I'm afraid I have to do a rather major catch up as I have neglected to update my blog for over five weeks!!! Everything has concentrated so much on churning out little pieces to sell and add to the display at the Wealden Times Midwinter Fair just gone, that many other things got set aside. Hopefully it will settle down now and I can get back to blogging and other fun stuff.
I've turned to my phone for these images as it's so easy to snap an image with it whilst out and about, especially as my big camera is so bulky I don't carry it around with me. The quality of these images isn't fantastic and, since the clocks have changed during this time period (from about the 10th October), the lighting isn't always great either so I am very sorry about that! A lot of my sewing is done in the evenings by the glow of my daylight lamp which reminds me a little bit of a dentist's treatment room, bright and blue.
So, let the catch up commence!!
❤ I managed to make about 19 of these little 10cm Christmas hoops, all different and unique, with sparkles and metallic threads. It turns out that I have more fabrics in my Christmas stash than I realised so it was great to be able to really mix things up. They are relatively quick to make as they are little with only four fabric layers but so festive! I had photo shoots at the studio, trying to think of ways to display these little pieces at the Wealden Times show. My white Hobbycraft tree comes in super handy and I'm wondering whether or not to get another one so that I can spread the hoops out a bit more. Something to ponder on.
❤ We carved pumpkins for Halloween. Quite a few pumpkins in the end actually and we still have one left over because The Mother has a thing about pumpkin muffins so kept bringing pumpkins home as a subtle hint. I also made a few apple loaf cakes as she brought home two bags of the most enormous apples I have ever seen! We had so much crumble, stewed apple and apple cake!! (My diet is going super well!)
❤ I went into mass kit-making overdrive! Stocks of The Naked Stitchscape Kit, Stitchscape Pebble Kit, Summer Sweet Kit and the Christmas Decoration Kit were replenished, and sheep appeared in the packs of mixed fabrics as it was so requested at my last big event. I have yet to update my Etsy shop with these new fabric collections but it is on my list. Cutting the threads take the longest time and I was taking boxes of threads, a ruler and a pair of scissors on the bus with me to cut them to length during my commute to work and in my lunch breaks, then threading them onto the cards in the evenings and on Dotty Textiles work days.
I was very pleased to have a request come through from the-stitchery in Lewes, to say that they had completely sold out of both the Orange Sunset and Spring Ladybug kits and could they have some more?!! Unfortunately there isn't enough fabric for more of the sunset kits and I am working on getting some replacement fabrics sorted for that but, as of last week, there are five more ladybug kits now for sale in store. These are designs exclusive to the-stitchery (you will find them no where else in the entire world!) and they can only be purchased in the shop, but if you are out of town just give them a call for other solutions. Click on the link to their shop for their details.
To add to my own collection of kits, I am super thrilled to say that my Button Mountain Felt kit for young stitchers is now ready to go!! You can find it in my Etsy shop, here, if you would like to encourage your budding embroiderer to have a go. These kits are very colourful with lots of texture and only three simple stitches. I have suggested them for children aged 8 and up but do recommend adult supervision for the younger ages. These would make fantastic stocking fillers- all you need is a 15cm hoop and your own needles, and you are away!
❤ I also managed to update my sketchbooks with some new photos as they were quickly getting behind. It's very soothing to organise the pages and play with washi tape. These are a great teaching tool for me as it helps to inspire my students with composition and colours, and is something that I can refer back to when I'm trying to explain a technique used so it's worth my while keeping it as up-to-date as possible. They aren't sketchbooks as such as there are no sketches, it's more like a photo album of past work and work in progress- my Instagram account in print.
❤ Whilst printing my new sketchbook images, I also put together and printed some little books titled, The Little Book of Stitchscapes. These are based on a printed book that I put together for personal use last year but it got so much attention by those I was showing that I made up some slightly different, versions for sale. They are only tiny little things, full of images of my Stitchscapes but have been purchased for inspiration by parents of children working on their GCSE Textile exams and those who want it as a quick reference book once they start their own Stitchscaping journey so I am really chuffed with where these books have been going to. It is very humbling to be a source of inspiration to others and I hope that I can live up to it!
It is easier to embroider multiples of these at a time so the hoop was also coming with me on the bus to work (my poor colleagues have had to put up with all sorts of strange stitchy activities during the lunch break) and anywhere else I went. I draw around the inner wooden shapes onto the back of the fabric, making sure to leave a couple of centimetres between the shapes so that I have a seam allowance to draw up the fabric to enclose the wooden shape. They really are super sweet little things- the smallest being only 2.5cm in diametre! I've now started having a go at some Christmas holly themed ones, but have realised that there is no space for a ring to attached to the screw so they are just little random hoops. They will probably end up as magnets I think.
❤ The cat has been doing his regular cat-like things. His mood is linked to the weather so we are noticing a distinct change in his demeanour, lots of moaning and winging and turning his nose up at the food we offer him because it's less sunny and warm these days. He leaps at every change to bask in the sunshine, getting comfy in all sorts of sheltered sun traps to improve his mood. We barely see him during the summer, then in Autumn he starts hovering around a bit more demanding evening cuddles, and then in Winter he's constantly underfoot wanting snuggles all day long. It's very sweet but can get frustrating when you have plans!
❤ I have been hugely inspired by recent visits to National Trust properties. In one day, a friend and I visited Sheffield Park & Garden (above), Wakehurst Place (below) and Nymans Garden (bottom). The colours in these lovely places were amazing! Sheffield in particular was stuffed with artists and photographers all trying to capture the essence and colours of the autumnal trees and scenery. As it has been so mild recently there were also still quite a few late summer flowers in bloom, like Cosmos, Dog Roses and Dahlias which only added to the colour and beauty of the gardens. We are very lucky to live near these big open breathing spaces.
❤ These colours appear a lot in my little framed pieces that have been worked on since our National Trust visits. Lots of oranges, reds, yellows, maroon, ochre, gold.... I really enjoy making these little frames, and because I tend to use such deep concentrations of colour, they form a colour burst collection, and the three black framed pieces look particularly powerful together in a row! I've been experimenting with some new stitches in these as I have recently followed a new account on Instagram called @moony.crafts who collect really interesting images and videos posted by other embroiderers on Instagram, and re-posts them so you can see all of these amazing images in one place or trace them back to the original poster. In particular, the cacti in the bottom right image above are a new stitch to me and I have no idea what it is called. You wrap thread multiple times around the needle whilst it is tucked into the fabric and then pull through, securing both the top and the bottom of the loops. It uses a lot of thread in one go but looks really cool! And the really puffy firework-esque flowers in the middle left image are also from this account where you trap wrapped threads, over sew at the bottom then cut the loops. It's so effective!
❤ In the studio I have been experimenting with a new way of framing the #inthehoop stitchscapes to try and make them more accessible to punters. They make such an impact framed this way I think, although they are devilishly fiddly to attach to the mountboard as I have been stitching them on rather than gluing in the hopes that it will make them more secure. I have bought special circular mounts to help bed the hoops in and I really love them! Only a few have been framed so far but I have more mounts and frames to be able to work my way through them and do some more. What do you think?
❤ We have recently had our Remembrance Day parade and I had to take time out of sewing to attach together all of these bottle poppies, which had been made by my Guides, into a wreath to display in the church. It's a very clever idea (thank you Pinterest) where you take big plastic bottles, cut the bottom part off and cut petal shapes at the edge, make a hole in the bottom and paint the inside red, then use the rest of the bottle to cut big leaf shapes to be painted green and a circle to be painted black. You thread them all together onto wire and then melt them with a heat gun so that they look more natural. Somehow I volunteered to then wire them onto a big wreath ring and our girls paraded with it up the highstreet with the rest of the Remembrance Day parade, and laid it right a the front of the church. Well worth taking the time to do.
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I have more to catch you up on with the Wealden Times show but I think this post is long enough and you will all be dying to put the kettle on for a cup of tea by now! I hope you enjoyed the trip down my memory lane, and see you soon!
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