Saturday, April 22, 2017

Spoonflower - Digital Printed Fabric on Demand

Blackwork Fabric Print
Some of you might be familiar with Spoonflower, an on-demand digital printing on fabric company.  You can upload your own designs and choose a fabric from their list and have it printed in quantities as low as a quarter yard.  Or you can choose from designs that people have uploaded and made public (they get a small cut).  What this means is that there are many things out there that you might find useful for fun!

There are many blackwork designs as well as one you just might recognize (Plimoth Jacket).  It can be printed on silk fabric to make a scarf or heavy duck fabric (tote bag anyone?).  You can also buy a small sample to see if you like it on that fabric.

Some people have uploaded these designs to help out those who do reenactments, some using the printed designs for embroidery, such as coifs.

I really wish that we could print on the 40ct Old White linen.  Wouldn't that be amazing!!

Tricia

P.S.  You can get gift wrap in any of these as well!  How cool!

One of the Blackwork Collections

Plimoth Jacket Fabric 


A collection of 17 blackwork designs, many from Trevelyon

Saturday, April 1, 2017

What are You Doing While You Stitch-Along?

Progress was made this week, quite a bit of progress!  But it meant I sat in front of the TV quite a few hours when not packing orders.
Stitching is something we all love, but it is likely that we don't do it in a quiet room.  More likely, we are stitching while talking to someone or listening to something.

When doing a binge session of stitching, I get a bit low on the DVR and rue the day that the reruns have come on for my favorite shows.  PBS is my go-to as I just love documentaries, especially those about history and science.

I wonder what everyone else is watching during their stitching of their casket.  Thought I would put up a list of ideas - many of them on YouTube that anyone around the world can watch.

Masterpiece Theater - Victoria
The Crown - Netflix
How to Get Ahead at Medieval Court/in Renaissance Court/Versailles (3-part series)
A Very British Renaissance (3-part series)
ANYTHING by Lucy Worsley, Curator of Historic Palaces (search her name in You Tube)
A Timewatch History of the Mary Rose
Secret Knowledge - The Hidden Jewels of the Cheapside Hoard 
National Geographic The Gunpowder Plot
When God Spoke English - The Making of the King James Bible

There is a You-Tube channel with about 1500 hours of organized historical documentaries - Herodotus MK2 The Father of History.  I am sure some of this content isn't exactly authorized, so I am going to make my way through quite a bit of it soon working on my stitch-along projects.

Another thing I do is listen to podcasts while I stitch or work packing kits.  My favorite weekly podcast is the "Stuff You Missed in History Class" podcast.  It is just full of interesting topics across world history and this do a good job of exploring much more obscure things that are not only interesting but had impact that effects us today but have been forgotten to history.  So I like that if I just listen to each one, I come upon history of parts of the world that I don't search out normally.

Then there are the audio books.  An author I picked up from my son's required reading last summer is Tom Standage.  He writes books about world history that take an interesting wander.  One was the history of the world in six glasses (the required reading).  Beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and cola.  Cola = Globalization and so on.  Really interesting!  The next one was the history of the telegraph or as he called it, the Victorian Internet.  The parallels were fascinating!   I am interested to listen to his "An Edible History of Humanity" which examines how food has been a catalyst for change.

So I would love to hear how those of you working on the caskets are whiling your time with your mind while your hands are busy!

Tricia