Thursday, 31 October 2024
Polegate Stitch Ups Christmas
Kits & Workshops
Thursday, 17 October 2024
Aurora Borealis
Do you know, in 2018 I went all the way to Iceland to see the Northern Lights - and they were rubbish! A white, barely there, mist in the sky, and a brush of green on the camera was all I came home with (obviously the holiday itself was amazing and I would love to go back, but the lights themselves were a disappointment).
Last night (as I wrote this), I walked out of my back door at about 10pm, and was greeted with this fantastic display of bright pink in the sky! Which was actually visible to the naked eye too!! Not perhaps quite this level of pinkness, but there were definitely moving streaks of clear pink dancing around up there. I had gone outside by myself but immediately raced back inside, dragging Mr DT from his cosy spot snuggled up in bed, shoving his arms into his dressing gown and insisting he come outside with me. He wasn't quite as impressed as me (or at least pretended not to be) and didn't stay out in the cold as long, although that may have been because he didn't have shoes on and it was nippy. I even rang The Mother and got her outside her house as well!
I love the stars in these photos, they look like sprinkled fairy dust. Apparently there were quite a few shooting stars seen but I didn't see any. we are vaguely on the flight path to Gatwick airport so we did have a lot of aeroplanes circling in the distance which was quite cool through the pink haze.
Isn't it amazing? And isn't technology amazing to be able to just snap these photos on a phone without having to change any settings at all. If they come back again I'm going to investigate what I need to do on my camera to get even clearer photos. This aurora was pink and purple, which is apparently down to nitrogen particles interacting with incoming particles. The green aurora I saw in Iceland was oxygen particles and is the more common colour to see so this is very exciting and utterly beautiful!!
Sunday, 13 October 2024
Nether Wallop Stitchscape
The bottom daisy layer I don't like as much as my second attempt I don't think. I've used two strands of stranded cotton and alternated the daisies to either be white or pale blue (to balance the sky), making detached chain stitches over the pattern of the petals themselves. Where I've got the really tiny daisies, I used a silvery blue colour to fill in the petals with a couple of straight stitches - not quite enough to be a satin stitch - so they looked a bit more bud-like. The yellow french knot centres are also a slightly different yellow, lighter yellow on the blue and darker on white.
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Made & Making Non-Autumn
We had lots of fun with trimmings in this workshop though. I had stocked up with some more unusual ones from the-stitchery in Lewes and there were narrow decorative ribbons, wonky ric racs, rosebud ric racs, mini pom poms, waxed cotton cords and all sorts of things. The rosebud ric rac was really popular and also exactly the right colours to fit in with the chosen fabrics so I'm pleased I grabbed some of that (I kept a little bit of the blue/green colour for myself too). Look how beautifully it goes with the blue brushed cotton in the hoop below, and the floral ditsy in the hoop beneath that, then the navy and burgundy version with the colours of the fabrics in the hoop below that!
The lovely lady who stitched the hoop above was called Liz, and she remarked to me what an amazing difference the embroidery does actually make to the fabrics. Her plain green fabric behind her trees is just that, boring and plain (but a lovely olive colour), but now that she's started to add seed stitch to it and those gorgeous little french knots, it's turned it into a whole other world! The seed stitches cast little shadows and dimples, even though they've been colour matched so they don't stand out in a shouty way. It just gives it life!
The hoop below was inspired by an offcut of a dress that Rebecca brought in with her. It looks like a hem that's been cut off so the fabric itself is folded which was good because it's a fairly thin devoré so where there isn't the velvet pattern, it's much more see through and needed that extra thickness. The colours are lovely though and we've picked out the yellow tones of the leaves with the yellow ditsy floral, but then if you move the velvet fabric, where it catches the light there are other purpley/mauve colours which have gone into the sky. Each time you move the hoop the colours slightly change which is beautiful. The cream lace helps to balance everything with the white background of the top leaf print fabric and the white in the daisies at the bottom.