Murmuration ATCs

I love watching the birds. We have a big clattering of Jackdaws who live in an old tree outside our house. Clattering being the official name for a group of Jackdaws and definitely a very apt one as they can be very noisy, especially in the evenings when they come back to roost and have their little routine of all leaping out of the tree at once for a quick swoop round the neighbourhood shouting at each other before settling back down again. It can be quite an impressive experience if you get caught underneath it!

Murmuration is the word to describe groups of Starlings (which are smaller than Jackdaws, although can be equally noisy and squabbly in groups!) that fly in swirly patterns in the sky. If you are lucky enough to see one it is quite mesmeric as they sway and swoop and dance in the sky, seemingly all in tune with each other. Often this happens at sunset which somehow makes it all the more spectacular, and the term 'murmuration' comes from the noise of the wings all flapping and humming together. It can be hundreds, sometimes thousands of Starlings all coming together at once!

I don't know how many birds are in my Stitchscapes, I haven't counted the individual fly stitches made to represent them (you're more than welcome to, answers on a postcard please). I have tried to build up layers of them and have areas that are darker than others so it looks like they're turning, or perhaps flying closer. The fabric underneath the stitches is actually printed with lots of black letters on a white background. The letters themselves looked to me a bit like individual birds so I thought it would be a good place to start. I've gone over the whole layer with single strand fly stitches, then added in some bigger birds with two strands to make the lines stronger and bolder. 

To echo the whooshing and movement, I've threaded some running stitches through the layer below to almost represent the wind perhaps, either wind that the birds are following or wind created by those hundreds of fluttering wings. I wonder if it does feel windy if you get up close to a real murmuration?

In researching it seems that the majority of murmurations are over marshland, piers or other open spaces near to roosting sites. There seem to be several ideas about why the birds gather like this, some have suggested they are keeping warm, some have said it could be due to feeding if it's low to the ground, some have said they gather to ward off predators who would be put off by a moving black cloud. 

I've sort of gone for the marshland landscape as it meant I could have some fun with my fancy sugar craft stamens. The colours overall are soft as I was thinking of dusk and misty evenings where the light is fading away. 

The blue hill I have covered with two strand seed stitches in a matching blue, and then scattered some pale yellow french knots across it to add a little floral aspect.

The fabric at the bottom hasn't had much in the way of texture stitching as I've gone in with my grasses instead. The stamens were stitched down first, just folding them in half and couching across the bottom fold, then one couch on each side to keep the stalks in place. I've used two different types of stamen because I couldn't choose between them. They were given to me by a lady from Ringmer WI a couple of years ago and she had had them for a long time herself so some of the green ones don't have ends on both sides (I think we may be able to call them vintage) but actually it kind of adds to the whole effect for me. 

I've 'bedded' in the strands with some chunky long and tall fly stitches, using three strands so they are really bold, then bedded in the fly stitches with french knots in a tonal pale blue. More of a ground surface (or perhaps even water if you think it looks watery enough) has been added just with a few lines of single strand stitches around those clumps. 

I really like the contrast in these cards. The birds are very bold and domineering so they are the focus, but then when you look at the detail, there is a lot of texture in the softer colours. Without the birds being there, the stamens would be the focus which I feel is the case if you were actually watching a murmuration. 

So, the stitch run down for these cards is; fly stitch (obviously!), blanket stitch, running stitch, couching, french knots, seed stitch and straight stitch. 

3 Year's Worth of Swapping!

 

As I put away the December 2024 Stitchscape cards into my little Papermania ATC folder, I realised that the folder was full! It has enough slots to take exactly 3 years worth of Stitchscape swap cards, how fantastic is that?

Of course, then I wanted to get them all out to have a play with them and see what they looked like together as a big collection. I'm fairly sure that I did get all 72 cards out on my board at once but I don't seem to have actually taken a photo of that amazing moment which is rather frustrating.

These photos are of all of the cards I've received from other people in the swap. You can see the breadth of styles, techniques, fabrics, colours, ideas used. I find it absolutely fascinating looking at how all of the different themes have been interpreted. I wonder if you can guess what all of the themes were (assuming you didn't already know) for each card. 

These are my cards from the last three years. I feel like you can tell that they've all been made by me, the techniques are often quite similar, stitches repeated, using felt for motifs, the way they are all stitched onto the backing card. And I seem to use those flat clear/pinkish sequins a lot! (I do have rather a large pot of them so that's probably why.)

Some ideas have been a bit random; using paper cut holes as sequins for tree leaves, creating sort-of-stumpwork butterflies using magazine pages and fabric for wings, cutting out strawberry punnet plastic to make a 'glass' greenhouse.... They're probably the ones that stand out to me as being slightly different.

The nicest thing is actually to be able to look back and see how I interpreted the themes. I've got folders and folders of cards made by other people from when I belonged to a Mixed Media ATC swap group, and they're all lovely - usually three cards on a set theme - but I haven't the foggiest what my cards looked like and how I interpreted the same theme. You can't see how you might have grown or changed in your style. 

Three piles for three years! And here were are, one theme into the fourth year. I had no expectation that the swap would be popular enough to go on for four years, how thrilling!

Below is what my folder looks like, fat and full of hours worth of stitching, creating and joyful mindfulness. Newly learned techniques, tried and tested methods, recycled materials or purposefully bought fabrics. It's a happy little folder!

ACEs Workshop Part One

 

I very much enjoy having the opportunity to have a play around just with layering colours and patterns to create different potential images. Sometimes I try to be a bit daring and put together combinations I wouldn't naturally go for, and sometimes I stick to tried and tested colourways and balances, those that can quite clearly be interpreted into a certain type of landscape. Of course, this scale of hoop making must mean it's another workshop! 

Last year I was invited to go and talk to the Arundel Creative Embroiderers (ACEs) at Arundel museum and Mr & Baby DT and I made a day out of going up and having a pootle round. Arundel itself reminded me a bit of Lewes, hilly and with lots of antique shops!! 

As it turned out, it was a great talk and ACEs were very interested in the Stitchscapes, so much so two workshops had to be booked in to fit everyone in! We didn't meet in Arundel as it happens, but in Barnham and the workshop seemed to also include ladies from a group called Barnham Buddies which was nice because not everyone knew each other but by the end they were all friends! Which is what stitching in groups is about, all of the sharing of ideas and techniques and experiences. 

Barnham Community Hall is very nice, lots of rooms, big carpark, nice lighting and heating (sometimes the halls can be a bit chilly). We had a fair sized room which was just right for the group too and I could have a display along one end, and put all of my workshop baggage on tables down at the other end. 

We arrived mega early for the workshop - about an hour or so - as we had anticipated traffic but flew there in record time, even stopping for breakfast along the way. Luckily around the hall there is also a playground (with a hilarious roundabout that jolts and bumps that Baby F found utterly hysterical), and a big field with wooden climbing apparatus around it so we could walk round and kill some time whilst we waited. 

Once inside and set up it was down to business! The giant bag of scraps proved too tempting for some and it ended up tipped out on the floor so that everyone could get elbow deep in the bits of fabric that live in there. I have been considering working through it and perhaps bagging up colours into bags or organising it somehow but I really don't know where to start or how to organise it so it just lives in the bag, slowly growing into even more of a mountain! 

I have since learned that apparently charity shops will taken the smallest snips and offcuts of thread and fabric for rags, one lady in a more recent workshop saves every single micro morsel of fabric, puts them in a little bag and when the bag is full drops it into a charity shop who accepts rag donations. I might have to investigate more into this because I throw away a lot of tiny pieces of fabric or calico offcuts, especially from kit making, but I do like to recycle. I had assumed by 'rag' it just mean trousers with holes in type thing rather than bits smaller than a postage stamp (the old style, before they all got extra QR codes put with them). 

There was no real set theme to the workshop so the packs had been a mixed bag of some that could be interpreted as coastal, some more countryside, and others quite floral so everyone chose a pack that kick started some kind of inspiration and got going! None of the packs are set, it's not a challenge to use all of the fabrics included exactly as they are - if there's a fabric in the pack that isn't liked, or doesn't fit the theme you're going for, swap it out for a different one, either from a friend's pack or from the scrap bag. Think also about turning it over and using the back of it rather than the front if it's the pattern that's throwing you off, or the boldness of colour. 

As always, with embroidery groups, quite often it's not the stitches that need teaching but the way to think and look differently at the fabrics being used. I often get told that I look at fabrics differently to others, seeing the potential for different types of stitches or ways it can be turned into a texture or landscape. My role in these workshops is to literally spurt out ideas and to also encourage the doubting Donnas who say things like "I'm not very creative" or "I'm no good with putting colours together". 

There is an element of practice and experience I think when choosing fabrics, but equally that doesn't mean that you aren't creative and if everyone put the same colours together you wouldn't get avantgarde designs with 'bold colour choices'. How boring would life be. Some people would say those designers have bad colour choices, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. 

This one is based on Ben Nevis and I think it's absolutely fab! That rocky fabric was from her own stash and is absolutely ideal for a barren looking Scottish mountain. I don't know if she brought it along thinking about Ben Nevis, or if it popped up as an idea after looking at the other fabrics on offer but it's a brilliant start!

Sometimes people have the most amazing things in their stashes. I don't often do other designer's kits (partly because I don't like following instructions and making something identical to someone else, but also I don't have time to stitch other projects when I can't keep up with my own!) but it seems to be a great way of building up a stash of incredible types of thread and fancy yarns. The fluffy hand dyed yarns above were some that I am really coveting for my own stash. 

This coastal piece is off to an amazing start too! The little trumpet shells were from a craft shop so actually had holes drilled into them which meant they could be stitched like beads - usually if you pick this shape of shell up off the beach you can't stitch them down because they're slippery suckers and no thread positioning will make them secure. 

This lady had come very prepared with her hoop already fabric-d up. She wanted ideas on how to stitch, what stitches to use and how to add texture to the hoop rather than any kind of instruction on layering. We discussed keeping on adding running stitches in circles around her moon, perhaps changing the colour from white to a mid blue to a darker blue so it looked like the light was fading out but still adding in that texture to the sky. Over the top she could also add little french knot stars every so often for a starry sky. 

You can't see it so well in this photo but she's also started adding random length blanket stitches up those beautiful birch trees to imitate the fabric print, secure the fabric edges and add bark-like texture. 

I'd love to see what this one looks like finished. Quite a lot of these fabrics were also the lady's own and and the wading birds are just fab! Exactly the right kind of scale for the hoop. I really like the bush she's putting in at the front so it makes you feel like you're an ornithologist peeking through from behind a load of shrubbery (perhaps wearing a camouflage hat and looking with binoculars whilst lying flat out on a scratchy sand dune with those scrubby painful dried grasses that hurt your feet if you walk barefoot over them). 

I will be back with another ACEs blog post for the second workshop soon so you can see more of the amazing hoops being created by these groups. Do you have a favourite from this day?

Stitchscape Swap 2024 Full Collection

The third year of swapping beautiful little pieces of textile art with (usually) random strangers from the internet is finished! I'm so pleased to have this little offshoot hobby in my life. I might roll my eyes halfway through each month and think, oh my goodness I haven't even started this month's cards....but when it's done and I start getting those fat envelopes plopping through the letterbox, there is no feeling quite like it! 

I'm like a trusted curator of a very short lived exhibition, that no one comes and sees - except for the cat who is usually very interested in it all, and a small boy who really just likes the lights and set up. 

I can't remember if I've mentioned it before but a few weeks ago I got asked why I hosted this swap. "What was in it for me if it doesn't earn me any money?" 

It was a slightly dumfounding question because it implied that everything I did creatively had to earn me something and bring in some kind of payment. I tried to explain that the Stitchscapes had started out as a hobby and that my whole embroidery business has grown rather organically, based around sharing knowledge and skills and passions, and for me it is more than about earning an income (although that part is nice and very appreciated). This is the hobby element of the Stitchscape business I suppose. 

I'm not sure the person who asked the question really understood what I was trying to get at (I'm not sure I've put it across very well here either, I suppose it's difficult to explain), they only really nodded and said "ahh" when I said that sometimes I frame up and sell the leftover cards that I haven't swapped, and that I do have a PDF download about ATCs in my Etsy shop. But really I don't think they got it at all. 

There is such joy for me in sharing ideas. Holding workshops really gives me a thrill because, even if I'm not required to teach actual stitching (a lot of the groups are already stitching groups and know the basics at the very least), I'm there to give ideas. "Had you thought of this? Why not try adding in this? How about if you repeat that but differently? Use two colours of thread in the same needle, twist those together, layer this stitch on top of this stitch, use the back of the fabric as well as the front...." I can spout ideas until the cows come home and usually we can come up with something really creative between us - perhaps something that has never been done before! 

I've really enjoyed these themes. I'm never quite sure when the themes list gets published for the following year, how they're going to be taken. Sometimes they don't particularly appeal to me either but it fits with the time of year, or the season, and I just think to myself that I'll cross the bridge of coming up with something when I get to it. Castle Ruins was definitely my block this time around.

From the cards and notes I receive from people joining in with the swap, this seems to happen fairly regularly, but often they surprise themselves and the note will say that they couldn't think of anything, or they didn't know if they were going to be able to translate the theme into an image, but that they were really pleased with their final result, or that a trial technique had worked better than expected and could now be used in other projects. All of which is fantastic!

These are all of my interpretations of the themes for 2024. A reminder of what they are (and working from the top row down, from left to right):

Top Row: January - Boundary Lines, February - Stepping Stones, March - Northern Lights, April - Cherry Blossom

Middle Row: May - Flight of the Bumblebee, June - Lakeside, July - Beach huts, August - Castle Ruins

Bottom Row: September - Shipwrecked, October - Moss & Lichen, November - Poppy Fields, December - Misty Shadows

My favourites are Stepping Stones, the Bumblebee and the beach hut, oh and lakeside - I love the little tent (inspired by going camping that month). Overall it seems quite a dark year for me colour wise, I'm not quite sure why, I obviously need to collect some brighter coloured fabrics! 

You can also go back through my blog posts and read about each collection individually as I make a post about my cards and why I have made them the way I have, and then a separate post about the whole collection when everyone's cards are in. 

These cards are the beautiful ones that have joined my collection from others. I think they're so lovely! Some I've specifically kept because they were a little bit bulky and wouldn't have made the return trip on just a normal stamp (but only if I didn't already have a card from that person), but all of them are just wonderful. 

The bee from Michelle is all velvety and tufty, the beach hut from Jackie actually opens to reveal a little man in his bathing costume inside, and the snail sitting on top of the moss covered wall on Abi's card is really sweet, he caught my eye and I had to have him! (Bonus and benefit of being the chief swapper, I get first dibs.)

I just want to quickly thank everyone who participated in the 2024 swap, whether it was for one month, a random number of months or the whole year! There are a couple of ladies in this swap who have also done the full three years which is dedication! It's dedication for me to run it, but dedication even more so for them to continue joining in with a stranger's creative whims - and trusting me with their art. 

Of course, we are one swap in to January 2025 as I write this up but there is still time to join in with this year if you would like to. The creative themes are below, and you can pop me an email at sales@dottytextiles.com if you would like to learn more.