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Category: Embroidery

VW Combi Van Binca Cross Stitch Table Runner – Finished Project

I don’t usually embroider cross stitch but I have fond memories of a binca kit my Mum and Dad once bought for me when we were on our Summer holiday, with red fabric. I was very disappointed when the things I made promptly unravelled, but it was a late 1970’s craft kit for ten year olds, with instructions to match (I.E. lacking in finishing details of any sort)!

On the Monday before Christmas I found a green piece of vintage binca fabric at the op shop,  just like the one from my kit all those years ago, so I brought it home. I immediately knew I wanted to make a Christmas table runner with it, and finished on the 7th. Just in time for Christmas, um, next year 🙂

Cross stitch Christmas table runner with VW vans and snowflakes on vintage binca fabric.
Cross stitch Christmas table runner with VW vans and snowflakes on vintage binca fabric.
Cross stitch Christmas table runner with VW vans and snowflakes on vintage binca fabric.
Cross stitch Christmas table runner with VW vans and snowflakes on vintage binca fabric.

Nothing says “Christmas” quite like a table runner with VW Combi Vans and snowflakes, don’t you think? Our Christmas table cloth is orange, and our favourite Christmas serving bowls are light blue with lobsters on them so it fits our Christmas decor perfectly. As my daughter put it, it’s weird so it’s “us”

It’s stitched entirely with thrifted embroidery threads (I have a problem with “rescuing” almost every discarded embroidery thread I find, so I have a large stash of many different kinds). I made up the border and the snowflakes off the top of my head but the VW van chart comes from Hancock’s House of Happy Blog where you can download it for free, just like I did 🙂

I have some more modern cream binca fabric in my stash that I’m going to have to play with. I was thinking of just having some fun with it and see what I come up with. I’ll let you know what happens!

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Have You Ever Wondered Why Doilies are Called Doilies?

Bluebell cloth from the Book of Good Needlework Number Four
Bluebell cloth from the Book of Good Needlework Number Four

From Dorcas Magazine, New York, February 1885

The word doily, now a familiar one with fashionable ladies, had, by the way, a curious origin. It is derived from the name of Robert D’Oyley, one of the followers of William the Norman. He received a grant of valuable lands on the condition of the yearly tender of a tablecloth of three shillings’ value at the feast of St. Micheal. Agreeable to the fashion of the time, the ladies of the D’Oyley family were accustomed to embroider and ornament the quit-rent table-cloths; hence these cloths becoming curiosities, and, accumulating in the course of years, were at length brought into use at the royal table and called doilies.
L.B.S.

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Flickr.com is a Dangerous Place


Ponto Fofoca ou Ponto Origami?, originally uploaded by Carla Cordeiro Artes.

I had planned on playing with my singercraft tool last night but I was overwhelmed with curiosity about this technique and how it’s done. So me and my investigating feet* went on a little hunt.

The text with Carla’s photo is in Portuguese and I don’t speak Portuguese so I started (and ended) by looking in the bible of fabric squishing The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff. There it was, in the chapter on smocking. Apparently this is called north American (or Canadian) smocking and is the flower design.

I had a go, and since I’m English and I really love the vintage gingham I was using, I had a go at English smocking too.

I really love the top design in the English smocking sample that I did (the diamonds). It has both a pleasing geometry and a lovely stretch, plus the gingham makes an interesting effect of darker diamonds on a lighter background with stripes.

I’m definitely going to file these techniques away in subconscious as totally cool and hope they resurface in a project soon 🙂

* 10 points to anyone who can tell me the source of this quotation!