Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

T shirt with appliquéd and embroidered jewel beetle (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

My grandson, also known as the small person to readers of my blog, is now in his eighth year. Presents for boys as they grow older  become ever more of a challenge, especially if the present is to be something made rather than bought, which is what I like to do. His birthday is  at the very end of December, but as far too many presents wing their way in his direction at that time anyway, I feel no guilt about our present not arriving until February!

Detail of T shirt with appliqué and embroidered jewel beetle (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Clothes as presents for boys would normally be a bit of a no no but I thought if I bought a few T shirts from a high street chain and stuck a big bold beetle on the front, they might be quite welcome. I’ve had this idea at the back of my mind for some years ever since I became enamoured of Natalie Chanin’s appliqué work for the company she set up, Alabama Chanin. Her designs using T shirt fabric combine stencilling and appliqué (applied both on top of the fabric and also beneath where the top layer is cut away to reveal another layer, usually of a different colour below). She also sews entire garments by hand – including fitted jackets and wedding gowns – but for a small boy enjoying rough and tumble, machine sewn seams are just fine with me. I further depart from her technique by using Bond-A-Web to fuse the appliqué to base fabric which I then reinforce with simple running stitches to make the whole thing as serviceable as possible for when the wearer shins up a tree, play fights with twigs or cuddles a cat or two. (Her classic designs are her best. To my taste, some of her recent garments are too amorphous as to form and have less interesting appliqué )

2 books by Natalie Chanin:
Alabama Stitch book (STC Craft Books, 2008 & Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns (Abrams, 2015)

Choosing beetles was surprisingly good fun with lots of brilliant pictures posted on line. I tried to be as anatomically correct as possible but have taken a bit of licence with smaller body parts and with colour. This one is a jewel beetle, whose outstretched wings are echoed not by another set of wings but by a pair of elytra or wing casings. Hard, shiny and made of chitin the elytra function to protect the delicate wings from damage when not in flight. They are also very attractive natural decorative alternatives to sequins for the decoration of women’s dresses. Fortunately, beetles shed their elytra so in the heyday of their usage these cast off  ‘jewels’ could just be collected  from the forest floors in South-East Asia. (See this post on a C19th dress decorated with beetles in Cheltenham’s costume collection at The Wilson.) Since I’ve been researching beetles, I’ve discovered I’m bang on trend – both Paul Smith (adults) and Boden (kids) have insects, large and small, single and multiple, black and white or ablaze with colour, all over their shirts and T shirts. To my credit I was embroidering them on shoe bags in November 2017!

Rooster stensil and appliqué by Natalie Chanin

One of our regular walks through the town takes us downhill past the Montpellier Rotunda (now home to The Ivy Brasserie), and along the row of shops separated one from the other by those splendid caryatids which have eyes only for the greenery of Montpellier Gardens on the other side of the road. After a brief pinch point where the road narrows and there are shops on both sides, things open out with the more formal Imperial Gardens on the right over which 3 detached mansions on the left seem to cast almost proprietorial rights – so easy is it to personify these beautifully proportioned early C19th façades. The first of these houses, recently renovated and now a boutique hotel, is particularly delightful – a pretty balcony across the front has a gently canopied roof which if you part close your eyes looks like heavy eyelashes sweeping down over dark eyes (the windows) and porcelain cheeks (the stuccoed walls), a charming girlish image recently reinforced by the sudden strong smell of sweet flowers – hyacinths, where no hyacinths could be seen. The second time we walked past, we looked harder for the hyacinths, but once again found nothing. Then my husband pointed to a rather inconsequential looking shrub with small glossy leaves and rather ragged white flowers  hanging in profusion from the plant like little crumpled tassels on a dress slept in rather than hung up on its padded coat hanger. We stuck our noses into the bush  and it was indeed our fake hyacinth. An internet search later and the plant becomes Sarcococca confusa, aka Sweet Box Sarcococca, a Chinese relative of the common box.  That scent was a little shaft of spring and put a zing into our steps – much needed as the journey in reverse is uphill.  Thoughts turned to home and fresh coffee – and how so very often things we pass by without a second glance can suddenly surprise us.

Jewel beetle appliqué on T shirt (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

The small person received the T shirts yesterday (I shall blog the other 2 over the next couple of weeks). In a rather hazy video, he thanked me and showed me which he was wearing, saying he’d chosen this insect because “it’s the biggest and it can fly and it’s how I’m feeling right now” (because of receiving the T shirts). “Do you want to fly away from Aunty P? ” said the nanny aunt, thinking of the weeks of close proximity they’d spent together. “No I’m incredibly happy, flying happy.” said the diplomatic child, (pulling rather too strongly at the beetle as he viewed himself in the mirror and thus justifying my relying on stitches AND Bond A Web to secure  beetle to T shirt.) Don’t you love the idea of “flying happy”?

JGF monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

I have a wonderful son-in-law of a not very materialistic disposition. For Christmases and birthdays we often buy him books about cricket but he is all too often on the receiving end of things I’ve made, like hand hemmed handkerchiefs, monogrammed shoe bags  and even an embroidered hanging. But this Christmas I thought he actually might quite like an embroidered monogram.  I’d doodled around with his initials and settled for them in a triangular arrangement. I was inclining towards using just a single colour thread on black ground until my eye was caught by a little colourful beaded and painted brooch hanging by a mirror  near where I sit sewing. Made by Annie Sherburne in 1993 and bought from a stall she had in Covent Garden, I had originally given it to daughter No 1 for Christmas, but somehow it had migrated back to me. I don’t know that either of us have ever worn it but it’s a lovely thing to look at and turn over in your fingers, admiring the detail of the painted frame and the neat way the beading threads are attached to the frame through tiny holes. The colours were an inspiration for the monogram. In winter there’s something very satisfying about embroidering with sharp, bright colours, like acidic greens and yellows, electric blue-greens, fiery reds and gingers through to warm pinks and peaches – and so much easier on the eyes as even daylight at this time of year presents a challenge to the whitework I’ve done so much of recently.

Detail JGF monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

When I updated the operating system on my computer, I noticed the sound it makes when I open it up seems to have gone from major to minor key. At first I thought it was just a bit of a wobble and that it would correct itself, but no, it seems to be permanent. Now why would one opt for a minor key to start your day off when you could have major for uplift or optimism? The irritating thing is that I still expect the old chord and every time find myself slightly disappointed. Audial memories are very robust and resistant to change. I can’t be the only person of  a certain age to hear the opening music to University Challenge, expect the voiceover to continue “with Bamber Gascoigne” and feel slightly disappointed that instead we get “Jeremy Paxman”. Every time it jars! Incidentally and with apologies to American readers I did once meet Bamber Gascoigne in a maternity ward the day after my son was born as he was visiting the baby just born in the next bed to me – a situation not exactly conducive to introductions.

Annie Sherburne beaded and painted brooch, 1993

But to get back to musical intervals. I seem to lack the bit of brain set aside for sight reading music. At school I managed to get into both the choir and the madrigal choir but that was only because I sat next to my friend Sally who was brilliant at it and let me mouth singing while listening to her until I had the tune in my memory. (Our school was tiny, with under 200 pupils, yet Sally quite by chance some time ago read my blog  and got in touch, which was wonderful.) As an undergraduate I had numerous excruciating auditions for far too elevated choirs which I now curl up with embarrassment looking back at but I managed to satisfy a tiny part of my pleasure in singing by joining little ad hoc groups which came together under my late sadly missed friend Bruce. My first job after university was as personal assistant to Dr A.J. Croft who administered the Clarendon Laboratory and he, taking pity on me, regarded getting me into The Oxford Bach Choir as something of a challenge. (His wife Margaret was choir secretary at the time!)  Having gone blind on the pavilion steps of Lords Cricket Ground some years earlier, he was determined that I should be able to hear intervals even if I couldn’t at first read them off the printed page. To this end throughout the day he would pop up from time to time and sing intervals at me. ‘Raining’ was delivered as a minor third, while it’s corollary, ‘sunshine’ was a major third. ‘Amen’ was a fourth and a fifth was the opening two words of the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’. This could be slightly difficult and even amusing as he would fling open the door between our rooms, full throat mid major or minor third, quite unaware that though quiet I  was on the phone taking notes from someone at the other end. The technique was, however, a revelation to me and though sight reading  never became instinctive (I think you have to start very early on in life) it was a real game changer.

Favourite Liberty prints

I did get into the Bach Choir, probably through the ministrations of Margaret. Never since have I been brave enough to audition for another choir. I do, however, take great pleasure and sing with great gusto at church services, weddings and funerals and cause much mirth and elbow jogging among my family when I do.