A good weekend

It was a busy time at the Grasby Embroiderers Exhibition last weekend. The first visitors arrived before we were officially open, but it worked well as we were all ready anyway and good to have keen viewers.

There were several bodies of work on display, some of which had not been seen before, including the bras, a fund raiser for Breast Cancer. We had all started with a white bra, the same size (36FF), so plenty of space to stitch. The brief was a famous woman, real or fictitious. We all had completely different ideas which ended in very different looking bras; from the top left: Grace Darling, Claire / Grayson Perry, Snow Queen (mine), Shirley Bassey (Gold Finger), bottom left: Flower Power, and Gertrude Jekyll.

I used white and siver threads to stitch simple snowflakes in various sizes, Angelina fibres to sparkle and catch the light, fluffy yarn to look like snow-drifts, and strings of beads to represent icicles. The bras were stuffed and stitched on to a painted canvas

We each started one body of work (“New Beginnings”) with a pack of black and white threads, fabrics, papers, etc., a different stitch to play and experiment with, a page of quotes for self reflection and the starting point of one of two sayings: “Time and tide wait for no man” or “Castles in the air”. Also we had a white Ikea frame for a piece “Where we started”.

Two thoughts immediately jumped into my head: the song “Both sides now” by Joni Mitchell and the German fairytale castle Neuschwanstein, which we had visited years ago with our German friends.

My stitch was Half Rhodes stitch, a canvas work stitch. This was where my preliminary ideas started, but in my pack had been a piece of wallpaper with half a butterfly on, which I played around with in PhotoShop, mirror-imaging it, horizontally and vertically. This led to the swan pieces below of white on black and black on white in tiny reverse chain stitches. In the other white frame are Lorna’s sand ripples in sorbello stitch (white on white), and in the foreground her “Time and tide” piece.

The red and white box, with silhouette of a castle round the four sides, has a tiny bead and wire red swan on a little mirror hidden in the bottom of the box. The starting points evolve and develop as the work progresses. Most of the rest of the group ended up using colour in their pieces, but it was good to go back to basics and look at line / shape / form and texture, and work in sketchbooks

The flowers and angels were new bodies of work for our exhibition at The Old Rectory in Epworth, but looked different in a different setting and differently staged. My tulip on the left had lost its shape and form a little at Epworth, the humidity had made it wilt. It may need a couple of tiny stitches to anchor it, but so far it seems OK where I have hung it at home. The black cloth makes the other flowers sing, but drains the pale green of my canvas and makes it appear white, at least in the photograph.

I love the bright colours and abstraction of Mary’s angel, a complete contrast to my cream angel with very fine gold thread and simplistic stitching. Her wonderful flower, behind on the right, is so free, and the use of colour is stunning; if I were to try something like that it would look overdone and a mess, because not knowing when to stop would be my downfall.

The lockdown challenges are a riot of colour when all displayed together, just what we needed to keep our spirits up, a surprise through the post each month, giving an ideal opportuntity to experiment and play with some new and different techniques.

The red dado rail behind my “I am little” work was a happy accident, but unfortunately I took the photo before the radiator had been covered with another black cloth. This was part of the “Revisted” project, and most of the others developed earlier work from old sketchbooks and bodies of work from before I joined the group. I took the title of “Portrait” that had been used some time ago. It started at just the right time when we were emptying my dad’s house, and came across my infant school books and old black and white photos of when I was four and five. The title comes from a page in my first school book, with the tiny drawing reproduced on the left and on my name plate.

There was a sales table (fabric, inspiration packs, our postcards) and a tombola, both of which all but sold out. The money from these was split equally between Grasby Church and Breast Cancer.

Tea and coffee, and homemade cakes and biscuits (donations to Grasby Church) with well spaced tables, the weather was bright and sunny, so it was easy to have the doors open for good ventilation. It all felt safe and welcoming, with a steady stream of visitors, but never so many together that it felt crowded.

It seemed that most of the visitors on Saturday and Sunday morning were fellow stitchers, and mainly locals on both afternoons. No rhyme or reason for this, but it was a very friendly atmosphere and lots of the visitors knew one or more of us. It was good to see people that we’d not had any contact with since March 2020 at least, so lots of chatting and catching up, and compliments about the work.

All in all, a good weekend.

Tythe Farm Gardens

Natural spring in the courtyard

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 bud

Pale 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 rose

Close 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 Daphne

Apollo and Daphne plinth

Great 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 lake

Mum and the four cygnets

Dad 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 orchids

Close-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 salad

Terry 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.