A few months ago it was arranged that the Grasby Embroiderers group, of which I am a member, was going to have an exhibition of our recent work at Elsham Open Gardens this weekend.
We have hung / displayed the work late this afternoon. It’s a lovely light, airy village hall and the work looks good. Some is our new body of work entitled “Altered Images”. We all started with an image of our choice, and then altered it in some way: colour, distortion, reflection, surreal.
The group banner that we all worked on a few years ago is having another airing, too. There were nine of us at the time, and we each did two green letters in techniques of our choice. They were then appliquéd to the stitched background. There were many hours of work with a varigated thread, stitched on canvas on the diagonal in both directions. It has been mistaken for a piece of fabric on a few occasions!
To go with the garden theme, the flowers that were at The Old Rectory exhibition in Epworth last year are also on display. Some new pieces have also been added, and they look quite different when they are displayed differently too. There will no doubt be a different group of people attending the Open Garden event as well.
We’ve also done a canvas work and French knot garden….. or two, or three, or four of them in some cases. It started with a little workshop that Helen did for us all.
We each chose our own flower or leaf for inspiration, which gave us a colour palette as a starting point.
Helen had also prepared and painted the canvas (green) for us all. The photo doesn’t show how textured it really is, but it’s made in two layers, the bottom one just French knots and the top more French knots around the square of canvas work stitches.
This one of mine was inspired by a rose garden. Certainly pinks are out of my comfort zone, but they were a nice change. We chose our own canvas work stitches too, so they all look completely different
The yellows and greens are far more my colour palette, and were inspired by daffodils and narcissi, a lovely pop of colour after the winter. They are mounted on painted coasters, so aren’t very big. All the same, I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to how many French knots it took to finish them, and I certainly didn’t do any more for a while afterwards!
The weather forecast is for a hot, sunny weekend, so hopefully it will be a well attended event. I’m helping to man the display on Sunday, so will take more photos then and try to get to see some of the gardens as well.
The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on the garden, both the real one and a stitched one. The stitched one is what we are doing at “In The Stitch Zone” with Alex Hall. Alex’s garden is one she worked to go on a tag last July / August (take a look at her blog http://underatopazsky).
Mine is not so tiny. We started last week with a path on our chosen fabric and our own method of stitching. Alex suggested various possibilities: satin stitch, french knots depending on the sort of path we wanted, straight or curved, regular or irregular. I chose a dark batik, to which I used tent stitch in the two perlé threads above to attach a tiny piece of canvas, a straight regular path to mimic a herring-bone block paving. It was very slow and hard work as the fabric is backed with calico in a hoop.
I decided to try working the patio area in my hand, slightly quicker and a little easier to stich. The threads, although both perlé 5, are a slightly different twist and thickness which gives more texture. It looks like garter stitch knitting with alternate rows going in the opposite direction. I then just caught it down with stab stitches around the edges to the backing fabric.
I haven’t found time yet to put in the rest of the path, but we started the courgette bed in week two: raised stem bands in a variegated perlé 5, with lazy daisy stitches in yellow at the one end and tiny leaves cut from a colour catcher.
It was a bit tricky to find the right shape as they all look different on a Google search. My courgette plants are only just coming through in the greenhouse this week, and the leaves are not the proper leaves yet (but at least I have got as far as planting them this year).
I tried drawing them, but found it was easier to cut them directly as they are so tiny. When I stitched them down, I put a tiny pleat where they join the stem. The stems were put in with stem stitch!
This is the finished courgette bed.
I’ve got one piece of the recycled canvas left, but haven’t yet decided how best to continue the path. They are all off-cuts from some other project that have been sprayed gold, so can’t easily be replicated.
This is where it has got to so far. I think mine will end up with some flowers as well as vegetables, but it will evolve as the sessions progress.
The garden has some lovely areas at the moment, as long as you don’t look too closely for the weeds. The colours are mainly a soft blue, pink, purple palette which becomes warm as the summer progresses. The Aquilega (Granny’s Bonnets) are beautiful at the moment.
And this rose is spectacular, it’s one that Sally bought me after my dad died. It’s the best it’s ever been and loads of buds still to come out. It is also scented, so I’ll cut one for the kitchen table.
These poppies are stunning too, I can see them right down the garden when I open the bedroom blind in the morning, loads more buds on this too.
The wisteria is almost at its best too, not that this photo does it credit. The spires are longer than they have ever been, several inches at the bottom still to open. We have managed a few meals under it, but so far I’ve not got as far as using the hammock because it hasn’t been warm enough by the time I’ve done all the things I’ve needed to do. Next warm day, it must be a priority as the flowers don’t last, but the jobs don’t go away.
I’ve not written about this previously, as I have been having computer problems since shortly afterwards, couldn’t download the photos from the camera, and had only taken a couple on my phone. At last it’s sorted, and it was a treat to look at the photos I took, so I thought I’d share a few.
At the beginning of July we had a day trip to Tythe Farm Gardens, Wansford near Driffield, we got there to find none of the rest of the group there! Unusual for us to be the first to arrive. We walked down the driveway to be greeted by Terry, who was surprised to see us, but said it was his wife Susanne who organised these things. A quick phone call to another member of the group, only to find it had been cancelled, but some how we had not received the email telling us so. It’s only about an hour’s drive from home, so not the end of the world.
But no problem, we were made very welcome and had our own private tour around the Gardens by Terry. He’d checked that we were up for tea / coffee at the end. Yes. He left us in the courtyard while sorting this with Susanne, and we duly set off.
First of many sculptures
We back tracked slightly to an area we had passed on our way down the curved driveway, the first of many rose bushes. One I remembered from my childhood, “Peace”, in all its stages from tight buds to over blown, and everything inbetween. It starts off yellow with peach on the outer eges of the petals, the yellow becomes paler as it opens, ending up almost white before it flops. It is scented as most of the old fashioned roses are, and takes me right back to my childhood
“Peace” in budPale lemon with peachy / pink tinge Almost fading to white
The blocks around this rose arbour are just stacked, with no mortar between them. What a great idea, it can be moved or changed easily at a later date. We have some blocks left from our drive, not this many but enough to play around with. I just need to decide where to play!
Blocks just stacked around the sculpture
Terry was giving us the history and background of the garden, and answering my many questions as we walked around the ten-acre site. It is in the Yellow Book Gardens and was open on the 13th June this year for the Charity Open Day, had 700 visitors and raised over £7,500. It is such a large site, ten acres so that even this year it was possible to have so many.
Beautiful scent
Many of the roses were still at their best when we there. Some huge climbing and rambling roses, as well as shrub and bush roses. The one below didn’t even look like a rose until we got up close to it.
Huge climbing / rambling roseClose up of climbing / rambling rose
This sumptuous one made me think of good raspberry ripple ice cream. I was pleased I’d taken the camera, which gave me a much wider range of options than my phone, for macro close ups as well as shots that took in the whole vista of the gardens.
Looks like rasberry ripple ice cream
I commented about the amount of grass there is, and how long it must take to cut it all, for Terry to tell us about the robot lawnmowers, and explain how the grass has improved since they have been in action. They have their own little houses for when they are not in use, but they just unobtrusively, quietly cut the grass for hours on end, regardless of the weather.
There is a series of sculptures by Bruno Peotta from Vicenza, Northern Italy, the most recent being “Apollo and Daphne”, originally by Bernini. It’s good to be able to get up close and see the details. I love the way her toes are growing roots.
Apollo and DaphneApollo and Daphne plinthGreat to see the details up close
I thought that the lake was natural, but in fact was only dug out in the late nineties. The swans have succeeded in raising cygnets this year, although very much at the “Ugly Duckling” stage at the moment, especially when they came out of the water. They looked very ungainly and uncoordinated. But, the proud dad was being very protective of his young, not from us but from the dog.
Vista down the lakeMum and the four cygnetsDad protecting his young
The wrought iron on the bridge at the end of the lake would have interested my dad, a blacksmith until he retired at nearly 80.
Love the bridge
I’ve never seen such a huge clump of spotted orchids. I couln’t get near enough at the right angle with the camera for a close-up, so the phone came into its own for the detail
Huge clump of orchidsClose-up taken with my phone
By the time we had wandered back up to the courtyard, Susanne came out with not only tea and coffee, but a lovely plate of quiche and salad, followed by date and walnut cake. The weather forecast had not been good, lots of rain forecast, but we were lucky and it stayed dry, long enough to eat our lunch and chat for a while.
Quiche and saladTerry and Susanne Hardcastle
We had a lovely time, and were reluctant to leave, but rain was threatening, and had well and truly started by the time we stopped at Wansford Church just down the road.
There is a very good website, with photos taken by Terry, showing the garden at other times of the year, too. They open for groups of 10 plus, as well as the Yellow Book Open Day; next year I believe it’s 21 June. It would be a fabulous place to go and draw too. http://Tythe Farm Gardens, Wansford Thank you both for a lovely day.
debbidipity 