is the beginning of their breeding season, and the behaviour of one particular animal this month has given rise to the saying “mad as a March hare.”

The first of the month is of course St David’s Day. St David is the patron saint of Wales and little is known for certain about his life, though he is said to have been the son of a prince or chieftain of Cardigan in Wales, and to have founded several Welsh monasteries.

Customs observed on St David’s Day include the wearing of one of the national symbols of Wales, either a leek in the hatband or a daffodil in the buttonhole.

There has been much debate over the significance of the leek. St David is thought to have instructed his men to wear leeks in battle so that they could be easily distinguished from the enemy, whilst an alternative explanation is simply that leeks, like daffodils, are readily available at this time of year. It was formerly customary on 1 March for villagers to help out any neighbours who hadn’t been able to finish their ploughing before the end of February and each would bring a contribution, often in the form of a leek, to the communal meal that would be enjoyed at the end of a hard day’s work.

International Women’s Day falls on the eighth and this year the theme is #BeBoldForChange . This day was established at the International Socialist Women’s Conferencein Copenhagen in 1910, and in the early years its aims were the promotion of women’s rights and the achievement of universal suffrage.

Closer to home, by the middle of the month the hedgerows around our village are beginning to bloom, decked with first blackthorn blossom (which often heralds a cold snap), followed by hawthorn, and, later in the season, wild honeysuckles and dog roses. At the base of the hedges you can see fresh green growth - the bright green of young nettle tips is particularly prominent, though you will also see violets, primroses and again, later in the season, bluebells will begin to appear.

Walking quietly along a hedge as dusk falls, listening to the rustling of small creatures and the final notes of birdsong, whilst smelling the fresh scents of damp earth and new-growing plants gives a sense like nothing else can of nature preparing for a new growing season ahead.

Windy and dry weather in March is generally considered to be a good thing, hence the saying goes …

“March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.”

But it must be admitted that very often March isn’t at all a pleasant month, as the Canadian writer and

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broadcaster Garrison Keillor remarked in 1991…

“March is the month that God designed to show those who don’t drink what a hangover is like.”

But, whatever the weather, we can be cheered by the celebration of Mothering Sunday here in the UK. This falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent - between 1 March and 4 April depending upon the date of Easter Sunday itself. This year Mothering Sunday falls on 26 March.

Originally the day was marked by processions to the mother church of the diocese. When these were discontinued, it became a day on which young people working away from home, for example in domestic service, would return to visit their mothers, traditionally bearing a gift of Simnel cake. This is a rich fruit cake filled and decorated with twelve balls of marzipan placed on the top. These represent the months of the year or, if the cake is baked for Easter instead, eleven balls represent the apostles minus Judas Iscariot.

Today we more usually refer to Mother’s Day - a name imported from the US where it falls in May, during WW2.

Mothers receive cards and gifts from their children, and sometimes breakfast in bed as well!

On the last Sunday in March clocks throughout the United Kingdom, and other countries within Europe too, are put forward by one hour to take maximum advantage of the longer daylight hours. The change officially occurs at 1 am Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which then becomes 2 am British Summer Time (BST).

And finally, the first ever London Marathon was run on 29 March 1981. Some 6,700 participants (less than a third of those who had applied to take part) set off on a typically wet English day to run the 26 mile route from Greenwich Park to Buckingham Palace and more than 5,300 managed to reach the finish line.

The fastest time recorded on that day was 2 hours 11 minutes and 48 seconds. Since then the London Marathon has gone from strength to strength with an average of 30,000 people taking part each year and huge sums of money have been raised for charity through the efforts of individual competitors.

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Meet Betty Armitage of Make it Betty who loves to stitch, and discover her great new idea: Sketch It, Stitch It Notebooks too!

Hello Betty, and welcome to Bustle & Sew. We’re really looking forward to hearing more about you and Make it Betty, so let’s begin ‌.

How long have you been stitching?

I've been stitching for about two years now. I started off embroidering onto cotton and in a bid to neaten up my lettering I moved onto cross stitch and aida.

I've since realised how creative cross stitch can actually be! Now I'd say I'm 75% cross stitcher and 25% embroiderer.

How did your business begin?

I began sharing my hoop art on Instagram and was getting a really positive reaction, not to mention amassing a whole lot of hoops! I decided to try selling my hoops towards the end of 2015 and give Etsy a go. I dived straight in at the deep end and didn't

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know any other handmade sellers. But thankfully it's such a supportive online and local community and there are so many resources out there to help you out when you get stuck, which I definitely did a few times!

Meet the Maker

#modernembroiderym ovement and #xstitchersofinstagram always full of beautiful and unusual ideas. I also like to text myself funny phrases I overhear or read and store them all in my phone for when I'm ready to sit down for a stitchy evening.

What are your Machine favourite designs?

I love combining phrases with bold geometric backgrounds like in my Play Nice hoop. I also really enjoy being able to add areas of texture with embroidery, as you can see in my Welcome to the Real World hoop. I tend to pick a phrase first and build the design around it and hope a customer might actually want to hang it on their wall!

Where do you find your inspiration?

I find a lot of inspiration from Instagram with the hashtags

embroidery has also been a huge hit on the high street over the past few months, but I don't think it beats the beauty of hand stitching.

What is the best thing about having your own business?

There are so many exciting parts. There's something really special about spending a long time planning and designing an item and then to be able to finally hold it in your hands.

I love seeing people use my Sketch it Stitch it books to design their

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Out and About Now the weather is hopefully beginning to warm up a little, and life is awakening in the countryside around us, it’s a great time to go pond dipping. This is such a fun way for young children to learn about aquatic habitats, the food chain, life cycles and even safety around water too! You’ll be fine with just the basics - a net is the only essential, though a magnifying glass and a white tray filled with water will help you examine your finds more closely. Take care not to disturb the water too much or stir up the mud at the bottom of the pond, swirl your net gently around in the water. Tip anything you catch into the white tray so you can view it with your magnifying glass. You may find water snails, diving beetles, water boatmen, frog and toad spawn and tadpoles too of course - both of the frog and the toad variety!

It goes without saying of course that an adult should always supervise pond dipping and children should always wash their hands thoroughly afterwards.

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Enjoying Vintage Transfers Vintage embroidery patterns have enjoyed a rise in popularity over the last few years, as we’ve all embraced the vintage style and they’re great for embellishing all kinds of household linens – and clothing too! They’ve been available from many, many different companies for well over a hundred years. So whether you're looking for breathtakingly intricate motifs for heirloom embroidery, cute kittens for your pillowcases, or a comical design to enliven your kitchen towels, there's a huge assortment of vintage designs waiting to be rediscovered.

Most companies produced hot-iron transfers that were single-use -the unused pattern had raised ink that transferred to the fabric.

Designs were frequently offered in a choice of blue ink (for white or light fabrics) or yellow (to show up on dark fabrics). Many companies eventually switched to a lighter or "electric" blue that would show up on light and dark fabrics. A flat ink transfer, especially if red, may be a multi-stamp pattern that fades as the transfer is used. But if the flat ink is blue, yellow or green, it's probably a single-use transfer that has been used.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many transfers were perforated patterns. This means that the design was composed of small holes in the paper and transferred to fabric by pouncing pushing powder through the holes. Embroidery designs transferred to linens by rubbing and/or moistening the pattern made a brief early appearance, but the hot iron process quickly became by far the most popular.

The main manufacturers of vintage transfers in the US were Vogart and Aunt Martha's though there were many, many other companies offering designs. Vogart is no longer in business, but their patterns were enormously popular in the mid-20th century. Vogart's history starts in May 1930, when the art needlework manufacturer Vogue Needlecraft Co., Inc., was founded in New York City. Early on it established a licensing agreement with Walt Disney Productions, and in 1932 began selling a series of tinted pillow covers featuring the newly popular cartoon characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Twelve different Disney designs, all labelled "Vogue Art" were added to its standard line of stamped goods. In August 1941 the company was acquired by another NYC art needlework manufacturer, B. Kugel Company, Inc.. From this time the company became known as the "Vogart Company" or "Vogart Co., Inc. Aunt Martha's patterns have also been in production since the 1930s, and are still owned by the same parent company, Colonial Patterns inc. and are particularly well-known for their anthropomorphic vegetables, china and other comical days of the week designs. The continuing popularity of their designs has kept the company in production for decades - some still continue to be produced today.

Magazines such as Needlewoman and Needlecrafts in the UK also offered free hot-iron transfers as inserts to their publications. Some transfer companies have continued until today, but most have ceased trading as the popularity of such work declined in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although less mainstream, the art of embroidery still continued in the later 20th century, though the designs offered reflect the changing tastes of those times - gone are the cute animals - now you find geometric shapes and clean, crisp, uncluttered designs.

Although less mainstream, the art of embroidery still continued in the later 20th century, though the designs offered reflect the changing tastes of those times - gone are the cute animals - now you find geometric shapes and clean, crisp, uncluttered designs. I think it's fair to say that transfers from the mid-20th century are the most widely available and popular today - and you either love them or loathe them.

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A Change in the Year It is the first mild day of March: Each minute sweeter than before, The redbreast sings from the tall larch That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains bare; And grass in the green field

William Wordsworth 12

Blast from the Past The hyacinth in a teacup was one of the first patterns I ever created for Bustle & Sew and the snowdrops in their stripy Cornishware jug followed a few years later. Now I’ve added a third to the set I thought you might perhaps enjoy these two designs as well.

Just CLICK HERE to download the pattern. (Full publication only)

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Collecting and Using Fabrics for Applique

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Rosie’s Eggstraordinary Recipe Corner!

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● Remove all temporary fabric marker lines.

● Now add the embroidery. Use two strands of floss and simply randomly add straight stitches, perhaps loosely placing them as if they were flowers and leaves depending on how the floss colours work out as you stitch.

● Miss Matilda Gosling is now finished!

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Daffy-down-Dilly: Golden Spring Sunshine!

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Meet Nina an aspiring illustrator and graphic design graduate. Nina loves to illustrate tender, whimsical and furry cute animals in a soft and delicate manner. When she isn’t making art she loves to travel, wander, explore nature, daydream, bake, ride her bike, do yoga, make dreamcatchers and find beauty in simple things.

Hello Nina, I’m so excited that you’re here.

I love your work and also the different ways in which you use it.

Can you tell us a little about your creative background? How did you get started?

I have been a doodler practically my whole life.

As a kid I loved to drew, paint and create things.

So I guess it started back than without me realizing. Even through teenage years the passion to create didn't fade. It got more "serious" when I had to prepare for an entrance examination at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. Then I started taking drawing, creating and designing more seriously because I decided I was going to study something creative and I needed to get into it a bit deeper. It was sort of a challenge - being accepted (because a lot of people applied). So I

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had to put a lot of effort in.

After I got a little bored of portraits, human figure, fruit bowls and such, I started drawing from my imagination, illustrating cute joyful animals and other whimsical things - that was sort of "my world".

I knew that was it …and I still enjoy every step of the process. After graduating I started freelancing and accepted mostly illustration related projects.

Meet the Maker

colours over acrylics. I have them on little ceramic plates - and when the colour dries I just add a bit of water on it and continue painting.

These plates/palettes are there for weeks.

I think gouache and watercolors allow a lot of different effects more/less opaque, light, strong, the line can be loose or detailed. It can be anything you want. I love the freedom of these two mediums.

And coloured pencils are good for doodling, textures, enhancing details.

Can you explain the techniques you use and tell us why they appeal Where do you find to you? creative I love watercolours, your gouache and coloured inspiration? pencils. I usually mix - it depends on what I want, or which shade I want. I have everything on my desk and I just pick something that feels good at the moment. Very intuitive.

But I prefer water based

Nature, travels, picture books and sketching. I often start scribbling and immediately get ideas. Tons of them.

And when I paint I usually have an idea what I want to do next.

Nina uses her beautiful whimsical illustrations in so many different ways!

Home Comforts Now is the time for planning summer colour in your garden as it’s time to get back outside and prepare your borders for sowing bedding plant seeds.

A sketchbook and a basic palette of watercolour paints will allow you to play around with colours and textures - and eventually to devise a scheme that will fill your borders with colour and scent throughout the summer months and beyond.

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