Moving on

My first little sampler is finished, a mere 5cm x 7cm I had to be quite careful about what threads to use as the fabric, calico and cotton, is quite a close weave. I particularly like the way the shiny purple rayon catches the light and looks like some exotic ammonite, and the transition from closed to open chain stitch in the centre part, blending from rust to indigo. I've tried to echo that in the finer chain stitch coil to the left

Now for the next one, in bright hot excitable colours! This one 6cm square ('ish) and just beginning.

What fun!

sampler number 1

A little bit of embroidery, just tickling along, trying out stitches, seeing what I can do next. This is the cool colours version, still have the hot to go.

oooh, learning

I'm really rather excited! I've embarked on a City and Guilds in hand embroidery being run by the Guild I've recently joined. We're being taught by Barbara Walters, whose work you can see here.

So I spent Saturday in the company women, doing things that felt almost guiltily like play! We sploshed paint onto paper and fabric in Barbara's lovely back garden to start with, preparing the bedrock of our later creativity. Then we were treated to tea and biccies before spending the rest of the day learning about line and mark making, colour, design, thread and stitching. We were given much sage advice about preparing to work, using copious notes and taking pictures to document our work. I shall post piccies soon. Suffice to say I am having enormous fun trying out threads, fiddling with design and wondering about transferring to the fabric.

Oh yes, we did eat our packed lunches as well .......

And there are more sessions to come!

Watch this space.