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.
It seems that it’s around ten years ago that I, and several folk I have followed, started our blogs. Some, like myself, have been erratic over the years on regularity, or changed platforms for various reasons, whilst others have consistently posted over the years.
Alex, who nominated me for this bit of fun blog award, is one. It has been good to follow her artistic development over the years, and to have become real friends as well as on-line ones.
These five questions were posed.
1. What would my perfect holiday be? Family, friends, fun and food, not necessarily in that order. We have had many wonderful holidays spent with our German, Spanish and French friends, doing the things I enjoy most. Walking, talking and eating. Exploring new places, either camping or in the camper van, staying with the friends or them staying here (we always treat their visits here as holidays). Going to exhibitions, art and craft galleries, museums, cathedrals, National Trust and English Heritage sites, gardens, coast lines, countryside and sunsets (mainly hidden by the woods where we live). I’ve never been one for lying on a beach or at the side of a pool. Holidays are for visiting new places; even when we go to Barcelona, we always go to see new spots as well as revisiting old favourites. The Sagrada Familia is constantly changing, anyway.
Ironically we collected the camper van 16 years ago today, from Beryl, an old family friend. After her husband Barry died, she was no longer going to use it. We have had some fantastic holidays in it, exploring and touring parts of this country, many for the first time. Miles was always happier to be able to take Truffle, our black Labrador, than to leave her even with my dad or friends. It also ensured plenty of long walks, until her last few years, when Miles and I would take her for short walks, then leave her with Colin reading, writing, listening to music or cooking in the van while we went exploring. It suited us all for many years. It no longer fits since Colin damaged his shoulder several years ago, and me breaking my arm last year. The van doesn’t have power-assisted steering, so it’s too heavy for either of us to drive. Hopefully a young friend and her husband and family are going to have it, and will have as much pleasure and fun with it as we did.
14th May 2005, Beryl, Miles and meSagrada FamiliaSagrada Familia
As well as eating out, we like to buy local produce and cook ingredients that are less readily available at home. The market on Las Ramblas in the very centre of Barcelona, with its beautifully displayed produce, is as much a feast for the eyes as the stomach. Although another one, only a short walk from our friend Marisa’s flat, is relatively recently refurbished, is very good and less distance to carry home the shopping.
La Boquería, BarcelonaLa BoqueríaLa BoqueríaSunset from campsite in North WalesAnother night, same campsite in North Wales
2. Where is my favourite place to walk? I do love to walk on beaches, but I’m very lucky in that my favourite place to walk is Broughton Woods, less than five minutes from home. It was one of the things that attracted us here in 1990, not that we walked in there until after we moved here. It was almost a daily occurrence for more than 20 years while we had a dog, first Nellie a golden retriever, then later Truffle. One of the pluses of lockdown has been to walk in there several times a week, something I’ve not done for several years. It is constantly changing with the time of year, season, weather and light, so there are always different things to spot. However, the familiarity is a constant, and it’s reassuring that life goes on in spite of Covid, politics and the world’s tribulations.
Broughton Woods
3.What inspired me to start a blog? A combination of things from what I remember (July 2011). I’d just finished my first year as a mature student doing a degree in Contemporary Fine Art Practice at Hull School of Art and Design, and one of the modules in the theory aspect for the start of the second year was to do a blog. Knowing the problems I have with computer based things, I thought it would be good to get started before I had to hit the ground running. Also I was involved with the local artists’ open studio event (“insight”) at the end of September, and thought it would be a good way of promoting myself. Also it would be a good way of keeping a record of the artistic and creative work and the activities I was doing.
I haven’t kept it going for the whole ten years. There were times when life got in the way, coupled with the frustrations of writing and adding photos, and for the whole post to disappear into the ether with no way of getting it back. This happened for quite a while, because the platform just didn’t seem compatible with Apple products at the time, so in the end I gave up.
I did have similar problems when I first resurrected it at the start of lockdown, but time wasn’t so pressing then. I also had the problem of a broken dominant arm, so had the chance to persevere. It has put some pattern on my week, and encouraged me to do creative things so I would have something to blog about. I’ve managed to post every Friday since the start of lockdown, and plan to continue. Several months ago, I started to post on Instagram (also ‘debbidipity’) on a daily basis, which again I’ve found helps focus on creativity in some form or another.
4.What did I miss most during lockdown? Relatively simple things: eating and stitching with friends. Pre-Covid there were few weeks we didn’t eat with friends, either in our or their homes, sitting round the table usually over home-cooked food, the varying specialities of different friends, comfortable enough with one another not to worry if something didn’t quite work, there were always enough other things to fill up on. The German friends actually request my disaster puddings, not that they are repeatable as it’s usually that I got distracted and was never quite sure what had been missed out or added at the wrong time. The camaraderie and the banter that goes with good friends, it’s just not the same over the internet, much that it has helped get us through this time.
The stitching was not just the stitching, but the talking that went alongside it, the putting the things going on in our lives in perspective, the mutual support over problems, the listening ears, the sharing of experiences, the laughing, the broadening of ideas and inspiration, the encouragement when the project wasn’t quite working out.
5.What was the last book I read? My reading has been somewhat strange over lockdown. I normally do a shift in the local community library each week, which is completely run by volunteers. Books ‘fall’ off the shelves into my hands, something catches my eye, a title, an author, the font or illustration, it happens in book shops too. I rarely know what I’m looking for, a book just ‘speaks’ to me. Sometimes when I read the blurb it just doesn’t appeal and it goes back on the shelf.
I have only been in the library in the next little town three times since March 2020, (ours hasn’t re-opened yet). Once was just before Christmas when I’d noticed the lights on, and on sticking my nose in had been told I could browse. I came home with nearly twenty books, only picking up ones I was pretty sure I’d want. My best Christmas present, choosing books again. I quarantined them for 72 hours, which is what they were doing with returns in the library. I was so excited, like a kid waiting for Santa, waiting to take them out of the bag and have a proper rummage. I was just in time before it was locked down again.
A couple of weeks ago, it re-opened again and I came away with a fresh pile, a few familiar names, Joanna Trollope, Joanne Harris, Jojo Moyes, and some that the covers jumped out for one reason or another, including “The reading cure, how books restored my appetite” by Laura Freeman; the blurb sounded promising too.
BlurbLibrary book
The cure it’s talking about is recovery from anorexia, not that I realised in the library, nor something that I was ever likely to suffer from; I enjoy my food far too much. But it is well written and describes how when Laura, at age 14, was too weak to go to school. She read and read, and read, and gradually started to eat again, having read about other people eating as part of the narrative, first in Dickens.
She started to increase her range of food, as well as the minute quantities she ate, as she worked her way through different authors writing about food, including favourites of mine, Laurie Lee and Elizabeth David. I’m only about half way through so far, but as well as describing various dishes and how to prepare some of them, it is also introducing authors, their books, some travel, artists’ paintings of food, a lovely description of a still-life of Monet of “galettes des pommes”. I’ll investigate further some of the authors she writes of, Mary Francis for one. All in all, so far I have found it informative, inspiring and it is increasing my appetite to step out there and begin to do the things I enjoy as Covid restrictions are lifted.
Most of the bloggers I have followed in the past no longer blog, except Alex, Rachel, and Amanda who have already done the award. If either of the two below want to take up the challenge, it’s just for a bit of fun.
Much as I love to travel and visit and explore new places at the moment I am still not convinced it is safe or responsible to do so.
My second travelling book was “socially distancingly”returned to me yesterday. What a delight. It’s bulging with work from some of the members of Scunthorpe Embroiderers Guild.
Bulging book
The theme for this book is stained glass windows and started it’s journey in Autumn 2017. There were 13 members (including myself) on it’s first journey, each of them having the book for the month between branch meetings. A double page A5 spread, mainly done in landscape format. Initially I tried not to look at what was in my book each month – they were displayed on a table for all to see at the meeting, and at the end of the day we all took away the next on the list to do for the following month.
Introduction to my bookMy piece of canvas work at the beginning of the book, loosely based on a window in Caistor Church, Lincolnshire
I wanted what was in it to be a complete surprise at the end. I soon realised this was not going to work as it generated so much conversation and wonder at what had been created.And more importantly I realised I wanted to thank each and every one individually for the beautiful work, and time and effort they had put into my book. Sorry if I missed anybody.
The second round only had 6 in, again thank you all. Many reasons for this, it takes a big commitment to sign up for it, a new piece of work for somebody else every month and some found that they didn’t have time left to work on other things they wanted or needed to do. Not everybody is able to get to every meeting and sometimes it was difficult to get the finished piece to the meeting and the next one back in time to finish it before the following one.
Personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of a new project every month (and the discipline of a deadline), the opportunity to try something new, to tackle a subject out of my comfort zone at times and the chance to “play”.
It would be sad if, due to present difficulties, the travelling book format were to fall. It has obviously been truly inspirational for many members and vastly enjoyed and appreciated by recipients and visitors to exhibitions.This book really does live up to it’s name of a travelling book. Some favourite places to revisit in my chair, and others that make me want to go and see them for real. Some techniques are old favourites and others things to try and experiment with myself.
A couple at the beginning were inspired by windows in Glasgow, one by John Kenneth Clark who designed the Millennium Window In Glasgow Cathedral and another by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Glasgow had long been on my bucket list, so in July 2018 we had 4 days there. We walked and walked and walked all over the city enjoying the museums and galleries, and then on our last day a lucky free tour on hop-on, hop-off old buses (1950’s to 1970’s) of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh works, some of which were not normally open to the public, some too far out from the city to be easily accessible. We only scratched the surface and had planned to meet up there again last weekend with our dear friends from Aberdeen. Maybe next year.
Sandra Frost’s inspirationSandra’s finished piece – her work is always so beautifully precise and neat.
A couple inspired by Gaudi / Barcelona; the Guell Crypt at Santa Coloma (a dozen miles west of Barcelona) and the ceiling of Domenech i Montaner’s Palau de al Musica Catalana, neither of which I have seen for all our time in Barcelona. We have a very dear Spanish friend we have stayed with many times over the 35 years we have been married, and goodness knows when we will see her, either here or in Barcelona, both Marisa and Colin are in the “at risk” group because of their age. So photos and happy memories will have to suffice for the moment.
Another based on the Rose Window in the Cathedral at Chartres, in France. I was just bowled over by this when I first saw it when driving through France to Spain in 1986. And again when we detoured and camped near the river to take our son Miles to see it some years ago. Also at Chartres Cathedral is a labyrinth where pilgrims would trace the route to the centre. The same concentric rings design is used for Julian’s Bower, the grass maze at Alkborough, North Lincolnshire. This was a favourite place of Miles’ from being a toddler, we always had to take visiting friends and family to see it and walk around it. The design is reproduced around the village; in the church porch, outside the Coronation Club, and on the village boundary stone…..
Miles walking round Julian’s Bower
Sally was inspired by Moroccan architecture and used blackwork over a background she had painted for her piece. Not somewhere I have ever visited, but loved the Moorish aspects when we were in Seville.Lots of other inspiring places are featured in the book, too many to mention them all.
Sally Schlögl’s notesSally’s finished piece
And finally no need to travel to see, a contemporary stained glass hanging that I see every day in my kitchen, done by Irene McGrath that Janet Hall was inspired to do a machine embroidered panel in organza and painted canvas on a water soluble stabiliser.
Janet Hall’s inspiration Janet’s finished pieceSummer view through stained glass panel by Irene McGrath
Please don’t be offended if I haven’t featured your work. I felt it was only right and proper to check with the stitchers that they were happy for me to share their work, and these were ones for whom I readily had contact details. All photos of their work are my own.
I now need to make a bag or box to protect my book, but I’m in no rush to hide it away and will continue to enjoy the memories it’s provoked and maybe make plans to see new places. Thank you to all who have contributed to it.
debbidipity 