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

where stuff happens

This little mouse came to me from Steph during the DBM episode. She said I needed to get in touch with my inner mouse! It has now found its true role in life, as indicator of my having decamped to "The Workshop" - the idea being that I place it on the dining table where the Good Man cannot miss it.

"The Workshop" is our garage, never used for cars, with the addition of a very fine sink, a water heater, some random furniture, a print bench, and two skylights for natural light

The rug in front of the sink was hooked by Mum back in the early 1960s to her own design which sat in front of her gas fire all of my life. It is now sadly on it's last legs, but gives me a soft spot to stand when working there and is a link to her. Our coastline hangs on the wall, four pathfinder maps laminated to a large board, so I know where I am in case I get lost - a project from many years ago. Some ancient mirrors and one of Jen's GCSE artworks, also from long ago give the end where the garage doors are some interest.

Looking the other way, there is a door to the back garden, which means I can go in and out from the back of the house. There are shelves and cupboards for storage, and I am beginning to get things organised

In the corner by the garage door is my ponder spot, two chairs of Cecil's, one an upright beautifully caned chair, the other a little low legged upholstered chair which used to sit by her bed and hold her clothes ready for the morning. Again, I have known it all my life and it is another link to deeply loved people. Here it is, still holding clothes, but this time my workshop apron and clothkits smock

On the bench in the foreground is one of my Coronavirus project pieces, the textures I was collecting from the garden to reflect activities that have been part of our isolation experience. I did further rubbings yesterday and have now added a new layer of dye.

The other place that "stuff" happens is here. In theory it is the spare bedroom. In reality it is my sewing and "whateverothercraftactivityI'mdoing" room. Yes it is a bit of a muddle, but I know where everything is (honest)! One of Nanya's oil paintings hangs above the fireplace.

I can sit and plot and design and cut out stuff, and baste things together at the table (another piece of Cecil furniture). I can clamp my little tapestry loom to it's edge (yes, I'm tapestry weaving again) to do a bit of weaving, and on the table behind me is my sewing machine to stitch things together. The room is south facing, so again plenty of natural light to see by.

I am thankful every day that I have these places to retire to and explore the various creative activities that bring me joy - I know that many have much less. I am thankful too for the network of folk who share these interest with me. In particular Christine's wonderful transferral of Studio 11 to an online space has encouraged me to really make use of my garage-workshop. It has been a long time coming, but walking in there every day, turning some music on and using the things I have gathered together over the years to explore the current Studio11 projects is a huge pleasure.

I hope you too are finding time for creativity in the these strange lockdown days

Corona creativity

Because we are unable to gather at Studio 11 for our monthly creative delights with Christine, she has, in her usual undefeatable resilience, put together an online course for those of us who want to continue exploring cloth and stitch. Her suggestion was that we work on the theme uppermost in our minds at the moment which is, of course Covid-19.

What an unprecedented experience for all of us, both close and far - something which will probably redefine "normal" for most of us once we have got beyond this stage of lockdown For us, me and my dear man, life is in many ways unchanged, we are both retired, but the loss of weekly markers, Bridge for him, various things for me, lends a sense of timelessness to days, a stasis which is quite hard to rise above.

The garden has provided a retreat and sanctuary space for both of us, and as I have sat out there I have been much more mindful of my surroundings. The extra level of hush brings birdsong to the fore; an aircraft passing above is something to remark on, rather than ignore; the textures of things around me, visual textures and sounds, are things to focus on and enjoy. So, I spent some time taking rubbings of things, first on paper with a simple wax crayon - some came I was very happy with,

So focusing on those I liked, I took some cotton out into the garden to collect again, this time with candle wax. The marks are there, but could be more definite, what you can't see here are the lovely contact marks the dye made on the back of the cloth. I will add more marks, and more colour, and see where we get. Had I thought, I could have left the first layer of wax on, taken a second layer of marks and then added colour, but I was too hasty with wanting to see what it looked like so it has all been washed away. I will do my best to overlap the rubbings so I retain some of those white marks

The other thing we did was to look at the imagery attached to the virus, drawing it in various different ways. I played with stitching and clamping, linen and ramie, to see what shibori methods could do to evoke that spiky ball - lots to think about here, and to play with some more

Rainbows

There’s a wonderful notion here in the UK, in response to the epidemic. Folk are creating rainbows and pinning them up in their windows so that passers by can be cheered. I love the thought, but at the moment people are, in theory, not going out except for essentials. So I though I’d share some of the rainbows that I live with.

They can be made by the sun, briefly captured by the wall

Or gently illuminating cloth stitched in India

They can be woven in Peru

They can have little birds flying across them

Or they can be made of cloth or glass and shine in the window by sunlight or lamplight

Because when the clouds are dark, if you can see a rainbow you know the sun is behind you. Sometimes we need rainbows to pull us through.

dyeing thread

Is not the same as dyeing fabric as I am discovering. Lovely daughter bought some yarn, bamboo and linen, very cheap, in white, for dying. And so, an experiment.

The first test wraps were bound with elastic bands and included some fine crochet cotton as well. So a small bundle, with all three types of thread, band wrapped, soda soaked, left to dry, dipped in dye and left to dry again

clear white divisions with some shading

After dyeing they were variously woven - this a test for something else, used to demo the dyed thread

And  crocheted to see how the effect translated, bamboo first then linen.

The second batch has yet to dry, bound with strips from plastic bags - unecological raffia. This is how ikat warps are tied prior to dyeing, but obviously with much more skill, planning and understanding than my efforts

They werent as effective at keeping out the dye, but have resulted in some interesting shading and some broader white spaces. The next step might be to re bind leaving some of the white unbound, then add a third colour, blending into some of the blue and petrol green but finding some of the white for the pure tone.

 Now where's that crochet hook?

Mesopotamia still being discovered

Flowing down the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, we've come to their point of closest conjunction until they reach the sea. So we've floated past Tell Asmar, Khafajah and Sippar and find ourselves at Jemdet Nasr and the wonderful Babylon, city of legend with it's blue Ishtar Gates, heaven scraping tower and hanging gardens

Obviously I can't create all those wonderful things in the small space allotted to me in this work, but I am trying to give an impression of increasing complexity given that here, lower down on the great alluvial plain, the serious business of irrigation, cultivation and specialisation really took off. Jemdet Nasr, here marked by a dark red-brown piece of agate, became a "type site", that is a site where a specific collection of artefacts are so distinctive that they mark some sort of change in culture: in this case, painted pottery, proto cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals.

And below I have marked Babylon with a triangle of turquoise for the Ishtar Gate and the high ziggurat, but I've also tried to evoke a sense of a city surrounded by gardens, cultivated land and waterways bringing that all important source of life.

Meanwhile, further north, up in the highlands I have added a new city, not on my original list. This is Mari, founded in 2900 BC as a nexus for the various trade routes which were developing and expanding as civilisation spread, goods moved across land and water, and supply and demand became the way of life. It was connected to the Euphrates by a canal, giving access to the major trade route, but protecting the city from flooding. It may well get more stitching, though I am keeping cities to the north relatively simple as a contrast to the luxuries in the south.

And in entirely different but still stitchy news, I am still working on the crewel work piece that I started in Fay Maxwell's workshop with the EG, back in November. The branches are coming along nicely; combinations of fly and feather stitch with raised chain band and French knots for texture.

The design is loosely based on the piece of fabric below, a sketchbook cover I made in a wonderful Sandra Brownlee workshop (at Studio 11). The fabric came from one of Ganna's cushions, the imagery on the fabric inspired by motifs from crewel embroidery

It amused me to take a crewel work inspired design and translate it back into crewel embroidery, but now with a modern twist.

I've played freely with the design, not least because freehand cutting of the felt pieces dictated a broad brush approach! It is amusing me, and is stitching on a totally different scale to Mesopotamia, which really requires a good light and plenty of magnification!!

Hope your stitching is going well wherever your creative spirit lies.

Keeping up - just

When I was young and still lived with Mum, she was always in a panic by Christmas Eve, with cards still undelivered and preparations still to make. She regularly sent out 100+ cards to friends and family near and far, and all the cards she received in return would be carefully stuck to the back of the sitting room door with minute pieces of sellotape so the paint remained undamaged. The resulting mosaic of colours and imagery would flutter and rustle gently every time the door was opened. So, with local cards in hand, off we would go on Christmas Eve delivering to friends who lived in our town; she would drive, I would "just hop out and pop it through the letterbox", a task which frequently involved a flight of steps in our hilly locality. Being young of course, I knew that when I was grown and in charge of my own life, I'd not be so tardy, I would be far better organised, I would be on top of things.

Hmmmmm ... it's Christmas Day and I have only just finished the composite gift for Darling Daughter. Fortunately she isn't with us until Boxing Day, so, just in time! It comprises a rather nice origami folded project pouch, simple to create with just two squares of fabric, you can find patterns all over, the one I followed was here.

The square of fabric is magically transformed, with a little bit of machine and hand stitching, into this, in a rather gentle pattern of branches and berries

Two vintage buttons (from Mum's button box of course) make the closure

Open up and splash of colour comes from the inner fabric, a vibrant batik

fold that inner flap up and you begin to see the pockets, and another little flap, decorated with beads to give a little lift

in all there are six pockets of various sizes, made to enclose

a little scissor case from a Sue Hawkins kit, and a needlecase from Clothkits, designed by Corinne Lapierre. The colours for the pouch, as you can see, chosen to match those of the contents. Even the scissors, peeking out of the pocket, have toning colours. These were started up in the Lakes in October, but took a back seat to a small quilt for a new small person, and a couple of other Christmas creations that needed to be finished first. In fact, it has all been a bit of a scramble!!

I do hope she likes them.

Oh, and sorry Mum, I was wrong - I seem to have inherited your last minute tendencies!!