Whew!

Don't know whether holidays are entirely worth it, since I returned I have been paid bills, been to the hairdressers, done an embroidery workshop at the EG, signed up for the leisure centre,been to see my best friend, done the washing and re-stocked the fridge. Now I wonder which of of these activities you will be of interest????

OK then the embroidery workshop was with Fay Maxwell and was based on the article she has just had published in Stitch Working with blanket felt on silk. Both new experiences for me. And no tracing paper!!!!!

It was a really good day though I have a feeling that Fay despaired of me!! I always have problems in workshops, part of the reason is that I am left handed and relatively inexperienced as a stitcher therefore any new stitch(especially those with a twist) present me with a big problem. Once I get home and can use the computer to turn things round I am OK but in a workshop I panic a bit. I had real problems with the authentic Shisha stitch Fay was showing us. Her work is beautiful, an updating of the ancient crewel work and she was funny and informative so if you ever get the chance to take a class with her, grab it.

One of my other mistakes was to put a bird on my cushion.
This immediately locked me into feathers etc.. instead of being free to do exotic flowers and leaves.

I have actually pulled out the stitching I did in the workshop(forgot to photoraph)
and started again. I will show progress at a later date.

Now my main aim is to get back to TAST, (as very tempted to try and find an Internet cafe in Cyprus so that I could continue when the weather was bad) I am now three weeks behind but I hope that Sharon doesn't take a break because knowing me that will mean I am still three weeks behind when she starts again

Inpite of the weather I was pleased with some of the photographs I took in Cyprus so I will share them when I think of it.

This one was on the same beach as the chair.......aaah lucky M!!

I'm back

and hit the ground running. We jetted off to blue skies and turquoise seas(see last posting) to land in a thunderstorm which lasted a 36 hours and then a week of grey days even so I found a chair waiting for me on the beach.

Arriving back in England up a holiday weekend where it never seemed to stop raining for two days had me thinking how much the weather affects our moods and in some cases livelyhoods. I feel so sorry for people who were involved in events like the Kent Garden Show, people who run the Fun Fairs that I saw advertised, for many of these people they must rely on these holidays for a large part of their income. The real cruelty is that this morning, as people return to work, the sky is a bright washed clear blue.

Basque stitch.....

This is just a quickie this week because I am off to the beautiful island of Cyprus tomorrow, for two weeks Yipee, so I will be playing catch up when I come back.

The moment I saw "Basque" I thought of Jean Borotra the "Bounding Basque" and of the game Pelote the incdedibly fast game which is played against a wall with a sort of scoop shaped basket and a very small ball. So my basque stitch is based on the "basket" complete with flying ball!!!



I like this stitch, at first, I was making it like a detched chain without the twist and then the penny dropped. It does have a sort of folklore look to it a good stitch for building up layers as you can work it both ways.

This is from last year. Can't wait!!!

A bit about me.......

I have been tagged by Gunnel, I feel quite honoured. If you look at her blog and her Flickr you will see some beautiful needlefelting and antique fabric collage.

Well I am supposed to tell you 7 things about myself so here goes.

1. I have been married for nearly 46 years, as you can imagine he is pretty special as are our two children. I blessed with some wonderful friends, they know who they are.

2. I love colour, I have been known to burst into tears if something stikes me as particularly beautiful, eg entering the big marquee at the Chelsea Flower Show for the first time and a wall of Pale purple Wisteria and yellow Roses at the Alhambra Palace in Grenada.



3. I love live theatre, especially musical theatre. I love the works of Stephen Sondheim and Kander and Ebb, Jerry Herman and Maltby and Shire. I like going to the cinema too, next on the "to see" list are Hairspray and Pirates of the Carribean 3.

4. I like music from Billy Joel to Prokofiev but I HATE "background" music in shops and lifts, television, and toilets. What is it about? There are many people who are a little hard of hearing or like myself have mild tinnitus and this constant bombardment is a real irritation. This is one of my two pet hates.

5. I don't like to see push chairs which face forward and create a barrier between the parent and child. It seems to me that a great number of the times you hear children crying in shopping areas is because they are trapped and bored, very often the parents and siblings are walking behind talking and laughing and the child in the push chair is completely excluded. As for the kind that have a sort of parcel shelf for the second child....don't get me started. Did you guess this is my other per hate???



6. I am known to have a soft spot for Johhny Depp, who can blame me?

Courtesy

7. I love all things creative, from photography to embroidery, I like to mess with paint and papers, play with Paint Shop Pro and trying new techniques and searching for that perfect combination which will allow me to create something lasting.

Well that's me, now I am supposed to name seven others. I think most of the seven people will have been tagged many times before and so please do not feel obliged to respond, just take this to be a mark of gratitude of the pleasure I have had from reading your blogs. First of all Sharon B, it was working with her on Encrusted Crazy Quilting course that widened my horizons and of course her inspirational Take a Stitch Tuesday has brought so many of us together.
Purple Missus is generous with her wonderful experiments in combining fabric and paint. Someone who makes me want to reach out and touch her work is Kay Susan her blog is Smockery I have to thank Dot as the little dolls I have made from her design have charmed my friends.Next is Marianne, the bags she had made from her TAST samples would grace any boutique. Margaret is someone else who is generous with her experiments and also shares beautiful photograph. So many more I could and should mention but my last is not "a lady who sews" (but his wife, my best friend does) Tony likes to chip in with the odd comment now and then and I do enjoy reading his blog about his village and his passions(birds and moths) and it makes them feel not so far away.
Thank you Gunnel for giving me this opportunity to say thank you, of course you are on the list too.

All this has made me realise that I must update my links, I have so many people on Bloglines that do not appear here.

Wheel Stitch - week 18

I am going on holiday on Thursday and everything seems to be happening at once, golf games, theatre trips, dentist visits, not to mention lipstick searches. Why is there always so much to do before you go on holiday, my younger brother asked me what was the difference between holidays and being retired. I told him that Holidays are harder work!!!! I have just finished my sample of wheel stitch My first thought was of the inside of a watch or clock and I started looking for images on exactly how they are set. Wandering around I came across the Antikythera Device ,an Ancient Greek "computer" which was found at the beginning of the century. Fascinating stuff. So this is my offering based on the picture from the Nordex site.


I love these textural stitches, especially when you start to pile them on top of each other. I particularly like the pink wheel on the left where I reversed the stitch for a couple of rounds and it made this highly satisfactory machine wheel look.

Elizabeth Arden what have you done.........

Courtesy The Scream
....that's it. I went to day to replace my Elizabeth Arden 8 hour lip salve, colour MELON. To be told, because it is not popular in the EU(European Union) it has been withdrawn. I pointed out that we English Roses have a different skin tone to our undeniably beautiful European cousins but this was received with a sympathetic continental shrug. All other lipsticks go ten shades darker on me, what am I to do, I must become a recluse, I NEED MY LIPSTICK. Why can't these companies warn you when they are about to remove your favourite product, I've never really recovered from the demise of Yardley's English Rose!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paintings in Felt.

I just had to pass this one on. I found this link on Heegeldab's blog. Jeanne Roberts who makes pictures out of felt, she share her technique, as well, though the skill involved must take years of practice. I love the flowers but the portraits are just amazing.

Straight stitch

Well, the simplest stitch so far has taken me the longest time to do. I wanted to try and do something with sheer fabrics and stitches under and on top but the everyday world took over this week and I have just rushed to complete it this morning.


I love this simple stitch and the things it can do to lead the eye round a piece etc.

This is cheating but here is an experimental piece I posted earlier this year

.

It was EG yesterday and we had a talk called "Adentures in vanishing fabrics" by a gentleman called Arthur Ridley.
He showed slides of his work and exp0lained the processes and also had loads of pieces to look at. His hats and masks were great fun.

Palestrina stitch

Another new-to-me stitch this week. I like this stich, great opportunities for variation and texture, once I can stop myself lapsing into buttonhole stitch there is a nice rythmn to it.

I had a search to see what I could find on Palestrina, I knew vaguely that it was a town in Italy. My search turned up this picture of the little hill town near Rome with a quaint custom in June. The gentleman below it its most famous son who rejoices in the wonderful name of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina a composer of church music.


This idea didn't quite come off but I wanted to use the yarn my daughter brought me back from Italy(the thick one).

You can learn to love......Oyster stitch

Learning this stitch was about as difficult as trying to open the real thing!

I thought I would show this piece in all its horror. I could not get the hang of this stitch, I ranted and raved at it, pulled it out, pulled it into knot. I was just about to give in, when the penny dropped. You can see on the white lines how I struggled but fared better with the rougher, thicker yarns which gave a very satifying texture.


The inspiration came from this picture from Tony Boon's site which has some great photographs and some fun things too.



One of these days I will try and do it justice.


Congratulations to all those who have managed to produce beautiful samples.

Tuesday

I've just spent a wonderful day in workshop with textile artist Cas Holmes It was part of Kent County Council Arts Development Countywide Migration Project and I was there thanks to the Sevenoaks branch of the EG. We made a mixed media piece where we worked backward, doing the stitching first and then adding the other media. Fascinating and great fun, the theme was journeys either personal or actual. This was my piece after my stitching



In my dreams my Senior Bus pass can take me......

and this is it at the end.


Nowhere near as beautiful as Cas' work but you did get a great taste of all kinds of new possibilities. She was very generous in sharing her techniques. A good day.

Posting delayed because blogger was being awkward with photographs!!!

Now to get to grips with TAST stitch Oyster, another new, to me, one.

In my Easter Bonnet................

......well you knew I wouldn't be able to resist, didn't you. TAST week 14 and another stitch I had never heard of. After a couple of tries where I kept trying to do the bottom bit without putting the needle through the material, daylight dawned and it began to flow. I really like the stitch and will give it a try in some thicker yarn as I can see it has great potential for alteration. But I just had to get this out of my system first.

This is the sketch I did in The Scribbler

Happy Easter everyone.

A gentle art????

Purple Missus,who incidentally has a nice line in things you would like to touch(see below), left a comment on "Just a quickie" which made me laugh and set me thinking. I find when you mention Embroidery to non needle-threaders the usual reaction is a polite, sympathetic smile. Little do they know that so many of us have a desire to slash and burn, amongst our silks and fabrics are to be found soldering irons, hammers, and pliers. In fact you are liable to find your embroidering friend in the aisles of the DIY store eyeing the brass fittings and the washers as possible additions to the latest project. Cling film and vegetable bags fill us with delight and we comb £1 stores and charity shops for items that we can rip apart, stab with our needles, dye or otherwise recycle and transform.


This is a piece I did inspired by an article in Issue 2 of Cloth Paper and Scissors using the afore mentioned cling film (shrink wrap) and plastic vegetable bags.

Soooooo cute.......

My I point you in the direction of my friend Tony's blog I have been smiling over this picture ever since I saw it. Those little legs!!!! Fantastic. Todays picture is quite high on the cuteness scale as well.

Well here we are, one quarter of the way through TAST. What an amazing few weeks it's been. I would like to thank everyone who has left a comment, either here or on Flickr and of course to Sharon for keeping the whole thing going. There are so many wonderful pieces on the Flickr site it is always a joy to take a look, so many lovely uses of colour. We all have our favourite things that "speak" to us but one of the things that draws me to a piece is the feeling that I would love to reach out and touch it and there are many of those as well. New month and the stone for April is a girls best friend. Diamond. Could be an expensive month!!!!

Just a quickie...

Just a quickie for TAST this week, Knotted Cretan, I can see what a great textural stich this would be, lots of movement too.I quickly needle felted a piece of previously dyed scrim and couched it down with the Knotted cretan with a sparkly thread.

Overload

Having one of those busy, busy weeks. You know how you do very little and then everything comes along at once. Highlight so far was going with my daughter to the Kylie exhibition at the V&A. It was great fun, my , she is tiny. I now know the meaning of a handspan waist. The Museum Dress made me smile when I realised that some of the fabric were just the same as those I used to use when making costumes for our local amateur theatre, bits still in my stash. Videos of backstage and on stage added to the fun. Afterwards we strolled through the 17th and 16th century British galleries.Wonderful stumpwork boxes and an unfinished mirror frame with beautiful details like a buttterfly which looked as though it had just landed. Museums are such fun these days, I tried on a ruff, good for hiding crepy neck and holding up double chins and my daughter tried tying a cravat which she decided was a good way to tie a thin scarf. We designed out coat or arms and then went to tea. Good day.

TAST Couching

Some years ago we had a talk at the Embroiderers Guild (unfortunately I can't remember the name of the speaker) which changed my way of looking at portraits. Until that time it had never occurred to me how lovingly the artists had re created the fabrics. Lace, satin, velvet and jewels and more mundane materials were recreated by the artists brush. Since then I have been facscinated by how little dabs of white and grey paint can be a piece of lace or rare pearls. Living near London I am very fortunate, as I have remarked before, to have some wonderful art galleries which are free to pop in and wonder. A little while ago I visited the National Portait Gallery and with my new (Sharon inspired!!) notebook I looked at a postrait I had seen before but this time I tried to capture some of the detail. This is a full size portait of Catherine Parr (the wife who survived Henry VIII) Unfortunately this is a very small image, The detail which fascinated me was the band across the neck of the dress. This is my sketch.(I never said I could draw!)


The thing I couldn't work our was how the circles were made, be carefully looking at the direction of the painted impression of the couching stitches I worked out how the thread must have been laid and this is my impression of a detail of that band.

I used little fly stitches to couch a plaited gold thread.

By the way this is on a piece of duster which I painted and stencilled.

Sara's blog

I bookmarked Sara's blog The Fabric of Meditation some time ago because I liked her work on TAST. She has started a new blog
Little People which has some very good technique videos.

Ups and Downs

Went to the Stitch and Craft Show at Olympia today and I have to say I was a little disappointed. I went with a list of things I needed (well would like to tuck away in my stash) but there were non of the really good mixed media suppliers there so saved some money!!!! The whole day was redeemed though by a piece of work by Jane E Hall. It was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. It was a piece called "Spring" I bought the card but how I would have loved the piece itself a thing of such delicacy. It is all made from hand dyed silk and tiny tiny stitches,it took her 5 months to make, rising a 5.30 in the morning. Beautiful, I will not forget it.

I've never felt like this before.......

Sorry for the pun but I am quite pleased with my efforts. I have just made up (designed?) a pattern for a bag and it worked. I have to say the photographs aren't the best but they will give you the idea. I made two circles in crochet. Sewed them together and put them in the washing machine. I then made a lining and sewed on a button (which I don't like but I wanted to see it worked.)What I like about it is that with the straps on the shoulder it sits nicely under my arm which is how i like to carry my handbag.