Quietly continuing

There's still a lot to be done on this, but I'm slowly finding my way along, taking each section at a time and seeing where it leads me next.

As I haven't posted about this for a while, here are a couple of close ups

and the whole piece in natural light

I love the delicate turquoise and the way it interacts with the eco colour. I'm aware that those leaf prints may well fade with time, so am accenting them with stitch. I think there may be some floating seeds scattered about at some stage, it has a feeling of Autumn about it. Hardly surprising considering when I started.

I haven't decided on a border yet, I'm waiting to see where I get to with the stitching first, feeling for what the cloth is telling me as I stitch it. Truly a slow stitch project.

Blackwork with a bit of red

Here's the finished piece: yes, something finished! Pam's design was a pleasure to work and she supplied us with a couple of pages of filling patterns to choose from, so each piece will be unique. One of the things I discovered, having a couple of books on the subject, was that these are almost infinite; just take a grid and join up the dots one way or another, any way you can think of, and repeat. It's a testament to our very human delight in pattern making and complexity.

I stuck to Pam's suggestion of working a differing weight of filling for each section, but didn't use my variegated thread in the end, it was a little too thick and would have looked unbalanced against the outline. I did use red though, which is always the first colour one thinks of with roses and this is a sort of rose. I've used two closely allied reds to reflect the way the colour of rose petals is sometimes shaded from centre to tip. I'm really happy with the result though, no, I'm NOT going to show you the back!

Hope you like it.

A very enjoyable interlude

Our Embroiderer's Guild Branch is a select group of talented women. There aren't very many of us compared to some branches in the south, but we do have some great embroiderers. This year as part of our programme we are running a series of mini workshops where three brave members have undertaken to teach the rest of us a technique that they feel they are good at, or love to do. So we have the option of Blackwork, Silk Shading and Ribbonwork over the coming months. The plan is to spend a Saturday afternoon happily stitching under the watchful eye and tutelage of our lovely experts. This Saturday I was reminded what a pleasure Blackwork is as one of our members, having designed a pattern and put together a little pack for each of us, sat us down and told us a bit about the history and helped us to get started. You may remember I did this in my City and Guilds back in 2012; the chance to revisit the technique was not to be missed.

A little bit of history. Blackwork was very popular in the Tudor court, having reputedly come across from Spain with Catherine of Aragon and was known then as Spanish Work. Initially always worked in black silk or cotton, often on even weave cloth. Here the patterns are created by the counted thread method, so working the stitches according to the number of threads stitched over or under. There are a variety of stitches used; one method using a running stitch, which is then worked back in the opposite direction, became known as Holbein Stitch because it appeared so often on the collars and cuffs of Holbein's court paintings. It is particularly clever as it looks the same from the back as the front and so was worked on the edges of garments where it would be seen on both sides. Some Blackwork is not counted thread, examples include pillow covers or coifs and caps worked in fantastical designs of plants and animals. Since then it has gone in and out of fashion and modern Blackwork would be unrecognisable to the original practitioners. One of the beauties of the stitch is the way you can create the most marvellous light and shade effects by both working with threads of different thicknesses and by fragmenting the stitching patterns so they appear to fade out. There are some wonderful examples on the Royal School of Needlework's page here,

So here are my efforts so far, the outlining done and the filling in to be started (whispers ... "don't ask why one of the acorns is wearing a hat"!). Such a pleasure to sit and stitch with a group of friends and share our enjoyment of embroidery. I am thinking of departing from tradition by working the acorn cups in a mid brown and the centre rose in red, possibly even a variegated thread as I do have some treasures I want to try.

So thank you Pam for providing us with such a lovely design, and for getting us started, I'll do my best to do it justice, and get it finished by the next workshop so your fresh band of students can see what is possible.

Shibori too

Some very old bits and bobs, over dyed with a shibori layer. This one reminds me of the Aurora - night flowers perhaps

a tiny scrap with a little shibori applied to the "leaves", previously mono printed

another second layer on my Eco shibori - this with royal rather than turquoise to see what happens; the latest in the the Homage dyeing experiments. I've been stitching that as well but no pics to show at the moment

A bit of silk viscose dyed a couple of weekends ago

And these, given an initial layer yesterday, washed, rinsed, dried, ironed ready for today's layer. These are very small bits of fabric, test pieces to look at how the fabric reveals the dye. Satin viscose and silk velvet - I stitched both pieces with similar patterns.

the velvet was really thirsty for all that colour

Each cut in half. Now to add a next layer of dye. First stitching to re-shibori, echoing what has gone before. Again, I'm also testing to see how much dye each fabric will take.

above shows the backs. I try to echo or at least stitch in harmony with the layer below in the next layer of stitches. All pulled up tight.

Now sitting in a very small pot of mixed turquoise, black and a smidge of golden yellow

Again, I'll report later

So here's what's happening

in between the comings and goings of life, here is one of my current wanderings with dye and cloth - this on a slightly slubby silk previously dyed by spraying lightly with blues. All on a very small scale, this is Health and Safety respectful kitchen dyeing!

In keeping with the colour theme pop some little scatterings of dye into a small pot along with some soda and salt

Take previously dyed fabric and soak in a rich solution of soda and salt

Shake up the dye, salt and soda powder

sprinkle over the soda soaked, still wet fabric

and wait

I'll update you tomorrow

Framing - preparation

so I've stitched these little bits of cloth together to make a bigger bit of cloth. Now to frame it. I don't have a big enough piece of the remaining fabric to make one long border, so will piece in strips to make a three inch frame. A suggestion of some dark blue to add into that mix prompted an impromptu ice cream tub shibori session. I've kept some of this fabric as it is, but have taken a couple of bits to darken down. An opportunity to add another layer - remember this started as white fabric with some onion skin eco printing done in 2011

First stich the cloth, trying to regularise the pattern underneath, whilst keeping some of the subtleties of what's gone before, reserving little bits of light or colour with stitch to draw up tight and save from the dye.


Tie up good and tight and fluffle (yes, that's a technical term) out the wrinkles to make them lie evenly and flow away from the pulled up stitching.

Then in to the ice cream tub with a good dose of salt, more turquoise, a splash of black and a grain or two of scarlet.












Half an hour and on with the soda.


Now we just have to wait for morning.

A little homage cloth

This is a little something I'm working on at the moment. Some Conny and Harry's sheeting, eco printed with onion skin and maple leaf some considerable time ago, left to be thought about.

Last weekend I took them out, extracted the leaf prints and dyed the rest a gentle turquoise, some shibori'ed, some just dipped.


I dyed them in little batches, each of thirty minutes, then took out of the dye and plunged in a soda rich solution in another bucket.

Now cut into pieces of regular size and proportion, I've been hand stiching them together using the Jude method of (in my case) finger pressed paperless piecing. She has made a significant proportion of her early online classes available free. It was these that got me started, though I have changed her basic nine patch construction for something a bit more free form.

Influences paid homage to with this?

Jude              India                 Susan                   Judy                    Lotta

all women whose blogs I follow regularly and whose ideas I ponder on and absorb.

I am struck, as one can only be from personal experience, by the portability and ease with which this human powered assemblage of pieces can bring small scraps of fabric together into a larger whole. You can finger press seam allowances, stitch anywhere, become absorbed in the rhythm of the stitching, recognise a deep link with stitchers everywhere and at all times, that swish of thread through fabric, the shape and pattern found in stitching, the way the whole thing, because it's taking place slowly, allows for modification along the way.

Not quite complete yet, and pre proper pressing here. I have changed layout, orientation, combination of these bits of fabric as they have joined with one another and, because I'm working with regular blocks of 1,2,3 and 6 inches, I can chose to combine elements in various ways, which all build to a maximum 6 inch block. These are now being assembled into a larger whole, which will then get a border to frame. A twelve patch.

Then, of course, more stitch