House Sitting

I had the studio, house and surrounding gardens all to myself today as my Grandmother has gone in to hospital for a new hip (which has so far gone very well by all accounts). It's a nice walk to the studio although I came across some chopped down Aquilegia flowers which some horrible person had cut from the hedgerow and abandoned on the pathway. They were the palest of pinks and I gathered it all up and took it with me to pop in a vase with some Bracken cut from the flowerbeds. Hopefully it will still be as naturally beautiful when my Grandmother returns home in a couple of days time.

We had been left with a list of tasks- mainly plant watering and how much to water each plant. Bonsai watering is crucial apparently and I had to water each one with rainwater, with a certain amount from a certain watering can. In addition to Bonsais we are also watering the greenhouse and surrounding pots, as well as encouraging the baby Chili plants on the window ledge in the kitchen. I said a few supportive words and complimented them on the greenness of their leaves whilst showering them gently with the purest of rainwater droplets.

Whilst I was wandering around the garden I noticed some beautiful flowers and plants that have popped open since I was there last weekend. There is a wide variety of plants, some planted by the previous occupant of the house who appeared to go in for dramatic versions of well known flowers- like giant Poppies with velvety purple middles contrasting against bright red petals, or multi-petalled small Poppies in light orange.

I really love Lupins, especially the way the colour changes as the flower heads open from the bottom upwards creating the most spectacular gradient of colour. They are such show offs!

Of course, the other reason I was there was because it is Studio Saturday! And I had some mounting and framing to do with my Dry Stone Meadow stitchscape. Once a 'scape is finished it is pressed carefully with a hot iron several times, and again just before mounting it onto card to remove as many creases as possible.

I use the same process each time; mount board is cut to the size I want the finished square to be, then I carefully lay the embroidery over the card and put one pin in the centre of each side through the embroidery and into the side of the board. This is to make sure that I have positioned the stitchscape exactly where I want it (usually centred in the middle) and I can move the pins around until I have the fabric in the right place.

Once I am happy with the positioning, I will then add more pins along the edges, working on opposite sides to stretch the fabric until it is taut but not buckling the mount board. If there is a section I'm not happy with, I can always remove the pins and start again. Turning the piece over, the backing fabric gets trimmed so that is about two inches or so wider than the card on each side. Using cotton sewing thread I fold two sides over and starting from the middle, make small stitches in a ladder-like way along to the edge, folding in the corners neatly and stitching them in place. I then turn and work the opposite way, out again from the middle. The process is repeated with the last two sides, folding the fabric over, tucking in the ends and stitching a ladder out from the centre. It is essential that the thread is pulled taught, but not so hard that either a) the thread snaps (always a bummer), or b) the mount board curves and you end up with a bent embroidery.

So there you have it, a beautifully mounted embroidery piece that is ready for framing! If you wanted to frame your own pieces in this way, I really recommend it as it gives a much nicer overall appearance. If you have used really bulky threads and have lots of ends going on at the back, a handy tip would be to sandwich a layer of interlining/thin wadding between the card and the embroidery which will help absorb lumps and bumps and keep your fabrics smooth.

I think this piece looks really sweet in its frame! A good job done!

Absence Of Colour

I thought I would try something a little different- a stitchscape in black, grey and white! It was an idea that hit me whilst surfing the wonderful world of Pinterest as a couple of beautiful greyscale landscape photos were recommended for one of my (numerous) boards. It got me thinking about what would happen if I took away the colours and relied even more on the textures of the stitches and embellishments to create an interesting piece?

I had a quick trawl through my own landscape photos, turning them greyscale and upping the contrast to indicate more clearly the difference between light and dark. It was good fun actually and helped me to think about the placement of my fabrics. Whilst at Olympia I picked up a tube of scrap greyscale fabrics which have wonderful all over texture prints that I can't wait to start stitching over!

On a couple of my edited images I over-contrasted them and played with the brightness also so that smaller details were wiped out and lines suggesting fabric strips were left. I love the tuftiness of the grass on the left hand side of the above two images- I think it looks kind of like the cross hatched fabric used below, what do you think?

So, my fabrics are all laid down, and I've stuck some textured grosgrain ribbon in there just underneath the sweet house print fabric, now I just have to start stitching and adding beads/sequins/yarns and anything else I can think of to bring this stitchscape to life!

Dry Stone Meadow Stitchscape

I really love this piece. It reminds me of summer walks on holiday in Yorkshire which has a seemingly endless network of dry stone walls in various states of repair. If you joined up every single dry stone wall in Yorkshire you would probably reach to Australia! Best of all, is the stone print fabric which has lent itself so well to being padded out and stitched all over, I am rather chuffed with this, and particularly enjoy the way the french knots tumble over the top in a very pleasing manner. It helps break up the starkness of the line of wall, and hides any loose fabric tendrils which have escaped the needle turning technique employed to cover the felt with the cotton print.

The delicate flowers are a fabulous combination of bullion knots and french knots in different thicknesses. The darker yellow knots use three strands of DMC embroidery thread and the smaller knots which are the palest shade of yellow, are only two. As well as using different weights of thread to create thickness, the size of the french knots is also changed by how many times the thread gets wrapped around the needle. For example, if you had two strands of thread and wrapped around the needle five times, your knot would be approximately the same size as a three stranded thread wrapped around the needle three times. There are lots of different ways to achieve all these effects and I love playing with them and experimenting as I go.

This is only a little embroidery, another 15cm piece, so I haven't tried to pack masses of texture and layers in. I wanted the focus to be near the bottom with the wall as the main diva on stage, although of course this doesn't mean that the fabrics above the wall don't get the royal treatment and I've copied the lines already printed on the fabrics as closely as I could. Luckily for me, they are beautiful and diverse prints which lend themselves well to this kind of stitch.

The beautiful chevron print pattern reminds me of a wheat field, and as I've back stitched along the straight lines, reminds me even more of a field just been harvested with the tractor wheel marks just visible. To kind of enhance this mental image, I've popped some slightly paler golden french knots which hint at hay bales abandoned mid-field. You'll notice that there are an awful lot of french knots in this piece- mad with dots!- and I've enhanced the white and grey polka dot fabric at the top with more white french knots which adds a fabulous texture without changing the pattern. 

Overall there is quite a limited range of stitches here; bullion knots, french knots (of course), back stitch, straight stitch, fly stitch and seed stitch. My go to guys for a beautifully textured piece!

Have a lovely evening! x

Studio Saturday

It's becoming a routine for me to have Saturday mornings in the studio. A lazy breakfast is followed by the walk ten minutes up the road to my little space and several hours framing, cutting mount board, mounting 'scapes finished during the week, cataloguing my pieces and keeping an eye on my finances. I'll usually work straight through until mid afternoon with perhaps a five minute coffee break, and then once I'm done, tidy the studio and meander home. It's a nice routine and I feel very blessed to actually have it! To have the space and the time and the materials and the ability to do what I love. 

This week I had to re-frame an older stitchscape as I decided the frame it was in was too small and it needed more space to breath, and also stretching and mounting my two newest 'scapes; Bluebell Woods and Cow Parsley. The little Cow Parsley one was then framed in a little black box frame I had ready, but the Woods will have to wait a little longer as it needs a large frame that I have to order in.

To be honest, I am slowly outgrowing my tiny studio with all these framed pieces stacked up on every surface. I have booked a handyman to come and put some shelves up for me along two walls so hopefully that will alleviate my space issues for a little longer!

The studio is in my Grandmother's back garden which she has just had completed revamped with new paving replacing some rather slippery old wooden decking and uneven slabs which had been installed by the previous house owners. The pergola has been given a new lease of life as the decking was really rotten here and had been hastily covered with some bumpy, non-slip plastic stuff hiding just how bad it was. This has all been dug out and paved and now looks so inviting with lush greenery covering the top and pretty scented plants at either end. I'm not sure if this beautiful purple flowered plant is a Lilac or not but it sure smells sweet! I wonder if I could re-create this pergola idea in a stitchscape?

I do already have another little world growing in my hoop, this one half inspired by the fabulous stone print fabric I picked up at Olympia, and half by the dry stone walls that I saw on last year's holiday to Yorkshire. I really like the colours in this embroidery, they seem quite muted but are still lively enough to be interesting and really do remind me of the slight haze and lushness that was everywhere you looked whilst travelling through the Dales.

To make the wall stand out and be the real centrepiece of this little 'scape, I have layered it over a slither of felt and followed the outline of the bricks with stitches to get that quilted effect that enhances each individual stone. I'm planning on breaking up the stark brownness of the wall with some pretty flowers and greenery that drape and peek out of the stone work.

I still feel like I'm taking each fabric as it comes, not over-thinking the stitches beforehand and just seeing how it goes. I changed my mind on how to approach the above fabric, I wonder if you can notice the difference (above image) in the stitching from when I started and how I changed it?
After filling in the cross-hatch section, I decided that I also wanted to outline the honeycomb-esque lines and started tracing each little tiny line individually, which took ages and also made it look quite messy- can  you see where I mean? Just to the left of the cross hatch section? I stopped to think a little more about what I wanted this piece to look like, turned the hoop around and realised that the pattern was a series of fly stitches stacked on top of each other to create the hexagon shapes. Bingo! Working them in fly stitches was much neater and much quicker as the needle wasn't going through the fabric so many times. Much better.

I finished the background textures of my Yorkshire wall piece this afternoon whilst standing chatting in the sunshine to the Parents who were soaking up the evening sun on our new patio. Dad has spent the last couple of weekends and a week on holiday making a new patio in the front garden. It's not completely finished, but enough so that you can sit out there and enjoy the sun whilst listening to the bees buzzing happily in the Lavender bed, feel the slight breeze on your cheeks as it breathes past and rustles the petals on the Iris and the Bluebells which are still going strong.

Evening sunshine is just the best isn't it? Such a beautiful golden glow- see, it's sunny in the Dales too!

Cow Parsley Stitchscape

It was whilst I was walking home from the studio on Saturday that I came across this gloriousness! (Is that a word?) A frothing mass of dancing Cow Parlsey which has totally invaded an outdoor seating area at the back of a local primary school. The sun was shining on the little flowers in a way that made them gleam and shine like clouds that are trying to hide the sun but blush silver and give the game away.

I knew then that this was exactly what I wanted my next stitchscape to represent. The design popped right into my head- a little 15cm hoop with layered greens and creams in the background and leaves and french knots in the forefront.

As soon as my Bluebell Stitchscape was finished I was rummaging around in my ever growing fat quarter baskets for the perfect prints. I picked out several and sat playing with colour placement, rolling the fabrics and laying them next to each other to try and visualise how they would work in the layers. This is generally how I start all of my 'scapes; theme, fabrics, composition and stitching.

With this piece I snuck another silver space dyed fabric between the two top layers after I'd cut my shapes as there wasn't enough fabric to fill the hoop. I really like the wavy look of these fabrics, soft and undulating like the layers of the Cow Parsley heads. There is movement there I think.

I also played with adding some lacy ribbon for added texture, the green lace reminded me of the leaves, and the cream lace the flowery tops. You can also see that I'm starting to think about what I could possibly use for the actual flower heads themselves and where they might be positioned within the hoop.

All of the fabrics and ribbons get tacked down to hold them in place and the fun can then really begin! I've mentioned before that I tend to tackle one layer at a time, and will generally either work my way up or down from top of bottom. In this case I started at the bottom, filling in the polka dots with little crosses and adding a layer of french knots to the top to secure the raw edge of fabric. The leafy print fabric was filled in with little seed stitches then the stripe fabric was followed with back stitch and running stitch as suggested by the print itself (using a single strand of embroidery thread for the back stitch and two strands for a heavier line on the running stitch). I filled the feathers in with single threads, and added to the lace with more french knots. The chevron stitch fabric was followed with a double strand embroidery thread simply following the lines of the pattern. Nothing fancy, just simple, wholesome stitching that is pleasing to the eye and mindless and relaxing for the hands.

Of course, all of this relaxing stitching then leaves time for the mind to ponder on what comes next! I had been very daring in my quest for lace ribbons and had ventured into the unknown realm of the craft cupboard.... (pause for dramatic effect). It is one of those spaces where things are so crammed in there, they leap out at you when you open the door and you have to quickly shove everything in and slam the door shut, minding your fingers of course, to close it again. Luckily for me, it was a successful mission and I discovered bags of beautiful pearl and cream beads left over from my university days, and some white lace leaves which would be perfect. White wasn't really going to cut it for me in the leaf department though so I got out some watercolour paints and painted the green on which has turned out rather well I think.

These I kind of threw onto the hoop and stitched them down where they landed- no only kidding, I sat and arranged them for ages, trying to picture how the flowers would look around them, then stitched them down and added some stems using three strands of embroidery thread in a kind of loose satin/long stitch. After finishing the main stems I worked some strands of thread in a kind of star at the very top of each one to show where I wanted the flowers to go, although you can't really see these in the finished piece. The flowers themselves were made with french knots in DMC tapestry yarn (adding extra blisters to my fingers along with texture to the embroidery!), and I added 'sunshine' with my beautiful beads. So, are you ready for the finished piece? .....

Ta-daah!

It's quite a bit different to my other stitchscapes as this is a much more close up view of my subject than the others which look on from more of a distance. It also uses more 'stuff' and doesn't focus so much on the fabrics in the background to create the images. I have worked these fabrics in my usual way but they only peep through the leaves rather than being the bigger picture.
It's funny, this piece happened so fast from inspiration to realisation to completion. It's how I imagine a poet would feel as they spontaneously spit out prose inspired by a muse. My work doesn't usually happen so fast but I'm jolly pleased it did (even if the blisters are bigger than ever!).