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Welcome to the April Issue Welcome to the April issue I’ve been super-busy putting this issue together - we seem to have packed so much between this month’s covers! Inside, as well as six new Bustle & Sew projects, ranging from (by special request) a faux taxidermy Flamingo Head, through to a congratulatory embroidery to celebrate HM the Queen’s ninetieth birthday, you’ll discover two lovely recipes from Debbie, meet two incredibly talented makers (one of whom worked on dress, as well as articles, features and much more besides. I do hope you’ll enjoy it all! The May issue will be published on Thursday 28 April so please do look out for it then. Meanwhile I hope you have a very happy month with lots of time for stitching! Best wishes
Helen xx
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Tips for Stitchers Always take plenty of time to remove soluble stabilisers and/or waste canvas. Waste canvas does need to be well soaked and if you are experiencing difficulties removing the threads, then soak again, don’t pull hard and risk distorting your work. And be sure to rinse any fabri solvy well away as any ink remaining on small fragments may bleed into your background fabric and spoil your work.
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Between the Covers … Tips for Stitchers
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April Almanac
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Butterfly Cushion
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A Hoopful of Butterflies
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Planting a Butterfly Garden
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Lovely Idea: Apothecary Jar Printables
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Fine Cell Work: Stitching behind Bars
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In the Kitchen: Rhubarb Chutney
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So Deer to Me Hoop
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Jessica Robinson
Pegging out the Washing
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Meet the Maker: Jacqui Brook
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Making your own Butter
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Fine stitching, and being asked to contribute to wedding dress!
Ralph the Labradoodle Puppy
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A Life in Glass: Unicorn Stained Glass
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Lovely Idea: Cuddly Sock Softies
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Quilting with Organic Cottons
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Pin the Tail on the Bunny
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Poetry Corner
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The Secrets of Perfect Pressing
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Lovely Idea: Pom Pom Wall Hanging
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Kiss Winter Goodbye: Tulips
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Debbie Thomson
Flamingo Trophy Head
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In the Kitchen: Banana Cake
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Meet the Maker: Jessica Robinson
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April’s Favourite Blogs
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Keeps us very well organised, as well as researching some lovely features and creating our new “In the Kitchen” series
Happy Birthday Ma’am Embroidery
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Home Comforts
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April Calendar
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In the Kitchen: Conversion Tables
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Templates
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Contributors Jacqui Brook Tells us about her lifelong passion for fine textiles and her life in France
Katy Emck Taking embroidery behind bars with a look at charitable organisation Fine Cell Work
April This month some of our best loved migratory birds, such as swallows and housemartins, begin to arrive whilst, at the same time, vast flocks of geese, swans and other water fowl begin their long journeys back to their breeding grounds in the Arctic regions. In gardens, hedgerows and woodlands fresh blooms seem to appear almost daily; yellow cowslips and primroses bloom on grassy banks, whilst in shady woodland spots wild garlic, with its distinctive pungent aroma is pushing its way up through the leaf mould and brushwood. On warmer days you may already discover dandelion clocks dispersing their seeds in great fluffs of white on the spring breezes.
Cuckoo Fairs were held annually across the country to celebrate the return of a bird that was believed to bring the fine weather with it. In traditional lore, many strange beliefs were once associated with hearing the cuckoo’s call for the first time. To hear one call in front or to the right of you was considered to be lucky as the Archangel Gabriel was believed to sit as a guardian spirit on the right shoulder. To hear a cuckoo call from the left however was unlucky as Lucifer sat on your left shoulder. An old rhyme states: “The cuckoo comes in April and stays the month of May, sings a song at Midsummer and then it flies away.” This isn’t strictly true however, though we rarely hear it call after June the cuckoo remains with us until August before migrating to the warm winter climate of north Africa.
But April can also bring a late cold snap, so gardeners beware! The countryman’s expression for this time of year is “Beware the Blackthorn Winter.” This is because, although the Blackthorn is in full bloom by now, its pale blossoms are often matched by frost-whitened grass or snow-covered fields.
The 1st is of course April Fool’s Day, observed in England and elsewhere since the midseventeenth century when practical jokes generally took the form of sending gullible victims in search of some impossible to find or non-existent item such as elbow grease or pigeon’s milk. Traditionally the joking ends at midday and anyone “fooled” after this time is entitled to respond “April Fool’s Day’s past and
The familiar call of the cuckoo, though less common in recent years, is heard in April and over the centuries has come to be viewed as the heralding voice that announces Spring’s final triumph over the cold winter months.
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This picture shows the different stages of stitching your butterflies. On the left you can see the fabric shapes - notice how I swooped down to cut between the wings so that the body would sit nicely on top. The centre butterflies show how I positioned the sticky fabri solvy on top of my shapes to give me guide lines for my machine stitching. Finally on the far right you can see the stitched butterflies. The lines look heavy as I haven’t yet dissolved away the fabri solvy.
Bonus Pattern - A Hoopful of Butterflies Sharp-eyed readers may recognise the butterfly template I used from my “Hoopful of Butterflies” pattern of two years ago. If you’d like to make your own hoop, then please just CLICK HERE to download the full pattern. PS A butterfly would make a lovely springtime brooch too. xx
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Creating a Butterfly Garden
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Look! a lovely idea
Make any old jar into something special with these beautiful printable labels that Lauren has generously shared for free over on her blog
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Printable Apothecary Jar Labels
Tutorial available from Bkesserhouse : Printable Apothecary Jar Labels 8
“Fine Cell Work has given me back my sense of pride in myself, my self-esteem and self-worth.� Fine Cell Work is a British charity and social enterprise that trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework undertaken in the long hours spent in their cells to foster hope, discipline and self esteem. This helps them to connect to society and to leave prison with the confidence and financial means to stop offending. The Fine Cell Work programme takes the prisoners through three grades of stitching proficiency and they all learn canvas work, embroidery and quilting. Fine Cell work was the brainchild of Lady Anne Tree, a visitor to HMP Holloway women's prison in the 1960s. She had worked with two long-term prisoners on intricate needlepoint carpets which were subsequently sold as collectors' items in New York. Lady Anne felt that the women who had put so much hard work into the pieces should be able to earn money from their work, and so she became determined to establish an organisation in which prisoners
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Katy Emck could learn a skill to the highest level and be paid for their efforts. Lady Anne cited two reasons for focusing on needlepoint for her campaign. Her mother-in-law, Nancy Lancaster, owned the interior designers Colefax and Fowler, so "I had the possibility to sell good-quality needlework for good prices through shops." She was also convinced that sewing was therapeutic: "It is meditative, a way of thinking, of taking stock." After decades of lobbying the Home Office to change the law so that prisoners could earn money from their work she achieved her goal. From its humble beginnings in the mid-1990s - (it originally operated from a bedsit in Bloomsbury) the charity now has 60 volunteers training more than 400 prisoners in 29 prisons across England, Scotland and Wales. Katy Emck was Lady Anne's first employee and helped her turn that original dream into today's reality.
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Pegging out the Washing I’ve always enjoyed pegging out the washing on a bright fresh day. And for me, rather like the daffodils, crocuses and other early blooms, the first time of pegging out laundry after the long tumbledrying season of winter is a sign that spring really has arrived. I remember my mum teaching me the fine art of hanging out laundry - how to fold and where to peg - and I also love creating a pleasing arrangement of items, pegging ditsy florals alongside classic stripes and crisp white sheets, then standing back to watch my “installation” fluttering gently in the breeze. Pegging out washing is such a timeless activity that hasn’t really changed at all in generations, though today we are perhaps less competitive about the whiteness of our whites! And we don’t have smuts from coal-polluted air to ruin the freshness of our wash. Remember the skills of Beatrix Potter’s washerwoman hedgehog Mrs Tiggy-Winkle who was able to return Jenny Wren’s currant-wine-
stained table cloth to its former pristine state - all “lily-white and clean, oh!” Or perhaps you recall the description of the “big wash” in Flora with “sheets Thompson’s and pillow-cases and towels billowing in the wind on a line.” Then, once your washing is dry it can be carefully folded into your basket ready for ironing, though I must confess this is one of my least-favourite household chores. Still there is such pleasure to be had from freshly laundered bed linen that’s been dried outside in which the fragrance of the fresh breeze still lingers, so different to the artificial smell of tumble dried sheets - clean of course, but not nearly so nice to snuggle into at the end of the day. So rather than automatically switch on the dryer, watch for the first drying day of spring, lift up your face to the sun and appreciate the peaceful activity of pegging out the washing for the first time this year.
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“Create and be passionate about what you do experience some “joie de vivre!”
Meet the Maker
Jacqui Brooke talks to us about combining her lifelong passion for fine textiles and time sourcing vintage items to upcycle into her beautiful bespoke pieces for her business Retrocollects Interiors A life long passion for fine textiles, fabric design and a desire to offer high quality, bespoke items at fair and sensible prices is the inspiration behind Retrocollects Interiors….. Before moving to France Jacqui and Ian Brooke, the owners of online business Retrocollects Interiors, had always been involved in creative design. Back in the UK they ran an interiors business, which was allconsuming, perhaps too much so as though they loved the lifestyle, they felt they simply didn’t have time to “smell the roses.” Hence when the time was right the couple upped sticks and moved to France in order to address their work-life balance and embrace a simpler lifestyle. Ever respectful of the time and work that goes into completing a
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needlepoint or piece of embroidery, simply for fashions to change and it join the flotsam and jetsam of an earlier age, they felt so sad that all those beautifully crafted items, such as doilies, embroideries and hand woven linens, that had taken so much of somebody’s life could be lost forever. So now, through Retrocollects Interiors, they create unique, individual pillows & cushions mixing vintage & new fabrics, designing each pillow with great care and attention to detail thereby creating a very special handmade item and giving new life to these endangered vintage pieces. A typical day might involve an early morning dog walk to breathe fresh air and plan the hours ahead. Jacqui takes inspiration from the countryside all around her home and village, enjoying watching the
Ralph the little Labradoodle Puppy Here’s the cutest little labradoodle puppy you’re ever likely to meet - or the best behaved one anyway!! Ralph is 9” tall and is handstitched from a lovely curly woolly faux fur fabric. I’m often asked about the fabrics I use, and for fur my go-to supplier is Neotrims - just click here for a link to the exact same fabric I used for my Ralph. Ralph has safety eyes and this version has a black button nose. His collar features a bright shiny button and his front legs are wired so he sits nice and securely - they don’t have that annoying tendency to splay outwards. ● 12” x 2” strip red cotton fabric for collar
Materials
● 15” flexible garden wire for front legs
● ¼ yard fleecy fabric
● Toy stuffing
● Scraps brown fabric for ear inners and paw pads
● Brown thread I sewed my Ralph entirely by hand as I prefer the control this gives over the final shape. But there’s no reason you couldn’t machine stitch if preferred - a small seam allowance is included in the templates.
● Two 7 mm (3/8 “) black safety eyes ● ½” black button (or safety nose) for nose ● ¾” shiny button for collar
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Organic Fabrics in Quilting
Cuddly Sock Sheep
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