Aurora Borealis Stitchscape

 

This Stitchscape has been waiting a little white to be finished because I couldn't seem to remember to rummage through my stash and find the right colour threads to take out with me to complete the bottom section. It has just been travelling around with me and a sheepy Stitchscape pal, rolling its hoop eyes whenever I unzipped the travel pouch and thought "blast, I didn't bring that thread with me again!" 

Eventually, I did think about it before I travelled and came across a really lovely little dark navy coton a broder thread and the absolute, most perfect, purple and pink and black variegated stranded cotton!! Could those colours below be any more perfect to bring together all of the colours appearing in the top half of the hoop?

This one was inspired, if you'll recall, by the Aurora Borealis phenomenon which happened in the South of England a couple of weeks ago and the photos that I was able to take from my back door step of the most amazing streaky pink starry sky. (If you've forgotten, or you missed it, you can see my photos and inspiration here.) I immediately set to putting this vision into a hoop and this is what has appeared out of it! I used fairly streaky looking fabrics for my cloud of light, flanked on both sides by a more starry blue - and I was especially chuffed with the blue ombre fabric, it looks exactly like a night sky. Rather than houses at the bottom of my hoop I have gone with little plants instead just because they felt right to do. 

I started my embroidery on the batik pink/purple layer, working around some of the shapes with whipped back stitch, and then filling in other shapes with satin stitch, trying to merge together different colours moving across the fabric layer where the colour in the pattern itself changes slightly. Because this fabric layer was the last to go on, so it is layered on top of all of the other fabrics, I've had to edge both sides of it and I've kept them almost the same using the same glittery hand dyed yarn blend, except on the bottom line I've also twisted in a couple of strands of one of the pink embroidery flosses I've used within the layer just to give it a slight tweak of difference and help to blend into those bottom pink layers. 

The light pink fabric is a kind of mottled blender, so pretty much a plain fabric, that I've worked uneven straight stitches across vertically to help represent the vertical ripples that you can see in the Aurora photos. (Just using a single strand to keep it quite light.) The darker pink fabric underneath I have followed the existing lines of the pattern with a single strand of stem stitch, and running or straight stitches where needed. To bring back that hint of a vertical line, some of the solid shapes I've then filled in again with vertical straight stitches but this time slightly closer together and using two strands for a more bold look. Both of these fabrics have been edged with matching bullion knots to keep things nice and even. 

For the ombre blue fabric I've worked rows of single strand running stitch but where the colours start to change slightly, I have also changed my thread colour; working a darker blue thread on the shadowed left side, and a lighter blue thread on the lighter right side. I've added little tiny single strand one or two twist french knots in scatters between these rows to give another hint of starriness as we are back to the night sky on this layer. 

The top layer - sneaking back up there - I have worked back stitch around the white spots and seed stitched between them so they stand out in relief almost. Because I've taken my seed stitches (single strand ones) over the raw edge of the fabric I could also work a whipped back stitch just along this edge to keep a very simple line there, plus of course my little cross stitch kisses on the top. 

The final layer at the bottom I actually edged first, which I don't always do but I found a glittery gold thread strand lurking all by itself in my stitching go-bag which wouldn't do - I don't like to waste threads, so I folded it up with some of the darker blue thread I'd used in the running stitch layer and couched it on, pulling it out between the couching stitches so that it bobbled and went in funny directions which looked really interesting. 

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted on the bottom layer so I was very pleased to find those two threads I mentioned earlier because they gave me a kind of inkling as to what I could do, and I had the thought of creating little plant silhouettes against the lighter blue. 

Straight stitch stems were worked first in the coton a broder navy, then the variegated thread I used two strands (topped and tailed) to make pistil stitches between those straight stitch stem clumps. There is a row of single strand navy and two strand variegated clumps along the 'back' - placed along the top edge of the fabric - and then at the 'front', there are two strands of navy and three strands of variegated to make the stitches so they are subtly thicker in their weight of line and therefore physically look closer to you. I've also made the pistil knots bigger with two twists at the back and four at the front. It's these tiny little details which can help give some perspective to a landscape hoop without looking too obvious.

With my leftover ends of the variegated thread I added some horizontal lines in the gap through the middle which had somehow appeared, and now seems like an inviting pathway to the crest of a hill to see the light show. Crosses were added to the bottom in a scrap of the pink thread used further above to help hold that down, and then tiny two strand, one twist french knots scattered across the bottom of the further away clumps to give them a little bit of ground to stand on. 

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. It doesn't exactly look like the view from my back door but it will always remind me of that, and I think if you saw it for the first time you would know where I was coming from. Wouldn't you?

The final stitch run down for this hoop is; seed stitch, whipped back stitch, back stitch, couching, satin stitch, bullion knots, straight stitch, running stitch, stem stitch, french knots and pistil stitch. 

Moss & Lichen

This may be the only Stitchscape Swap blog post of this year that is actually on time! I am still waiting for one card to come in for this swap to complete the set and swap them all back out again so I'm almost early in this case, even if they were finished on the dot of the 31st October! Nothing like a tight deadline. 

This swap I have absolutely loved, loved, loved! I love looking at fun mosses and lichens, stroking and poking them to see what they feel like. They are an entity that has always fascinated me for their myriad of textures and colours, the way they drip down or carpet everything. I'm sure I covered the theme multiple times through school and college for various art projects and I've been known to collect fun ones and move them into the garden (when they aren't attached to anything that is, I don't dig them up). When my family went on a autumnal walk with our small boys a few weeks ago, I found this fantastic, plump clump of lichen just sitting on the carpark floor when I got out of the car! Naturally it came home with me and has lived on top of a bookcase ever since. It has now dried out into fascinating crispy shapes and just looks like a detached scientist's wild hairpiece. 

As such, it is kind of what my moss and lichen cards have been inspired by this month. One singular clump of amazing green lichen with funny flat bits on the end. I decided that I wanted it to be really textured and have created my lichen base by couching on swirled shapes of a hand dyed, beautiful yarn I have in my stash. There are lots of lovely shades of green within it and I love the difference in texture and the slight sheen it has in the light. The gaps between the swirls were filled with my bad french knots (the ones that have deliberate extra loops poking out) in green, then various colours and sizes of green beads to add a bit of light and sparkle to lift the dark colours. It was still missing a little something so I've gone back over it again and made nice, neat french knots in a yellowy/green colour to add in a splash of brightness. 

My background is very brown, and I sort of feel in hindsight it would have been better to have been not quite so brown but that's ok - it's a brown time of year. 

For once I have also stitched the top layer on the card, usually I tend to leave this blank but those dots were calling to me so I have filled each of them with a satin stitch, varying the direction of each spot to add a little more interest. 

Underneath that is a lovely batik fabric with leafy shapes printed in it and I've very simply gone around the edges of those shapes with a single strand back stitch, and filled in the tiny spots with  sort of rough satin stitch to mirror the above layer. 

My branches have been textured with rows of two strand running stitch, matching my thread colour to the paler brown in the layer above, and then a single strand of blanket stitch has been worked along the edges to help the raw cut fabric. As it is also a batik fabric there wasn't a lot of fraying happening but it didn't look quite finished without a stitched edge to it.  

This time I've left the bottom fabric with no stitching, partly because my lichen was trailing off into it anyway, and also because it's a fairly small strip so I didn't feel that it really needed something there. There's a lot going on elsewhere anyway. 

I have really enjoyed playing with my little dried out piece of lichen (although if you Google what a lichen is it doesn't seem so pretty anymore really - formed out of a symbiotic partnership between a fungus and an algae). I wonder if I had it somewhere a little bit wetter whether it would plump out and carry on growing, or if the fact it had already fallen off the tree it was on means that it had completed its lifespan? If anyone knows please do comment. 

So, my stitch run down for these little cards is; satin stitch, bullion knots, back stitch, blanket stitch, running stitch, couching, beading and french knots (neat and not neat). 

I have been peeking at the cards being sent in to join the Moss & Lichen collection and this one is going to be, oh so good! Very exciting!

Autumn Loves

Things I'm appreciating this autumn:

❤ Love hearts in my coffee

❤ Watching hundreds and hundreds of geese flying over me at the bus stop on the way home after working at the shop. The noise they make is tremendous!

❤ Slow mornings working on my Moss & Lichen Stitchscape Swap cards. These are going very very slowly!

❤ The most amazing sunsets on the bus on the way home. This was probably the last bus sunset this year as the clocks have now changed and it's completely dark by the time I leave. You can just see the hills literally glowing golden on the left hand side there. It was incredible with a black cloudy sky above them contrasting so beautifully. 

❤ We've had some fairly stunning sunsets at home as well too. 

❤ My last little Sunflower doing it's best to flower in October! The weather has been quite mild, wet but not cold apart from one surprisingly frosty morning. I'm not sure the petals on this flower are going to open all of the way out though as it's been closed up like this for a few days. 

❤ Evening stitching in front of the TV with my sleepy sofa buddy. 

❤ Pumpkin picking in the sunshine! Another beautiful day, warm and sunny and so many types of pumpkin on offer!

❤ I've been able to finish off quite a few projects lately which has felt good. I always feel better when I think I'm achieving things, plus the house isn't quite so messy as I can put things away!

New Work Days

We are slowly settling in to the new weekly routine. This week is actually half term so I have my little whirlwind back midweek but he's been really enjoying nursery, although he finds it very tiring (conked out on the carpet there last week bless him), and I've been enjoying having the time back. 

The morning part of the routine is the worst bit I think, he starts at 8.30am so to walk there we leave at about 8am but he likes a long gap between waking up and breakfast so we are struggling a bit to get him to eat breakfast before we leave. I'm turning more and more to bags of apple rice cakes and raspberries which he can nibble on the go but it's not a particularly filling breakfast. 

Last week as we were walking it was oddly muted with a dense fog. The air was wet without actually raining and Baby F seemed a bit confused by it all, pointing at the shadows and talking about monsters. 

Having dropped him off, I spent my morning working on a new workshop project I'm developing to have at a new studio location I've discovered near to me called Juicy Lemons. They currently have mostly pottery classes but are opening up their workshop spaces to other tutors to create more of a diverse range of creative classes. I met with one of the owners a couple of weeks ago and we share a lot of the same ideas behind why people should be creative and the benefits you get from working with your hands and creating time for yourself to be creative. 

We are just organising a stitched Christmas card workshop which is really exciting and I had to make up some samples to photograph to advertise the class. Eventually there will be a couple of sizes on offer and everyone will be able to stitch a small piece in a hoop before cutting it out, backing it with felt and stitching it to cardstock for an extra special Christmas card. 

Putting together this card took me a couple of hours, so I've suggested a workshop time of 10am - 2pm to allow for discussion and stitch demonstrations but, more importantly for me, it should fit into my little nursery time-off routine! 

I have advertised this workshop on my website events page, but it's not yet up on the Juicy Lemons website to book. I think it will be by next week though so do keep checking back. There are two other workshops we have planned for next year as well which you can see more details of on my events page, but again they aren't currently available to be booked so I'll keep you posted. 

I pick Baby F up about 3.15pm so leave at just before 3pm and honestly, these photos were from the same day as the first photo in this post and it was totally different! The sun shone, the sky was, oh so blue, it was warm and the colours of the leaves just glowed against it all. Quite amazing. I do love living in England when it's like that - you can experience all weather types in just one day. 

Of course, I'd also had to allow in my day time to create monster crispy cakes for the nursery's fundraising cake sale. I got some very strange looks wheeling my tray of cakes through town in the buggy but it was much easier than carrying them and pushing the buggy along. Baby F is often so tired at the end of nursery that he can't walk home so likes to sit in it as we bump over speedbumps up the drive from the school, and then he can also sit back and chill with another snack of some kind - or whatever is left over in his lunchbox from earlier in the day.