stitch and stitch

Our next task for Poetry of Stitch has been to stitch our curve once more, again four iterations, but this time all in the same direction, and all with line stitches. I have been experimenting with chain stitch, cable stitch, and now some couching. I am varying the placing of the couching stitch to try and create a lighter and darker effect within the curve, and have varied the chain stitch density and width with the same intention.

Sometimes the back tells its own story

And sometimes it's just rather fun

Progress so far, the top left being the "control", with just a single thread laid across closely spaced, to mark a starting point for this tonal exercise.

then there is the homework ....... 

Magick

There are old magicks in this landscape

Hidden things

Buried secrets

Secret flows

accumulation

Things are building up, layer by layer

The wider view

Playing with a scrap of organza, 

A river perhaps

The present past

To all the world, bar me, this is an unremarkable piece of laundry marking; a soft blue embroidery thread used to stitch a name with very basic stitches into the edge of a pillowcase. To me, this speaks of a soft faced, elegantly spoken, refined elderly lady with round, pink, powdered cheeks, Mrs Tiggy-winkle eyes and the sweetest smile, eking out a life of genteel poverty during the early1970s in the deep recesses of St Leonards on Sea.

She was Norah Moore and had been one of two ladies who rented rooms in Ganna’s house. They took up the top floor of an Edwardian semi, where they shared the kitchen and bathroom, but retired to their own individual rooms; paying guests. Mum and I took over those rooms when we moved to live with Ganna in 1968 after Daddy died. Later, Mum would take me to visit Norah, in her two room bedsit in yet another St Leonard’s Edwardian: this a stone's throw from Nanya's first abode with her three girls. I'm sure I was given sweets, butterscotch bricks wrapped in gold paper with a crispy crunch to them; Callard and Bowser as I recall.

Mrs Moore had been married, and had a little girl of her own, but some tragedy, possibly wartime, stripped her of husband, child and meaning in her life. I remember the sadness in me, that this kindly soul had gone through such tragedy.

I may be the only person in the world who remembers her

sampling

Although no stitching was done while away, since coming home I have spent some time with my Mesopotamia layered piece, this time a proper sample. Christine's advice was to pin the layers together, rather than tacking, as with every stitch you make, the organza and the layer(s) below make a little adjustment with each other. Pins can be moved to accommodate this. It was very fine advice.

So here: the base of hand dyed fabric, with its layer of marks; a layer of poly organza coloured with walnut and India ink if I remember; a snippet of the paper laminated piece with more floor plan imagery and a layer of seed stitch suggesting another building.

The next layer of seeding, at larger scale, with a thread which matches the colours on the fabric, both responds to what is below, and secures the coloured organza

Here using Emily Jo Gibbs' technique of stitching around the edge of the layer below 

finding shadows of floor plans, hidden beneath, or impromptu patterns from the combined layers.

Here stitching moves away from the absolute randomness of seeding, responding to what lies beneath, just as archaeology does, searching for treasure 

Sampling really does allow for experiment and experiencing the way the layers interact, how stitching can bring to the surface what lies below. 

My larger piece has more detail, though the seeding needs to extend further around the remains; I like the way they flicker in and out, depending on the colour in the hand dyed fabric below.

Once the sampling is done, I can think more clearly about how to develop this further. For now it is good to just consider

Retreat

We are home again after our annual trip to the Lakes, which Covid was kind enough to allow. We are expecting to be confined to a greater degree in the near future if the rise in infection continues, and are so grateful to have been able to be there this year. As ever the place was magical, despite not "going anywhere"; we walked and swam and I knitted and crocheted and read far too many books, the best of which was The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

Neither of  us can walk very far, due to age and general debility, but I managed a couple of, for me, longish walks, (just over 1 1/2 miles in old money), and as ever looked longingly at the Pikes, wishing I were fitter. This is taken from a point on the road above Elterwater. The sense of space is quite different from a walk on the south coast, with the sea's horizon at one's side. Here is such stillness, space contained by immenseness, water trickling, sheep foraging, light glancing off the landscape, a here and a there.

We stay just on the edge of Elterwater, and were lucky enough to see a red squirrel for the first time

and on one of my walks, this shy creature just over the wall

As ever there was rain, but that just adds to the beauty and richness of the colours

And ever in the background, water and reflection

Then one night, when sleep was eluding me, moonlight and shadow