Stitching news

I've been pretty busy stitching this last week. As you know, I'm doing the sumptuous surface embroidery course with Sharon B from pintangle.com so I've been working on my cat picture. I now have a whole series of cats ...

I have a cat who's intrigued by a butterfly ...

 I have a cat who's birdwatching through the window ... and ...

I have a cat who's about to pounce on a ball.

but I've chosen to begin stitching my 'disinterested' cat - cream on cream. The cat itself will be 'negative space', i.e. not filled in at all. The upper part of the picture is going to be stitched in low relief pulled thread stitches while the lower part of the piece will be filled with highly textured stitches - all in neutral shades.

The second piece we do on the course is in colour so I'm probably going to work the cat chasing the butterfly for that one as it will be set in a garden - so lots of colour.

 I stitched an orchid in needlelace and I shall make more of these I think as it was such fun to make.

I've also been working on a fabric book, which is almost finished now, but I'll show you that when it's completed.

Last week a friend and I went to the Hepworth gallery in Wakefield, which is where my friend lives. If you live in the UK and get the chance to visit, it's well worth a trip. It's named after Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor, whose work is heavily featured in the gallery, but there is also work by other contemporary artists and sculptors. If you're not familiar with Barbara Hepworth's work, here is a taster.

 If you've visited London you may have seen the full size version of the piece in the picture above on the wall of the John Lewis store.

Her work is perhaps not to everyone's taste but I think that some of these pieces are just waiting to be interpreted in stitch.

Retreat progress

I have been so busy recently with my cat design for my new embroidery course that the miniatures have taken a bit of a back seat. There is a little progress in the retreat however.

I've finished the flooring in the bedroom at last, and am now trying to work out what I can put in those tight angles between floor and roof. I've tried some storage boxes, and a little table. I know that I really need to make the bed and get that in place so I can see exactly what space I have left to work with before making any final decisions but I couldn't resist playing a little.

Downstairs I've made the range cooker. The sink unit still needs a splashback on the wall and the taps fixed but the curtain is in place and a bucket stored inside the cupboard.

The kitchen area is now almost complete.

I couldn't resist making this shabby little sign for the wall.

There's also a mirror on the wall at the foot of the stairs with a little storage unit beneath it and a set of shelves which just fit in the space underneath the stairs. Lots of books and rolls of fabric needed to fill these.

A new venture

Yesterday I began an online embroidery course run by Sharon B at www.pintangle.com. The course is entitled Sumptuous Surfaces and a big part of the purpose, for me at least, in taking this is to learn more about the design process. I've designed things in the past but it's always been kind of intuitive, or accidental, or something, but I've never known the 'theory' of the process.

Lesson 1 is all about that design process and at last I have a framework in which to work and suddenly it all makes sense. For the first three weeks of the course we work in monotone, which doesn't necessarily mean we have to work in neutral shades, though that is what I've gathered together. It's all about the texture so there are soft cottons, crochet threads, perles, chenille, rayons, linens and metallic threads. I think perhaps I need something a bit darker in there too but until I've decided on a final design I'm not sure.

My first piece is going to be based on a cat (surprise, surprise!!) so this morning I sat down with a cup of tea and mind-mapped some ideas about cats.

What struck me particularly from this exercise were the contradictions inherent in a cat's nature - independent/demanding; aloof/affectionate; wild/domesticated etc. and I want to incorporate some of that in my design. Watch this space for further developments.

More furniture, pincushions and lemon curd

I've had a good week this week in the retreat and it feels like real progress is being made quite quickly for a change.
I finished off the wicker chair - realised that I hadn't wound its legs so that's done now and the legs look more capable of actually holding the weight of a person. I made a nice comfortable seat cushion for it and also some little cushions to prop against the back.

I couldn't resist adding some kitchen items to the dresser and I finished painting the kitchen chair and stool.

I made a range cooker from mountboard

and started work on the sink unit. So this is how the kitchen area will fit together. I'm just waiting for the air dry clay sink to dry and then I can fix the top on the sink unit and get this area finished.

This was a whitewood unit that I bought - well I actually bought two but each one comes with only two of those storage baskets so I 'borrowed' the baskets from the second unit, covered the fronts with scraps of William Morris patterned paper and painted the unit cream. The drawers and baskets are all empty at the moment but eventually they will hold the owner's craft items. That little box on the top and the two on the dresser are made from scrapbooking paper.

I made more cushions and put them in the armchair. I think I may make a throw for this chair too so she can wrap it around herself on cooler evenings.

 

Liz's sew along item for April was a pincushion and I made two. I love biscornus and once I got started it seemed like one just wasn't enough.

 

And finally ... this morning I decided to make lemon curd.

You put the grated zest and juice of 4 lemons, together with 200g of sugar and 100g of butter cut into cubes into a heatproof bowl and put it over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't actually touch the water. Stir it occasionally with a wooden spoon until the butter melts. Then mix 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk lightly with a fork and stir into the lemon mixture. Then just let it cook in the bowl, stirring regularly for about 10 minutes. When it turns thick and custard-like, remove it from the heat and stir it occasionally as it cools. Pour it into a clean jar and store it in the refrigerator. It will keep for a couple of weeks - if it gets the chance. Super tasty!!!

Furniture in the retreat

This week I've been busy making up for lost time and working on the retreat. The first thing I've made is a dresser for the kitchen area. While I was thinking about the kitchen I sanded down a little footstool and a kitchen chair - just enough to take away that really shiny finish that bought furniture often has. I'll be painting the chair and stool in due course.

You can see that I hung a lace-edged blind at the window too.

The dresser is made from mat board painted with three coats of a medium green emulsion, then one coat of a much paler green. I then sanded all that down a little before giving it a quick wash of water-based wood stain in oak. I left that on for only a few seconds then wiped it off again with a piece of kitchen paper, just leaving a very faint and patchy wash behind. Then I sanded it again (very fine sandpaper) and finally buffed it with a piece of scrunched up brown paper to give it a natural looking sheen. This was all done before I started to cut out the pieces to make the dresser.

I also have a little more stitching to show you ...

Do you remember the sycamore seeds? Here they are on the completed box. I have to say that I'm quite pleased with the result.

At our last embroiderer's guild meeting we learned how to do book-binding and I made this little notebook. I padded the cover and covered it with a piece of blue linen then made this needlelace heart to adorn the front cover. The lace was a bit of an experiment as I used some quite different and much thicker threads than usual but, again, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.

While I was in Anglesey last weekend my sister-in-law took me to a little embroidery shop close to where she lives and I bought - and stitched - these two little cross stitch designs. Cute aren't they? And they were being sold to raise funds for Cancer Research - so all in a good cause too.

And finally ...

My garden is tiny. I may have mentioned this fact before. Six years ago, when my husband died, I bought a memorial tree - a bonsai crab apple - to commemmorate his life and his love of nature. The tree was already about 25 years old when I bought it and each year in April it puts on this wonderful display of blossom. In the autumn it even produces tiny crab apples.

Holiday snaps

I've been away for a few days and when I return I find that blogger has changed completely in my absence! I didn't realise that there was anything wrong with it before ... but what do I know? I guess that they have to keep busy - changing things for change's sake - whether they need it or not. Aah well - enough moaning already.

I stayed on Anglesey, a small island just off the north coast of Wales, with my sister-in-law and her husband and thought I'd share some of the photos I took with you all. The weather wasn't great so we didn't do an awful lot but it was good to get some sea air into my lungs.

This is a pair of statues which commemmorate a particularly daring rescue by the lifeboat crew just along the coast from where I stayed.

and this is the lifeboat station. You can see that the sun came out for a little while on this particular day so it was quite pleasant walking along the coastal path.

This is Beaumaris Castle ...

And Menai Bridge, which is how you access the island.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this tiny wild flower which has colonised a gap in this old wall.

Then yesterday I went on a coach trip to Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire with my Embroiderers Guild group to see their collection of Tudor embroidery. I'm not allowed to show you photographs of the embroideries themselves, in fact we weren't allowed to take photographs at all of many of them. But this is the Hall itself, largely built around 1600.

A short update

My brother has been staying with me for the past week so not much has been happening in my workshop. The weather hasn't been great and he's not been too well so we've not really been anywhere very far either. However ... tomorrow I'm going to stay for a few days with my sister-in-law and her husband in Anglesey (north Wales) so I'm hoping that the weather improves at least a little so I can take some photographs to share with you.

In the meantime, there is a little progress on the retreat, apart from all that painting of narrow strips of wood and moulding which seems to take up so much time before one can get on with the fun part of a new build.

I finished laying the board floor in the living area and then decided to put in some wall panelling too. I couldn't resist trying the armchair I made in there too - just to see how it will look with furniture.

 I finished the panelling along the back wall and added a fake door and a 'window' which looks out over the woodland beyond the cabin. The sink unit will fit into this corner beside the window. Both flights of stairs are now in place. It's difficult to tell in these photos but the walls are actually a very pale shell pink and everything else is painted ivory. The panelling and the flooring still need to be aged.

 Upstairs around two thirds of the floorboards are laid and the beams are in place. As you can see, lots more still to do but it is starting to come together.