some stitching, trees and beasts

My good friend Steph and I went to Ramster House and Gardens on Friday to view the embroidery and textile exhibition they have there every other year. We went for the first time in 2019 and of course they couldn't hold it last year so we were very glad it was on again this year. As well as lots of interesting bits of stitchery to see, we also thought we'd take a brief walk around the garden this time and were rewarded with some very fine trees and interesting creatures.

As with my last visit, I found that it was hard to take photos of the works I was most inspired by because of the amount of reflections. The beautiful 17th Century Hall where the exhibition takes place has a lot of lovely low windows which bring in natural light. This of course bounces about off the glass behind which most of the embroideries are framed. A distraction both when taking pictures and when viewing the stitchery close up. However, here are a couple which I did manage to capture despite the reflections.

Maggie Grey's Oranges Are the Only Fruit, inspired by an Italian Fresco

A lovely use of breakdown printing by Jane Mckeown - Rain puddles 

Isobel Moore's Secret Garden

these delightfully delicate landscape embroideries on eco dyed fabrics by Helen Followfield 

and Golden Tree by Jane Cobbett

After a refreshing lunch in their tearooms, we then ventured into the gardens where we found

130 year old Japanese maples, planted when the garden was first laid out in 1890

children at play beneath the trees, frozen in time - a delightful sculpture by Christine Charlesworth called Oranges and Lemons

cranes pondering the reflections in the lake

a kingfisher poised in the mossy banks

some glorious oaks spreading their branches to the sky. They presumably remain from the original oak woodland which predated the garden

woven stag and deer in the glade

a very imposing Wellingtonia - I found myself pondering about the life that must be supported underneath its soft, fibrous bark skin

and this very fine family of boar, sculpted from a fallen tree on the estate

All in all an extremely enjoyable day out which fed both body and soul. I hope yo have had an enjoyable weekend?

More sparkle

Well my first attempt at Or Nue is completed. I am pretty pleased with it, despite the slightly suggestive bulge at top left where I tacked down the thread on the back at an angle rather than across the back of the border threads - just don't think of Mick Jagger in tight trousers and you'll be fine!

It has now been tucked into a small box frame and sits on the good man's mantlepiece in his study where it catches the light coming through the bay windows and reminds him that I love him every day, not just on our anniversary. And yes, I did manage to get it finished for the special day and, yes, I did have enough of the gold thread to finish, so didn't have to investigate the scrambled muddle of "less gold" gold thread.

I really enjoyed stitching this, though I'd probably work any future projects in slightly slower time: all that peering through an illuminated magnifier and stitching for long periods resulted in a migraine and very stiff neck and shoulders once it was done. The combination of simple stitching with attention to the finer detail felt very mindful, and listening to my playlist of medieval music provided a lovely and appropriate background. However, enough stitching for now. I have returned to a knitting project that I started more than two years ago - remember that lovely Noro yarn? I lost confidence when I got to the sleeves; the increases in combination with a lace pattern, not something I've done before, so it got tucked away. But I needed something big for my eyes to focus on so out it has come again and I have promised a friend and fellow knitter that I will finish it in time for our next meeting for tea and cake, whenever Coronavirus allows.

I was right though, the increases on the sleeves are rather tricky, but I won't be beat this time!

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

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.

Keeping busy

We are away on our annual pilgrimage to the Lake District. With the weather forecast to be rainy and windy for most of the week I brought along some stitching to keep me busy indoors.

I will confess that both pieces are kits bought recently. But then I wonder, as I do when new stitchers at our Embroiderers' Guild branch guiltily comment that they "only do cross stitch", what is wrong with working the occasional kit? It is directed stitching, yes, someone else's design and inspiration, but enjoyable stress free creativity, which when you are away from all those tempting threads and fabrics at home, is a lovely way to continue a daily practice in stitch without taking half the sewing room along "just in case"

Both of these are intended for someone special, so only a teaser in the image above, but I am really enjoying the quiet, meditative stitching each day, and a return to canvaswork which I haven't done for many years.

It hasn't been all rain and wind though. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny fresh day so I walked up to Chapel Stile to pay homage to the Langdale Millennium Tapestry 

and beautiful stained glass

in Holy Trinity Church, a quiet gentle space nestled in the Langdale valley.

There was a delightful man making repairs to my favourite window, so we chatted briefly about William Morris and stained glass and when a tapestry is really an embroidery. A lovely way to spend a morning.

Dye and stitch and sometimes both

So a little free time focus and some fun with the dyepot. These below a set of fabrics variously manipulated in shibori fashion, stitched, pleated, folded, bound, crumpled.

Dyed with synthetic indigo, flushed through with a wash of petrol green towards the end - I enjoy playing with the parameters of what and when. The colours not quite right here, but you get the idea.

Then in a plastic tray, this scrumptious srcumpledness. Again, shibori stitched, dyed bright yellow a few days ago, then extra colour flooded in as a second process

And here it is unwrapped and blended together with three other bits of cloth from those long ago sheets. Some of my experiments in my first year or two with Christine top and third, second and fourth dyed very recently to complement. I intend spreading them out a bit onto a backcloth so each can have its own voice, but still be part of a whole

And the cities begin to grow in Mesopotamia - 

Assur, capital of the Assyrian Empire the latest to manifest as we flow down the Tigris, Dur Sharrukin, Nineveh and Nimrud nestled in the confluence of the Greater Zab and the Tigris

Focus

Yes, focus, I could really do with more!

I have been absent from here for some time, just being busy really. I have several projects on the go - never giving quite enough time to any of them, but hoping to get more than one thing finished by giving each at least some time. So there is the Mona Lisa project with my Embroiderers' Guild group. We have chopped her up into 25 rectangles and have each taken one to work on with whichever technique we feel suitable. I have her forehead. Just about to start cutting out organza shapes to get the colour of her skin before stitching that and finishing her hair.

Then there is my Mesopotamia project at Studio 11 - very slow stitch, but I am thinking about it all the time; how to express what catches my interest about the subject, how to be creative with ideas as well as images in stitch and cloth. The two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates are gradually flowing down the hanging I'm working on at the moment.

and towns are popping up along the way - in this case, Dur Sharrukin, Nineveh and Nimrud

Also, there is my patchwork - that monthly class which a little group of us are attending where we are learning all the basic skills in a nine patch quilt with borders. Just the borders and quilting to do now!! Only a little bit behind!!!

And recently I acquired,  or perhaps took over responsibility for the most wonderful piece of English Paper Piecing, a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, part finished, left to a friend by her godmother. The friend feels she can't finish it so it has been sitting on the top of her wardrobe making her "feel guilty" for the past 13 years.  It is double bed size, and I have fallen in love with it.

There are odd edges that need finishing before I can get to grips with how to proceed. There are also lots more hexies to be cut and stitched round the templates, template papers to be removed from the completed bits of piecing, flowers to be pieced and decisions to be made.

Such inventive fussy cutting.

I have no idea how long finishing will take, but it's a daily bit of quiet stitching that does my soul good.

On top of all that, I am now part way through a ten week course on the history of Mesopotamia - part way through and falling behind! Falling behind because we have been away for three long weekends in the past seven weeks, doing very enjoyable family things with my dear heart's family. This last weekend we were in Kassel for a very joyful wedding. The weather was toasty, the sun shone, the corn poppies were blooming

and the church roof threw back the light to the sky

Then this post popped into my side bar of places I enjoy.

How to have more focused hours in your day

Wonderful advice, but will I take it?

Life is full.

A little indigo a little Japan a little Jude

I was deeply moved by the quilts of Shizuko Kuroha at FOQ in Birmingham last weekend. A lovely weekend spent with my daughter meandering up from and back to the South Coast.

This was my second time at the show, and again Christine was there exhibiting; this time with unFOLD, a textile group she belongs to. All the works were themed around Lynn Knight's fascinating book book "The Button Box". Here you can see Christine with her "Just Got To Finish the Mending", in the background and below, mending being metioned in the book as an informal contraceptive of sorts - read the book and you'll find out. Christine's piece, which we have watched develop during our Studio 11 days, is densely stitched over a deconstructed shirt, with the darning stitch so often used to mend, and mend, and mend in those days when we still did that sort of thing. It was marvellous to see it hung in the gallery space along with so many other thought provoking textiles.

If you look closely there's just a hint of a daughter in the background as well!

While there we also really enjoyed Ruth Singer's textile meditations on the lives of women prisoners. Again, such an inspiration to see how textile artists express their thoughts about life and ideas using the medium of cloth and stitch. A thing I aspire to, but haven't quite worked out the how yet!

But back to Kuroha and her beautiful indigo quilts, impeccably pieced and hand quilted, each one a symphony of movement and subtle colour. They really are works of art. She was there in her gallery space, signing books for eager middle aged ladies, amongst whom I include myself (though not in this picture); her smile so sweet as she inscribed the book with my name and her signature. 

I was touched to the core, both by her and her art.

On my return home I had a week off work, but am preparing for two momentous things: first, at the end of the month, after forty years of fulfilling work in my local library service, I am taking early retirement - a big step, but one I am longing for. The ability to just go to bed in the afternoon and sleep for a couple of hours will be transformative! Oh, and get on with my stitching, and weaving, and dyeing, and gardening, and perhaps a little piano playing, and a thousand other things that have been waiting for "when I have time".

Then in September, I am off to Bhutan. How easily that types itself out, what an amazing thing to be doing. One of Colouricious' textile trips, I will be beside myself when it happens. Will try and post a couple of updates while I'm there.

So, Indigo, Japan, Jude? What's the link you are asking yourself?

Well, I need to take a sketchbook to Bhutan, obviously. I loved the simplicity of the indigo quilts, and all sketchbooks should have a cover. Especially one made from a couple of pairs of jeans I haven't worn since my slim early twenties, but have always kept because "I'll do something with these one day".

And Jude? Well this is a sort of Jude house, patched and darned and quietly stitched.