This is how Sue’s piece looked when I picked it up last month at Seata. The brief was basically do what you want – stitch, colour, square.
Knowing Sue loves Christmas I decided to do straightish lines of feather stitch to look like trees in dark green perlé.
The rows overlapped and became less straight.
Once I’d finished the square I wanted to add some shiny threads – Madeira rayon, metallic and opal, the greens from my three tubs.
They all catch the light and give a subtle little shimmer.
Then I wrote this in her little notebook, which obviously I didn’t proof-read!!
It was then ready to pass on again.
I remembered to take a photo of mine this time. Elaine did the top one. And Alex has had it for two months. It is so pink, but I love it. I so rarely use pink myself.
The one I picked up today is also using gardens for inspiration, but more of that when I get to stitch on it. That’s probably after Christmas now.
A Happy Christmas, however you spend it, to all my readers.
I’ve stitched a little gold star with Madeira Metallic on the top of my Rhodes stitch Christmas tree…….
…… it’s very subtle and may need a bit of tweaking.
Then on to the glueing round the edge, with neat PVA this time. I left it overnight to make sure it was completely dry, and then for the scary bit of cutting it out. The white cut threads of the canvas show up too much…….
……. so I used a damp Inktense pencil in a dark green around the edges, both front and back, a yellow around the star, and left it to dry again. Then I put another layer of PVA, just to make sure.
I cut a slightly smaller triangle of mount board to go in the middle, and found some green felt to stitch on the back. I had stitched another piece of felt to make a pocket for a pencil on the inside, to use as a trunk for it to stand up. I found a wooden reel for a tub, a reel of red, and couldn’t decide which to use. Then I found a dark green Sylco on a wooden reel to stitch the pocket and the front to the back. I realised when I’d stitched across the bottom, up one side and about an inch up the other side, that although it would stand up I’d not put the mount board in the middle! I thought it would be worth undoing that little bit, and managed to wriggle it in.
Now the stitching’s finished.
The pencil’s in place, and I decided that the green reel looked better than the empty wooden reel or the red one. I can easily take the pencil out and use the thread, if I need to use such a dark green for anything else. I think Lorna is right, and the star needs to be more obvious, but I’d not got anything suitable with me.
I was hoping that this would be my last blog post on this blue blackwork, only thirteen small areas to fill. Yes, there are only twelve on the photo above, but I’ve already done the top of the tower on the left side, with a variation of the pattern below. It’s slightly elongated and makes me think of the top of a lighthouse or lookout windows.
I then did the straight blocks on the right hand tower, the top diaper appears to have a tiny heart, the rest of the pattern is the same but somehow only one heart stands out!
The pattern above on the tower is squares and diamonds, made up of backstitches.
I’m ready to start the triangular roof sections. A bit trickier this one, and it was undone several times before I got it right (or so I thought). I’ve used one strand of my favourite Madeira opal threads, in with a strand of a fine perlé.
My excuse is that I was helping on the Seata stand at the St Paul’s Centenary Weeked Celebrations, outside in the sunshine, but rather windy. We had to keep retrieving flyers, felt leaves and flowers that were blowing away. Also I’m easily distracted talking to other members and visitors to our stand, and on closer inspection there are a few stitches missing. It was lovely to sit stitching in the sunshine. Fabulous flower arrangements in the church, homemade cakes and biscuits, raspberries, strawberries and freshly dug potatoes, homemade jam and whiskey marmalade, etc., to buy on the other stalls. All in all a good day. We raised some money for our funds, and hopefully will have picked up some new members.
It was repeated on the other side, fortunately no need to mirror image the diaper this time. I then realised that I’ve not only made mistakes / missed stitches, but the metallic thread has got loopy and caught as I unpicked. I need to take it out and re-do it.
Then I did the biggest triangle, using a dark blue shiny madeira rayon, and it was only when I took the photo that I saw that I’d missed a row! Still getting distracted!
Luckily I’d left the thread attached, so that was soon rectified.
The colours outside are fairly close to how it looks in reality. In the photos taken on a dull day, it looks very dull and grey, although the roof is in a strand each of silver and grey Madeira metallic.
Next the two tiny sections, again using a different Metallic opal thread with a fine perlé. It was a bit fiddly and the photo doesn’t show them well. I want all the roof sections to have a different shiny or metallic finish to catch the light. Only four tiny sections left to do now and the section to unpick and re-do.
I’m trying to keep on top of the travelling geodes and doing them soon after the Seata meeting, but Christmas got in the way for the most recent one. This top photo is how mine looked at the November meeting.
For the December meeting, the one that I worked on asked for the colours of the hankie’s border to be used with a stitch of your choice. I took this literally and used all the colours in the border to do a random sized blanket stitch (again) with two strands of DMC or Anchor from my stash.
With The Great Scunthorpe Embroidery Challenge, shared lunch, Christmas card competition and a raffle, there was so much going on at the December meeting, that I forgot to take a photo of mine.
The geode was the first thing I picked up when I finally found time to stitch between Christmas and New Year. It’s lovely colours, and Sandra has put a selection of threads to use if we wanted to use them.
Since it was so dull and grey outside, I fancied a bit of sparkle, so back to my Madeira metallics. Several of them in the tub would have worked, but I settled on the mauve / purple to do a parallel running stitch.
It’s very subtle for me in spite of using it double, but it catches the light beautifully, as does the gold fleck on the background fabric, and hopefully it will show up when the following rows are added.
We had a lovely workshop with Nicky Dillerstone at S.e.a.t.a last Saturday. On a beautiful warm sunny day, it seemed appropriate working with shells and driftwood along with neutral coloured fabric and threads.
Nicky talked and showed us some of her work, before giving us free rein to help ourselves to some of her stash to add to our own, and make a start.
I was giddy with ideas, the others on our table reckoned I was like a kid who had had too much sugar in the sweet shop.
All these lovely fabrics and shells to choose from, where to begin? I’d narrowed things down a little before I left home, not taking very many shells, a few (!) pieces of sea glass, my precious sea marble, and some of the fine fabrics and threads I’d taken to Amanda J Clayton’s workshop a few weeks ago.
The squarish piece of driftwood (above) has been on the window-sill in Miles’ bedroom for several (!) years, and I finally thought I would use it. I even arranged a few shells on it. Then I saw the piece in Nicky’s box which I couldn’t resist (bottom left in the above photo).
I started tying the shell to the driftwood, wanting to leave the hole in the shell as a spyhole to show off the grain of the wood, but it was slipping around too much. Nicky had offered to drill holes in the shells for us, so I asked if she could drill it while still attached to the wood. She’d try. Yes. How many? Three, please. Where? There, there and there.
I didn’t want to use them to anchor it any more, but to thread net through …..
……. some pale gold organza, a bit fiddly ……
… but managed.
I then used a strip of some softened (washed?) canvas wrapped in the fine wire from a wine bottle threaded with beads. This wouldn’t go through the final hole properly so a few stitches held it in place.
Some tiny beads were strung on the netting with a Madeira metallic thread.
A tiny felt ball, the size of my little finger nail, has some of the same beads stitched to it, but it’s not finished yet.
I’ve gathered up the gold organza with a few rows of stitching, and used some more of the wire to anchor the shell better to the wood. This is as far as I’d got by the end of the day.
I asked Nicky to drill some more holes in another shell for me before we finished for the day. Drilling shell isn’t something I’ve done yet, but I’ll certainly have a go.
I’ve put in some blanket stitches and started some button hole stitch.
I’m just experimenting with it at the moment.
As always I came away from Nicky’s workshop inspired. Just thinking of her and her work is inspiring. Thank you, Nicky.
I’ve stayed focused on my shard piece this week, and apart from a Schwam workshop at Lincolnshire Textiles last Saturday, I’ve continued with it each chance I’ve had to stitch.
The first thing was to find some more threads, to vary the shades, texture, gloss and add a bit of sparkle. The “Bella Donna” viscose ones above may look beautiful and glossy, but they are horrendous to stitch with, very quickly untwisting, separating and becoming fluffy. I usually try only to couch with them, but thought the blue was such a good colour that I’d have a go (bottom right). It’s slightly better stitching in thin air with them, at least the fabric isn’t abraiding it, and it does glide against itself ok. It would have been easier to do Corded Brussels, and if I use it for another section it certainly will be the corded stitch.
I also used two of these trusty Madeira threads. I bought them years and years ago in a tiny little shop in Alnwick when we touring in the camper-van. Over the years I’ve used them a lot at some time or other, only for hand stitching, and often with another thread of some sort.
The difficulty with these was using two strands, the first time the blue with a fine perlé, not too bad (middle bottom), and it catches the light more than the photo shows. Then I started using it for the section that went down to the point.
The cord was less anchored, and going into the machine stitch down one side, it pulled it across, and I ran out of thread. While finishing off the end, I realised I could pull it over a little more and leave myself a new section. So I used a strand of the blue and the silver together, both very fine and inclined to tangle, especially as they were rather long with wanting to make sure I didn’t run out of thread again. Again the photo doesn’t show the sparkle.
It’s certainly a slow process. I’d done eight sections by last week and have now done seventeen, and started the eighteenth. I’m not sure how many more I’ll do as I’m assessing where to go next as I go, but I’m enjoying the process. The Corded Brussels Stitch is not only much better to do, it is also significantly quicker than the Brussels Stitch.
The coasters in the photo, showing the piece as is, are from Barcelona; Gaudí’s work is so stimulating and inspiring.
A couple of people have asked me about the piece in the last week or so, and thought it might be based on a stained glass window when I’d told them it was for a piece for Lincolnshire Textiles Exhibition to be held in the Chapter House at Lincoln Cathedral in August. Certainly rose windows and stained glass generally do inspire me.
Looking through photos a couple of days ago I found this, which we came across by accident when we were walking in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter in April 2013, in the Plaça de Sant Miquel. It reminded me of some of my degree work “Informed by the organic”, that I was working on for the degree show in May.
New work is often influenced by earlier work and input, even when it is subconsciously. Looking through photos is often a good starting point, and although I didn’t find many pictures of the people and dog that I was looking for, I did find lots and lots of things that are ideas for my art and textile work.
debbidipity 