What I call a stall

When I spied the Judith Mansfield Books stand at the Knitting & Stitching Show in the pretty northern spa town of Harrogate this weekend, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven...

Just a teeny part of the stall

Packed with secondhand books and magazines about sewing, knitting, crochet, weaving, embroidery, cross stitch and printing, not to mention the boxes of old sewing patterns, this was a vintage craft book collector's dream come true.

Wonderwall

Or it would have been if I'd not been working. I was hoping for an hour off from teaching workshops to have a proper rummage, but my classes were all booked up and all I could manage was a dash to Judith's stand just as the show was closing. Judith herself wasn't there but I had a chat to her husband, who told me they don't have a website or sell online, but they do have a seven-day-a-week stall at the Hebden Bridge Antiques Market I feel a special trip back to Yorkshire coming on!

Knitting in Iceland

Rainbow-coloured unspun wool for sale at the Handknitting Association

I've just (reluctantly) returned from my favourite place in the world – the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, a paradise of beautiful friendly people, hot spring baths, smoked salmon breakfasts and midnight sun (not to mention delicious cocktails and homemade gin).

A pile of lopi sweaters, handknitted by Icelandic sheep. Or something

Icelanders just sort of seem to have their priorities right and, as you might expect in a country where cosy woollen clothing is a year-round necessity, and to describe the winters as long, dark and cold is an huge understatement, knitting is BIG here. 

The doorway to a knitter's paradise

Tucked up a side road off Laugavegur, the sweet main shopping street, on the way to the cathedral is The Handknitting Association of Iceland shop. Step through its humdrum front door, head to the back room and you'll be dazzled by floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with characteristic Icelandic lopi sweaters, each one a unique colour, pattern and size. Fashioned from Icelandic sheep wool by local women (and men?), it seems everyone in the country owns at least one of these super-warm circular-yoked sweaters – and what better place to buy one?

Mitten display at the National Museum of Iceland

The next day we paid a visit to the National Museum of Iceland. Partway through finding out all about the country's history and after marvelling at the rest room with an inviting single bed you can have a quick lie down on if you feel fatigued looking at the exhibits, we stumbled upon an area devoted to knitting. It was small and mainly consisted of colourful mittens displayed in a cute 'holding hands' arrangement. 

Hands up who loves these two beautiful pairs of embroidered rose mittens

Thence to the museum shop. I was so very tempted to buy these beautiful embroidered rose mittens but they cost 9500 ISK (£50) and, as I already have Icelandic mittens from my last trip, I made do with a photo – alongside a 'Happy summer' postcard, which I also regret not buying!

I have so much to learn about Icelandic textiles and I'd particularly like to find out more about the saumaklúbbur, or sewing clubs, that I've heard all Icelandic women belong to. If anyone knows anything about these, I'd love to hear it in the comments!

Bæ bæ Reykjavik, til next time!

Number 73

All that's missing is a bike chained to the railings

I love the way blackwork, the monochrome counted-thread technique that was all the rage way back in fifteen-hundred-and-something, can look so modern, like a pen and ink illustration – and the patchwork effect of areas of different black and white geometric patterns side by side.

In Creative Needlecraft (Sundial Books 1979), author Lynette de Demme had the brilliant idea of depicting one house in blackwork (above) and in three other stitching techniques:

Colour embroidery, blackwork and a bit of applique

To me, no73 looks just like some of the grand Victorian houses around Highgate, north London...

Gritty realism in applique

I'd love to see these lined up together as if they were neighbouring houses on the same street.

Close up on the drawn fabric work version

How nice the way the qualities of each technique emphasise different features of the building – the drainpipe, the balcony, the tiled front steps and three square decorative panels towards the top of the house.

If you'd like to sew your own house in black and white, you'll find a basic guide to blackwork here, and part 2 here.

Happy new year!

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy, crafty and prosperous 1958 2013! Thank you for reading – I'll be so 'glad if you can make it' for more of the same over the next 12 months and beyond – cheers!

1950s Swedish stitchery

*UPDATE! To see more images from this book, check out my new post More Swedish Stitchery*

Victor Pettersons Bokindustr Aktiebolag, Stockholm 1954

I picked up this sweet 1954 Swedish sewing book, Hemslöjdens Hardarbeten at Greenwich Clocktower Market this morning. I don't understand a word of it – even the title, which appears to translate as 'Handiwork Handicraft'.

But who cares – look at the pictures!

Square sunflower

White on black

Lovebirds

Horses under a strawberry tree

A sudden burst of colour

Peacock pairs

Chapman's clipper

Just wanted to share that with you!

*UPDATE! To see more images from this book, check out my new post More Swedish Stitchery* 

I *heart* needlepoint

Happy Valentine's Day! My gift to you is this heart-motif needlepoint belt:



I love the way the three hearts (repeated twice on the way round) are all different.
The pattern came from here:



And here's the belt in action:



It's a good first project if you're new to the ladylike art of needlepoint, so if you want to make like a character in a Jane Austen novel and give it a go, click here, here and here to find
out how.

Put a bird on it

OK so I know the putting-birds-on-everything trend is a little, shall we say, old (foxes are the new birds apparently). But there are flocks of our feathered friends just desperate to be set free from my craft book library. So this week I'm going to get at least one bird a day off my bookshelves and up onto the blog. 

First, take a few moments to feast your eyes upon this pretty cross stitch robin on the cover of the Vogue Embroidery Book:



And he's not just any old robin. According to the description inside, he's a Gay redbreast



I can't see a year of publication in this lovely Vogue booklet, but I am guessing it's from the 1930s. It's even still got some of the original transfers inside.

Oh and watch this, it's funny!