A (very) Little Look at Chain Stitch and its History Fantastic Mr Fox November’s Recipes: The Approach of Winter Preparing for Christmas: Stir Up Sunday Plus: November Almanac, A Little Look at Velvet, Lovely Ideas, Home Comforts, Poetry Corner and more 1
A Bustle & Sew Publication Copyright Š Bustle & Sew Limited 2020 The right of Helen Grimes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Every effort has been made to ensure that all the information in this book is accurate. However, due to differing conditions, tools and individual skills, the publisher cannot be responsible for any injuries, losses and other damages that may result from the use of the information in this book.
First published 2020 by: Bustle & Sew Station House West Cranmore Shepton Mallet BA4 4QP www.bustleandsew.com
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Welcome to the November Magazine Hello everyone! As we near the end of 2020 I think it’s fairly safe to say that it’s been a year like no other. But amongst all the bad news, I think one of the positives that I will take away from 2020 is the re-emergence of community spirit amongst us all, a new sense of caring for others and valuing our home and family even more than we ever did. This month’s issue celebrates home and family with our first project - love begins at home and continues with the first of a new series of girls - this one is Alice, with lots of new stitches for you to enjoy as you cosy up on the sofa during these long dark winter evenings. We look ahead to Christmas as well with some new Christmas designs, as well as our baby deer head - perfect for your little one’s bedroom the whole year long. I do hope you enjoy this issue, and remember the December issue will be published on the last Thursday of the month, packed with seasonal cheer as we look forward to Ted’s first Christmas here with us at Bustle & Sew HQ. Best wishes - and stay safe!
Helen xx
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Between this month’s covers … November Almanac
Page 5
The Approach of Winter
Page 42
Love Begins at Home Hoop
Page 7
A Winter’s Walk Hoop
Page 54
Velvet: The Most Luxurious Fabric
Page 9
A (very) Little Look at Crewel
Page 57
The Countryside in November
Page 12
November Pleasures
Page 59
A (very) Little Look at Chain Stitch
Page 13
Festive Felt Ornaments
Page 61
Baby Deer Head
Page 16
In the Garden: Composting
Page 64
Poetry Corner
Page 19
Embroidery Stitch Guide
Page 65
Fantastic Mr Fox
Page 20
In the Kitchen: Conversion Tables
Page 66
Autumn Printable
Page 23
Templates
Page 67
A (very) Little Guide to Scissors
Page 24
Lovely Idea: Cinnamon Candles
Page 25
Alice in Stitches
Page 26
Stir Up Sunday
Page 33
Nature’s Remedies
Page 36
Lovely Idea: Advent Wreath
Page 38
Deck the Halls Hoop
Page 39
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November November is the month for fog and frosts, that will bring the last few leaves tumbling to the ground. I breathe deeply as I walk in the woods with the Newfies, enjoying the wonderful earthy fragrance from those leaves that fell earlier in the season and that are beginning to decay underfoot. There’s still colour along the lanes and in the hedgerows, bracken and bramble offer shades of gold and a rich purplish-brown whilst the seed heads of wild clematis - known as Old Man’s Beard - still festoon the hedges on either side of the path. Then as we return down the narrow winding lane that brings us through the village and home again, there are still a few roses shining out in sheltered places, and the lemon-yellow fireworks of winter jasmine have begun to burst out on house and cottage walls. The churchyard hollies are packed with colour, berries clustering amongst their dark green shiny leaves, for all the world like swarms of scarlet bees or ladybirds. As the year progresses and winter comes knocking at the door, the
colour across the countryside begins to die away as the bright colours we’ve been enjoying over the last couple of months give way
“Miri it is while sumer i-last With foulës song; Oc now neghëth windës blast And weder strong. Ei, ei, what this night is long, And Ich with wel michel wrong Sorwe and murne and fast.” Anonymous 13th Century to more muted greys, browns and mauves, highlighted by the brilliant white of frost on those wonderful clear cold days. But these more subtle colours are beautiful too and the old splash of vivid red or orange from the remaining hips, haws and one or two late blooming flowers is all the more welcome for its scarcity. Traditionally, when people lived closer to the land, November marked the period of final preparation for the cold, dark months ahead.
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Weather lore for the month includes variations on the “if the ice in November will bear a duck, then all the rest will be slush and muck” - the Implication being that the severity of the months ahead can be predicted by the weather in November and that a cold month means a mild, wet winter. But whether the ducks near you are skating or swimming, November’s weather is never considered to be pleasant. This is a great time of year for bird watching too as the lack of foliage makes them much easier to spot among the branches. Murmurations of starlings are of course a well-known and amazing sight, but you may also spot less dramatic flocks of blackbirds, visitors from Scandinavia which are much more sociable than the native British variety as well as whooper swans from Iceland, Bewick’s swans from Siberia as well as all kinds of geese, ducks and other migratory birds come to over winter here.
If you don’t already have nesting boxes in your garden now is the time to put them up as they’ll provide shelter for birds over the winter months and also become part of their habitat, ready for nesting in spring. Keep them well fed and healthy by stocking up your bird table and feeders regularly. Remember that many birds love the berries and seeds remaining on plants after the flowers are long gone, so don’t tidy up your garden too much if you want to encourage wildlife. Leaf litter, old logs and decaying vegetation all provide shelter over the winter months and if you buy some hedgehog boxes you’ll be even more likely to attract some prickly visitors who will repay your kindness by reducing your garden’s slug population in the spring. If you’re having a bonfire though, do be careful to check it carefully before lighting to avoid harming any hedgehogs sheltering within - they are inclined to view a waiting pile of logs and branches as a perfect sleeping place for the winter months.Many notable dates fall in the month of November, including Remembrance Sunday which is observed on the closest Sunday to the eleventh - the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice at the end of the First World War. Originally intended to commemorate those who died during the two World Wars, it’s now the day when we remember all those who have died serving their countries in times of conflict.
In the United states, the holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Thursday in November. Dating from the time of the Pilgrim Fathers in the seventeenth century, Thanksgiving became a public holiday in 191. Families gather together and traditionally a meal including roast turkey and pumpkin pie is eaten. “Connie….liked the inwardness of the remnant of forest, the unspeaking reticence of the old trees. They seemed a very power of silence, and yet a vital presence. They, too, were waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and giving off a potency of silence. Perhaps they were only waiting for the end; to be cut down, cleared away, the end of the forest, for them the end of all things. But perhaps their strong and aristocratic silence, the silence of strong trees, meant something else.” D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
The night of 9 November 1989 brought the beginning of the end for the Berlin Wall. It had divided the city for nearly 30 years, separating friends and families living on opposite sides of the borders. It was originally constructed in August 1961 to stem the flow of refugees from the East or communist side, escaping to the west and over the decades many died trying to cross it. Following
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mass pro-democracy demonstrations and the collapse of the Communist government in East Germany, a decision to allow free passage through the wall was announced that day, and following noisy festivities, soon chunks of concrete were being hacked off as souvenirs. Less than a year later Germany was reunified as a single country. DH Lawrence’s (1885 - 1930) novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was first published in its entirety in the UK on 10 November 1960, and the first run of 200,000 copies had sold out by the end of the day. First printed in Florence, Italy in 1928, the unexpurgated version of the novel had been banned in the UK because of its explicit content. It deals with the passionate, adulterous relationship of Lady Constance Chatterley and her gamekeeper Oliver Mellors and describes their erotic assignations in what was then considered highly explicit detail. Finally, as November comes to a close, we are all very excitedly looking forward to Christmas. In our family the build up always begins with Stir Up Sunday - the last Sunday before Advent. This tradition dates back to Victorian times when the family would gather together to stir the Christmas pudding five weeks before Christmas.
The Countryside in November Few feel very cordial about November when the countryside sinks grey and sere under the fall of the year and the heartbeat of the hills grows slower. Yet all is not a grim sort of “nothingness” in November. True enough the bold dahlias have been reaped by the frost, but last roses still shine in sheltered places, and the lemon-yellow fireworks of winter jasmine have burst out on house and cottage walls. There is still the comfortable scent of last bonfires and, of a Saturday, the game-dogs racing over the stubble for the fall of the pheasant to the sportsman’s gun. And the beech woods, arching over their clean and weed-free floorings, never look so beautiful as now in this last flaunting of the copper leaf. Beech woods shining in the gathering mists of November afternoons hold a strange, still splendour. In the open countryside the gatherings and movements of the wintering birds are upon a big scale, and plain to see against their background of bare ploughland and coppices naked of leaf. The landward gulls lie white as pebbles on the brown earth, the green plover rise in looping flocks, morning and evening the dark rooks trail across the pale cold sky. The birds of the garden - they become noticeable as well in the absence of foliage, and these are the birds which belong to most of use wherever we live, and if we have a few square yards of land. There is much beauty in the hedgerows of November, spotted with scarlet rosehips and pink spindleberry drops; much beauty in the bare spokes of the unflowered hemlock parasols at the wayside and in the dark gloss of the blackbird pairs, orange beak to orange beak, already staking out their springtime claims along the garden hedge. These are the pinpoints of pleasure which light the down-drop of the year, and make a little more than bearable the month which is not just a “nothing”, but a true November.
C Gordon-Glover Book of the Countryside
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A (very) Little Look at Chain Stitch Chain stitch is one of the most ancient of embroidery stitches. The earliest archaeological evidence of chain stitch embroidery dates from 1100 BC in China. Excavated from royal tombs, the embroidery was made using threads of silk. A few centuries later, examples of surviving Chinese chain stitch embroidery worked in silk thread have been dated to the Warring States period (5th – 3rd century BC). Because chain stitches can form flowing, curved lines, they are used in many surface embroidery styles that mimic "drawing" in thread.
To work chain stitch, bring your thread up through your fabric at the top of the line you want to cover. Hold it down on your material with your left thumb and then insert your needle back down through the fabric through the exact spot where it first emerged. Bring the point out again a short distance away along the line, looping your thread underneath your needle as shown in the diagram above. Pull your thread through and continue
Chain stitch was the stitch used by early sewing machines; however, as it is easily unravelled from fabric, this was soon replaced with the more secure lockstitch. Because it is a simple and effective stitch it is one of the earliest stitches taught to beginners and can be used as both an outline and a filling stitch. 8
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A (very) Little Guide to Scissors It’s a good principle to always purchase the best tools you can afford, and this is particularly true of scissors. You’ll use scissors in absolutely every project you ever make, so it’s worth spending a little time, trouble (and money too!) on choosing a good pair - and then looking after them properly. There is a bewildering variety of scissors available, so your first decision is what you’re going to use yours for. Shears are perfect for cutting fabric - and if you prefer to lay your fabric flat and cut, then you might consider a pair with a bent handle. Serrated blades are good to keep lightweight and/or slippery fabrics under control as the serrated edges will grip the fabric giving you a more accurate cut. General purpose and small scissors are great for snipping threads - and can also be used to cut non-woven fabrics such as felt. Be sure to try before you buy as scissors vary enormously and you need a pair that feels right in your hand and that you are able to control properly. If you’re left-handed then it’s worth looking for a specialist pair. Scissors with tempered blades are good quality and strong too, whilst stainless steel blades are lighter in weight, but very sharp and rust proof too. Make sure the
pair you’re considering give a smooth cut right from the back to the point of the blade. Specialist scissors are also available: applique scissors are specially designed for close trimming of fabric edges, the flattened blade allows them to pass easily between layers of fabric. Machine embroidery scissors have handles that are curved to one side so you can accurately trim loose threads and buttonhole scissors have a special adjustable screw to secure them partially open for an exact cutting length. There are three things you should watch out for to keep your fabric scissors in tip top condition. Firstly dust (or lint from fabric) can be abrasive and may blunt the blades, so it’s good practice to wipe your scissors over with a dry cloth after each use. Don’t allow moisture to come into contact with them and never put them in the dishwasher(!) You can purchase blade sharpeners that I’ve used quite successfully at home, or get them professionally sharpened should they become dull. It’s also good practice to occasionally oil the pivot screw with a tiny drop of sewing machine oil, then wipe the blades with a soft cloth and make a few cuts through scrap fabric to remove any surplus. And the third thing to keep your scissors as good as new - NEVER use them to cut paper!! 11
Autumn Craft: Cinnamon Stick Candles These cinnamon stick candles look beautiful and smell divine. All you need to do is to tie cinnamon sticks of varying heights onto your candles using twine. Be careful with these and don’t let them burn unattended. You’ll love the way they fill your home with the sweet scent of cinnamon.
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The Approach of Winter
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Cauliflower Cheese This dish is substantial enough to be served as a main course, not as a vegetable accompaniment to meat as the amount of cheese used means it contains a lot of protein. Serves 3-4
Ingredients ● 1 cauliflower ● 1 level tablespoon cornflour
● 300ml milk ● 40g butter ● 450g mature Cheddar cheese, grated ● Sprinkling of Cayenne pepper ● Salt & pepper
Method ● Preheat your oven to 210C. Boil or steam the cauliflower until just tender. Drain, cut into large chunks, and put in an ovenproof dish. ● In a non-stick pan, cream the cornflour with a little cold milk, pour in the remaining milk and add the butter. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously, until the sauce has thickened. Add two-thirds of the cheese, season to taste with salt and pepper and simmer gently for five minutes or until the cheese has melted. ● Pour sauce over the cauliflower, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and dust with cayenne pepper. ● Cook in the oven, uncovered until the top is golden brown approximately 15 minutes.
The Last Show of the year‌ November is the month when, traditionally, gardeners enjoy their last fling, their last riot of colour in the final flower shows of autumn, showcasing their dahlias and chrysanthemums. As a rule, there will also be classes for fruit and vegetables at these shows, where we can see apples that are almost too good to be true, and pears and grapes that are perfection itself. Then there are startlingly white leeks and a yard long, and onions like teapots too. But many years ago, at a London show, a fierce argument erupted as to the worth of these giant specimens. In the end, a famous chef was asked to come and give his opinion. He said that there was not one thing on view that he would have in his kitchen. But no one will argue with the gorgeous chrysanthemums and when the flowers fade at last their owners will bend their backs and their gaze to ground level and start rummaging around to take cuttings, to start all over again next year. Gardeners there’s no stopping them!
Albert Butler: Book of the Countryside
Shepherd’s (0r Cottage) Pie
The Gardener in November - Composting November is, for me anyway, one of the best months in the year. The long, unequal struggle to cope with the work in a large garden is at an end; the tempo is slower, and jobs done now lasts for months, instead of days. In top gear ever since April, it is good to have the pressure reduced. Of course there is still plenty to be done and the first sharp frost turns the page for me, so to speak. From that happy morning which I salute, the big tidy up begins. The first thing to be done is to mark the site and the dimensions of the new compost heap, which will rise rapidly with all the material now available. When the big clean up is finished, and the newly and carefully built compost heap is gently steaming, I stick my long-handled fork into I last year’s lot to see what kind of a sample it is. Then it goes back to where it belongs. Now, you will have heard much and read much about making compost, so there’s no need for me to air my views about it; but there is one aspect of composting that has not been mentioned, so far as I know. It is the finest method ever devised, for recovering the tools you lost last year. Secateurs, trowels, dibbers, whet-stones, hand forks and even a trug basket are some of the items that I’ve had restored to me. It beats me how they came to be in there. One of my best pipes spent a year in a heap and it smokes as sweet as a nut.
Albert Butler; Book of the Countryside 1963 19