Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Little jewelled bag (hand beaded by Mary Addison)

A few years ago, just before Christmas I made a couple of little velvet drawstring bags decorated with seed pearls and beads. Ideal for little presents of hand strung, semi precious stones and silver beads, I gave away the necklaces and bracelets but became too attached to the bags to part with them. Of course they took much longer to make  than anticipated. The first I showed here.

Little jewelled bag: reverse (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Home in Oxfordshire, today will be devoted to de-Christmasifying the house before I descend on London tomorrow to share nanny duties with daughter No 1 while the real nanny is still enjoying her well-earned, extended holiday. I hope I will have time to prepare some embroidery to take with me but time for fine sewing may be limited for the next few weeks  as at the end of the month I am being swept off by daughter No 1 to see daughter No 2 in Vietnam, where the latter is country director for the NGO, Mines Advisory Group, MAG, and from which she is soon to return to take up a position at head office in Manchester. (I hope all that daughter No 1 and No 2 bit hasn’t got too confusing.)

Detail of little jewelled bag (hand beaded by Mary Addison)

For many reasons, I never expected to visit Vietnam although my interest in the country grew as each of  my daughter’s visits home were accompanied by beautiful textiles which I wanted to learn more about. At Christmas she came back with a fantastic  traditional skirt (here are a couple of skirts made from rescued textiles but if you scroll down there is a picture of a more splendid skirt with orange embroidery which is very like her most recent purchase).  I meant to photograph the new skirt in detail before she left …  but then all sorts of other enjoyable things just got in the way.

Detail of little jewelled bag (hand beaded by Mary Addison)

That I am making the trip at all is due to the serendipitous life of daughter No 1 who, with unexpected holiday to take as she changes jobs, thought we should both grab the chance to go and visit her sister.  Generously both daughters and No 1’s husband are funding my trip, the flight has been booked and an itinerary is being worked out. It will not be easy for daughter No 2 who will be tying up the ends of her current job while at the same time wanting to introduce us to all the things she knows we will love. But then life is never perfect and chances have to be taken when they offer themselves.

A favourite jumper: moth hole darned and embroidered

New Year finds us in Yorkshire visiting my husband’s family and as I’ve not been able to finish my knitting projects or set up the many embroideries I want to do, this seemed an ideal time to tackle a bit more mending. We had hoped all daughter No 1’s moth damage had  been dealt with but as a small bag of mending came with the Christmas caravan, this is obviously not the case.

A favourite jumper: moth hole darned and embroidered

Another favourite, this stripey jumper looked a simple case of three or four major holes – always made bigger by the darning – but the mending of these threw up more patches where just a few threads were thinning but hadn’t yet become a fully fledged hole. These I darned and covered with an embroidered leaf – in the end the jumper looks like it’s succumbed to some mystery illness.

Stripey jumper showing darned and embroidered moth holes

There are now 7 leaves scattered over the back of the jumper. One hole (just under the leaf roughly in the middle of the back) I have left darned but not embroidered as it would have looked too crowded and less randomly interesting.

Back of jumper showing leaves embroidered over darned moth hole PLUS one darned but not embroidered patch.

By the time I got to what I thought might be the end of mending this jumper I was wondering whether this undertaking wasn’t an example of taking the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut, but then I realised the colours were so uplifting and the design so interesting (you can’t see the slight variations in ribbing along the side seams) that it had been worth the time and effort.

Stripey jumper showing darned and embroidered moth holes

We have yet to see whether daughter No 1 approves but it was at least heartening when over Christmas she appeared wearing another moth mended favourite .

Darned moth holes: right one subsequently covered by embroidered leaf.

The above picture shows the darn I left visibly as a darn – at least it has the merit of being contained within the beige stripe. I had no pink wool and hence came up with the leaf solution. (Ironed it might look better.) The flowers are variants on my default honeysuckle. Now back to that jumper I was knitting as a Christmas present.