Badger developments

Having enjoyed the Becky Hogg mackerel so much, I have now made a good start on her badger kit. With badgers in the garden I couldn't resist him when we did the woodpecker workshop way back when. As with all her kits, he came beautifully presented in a smart cardboard box with each element of the kit packaged separately in paper packets (no plastic anywhere) and full instructions for how to work the project. So far I have just done his body, and then put him to one side to concentrate on that blackwork project our stitch group has been doing, of which more anon. For now, here are some progress pictures.

You can see below that I have tucked my couching stitches just a little too far towards a previous row in one place, so there is a bit of a line along the back, but by the time I noticed I hadn't the heart to unpick. 

The back, with all those strands of silver waiting to be tied down and tidied up

I am so pleased with the progress so far, and looking forward to completing him, hopefully in time for us to take part in the Open Gardens scheme in aid of our local hospice in late June. He can then serve as a talking point for visitors and as a reminder that badgers, who live an a large old sett at the bottom of our garden, dig holes, so to take care when wandering across our "lawn" (we call it a clearing!).

Back to the other stitching which I will report on in a later post. For now, happy stitching 

finished fish

Our second "Zoomshop" with Becky happened on Saturday so we twelve stitchers joined her to find out how to finish our little fishy.

Again, her teaching was easy to follow - a combination of pre recorded video and demonstrations, and of course she was there to answer any questions we might have. I so admired the way she managed to balance chatting to us and getting on with things on her own while we were stitching. It is easy if you are in the same physical space; the tutor can see how folk are getting on, and often there is a bit of chatter around the table as the next part of the project is completed. With Zoom it is all quite different. We tend to run the sessions (Christine's as well) with everyone on mute to avoid distracting noises. Folk can unmute themselves to ask questions, but the sense of being able to just throw in a little comment, or whisper a query to your neighbour isn't there. I'm sure as tutor it must at times feel as though you should be filling the silence with "something", but Becky allowed a silence at times, and talked to us at others, in between her videos and demonstrations and the afternoon passed incredibly quickly. Making the mackerel stripes with incredibly delicate black purl, which seems almost to fine to be true, was a tremulous operation, but very effective over the metallic silk organza.

I had the bulk of the stitching done by the end of the afternoon, but the scariest part was then having to cut out the fish so it can be mounted on a little piece of silver fish shaped wood to give it some rigidity and allow it to exist independent of the background fabric. I managed, but still had to go back and add in some extra couching to ensure the silver pearl purl border didn't just fall off - having carefully cut through a couple of the couching stitches!

I'm very pleased with him, and glad I re-stitched the main couching on the body. Even though the stitching is not as regular as I'd like, the balance between the two halves is much better. He will be tucked away now and come out each year as a suitably coastal Christmas Tree ornament to add to the little collection of "danglies" we use each year, not being the sort of folk who have to have a themed tree and new set of ornaments each Christmas - just the old ones with the occasional happy addition.

So, a finished something - that in itself is a small miracle. Best I get on with another something now - I am sorely tempted by her badger, which has been sitting in a box upstairs since the original woodpecker workshop we did with Becky back in 2016!

Fishy business

We who are Sussex Stitchers had a lovely Zoom workshop on Saturday afternoon with Becky Hogg who lives just down the coast in Hastings. We all worked on the same project, a kit by her called Hastings Mackerel. My good man bought me mine for Christmas. It is a delightful design, as are all of hers, and presented in lovely packaging - I still have two awaiting my attention from the last workshop we did with her - the woodpecker which took me so long to complete.

Becky is a generous and charming tutor and, making the most of social technology, she set up a WhatsApp group so we can communicate in between sessions, sharing pictures of our work and asking her questions where advice is needed.

So, after a Sunday morning’s gardening, I spent the afternoon completing the first stage of the project. On Saturday Becky talked us through applying the felt, the organza for his back, and his silver fishy face and beginning the couching on on his silky silver belly.

Using the giraffe as a table frame was really helpful

The back seems to be inadvertently rather fishy in texture as well

I completed the couching on Sunday. I felt it had, perhaps, encroached rather too far into the other half of the body, the stitching was far from regular and that I had squished the felt a bit by being slightly too firm with my stitching, but it made me smile, and reminded me of a squid.

Then I decided that perhaps it did look a bit flat, and really was too far across the middle line. Mindful of Rachel's patient unpicking in pursuit of perfection, the scissors came out and all but the first two rows were taken out.

Lining up the away knots and setting in the next row - more on, rather than over the central line and with a bigger interval between each starting point

I come to the conclusion that the central line is perhaps, not quite central, but the belly is more rounded, the stitching is more even and, interestingly, I found I had space for one more row of silver. There is a little bit more space for the mackerel stripes too, which I'm looking forward to.

I love the way the moiré pattern of the folded organza gives my fish some water to swim through 

Next time we will be finishing; plunging the thread, if there are any left to plunge, adding the mackerel stripes to the back, the pearl purl outlines and giving him an eye to see with and a tail to swish as he swims about on the Hastings shoreline.

A little bit of sparkle

The pleasure of watching Rachel's patient stitching on her Dreams of Amarna project has revived my interest in goldwork. She is now up to episode 7, so if you'd like to spend a gentle 20 minutes or so listening to her thoughts on embroidery and watching her design take shape you can find her here.

Yes, I do have far too many other projects on the go that need my attention - in fact an overwhelming amount, but I found myself going back to a deserted piece that was begun in a lovely workshop we had with Becky Hogg four years ago. I had abandoned it because it was not as well stitched as I would have liked, but when I got back to it I thought, "hmmmm, that's really not too bad" and having finished it I am rather happy with the result. You have to understand that this woodpecker has not preened his wing feathers recently, which is why they are a bit askew! He has also failed to peck the hole in his bit of tree trunk, I assume he is a lazy woodpecker! You can see how he really should look here.

Rachel's current project uses a technique called Or Nue, a very old technique using rich gold and silver threads couched down with fine silks to create pictures that glitter seductively in the light. Mary Corbet has a rather nice piece about it here. Rachel is using a spiral thread, where the gold begins at the heart of Akhenaten and spirals out from there. Having decided that I would really enjoy this meditative stitching, and having a wedding anniversary approaching, I thought I might devise my own, very simple design, and work it in time to give to my dear heart.

Spiraling looked a bit too scary, so I am running the gold thread from side to side on the fabric. This came from a rather louche bundle that was part of Cecil's stash - definitely not the way one should store goldwork supplies. This is the tidier bit, and I am hoping there will be enough because the untidy bit (for which read something that looks like a large bundle of knitting wool that a kitten has been over enthusiastic with) is a slightly different gold.

So, I set to yesterday with much enthusiasm and little understanding and have got this far by this morning.

I am using embroidery floss rather than silk, because my dry skin turns any length of flat silk thread into something resembling Gonk hair. The eagle eyed among you will notice my basic error; I am running the gold thread across in singles rather than in pairs. This means twice the stitching so it will go slowly; unhelpful since our anniversary is in three days time! It is only our second anniversary, though we have known each other 22 years now. Traditionally gifts are cotton, but I think the linen ground fabric is an acceptable substitute.

Wish me luck

Inspired by the EG

I have been neglecting this little space in the blogosphere because I have been rather busy. We've had several good sessions at the branch of the Embroiderers Guild that I belong to; another of our mini workshops, this time my choice was ribbonwork, but I've not done enough finishing to share with you here yet. We also had a marvellous talk by Anthea Godfrey about the work of her mother, Margaret Nicholson. It was so interesting to hear about someone who forged her own path at a time when women were still expected to stay at home and look after their families. Anthea brought an utterly inspiring set of her mothers embroideries for us to see.

Margaret used a wide variety of embroidery and beadwork techniques, employing all sorts of materials and methods. She particularly enjoyed Or Nue which is a goldwork technique which involves laying metal thread on the surface of the fabric and attaching it with embroidery silks in such a way that the stitching, using different colours, creates a picture which sparkles and glimmers in the light. It is a very old technique; a great speciality in this country during the 14th and 15th Centuries, when it formed part of the repertoire of English embroidery, known as Opus Anglicanum, or English Work. You can see examples in the V&A and we exported embroideries across Europe, often to religious foundations or churches, as the Church was a major patron of the arts then.

Margaret took this technique, combined it with others and, with her wonderful talent for design, created beautiful images full of imagination and colour as you can see here. 

Anthea brought so many pieces that we could have spent all day just looking at one or two; the technique is so fine, and so labour intensive, it seemed miraculous that one woman could create so many beautiful embroideries in a single lifetime.

After such an inspiring talk I came home full of fire to get on with another Guild project, our regional challenge which we have every year. The theme this year is "Inspired by Royal Jewels" and the branch are busy creating all sorts of bits of embroidery to display at the annual Regional Day. I had a good look at royal jewellery and found myself rather uninspired, until I thought of the Alfred Jewel which is held in the Ashmolean (always a place to spend many happy hours!). This took me to the Anglo Saxons, and I discovered this rather lovely brooch found at the burial site of an Anglo Saxon princess in Kent. 

That seemed pretty royal to me, and much more inspiring than tiaras and diamond necklaces, so off I went. Drawing on the techniques I learnt at our Wendy Dolan workshop last year, I decided to create a cuff or bracelet based on the design of the brooch. Much trialling and stitching later, and I'm really rather pleased with the result - if you'll excuse the "old dear wrinkles"!!

Goldwork, beads and layered organza cut back with a soldering iron to emulate the cloisonne technique of the original.

I just might see if I can do something else now.

Goldwork dragons and a Royal wedding dress

The sun shone this weekend, after days of grey skies and intermittent rain - the ground is soggy, but the hazel just outside the window where I sit during the day has been just wonderful, clinging to it's leaves through all the wind we've also been having, as they have changed from their summer green to the beautiful clear yellow they are now. The colour just sings when backlit by the sun, bright, clean, uncomplicated. But even on those days when the mist has closed in and our view has not extended beyond the walnut at the end of the garden, this yellow has still shone for me, glowing with it's own inner light, right through to sundown and beyond - a smile outside my window each day.

Yesterday was our monthly Embroiderer's Guild meeting. We had the pleasure of a talk by Sophie Long about her experience of being an apprentice at the Royal School of Needlework. It was immensely interesting, especially as, having graduated, she then had the honour of being part of the team who worked on the Royal wedding dress. She brought along examples of the work she had done whilst studying at the School. They were really impressive, and many are shown on her website, including the most delicate whitework swan, a very clever blackwork image that was based on a photograph of her sister, and perhaps my favourite, her goldwork dragon. None of these pictures give you more than an inkling of the detail and craftsmanship in these pieces of needlework. We were able to peer closely, as she allowed them to be passed round as she was talking - I seem to recall her saying that the whitework piece took around 90 hours of stitching. I was really struck by how much work the apprentices had to do, both during term time and in the holidays - not for the faint hearted. Of the intake of 7 when she started her apprenticeship, only three graduated and she is the only one still working at the craft. She was very modest about her success, putting it down to the stroke of luck that meant that, just as she was finishing, someone in the Embroidery Studio was leaving and she was offered the place. I suspect this offer wouldn't have been made had her skill not been considered up to their very high standards.

After her talk, she had brought along bits and bobs for us to look at or buy. I succumbed to some lovely threads - now I look at them, perhaps I was influenced by the tones of Autumn ...

It is such a pleasure to belong to a Guild like this. There is so much to learn; both from the people Brenda invites to talk to us or run workshops, and from each other. Having not been a "joiner of things" in my life up 'til now - perhaps the result of being an only child, I am now reaping the benefits. In addition, after the talk a little group of us who are doing the City and Guilds together, got into a huddle to discuss our progress so far!