stitchin' done

I am happy with the stitching on Norfolk Furrows. Having put it by for a while to distance myself from it, always a good thing with creative projects, I added a bit more and now, I feel there is enough. Just got to work out what to do next - bind with fabric and put a hanging loop or, as the Man suggests, get it framed like a picture. I tend towards the binding and looping - if you know what I mean!

Meanwhile I've been adding to Uffington, bit by bit, but have now put him to one side as well to work on bees; well, a bee. 

The homework I came home with from the embroidery group is to create a themed bee from the pattern above, with wings for goodness sake! All will be hung at the regional show day in Ardingly so I thought I'd give it a go. No harm in trying, but it's the first time I've done anything like it - it's a 3D object! 

The theme for the "challenge" was flight so they chose bees as an interpretation. There were several very fine bees at the meeting on Saturday. I can't hope to match them, but we'll see how my "bee's eye view" goes. Still in it's "pupal" stage one might say, I'll keep you posted. 

These  are little bee bodies, with the fabrics evoking the landscape the bee buzzes across. I want to couch some silver and gold threads across to represent the little bee paths that other bees see when they fly across the landscape

This is the side I've started stitching - I take photographs of things as I'm working, partly to show you, but also so I can see how things are going. You can see more in a photograph, it puts a distance between you and the object, rather like turning an almost finished painting to the wall for a while, so you can see it clearly when you look again. The open space on the left is where the head is supposed to attach.

I was glad I did this. I made the classic hurry'ers mistake, forgetting to turn the template for the mirrored half. Much turning over and marking of new outlines ensued. Then I had to patch some bits in at the tail end to create enough space for the template to turn round in, then I stitched the outline again, having done it once the other way round ..... then I put the template on to take this photograph and realised I've sewn the wrong outline in the fore end of the body!

Back to the sewing machine!

The head - not even started yet, will be in bee colours, with a bee face and beaded eyes .. bzzzzzzz

Embroiderers anonymous

I have just had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with the local branch of the Embroiderers Guild and a very nice group of ladies they were. This month, luckily for me since it was my first visit, there was a talk by Lucy Goffin, which was tremendously interesting. She showed slides of her work, from the very early days, through working with Jean Muir in the eighties to her current collaboration with Anokhi in Rajasthan. It is always inspiring to see an artist talk about what they do and how they came to be doing it. She had lots of slides of her work, and included some lovely tales behind some of the commissioned waistcoats she has made, her time in residency at Great Dixter and her other commissions including one for Glyndebourne and the ecclesiastical robes which provided timely income just as her husband was setting up Marchants Hardy Plants. She also brought along some examples, which ranged from the most delicate gauzy scarves dyed with Japanese Indigo, to a wonderful waistcoat with a shibori lining.

So, a fine afternoon with pleasant company, interesting talk and more to look forward to in the coming months, including a workshop in October on using fusible fabrics. I thoroughly appreciated the warm welcome I was given, and will go again.

Then I decided to go with my plan for walking home, it was "only" 2.4 miles. I started out in good spirits with the sun shining on all the neat suburban gardens, holding Beachy Head in the distance, in a blue veil of haze. I love the meditative swing of walking in town, I think it reminds me of the hours I spent walking home from school, books full of good intentions tucked under my arm and summer breezes wafting across from the distant sea. However, I had to be rescued by me dear man after 1.8 miles, which is at least better than not trying at all. 

I really do need to get out more!!

White horse grows

I had a strange glitch with Blogger that has resulted in a repost of my first Uffington post.
Here is the update - his land of dreams is expanding - time to go talk with him some more!

On white horses

Having finished Elephant, I wanted to try something similar and found inspiration from our oldest chalk figure, the Uffington White Horse. He gallops his way across mystical realms in Oxfordshire; you can read more about his history here. I've not visited him myself, but we have our own chalk figure in Sussex, the Long Man of Wilmington who watches over us from the wonderful Downs. I have climbed up the very steep hill to look down on him from above and salute him with affection each time I drive past on the A27. His presence is one of my earliest memories of coming to Sussex from Petersfield, when Dad was still alive and driving us to visit Ganna, "quick, look, look to your right, there's the Long Man". There is something very evocative about these ancient chalk figures, speaking to us of human activity and the desire to mark our landscape and advertise our presence. Something evocative too about the Downs themselves which roll and roll across the south of England, part of my own life's background, scoured by sheep and carolled by sky larks.

My white horse has been edited and added to, partly to make it possible to use applique to create his image, he is very slender in his original form, and partly because I sensed he wanted to feel the wind in his mane and tail. I am hoping he is pleased with my additions and will enjoy a little landscape growing in stitch around him.

more grandmothers gifts

I am gradually sifting and sorting "things", and thought I'd share a few more precious bits that have come to me, handed down through the generations. Some I found in the past, some have come more recently on Mum's death. They are little fragments of lace and embroidery about which I know nothing. I have treasured many of them for years, tucking them away in a drawer, wrapped in acid free paper to try and ensure they don't deteriorate, though I have to confess that the little embroidered bag was once home to my marbles! I have no idea of their age, but suspect they are mostly Victorian. I do know that my great grandmother's family moved from Ireland to Liverpool in about 1869. My great great grandfather had been a Methodist Minister, travelling all around southern Ireland preaching. He lost his faith after the deaths of six children from illness in a very short space of time. Once in Liverpool the family seem to have set up as drapers, and are recorded as such in the census. My Aunt recalls her Aunt Annie doing the "most beautiful delicate smocking" on dresses, and teaching her the skill; my grandmother embroidered, knitted and worked crochet lace; Mum knitted and sewed and my Aunt is a very skilled needlewoman. I like to think that some of these things were worked by family hands, I am happy to feel that I carry on that tradition in some small way. 


Here are just a few of the treasures.

Elephant is finished

My plans for a gardening long weekend were a bit scuppered by the leg that was giving me problems a couple of weeks ago - still tender and wary of being used too much, so today after we'd been for a walk to stretch it out a bit, I sat in the garden and finished elephant.

Boy, that was a strain - hot sun, green grass, a cool drink at my side and nothing to do but sink into the gentle rhythm of hand stitching and all elephant's colours and flowers were suddenly pulled together. He has a flowery field to walk in, and a tiny shooting star overhead to bring him luck.

I did also spend a little time on my collection of small trees. I won't call them bonsai, they follow a slightly different aesthetic. No twisting wires or pretend ancient stumps, I just take what the trees offer me and edit a little. I have had the two little oaks to the left here for near on twenty years I guess, grown from acorns collected in the woods when my daughter was little and chasing wood monsters. They have been sadly neglected over the past several years. I'm hoping now to be able to treat them better, feed them more and encourage new growth to replace what has been lost.


The japanese larch below was a bought tree, and so has a more classic bonsai shape

We also have in the garden,

arum secret and magical,
hiding its inner self behind an exotic cowl

hearts of forget me nots

and pink bluebells

experiments!

I have been having fun - trying out some experimental dyeing, having been inspired by a number of good souls in the blogosphere.

India Flint creates some wonderful colourful fantasies here, and here. Jude whispers up her fibre tales here with stitch, cloth and colour, Susan is doing interesting stuff with jam jars and bits and bobs and Velma is another great source of inspiration.

I am thrilled by the way in which the Web allows all these people, whom I have never met - who don't know me, to inspire and share their creativity across miles and times zones and the world washing sea. It is an extraordinary thing to be able to see what talented souls are doing in their own private spaces and an inspiration to someone whose mother, much missed, always asked "well what are you doing to DO with it" or "you mustn't start than until you've finished this" or worst of all "is it going to make a mess in my kitchen?" - this to my request to try out batik for a school art project

Ermmmm yes Mum!

So, with a bit of inspiration, a few snippets of knowledge gathered from the web and books, I gaily embarked on my first experiment - sort of home chemistry really.

I understood from what I'd read, that when dyeing one needed to pre mordant the fabric to make the colour stick. Having nothing really to hand apart from this old aluminium saucepan (of Mum's!) and some malt vinegar, I thought that might achieve something, so simmered water and vinegar in it for about an hour, then used that to soak some of the great store of hankies I harvested from Mum's - "what are you doing with those Kath?"
"nothing Mum, just stuff".

Having created the "mordant" I steeped the hankies in this, while simmering a fat handful of onion skins in the same saucepan for about and hour'ish - you can see this is a very controlled experiment!

While that was happening I stitched some of the hankies, pulling the stitching up tight to create areas where the dye won't reach. This is my very poor tryout of a technique called shibori, which is shown in masterful style here in this, for me, fascinating insight into Japan's Shibori heartland. the skill and patience of these craftsmen and women is marvelous.



So, all this pretty amateurish "stuff" having happened to the hankies, including wrapping some bits of old iron in one of them, I simmered them for about an hour and a half - I think - ! Three were removed from the pot last night, the remaining one, with iron enwrapped, was left to steep overnight. The results this morning are three bits of golden yellow, variegated cloth on the line

 and one which I'm sure has some mythical creatures hiding in it somewhere!

Now where to go from here?