Upcycling Coffee, Coffee Packaging & Coffee Pods

Hippystitch Coffee Themed Notebooks

 

Over the summer (July, August & September) I led a series of Stitch Clubs at York Embroiderers and Stitchers (YES). YES are a are a friendly group of stitch and textile enthusiasts of all levels of ability and experience and I am a member.

The Stitch Clubs were initially inspired by some work I did in the YES Travelling Book. The Travelling Book is a book that members of the group add to every month with samples of whatever work they choose. It may be examples of stitched work but it could be mixed media work or something else. For my pages, I decided I would go with the theme of "using the unusual" and to narrow that down a bit I chose coffee as a linking factor. I used colourful coffee packaging, used coffee pods, and leftover coffee as paint. You can read about it here. This inspired me to run a stitch club on a similar theme.  

We started off using coffee painting, coffee packaging and stitch to create some notebooks...

Coffee Painting

It was great to watch everyone's progress and different designs...

Stitch Club Participants' Work
(Top from left - Jane, Jill.  Middle - Tina, Eileen, Maggie. Bottom - Pauline, Liz B, Elaine)

And to see some of the ingenious completed outcomes...

Judith's Notebook Complete with Pocket

More Completed Notebooks (Liz(L),(C - clockwise from top left) Marina, Andrea, Jill, Michele, Elaine(R))

After we'd finished making notebooks we moved on to a stitch coffee pod flower collage...

Hippystitch Coffee Pod Flower Collages

which involved a bit of practising cutting, hammering and squishing to get coffee pods into the desired shapes...

Diane, Jill and Andrea's Stitched Coffee Pod Collages

and resulted in some fab collages and some new ideas for flowers and embellishments. All in all - great fun!

Our house, in the middle of our street - is it Madness?

Our house, in the middle of our street

The answer is "No," it's not anything to do with the Madness song, but it is "Our house, in the middle of our street" - a stitched version for the York Embroiderers and Stitchers (YES) ARCHITEXTURE exhibition in June 2025 (more details here.)

Pattern Piece

I thought I'd just say a little about the making of "Our house". The construction was inspired by a friend's card, which was a flower that stood up on a base. I used this idea for the basic shape and made a paper pattern. I cut the base shape out of pelmet vilene. Then using fabric and Colour Catchers, which you put in with your washing to stop colours running into other clothes, I cut out the basic shapes of a simplified version of my house. I always save Colour Catchers as they come out of the wash all sorts of colours! These were then added to the base using Bondaweb, a double-sided iron-on adhesive web which is attached to a transfer paper.

Back & Front, Before & After Machine Stitching

The whole thing was then machine stitched to make sure none of the pieces came off. To emphasise the windows at the front, I added 2 strands of Anchor soft cotton which I couched down.  I also added some detail to the door to reflect the panelling and the door furniture.  Then to cover the edges of the front path, I added french knots and drizzle stitch for interest.

Window detail before and after couching and extra door detail

Path Edge Detail - French Knots & Drizzle Stitch

Our House - Layout

Finally I made a couple of chairs from the wires off sparkling wine corks and a table from a tin base and a bobbin to go at the back of the house and "Our house, in the middle of our street" was complete.

Back of the house with table and chairs

I did have to add a cardboard support up the middle as the pelmet vilene wasn't quite stiff enough to hold the house upright and added some velcro dots to hold it together.  The tree and the shrub were added, which made the piece more stable as well as reflecting some of the plants in my garden.  I think you'd recognise it as "Our house".

Do come along and see all the buildings that will form a central display at the YES ARCHITEXTURE exhibition.

Stumpwork or Raised Embroidery - A First Attempt

 

My finished stumpwork pincushion

I am a member of the York Embroiderers & Stitchers, who are a friendly group of stitch and textile enthusiasts of all levels of ability and experience. Recently, Annie Smith has led a series of stitch clubs to teach some of us how to do stumpwork.  

Stumpwork is a type of raised embroidery that was popular in England in the 17th Century.  At the time it was called raised embroidery or embossed work.  The term stumpwork has only been used since the end of the 19th century.  Typical scenes might include a castle, stag, lion, birds, butterflies, fruit, flowers, and a number of figures sometimes positioned beneath a canopy.  Kings, queens and mythical or biblical figures were often depicted. The technique can use wire, threads of various sorts, padding, beads, needlelace and other materials. Much of the detail is applied to a base fabric.

We were going to make a small pin cushion using our chosen design which meant we needed both a back and a front that would eventually be stitched together.  Annie had brought lots of examples of her work to show us...

Annie Smith's Stumpwork examples

First, we began by tracing some design elements onto our top fabric.  We used pens that were heat or water erasable, so that the lines could be removed when required. Annie had provided plenty of designs to choose from.  I chose oak leaves and acorns.  We then hooped up double layers of fabric into our embroidery hoops.  I used a fine cotton for the top and calico for the underneath layer.  Annie showed us how to attach some wire to the fabric to outline our design and how to fill the shapes in.  My first two oak leaves were wired and then filled in with long and short stitch.  I also stitched three acorns using French knots for the acorn cup and long and short stitch for the acorn itself.  These would be cut out and applied to our overall design once they were finished...

Acorns and wired leaves in progress

Once the wired leaves were completed they were cut out very close to the stitching being careful not to cut into the stitching.  The cream edges could be colored in with a felt tip to stop them being noticeable when they were added to the design...

Acorns and wired leaves finished and ready to cut out

Next, it was necessary to stitch three more oak leaves that would form the basis of the design. The outline and leaf centre line were backstitched and then the leaf was filled in with long and short stitch like the wired leaves had been...

Oak leaves form the basis of this design

Time to add the acorns!  These were cut out with some excess fabric round the edge which was stitched round and drawn up like a Suffolk puff before stitching the acorns in place...

Oak leaves and acorns in approximate finished location

Once I had added my acorns and the two wired leaves to the design, I took inspiration from Annie's acorn pieces and added some beads and some twigs and berries using French knots and stem stitch...

Front of my pin cushion

I decorated the back of my pin cushion with different sizes of star stitch using a variegated thread...

Rear of my stumpwork pin cushion

Once the two sides were stitched together it was time to add some decorative fly stitch to the edge...

Decorated pincushion edge

Front of my stumpwork pin cushion 

Now it's all ready to add my pins! (see first image)

Broderie Perse with York Embroiderers and Stitchers

My Broderie Perse Piece (detail)

 

I am a member of the York Embroiderers & Stitchers, who are a friendly group of stitch and textile enthusiasts of all levels of ability and experience.  At our April meeting, Chris Small led an afternoon workshop in Broderie Perse. Broderie Perse (French for "Persian embroidery"), popular in the late 18th and 19th Centuries, is a style of appliqué which uses printed motifs from one fabric, usually flowers or birds, to create a design on a plain background fabric. Traditionally it used chintz fabric, which was expensive at the time.  This fabric could be made to go further if the motifs were carefully cut out and applied to a plain background as a central motif or border and handstitched in place, such as on a quilt top.

We were provided with a vast array of fabrics to choose from...

Flowered Fabrics

together with a choice of background fabrics and some finished examples...

Broderie Perse Examples

and then it was time to get going.  Here's an idea of what my starting fabrics looked like...

Fabrics I Chose for My Broderie Perse

I chose two flowery fabrics and intended to make a vase of flowers design on my mushroom coloured background fabric.  As I cut out rather a lot of flowers I decided to use bondaweb to attach them to my background fabric and then machine stitch them in position as hand stitching would have taken a lot of time and the fabrics were likely to fray...

Broderie Perse Design Bonded to Background Fabric

Broderie Perse Design Machine Stitched in Place

I then decided to add some handstitch to embellish the piece...

Lots of French Knots

French Knots, Stem Stitch, Straight Stitch, Chain Stitch & More

and so the finished piece looked like this...

Broderie Perse Embellished with Hand Embroidery

It was a fun technique - thanks Chris & YES!

Stitched Postcards for York Embroiderers and Stitchers

Woven bee with knitted wire wings

I am a member of York Embroiderers and Stitchers who are a friendly group of stitch and textile enthusiasts of all levels of ability and experience. We meet monthly at Haxby Memorial Hall near York. Over recent months there has been a stitched postcard project that I chose to be part of. We have been split into groups of six and have made postcards for the other members of our group.  This means we have each made 5 postcards for group members. Now all of the postcards have been distributed I thought I would share with you the 5 postcards I made. The theme for the postcards was Wings which could be real, imagined or abstract.

My first postcard featured a handstitched bird inspired by Scandinavian folk art and uses backstitch, fly stitch, double cross stitch and chain stitch.  I'd designed this stitched postcard for a workshop several years ago. (You can read about it here.)  It was nice to stitch it again and choose different threads.

Handstitched Scandi Folk Art Bird Postcard

I tried to match my postcards stamps to the subject on the front where possible...

Bird stamp for a bird postcard

For my second postcard I chose an aeroplane for a different set of wings...

Plane Postcard

Here I handstitched onto a photocopy of a plane using fly stitch for the wings (very appropriate, I thought) and also included some machine stitching.  I managed to find a plane stamp too...

Plane stamp

My third postcard was for our December meeting and so it seemed appropriate to stitch an angel...

Angel postcard

This angel has an embellished body, sheer fabric sandwich wings, pewter charms, beaded hair on khadi paper painted with watercolours and torn envelope clouds plus a typewritten angel banner. I also managed to find an angel stamp...

Angel stamp

In January, we had to have something metal on our postcards so I decided to knit some wire wings for my bee...

Bee postcard

The bee has a woven body.  The background is watercolour on khadi paper with some handstitched flowers and a bit of swirly homemade felt and a bee stamp for the reverse...

Bee stamp

The final postcard for our February meet-up featured a felt butterfly, appliqued and embroidered on a watercolour painted khadi paper background, flying through some handstitched appliqued felt flowers...

Butterfly postcard

with a butterfly stamp on the reverse...

Butterfly stamp

And of course it wouldn't be the whole story if I didn't share with you the postcards I received....

Whitby Abbey at Halloween on hand-dyed fabric is the subject of Annie's postcard. Check out the bats...

Whitby Abbey - Annie Smith

A lovely combination of peach and grey stitching makes up Pauline's Nuthatch...

Nuthatch - Pauline Twyman

Nicky has produced a beautiful blackwork angel...

Angel - Nicky Brunger

Judith uses paint and stitch for this delicate butterfly and flowers postcard...

Butterfly & Flowers - Judith Johnson

Nadine made this super mixed media bee postcard with lots of info about the scissor bee which is the smallest bee species in Britain...

Mixed Media Bee - Nadine Paver

It was great fun to join in and it was all organised by the amazing Chris Beavers, one of our members.  You can see everyone's postcards here on instagram or facebook.  Why not get in touch and come and join YES?

Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

Hare Today
Gone Tomorrow

I have been making a hare for quite a long time.  I learned the wirework armature technique at a workshop with Jo Smith in summer 2021.  

Preparing the hare armature

I didn't finish making all the armature body parts at the workshop but I did finish them quite soon after...

Hare Armature Body Parts 

Then they languished for quite a time until spring 2022 when I finished preparing them for the next phase...

The fire pit part

which involved fire in my old barbecue (which we'd used as a fire pit and still had some wood in) and lots of newspaper to keep the fire going.  The fire burnt off all the support for the wire leaving just the wire structure.  It took quite a long time but then I had all the parts...

I finally wired them together to make the completed hare armature...

Completed armature

Then came the task of partly covering my hare in fabric which I stitched on. It became much easier once I started using a curved needle...

Using a curved needle made stitching easier 

His paws have a bit of stitched detail and he is partly covered in a collage of stitched fabrics... 

He is only part stitched as I wanted some of the wire to be visible.  His stitched half is standing on some knitted grass with stitched dandelions and his wire half on a bare brick.  He could represent the present and the future if the destruction of the environment takes hold or he could just be showing how he is made - the interpretation is yours.

My Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow exhibit will be on display at the York Embroiderers & Stitchers(YES) exhibition  "A Celebration of Stitch" at the end of June 2022 - details here.   Do come along and see him for real!