London Embroidery Events this summer
This summer London is a great place to be for seeing all things embroidered! A new exhibition entitled “In Fine Style: The Art of Stuart and Tudor Fashion” opened on May 10 and will run through October 6, 2013 at The Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace. From the home page of the exhibit; “This exhibition [...]
Little veins of silk and gold
The first Fallen Leaves panel is coming along nicely and it’s been a great learning experience to try all these different techniques in unusual thread combinations. To work the tiny spider veins in the large maple leaf, I used a combination of back stitch whipped with Kreinik gold cord. The back stitch wasn’t difficult but [...]
A Mother’s Day treat
This morning we woke up to a sunny blue sky. In Berlin, this year, that’s nothing short of a miracle! So my dear husband and I decided to celebrate the day by taking a short trip to Ketzin to visit Palace Paretz, just north-west of Potsdam. It took us about 40 minutes to drive through [...]
Free stitching
Sometimes I get the urge to just freely stitch; to make lines wherever I want them to be. I indulged that urge when working on the center of the large maple leaf in the panel I’m working on currently. Whilst waiting for my order from Benton and Johnson, I decided to go ahead and fill [...]
Barbershop pole effect
Do I love it or hate it? It took a while, but now I’ve decided to embrace the fun of what I’m calling the “barbershop pole” effect. It all started with the outline of the large maple leaf in the middle of the panel. I wanted gold on the edge but not only gold. I [...]
Gold veins
Last time I left you with a lovely paper pattern piece that would become a piece of gold kid for the first panel of the Fallen Leaves project. Today we’ll see how to use that piece to cut the kid and how to attach the kid to the fabric. The kid will be sewn over [...]
Bumf…bumf…bumf
This is something completely new for me! I’m going to apply gold kid to the first panel of the Fallen Leaves project. Gold kid is thin leather which has a very thin sheet of gold foil adhered to the top. The thickness of the gold kid is about the same as a piece of thin [...]
Bayeux stitch in silk and Japanese thread
Don’t you just love it when something turns out as well or even better than you expected it would? I do! I’ve been working on the leaf on the far left of the Leaf Panel design using silk and Japanese thread. I’d decided to do the whole shape in Bayeux stitch with the silk running [...]
Fallen leaves…do I like it yet?
This new project isn’t my favourite; at least not yet. When I come home, I don’t run to my frame to begin working like I usually do when I’m starting something new. But I do spend a lot of time mulling over different options. Unlike many pieces, there isn’t a hard and fast plan. I’m [...]
Contemplating Bayeux stitch
The last few days I’ve been thinking a lot about Bayeux stitch. The more I look at photographs of Bayeux stitch in different embroidered pieces the more I’m drawn to it. There are so many variations one can get in texture and shading while covering a large area of fabric. And tot hink, not that [...]
Fallen Leaves – something completely different!
It has been an interesting last few days stitching and working on the new web site. Although stitching is more relaxing at this point, the new learning web site is finally looking fabulous and is almost ready to go. There will be free mini-classes and paid project courses on the site. I’m excited to share [...]
Fallen Leaves – fabric mounting
The Fallen Leaves project is going to have some challenges and the first one is the fabric I’m using. Raw silk is often very loosely woven and, although it has a beautiful texture, it’s prone to ravel and fray. When deciding on the background fabric for these four panels I knew I needed a highly [...]
A different way to transfer a design
Firstly I want to wish everyone a wonderful Easter weekend. Here in Berlin we are finishing up our first week of Easter vacation/spring break. During the holidays I usually get up early and begin to do things – fun things – every day. It’s vacation time and for me that means time to be creative. [...]
New Project: Fallen Leaves 1 – 4
Just in time for spring I’m starting on a project that began (creatively) last fall. If you’re interested in the background and the process of the development of the project, these three posts will fill you in. 1.Golden Autumn 2. Golden Autumn Continued 3. Four Leaf Panels Below is the first attempt (really the second [...]
The Acorn complete
Firstly I need to tell you all that I’m sorry I haven’t written this week: a terrible flu has been making the rounds at school and I fell victim. I’m all better now and hopefully immune to the flu until next year! Last week I showed you the Ghirodes knot sections of the design. The [...]
Velvet stitch, turkey work, Ghiordes knot…
No matter by what name you know this stitch, it’s certainly fun to work! Velvet stitch is a stitch that creates pile like in a rug. I suppose if you stitched velvet stitch all over a huge piece of fabric you would end up with a rug but it would take a long time and [...]
It’s the little things…
I wonder how many of you would notice these tiny stitches if I didn’t point them out. Often, when we look at piece of art, we see the whole first and then focus in on the “flashy” parts of the piece. In the case of this piece, it would be the acorn and the trellis [...]
Back to the beginning…
You might have noticed that the book list on the right side of the page has changed. I was doing some behind the scenes work on the blog last weekend and noticed that I hadn’t written anything about books lately. As I draw closer to the end of the Acorn project, I’m starting to reminisce [...]
Acorn in the sun – but only for a minute!
The trellis section of the Acorn project is finished and it looks just wonderful. The colors and the stitches Nicola has chosen are stunning. Both my husband, Steve, and I looked at the piece as a whole when I was finished with the trellis area and both of us remarked that the geometric style of [...]
Trellis and triangle
When stitching a trellis the most important thing to me is to make sure it’s symmetrical. If the trellis is made of squares, then they should be as much the same size as possible and the lines running in both directions should be parallel. When I first started to stitch the trellis on the Acorn [...]
Blanket stitch and seeding
Oh my gosh I am so excited! It’s almost finished…Once all the stem stitch was done on the branches, the next step was the blanket/buttonhole stitch all around the edge of the lower leaves. In the very clear instructions, Nicola suggested to stitch a line of running stitch with sewing thread about 1/2 inch inside [...]
Stem stitch branches
Stitching something that’s symmetrical is always difficult. To get the same shape or design to be exactly the same on each side is near to impossible (for me!). The Acorn design isn’t mathematically symmetrical – after all, it’s the work of May Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement which was, in part, a reaction [...]
Acorn progress…slowly but surely
With the deadline in the not too far distant future, I have been stitching regularly on the Acorn crewelwork piece. It’s interesting to work to a deadline – although we were all given enough time to finish, so there’s been no sense of pressure. The current bits I’m working on are the two veins in [...]
Carnation and Rose Bloackwork – not forgotten!
Yesterday this post was sent out to one group of subscribers still unfinished. Instead of my usual prose they got something in their emails boxes that looked something like this: ashjsdhjfdjklfhdklshflkdas fhdjlfhjkdshfjdhkjlha ]]fahjdlfhlahfkdhkfhdkjshfkjdsiuwew Needless to say I got some pretty confused and funny comments. I also got an email from my father (more below). Now [...]
