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A Bustle & Sew Publication Copyright © Bustle & Sew Limited 2021 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 2022 by: Bustle & Sew Station House West Cranmore Shepton Mallet BA4 4QP www.bustleandsew.com
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Welcome to the March Magazine Hello everyone! Apart from the weather (which has been wild and windy) February has been a quiet sort of month here at Bustle & Sew HQ. It’s been a month of winter trips to empty beaches with young Ted who celebrated his second birthday this month and also the last month of waiting for the steam trains to start running again, which they do in March, with their Grand Steam Gala (all very exciting!). But being quiet doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy and I do hope you’ll enjoy the projects and articles in this month’s magazine. I particularly enjoyed stitching the garden birds, which are now perched proudly on my kitchen windowsill bringing a little of the garden indoors. We look at the secrets of successful planting too as March begins, for me at any rate, the beginning of the gardening year. You’ll also find the second part of our new series - a Stitcher’s Alphabet - anyone for crinolines?! And our recipe section returns as well. I hope you enjoy this issue and the April Magazine will be published on Thursday 31 March. Until then I hope you have a lovely month, with lots of time for stitching! Very best wishes
Helen xx
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Between this month’s covers … March Almanac
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Fuzzypeg and his Carrot
Page 52
Welcome Summer Time!
Page 7
A (very) Little Guide to Fabric Types
Page 55
Garden Birds
Page 8
Lovely Idea: Scrappy Bookmark
Page 56
A (very!) Little Look at Embroidery Hoops
Page 13
Spring Printables
Page 57
Spring in the Garden: Planting Wisdom
Page 15
A (very) Little Look at Horsehair Fabric
Page 59
Mother and Children Hoop
Page 18
In the Green Hoop
Page 60
Poetry Corner
Page 23
A Country Diary
Page 63
A Stitcher’s Alphabet
Page 24
Embroidery Stitch Guide
Page 64
Fabrics for Hand Embroidery
Page 29
In the Kitchen: Conversion Tables
Page 65
Follow the Bunny Wreath
Page 30
Templates
Page 66
March: New Season in the Kitchen
Page 32
Bluebird and Mimosa Motifs
Page 44
A (very) Little Look at Welsh Blankets
Page 46
Enjoying Vintage Transfers
Page 47
How Green are your Flowers?
Page 50
Lovely Idea: Fabric Twine
Page 51
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March Even if March is still cold, wet and windy - seeming to bring yet more of the same grey winter weather we have been enduring for months, the days are still lengthening and along with this comes birdsong, fattening buds on the trees and all the other signs of spring that we look for eagerly each year. For farmers it is the sowing season and in the Christian church March is largely dominated by Lent and the approach of Easter. Spring flowers such as primroses, daffodils and crocuses are appearing in hedges and gardens, whilst for many birds and animals March is the beginning of the breeding season. Our native daffodil is pretty, pale and delicate, quite unlike garden variety. Once widely spread across the country it isn’t nearly as common as it once was, but clumps can still be found across the western part of the country. It was affectionately known as the “daffydowndilly.” If you are in Cornwall then look out for clumps of unusual daffodils
flowering oddly and in isolation along the hedgerows. These may well be the remains of heritage varieties, once the mainstay of the Cornish flower industry, but dumped along road edges during
“I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” William Wordsworth, 1807 WW2 when the flower fields were given over to food production.The gambolling, leaping, boxing and chasing antics of hares at this time of the year gave rise to the expression “Mad as a March Hare” But this behaviour is just part of their mating rituals and isn’t solely
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confined to March as their breeding season extends from January to October. You’re more likely to spot hares behaving in this way in early spring however, before the crops and hay meadows grow tall enough to screen them from view. Early morning and evening are the best times to go looking for hares as this is when they’re at their most active. And if you should spot two mad March hares boxing, they will probably be males fighting over a female discouraging an unwanted suitor. I always feel that yellow is the colour of early spring - think of bright golden-yellow daffodils, primroses, winter aconites and yellow brimstone butterflies. And, if we’re lucky there may also be some bright crisp spring sunshine to enjoy - if we can dodge the showers that is - whether of rain, hail or snow! Indeed blizzards are not unknown in Britain this month - in 1891 the Great Blizzard raged across the southern half of the
country for four days and nights with snowdrifts reaching depths of twenty feet here in the West Country. Trains were buried in these drifts, one remained immobile for two whole days before it was located and the passengers rescued. Several people froze to death, thousands of sheep and cattle died and in the English Channel 220 people were drowned in 65 separate shipwrecks. The snow didn’t finally vanish from the high ground of Dartmoor until June. March 5 brings St Piran’s Day. Piran is one of Cornwall’s most popular saints who lived in Cornwall sometime around the mid fifth century. He was claimed as the patron saint of Cornish tin miners and they regularly took this day off work in his honour, although the only detail of their celebrations that has survived is that they always got very drunk! Saint Piran's Flag, a white cross on a black background, traditionally the emblem of the Cornish tin miners, is the Cornish national flag. However St Piran’s Day is eclipsed by that of St Patrick, possibly the most internationally celebrated of all saints days, which falls on the seventeenth of this month. Again little is known about his life, but its’ believed that he was born in
Roman Britain in the fourth century before being kidnapped by Irish pirates and shipped off as a slave. After escaping six years later he became a Christian priest and then a bishop, eventually returning to Ireland where he played a major role in converting the country to Christianity. Historically the Lenten restrictions on
“The boys are up the woods with day To fetch the daffodils away, And home at noonday from the hills They bring no dearth of daffodils.”
A E Housman (18591936) eating and drinking were lifted for his festival - perhaps a reason why he became so popular! Back in Somerset, by the middle of the month the hedgerows around our village are beginning to bloom, decked with first blackthorn blossom (which often heralds a cold snap), followed by hawthorn, and, later in the season, wild honeysuckles and dog roses. At the base of the hedges you can see
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fresh green growth - the bright green of young nettle tips is particularly prominent, though you will also see violets, primroses and again, later in the season, bluebells will begin to appear. Walking quietly along a hedge as dusk falls, listening to the rustling of small creatures and the final notes of birdsong, whilst smelling the fresh scents of damp earth and new-growing plants gives a sense like nothing else can of nature preparing for a new growing season ahead. Easter often falls during the month of March - although not this year. A complicated ecclesiastic formula dictates that Easter Sunday should be celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the first full moon after the spring equinox unless that day itself is a Sunday which delays the celebration of Easter by another week. The earliest that Easter Day can fall is March 22, and the latest more than a full month later on April 25. (This year Easter Sunday falls on April 17). But here in the UK the real day to celebrate is the day the clocks go forward and British Summer Time begins. Overnight the winter gloom is banished and we experience an instant feeling of well-being.
Welcome British Summer Time! This month brings the start of British Summer time - a moment when we can feel that winter is really and truly behind us and spring is finally here! This year the clocks go forward on 27th March bringing us an extra hour of light at the end of the day. The days have been growing longer for the last three months of course, since the shortest day just before Christmas. As we all know, we have seasons because the earth is tilted on its axis and here in the Northern hemisphere this tilt means we’re further away from the sun during the winter months and our days are shorted. But after the winter solstice on 21 December we begin to tilt back towards the sun and our days grow longer once more - even if very slowly at first. Indeed the word “solstice” means a standing still and during late December and early January we receive as little as a minute of an extra light each day. By early February however this has reason to three minutes every 24 hours and by the time of the spring equinox on 20 March the daylight hours are increasing by nearly four minutes each day heralding the beginning of spring and the new growing season.
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Spring … the music of open windows
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The Miracle Come, sweetheart, listen, for I have a thing Most wonderful to tell you - news of spring. Albeit winter still is in the air, And the earth troubled, and the branches bare. Yet down the fields today I saw her pass The spring - her feet went shining through the grass. She touched the ragged hedgerows - I have seen Her finger-prints, most delicately green; And she has whispered to the crocus leaves, And to the garrulous sparrows in the eaves. Swiftly she passed and shyly, and her fair Young face was hidden in her cloudy hair. She would not stay, her season is not yet, But she has awakened, and has set The sap of all the world astir, and rent Once more the shadows of our discontent. Triumphant news - a miracle I sing The everlasting miracle of spring
John Drinkwater 1882-1937
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A Stitcher’s Alphabet
Part Two : C & D
Caribou Hair Tufting Caribou is the French Canadian word for the wild reindeer of North America. Caribou skin is frequently used for clothing; it is strong, light and very warm due to an air-filled cavity in every hair. Tufting is an amazing embroidery technique from the far north which takes advantage of these hollow hairs. The hairs for this form of embroidery are taken from the ruff around the animal’s neck and the white spots on both sides of the tail. These are pure white from root to tip and were traditionally used white rather than dyed. The worker uses the hairs to create threedimensional flowers and leaves by tightly pulling small bunches of hair under a loop stitch and fastening it off. The hairs are then fanned out on all sides of the stitch and trimmed into smooth rounded tufts
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Dorset Buttons
Modern Dorset Buttons make a real fashion statement.
Button making had been in existence as a craft in Dorset for many centuries when, in the 17th century, Abraham Case moved to Shaftesbury, Dorset following a career as a soldier during which he travelled in France and Belgium where he became familiar with the European button industry. At this time buttons were seen very much as a status symbol and there was a high demand for intricate, ornate buttons for gentlemen’s waistcoats. Abraham Case’s contribution to the Dorset button-making industry, which was very much a cottage industry, was to place the whole process on a more business-like footing. It also seems likely the methods he introduced combined the techniques he had seen on the Continent with the traditional Dorset techniques. Initially the buttons were made from a disc of the horn of Dorset Sheep which provided a plentiful source of raw materials. The disk was covered with a piece of cloth and then overworked with a fine tracery of linen thread.The diameter of the buttons ranged from half an inch down to an unbelievable eighth of an inch.
century employed thousands of people and brought in a revenue of twelve thousand pounds per annum. When Abraham Cash died ash died, his sons Abraham Jr and Elias took over. Production grew and grew and the family managed to keep much of the business in their own hands by paying their workers in goods not money to stop them setting up for themselves. By the beginning of the nineteenth century there were depots in many Dorset towns for the outworkers to collect the materials from and sell their finished buttons to. Cloth covered buttons were sold at between eightpence and three 10 shillings a dozen, while the women workers averaged about two shillings a day for making approximately six or seven dozen buttons, compared with the nine-pence a day they might expect from farm-work, their only realistic alternative employment. Although it was a major factor, it wasn’t just the money that attracted so many women to this cottage based industry, as there were many other advantages. Working indoors was always preferable to being out in the fields in all weathers. It enabled women to be at home to look after the family whilst still retaining an income. Apart from the direct benefits, there was at least one indirect benefit that was very important when money was tight. Their clothes and particularly their shoes, didn’t wear out at anything like the rate they did when worn in the fields in all weathers. It was therefore no surprise that poorer women flocked to join in this new cottage industry. Twenty years later there was a further revolution in the button making industry when Abraham Case’s grandson started importing metal rings from Birmingham to use as the base for the buttons instead of horn. They were far easier to work with - and cheaper. Combined with the ready supply of labour the industry now spread out in all directions, reaching as far south as Bere Regis.
The earliest buttons produced by Case were High Tops, conical in shape and Dorset Knobs, similar but flatter (the famous Dorset Knob biscuit is named after a button!). This shape was very popular for ladies’ dresses. The industry thrived, and by the early 18th
But the glory days came to an end when, in 1851 at the Great Exhibition in London, Mr John Ashton demonstrated his button-making machine. This spelled disaster for the Dorset button industry as buttons could now be produced at a fraction of the cost, and at a far faster and more consistent speed – all identical. Near starvation hit most families, especially those with widowed breadwinners who had depended totally on their earnings from button making.
March brings the new season….
March brings the new season - the spring equinox is upon us and by the end of the month the days are once again longer than the nights. Although the weather may still be unkind, yet this is a turning point, the lengthening days reassure us that there is now no return to the short dark days of winter. This is the season when nature awakens from its winter sleep. Young plants begin to emerge from the cold earth seeking the first warm rays of spring sunlight. In the kitchen food can be flavoured now with the first of the fresh spring herbs, parsley and chives. Wild garlic, in season this month, and growing in abundance in woods and along hedgerows, provides the perfect flavouring for the season’s lamb and fish. It’s time now to put aside the rich, warming casseroles and hearty stews of the winter months and to bring lighter dishes to the table. In particular fish comes to the fore, both from coastal waters and our rivers and streams. Flat fish such as plaice and
sole are in season, pan-fried with butter, or coated in breadcrumbs, their lean white meaty flesh responds well to light flavours and cooking. In the garden, brassicas such as cauliflower are burgeoning in the vegetable beds. But king of the spring vegetables must be the sweet and nutty tasting Jersey Royal potato. These are harvested in March on the island of Jersey, and packed full of goodness, especially vitamins B and C these potatoes must be one of the signature tastes of spring. In the north of England, West Yorkshire’s famous forced rhubarb is ready to harvest now, its stalks a delicate pale pink following a winter spent undercover away from sunlight. Cooked in tarts and crumbles, or simply stewed with orange or ginger, it provides a wonderfully fresh - and visually appealing - end to a spring meal.
A (very) Little Look at Welsh Tapestry Blankets The tradition of weaving in Wales goes right back to the middle ages, as the hills and lowland pastures are great sheep country and fast running streams provided the power needed in the pre-industrial age. In the early 20th century most small rural mills worked with their local farming communities, processing the raw fleeces, carding and spinning yarn for weaving and knitting and also weaving fabric for everyday clothing (tweed/flannel) or weaving blankets and other textiles for household use. Welsh Blankets traditionally formed part of the bottom drawer for Welsh brides. A pair of Welsh blankets was also commonly given as a wedding gift. The would have travelled great distances with people moving during the Industrial Revolution looking for work, but wanting to keep a small piece of home with them. Thus, Welsh blankets have found their way across the world, adding a touch of homely aesthetic to a room by day and providing warmth at night.
Although various plaids and striped designs were woven, the Welsh tapestry blanket with its woven double cloth fabric and colourful geometric doublesided design is an iconic piece of Welsh textile heritages whose history stretches back hundreds of years. Examples of Welsh tapestry blankets survive from the eighteenth century and a pattern book from 1775 by William Jones of Holt in Denbighshire, shows many different examples of tapestry patterns. Welsh tapestry blankets reached their peak of popularity in the post-war years as an increase in tourism saw the textile mills weaving brightly coloured designs to suit the fashions of the time. While there were varying geometric patterns, the traditional Caernarvon is the best known with its repeating series of pixelated squares, spikes and dots. Welsh tapestry blankets sold in their thousands at this time, alongside the fringed Carthenni, a simpler, single-cloth wool blanket in pastel checks and plaids. Today blankets from the 1930s-70s command prices of £300 upwards whilst older hand woven examples are much more expensive. 16
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A Country Diary The smell of the earth? Yes, we’ve got it now, and the tang of wet leaves and bracken under a thin diaphanous mist that enhances the colours close at hand, and drops a light veil over the distance. Larches rise from a floor of glowing orange fern and soft brown needles and stand ghostlike and shadowy and grey, just dimmed by mist, each drooping branch and twig encrusted with grey lichen. The sloping field beyond the wood has a bloom on it like dew. In the brown and purple hedges catkins have shaken loose and changed to gold. Low clouds hem us in, with just a line of light on the horizon. Looking back you see the sloping field now has pale sunlight breaking over it. A magpie crosses the path. The tail feathers of a jay make a pied streak as it disappears among the bushes. In the shallow pool among the furze bushes, where the frog spawn lay is now a congested mass of small black tadpoles.
Janet Case 23 March 1931, The New Forest, Hampshire, England 20