I am part of the Grasby Embroiderers group, and we have been working on a new body of work with a difference. Normally, as you would no doubt expect with embroidery, it has been exhibited inside, in a clean, dry environment, but most of this work is outside and exposed to the elements, at Mill Farm Garden, between Brigg and Caistor. In the middle of the week we went to hang the finished work ready for the opening tomorrow.

Helen Boothman, who owns the garden, was excited and intrigued by the idea, and after an initial consultation we went as a group last summer to look round the beautiful, large garden (3 acres!) for inspiration, seeking possible sites to hang the work, with cameras and sketch / note books to gather ideas.

We all came away with our own ideas for individual work, but we also wanted to do a group piece, which we discussed at our next meeting.

I didn’t know quite what I wanted to do for my own piece, but knew where I wanted to hang it! This diamond-shaped peephole into the slatted wooden stucture had caught my attention when Colin and I had visited the garden with Winterton Gardening Club a few years ago. It suggested stained glass to me, using transparent and translucent fabrics.

Once we had had time to mull things over and develop some ideas, we had a second visit as a group, by which time I was thinking sunflower and took some organza to try out. Even with several layers it wasn’t right, so that was put on the back burner while I got on with my leaf for the group piece.

The ferns in our garden were beautiful last year, so I decided to do a machine embroidered fern. My very scribbly quick sketch was about 50 cm high …..

…… some more scribbles…..

……. a test piece on paper …….

……. more tests on dissolvable mediums, layers and layers of zig zag stitch on the sewing machine, hand stitching and more machine stitching of wire, a few broken needles and it became the middle back leaf on the group piece (in situ). All the leaves are different techniques and Mary’s flower is Tyvek.

The sunflower idea had developed over the time it took me to do the leaf.

I had intended to use these agate beads for the centre.

I tried them out in a bracelet, right size, but it was too flimsy to take the weight.

I tried them out within a very large, sturdy earring.

I layered lots of different fine translucent and slightly opaque fabrics together in a hoop. One of the very large earrings was stitched down in the middle, and a hole cut nearly up to it. The extra bits were stitched over the earing, then double petals cut out to go front and back, running stitched through all the layers. The whole flower has several layers of diluted PVA on both sides and then cut out…..

…… but I decided to leave the centre open, so that you can still peep into the wooden building

There are two diamond-shaped “windows”, so I made another sunflower in a different fabric.

The petal outlines are couched down with perlé thread. (These are samples that go with my artist statement.)

This second sunflower does have agates in the middle, but isn’t attached to a backing fabric so the light comes through the gaps between them; the outline of the centre is a twisted cord.

The plants will grow over the next few weeks

The peephole works, as demonstrated by Lorna!

These are a tiny taste of the work and of the lovely garden which is open over the summer every Thursday, Sunday and Bank Holiday from 11am to 4pm. It’s £5 admission to the garden, including the Exhibition.

We just hope that the weather is kind to the work and to the garden!