Roland Designs

My mother who is a missionary in Madagascar brought me this pretty hand embroidered table cloth.

Simple cutwork and long stitch embroidery.

You can visit her website here : www.a-missionary-journal.webs.com

   I recently received an email from a dear lady in Australia with a photo of a filet crochet panel she made for her church.

Here is the photo and her own explanation....

My panel ....... I designed it myself on large sheets of white butcher's paper in half-inch pencilled squares, it took me four months -............... You will see it is strongly "Australian bush" as I lived then in a little mountain village, Kinglake, which was almost totally destroyed in bushfires in February 2009 - including the church, and my panel of course!

............. I have framed a photo of it, and will give it to the community once they have rebuilt their church (for the third time, the first time was 1929, again due to bushfires).

I  am a fan of all that is vintage needlework, so it was only natural that I should try out tatting. It is really a neat, but time consuming lace making technique.

Here is a little pin cushion I made with a simple tatted border, and a silk rose done in petit point over one thread on 28 ct linen.

   Recently I was presented with a pretty little hardanger runner that had gone by mistake through a machine cycle and came out very damaged on the button hole border.

   The best solution was simply to make a new border. There was not much cloth to work with, so I used a thinner thread and worked over three threads, and only 2 threads from the embroidery . ( Usually with Hardanger we work over 4, and from 4 threads.)

  The result was not as decorative as the original border, but the simple button hole border will keep the runner in service for years to come.

   In this photo you can see where the damage is.

   Note how I had to un-stitch the border a little before making the new button hole border.

  After  I trimmed the cloth carefully  it was ready to use.

  Here are more photos from dear Elga, she stitched the Berlin woolwork lion chart into a miniature wall hanging for her doll house . Beautiful !

These are all hand painted.

I was asked several times if there was a way to choose which pattern I would chart next. So here is a litle selection fo some of my collection and if there is anything that you would really want to see me work on next just leave a comment, or send me an e-mail.

Those here are lithographes, and typographes.

Here is a photo of a little felt mouse I sewed when I was 10 years old. One day our teacher brought a lot of beautiful felt and told us we could make a little animal.

I don't have much from whenI was a child, but somehow this little mouse survived.

My sister sent me these photos of her beautiful little new baby, and her filet crochet blanket.

Congratulation Claire on your new little girl, and of course the amazing filet blanket.

I just received these beautiful photos of miniature petit point from a talented friend in South Africa.

If you would like to try your hand at this form of embroidery, or need fine silk gauze, check out this website :

http://www.micro-stitchery.com