A bit of this, and a bit of that.

‘This’ being – er – this. Which I think is seriously cute - so cute I may make another one, subject to confirmation from Babybel and her mum.

Free pattern here if you like it as much as I do.

‘That’ is more drawing – some very disciplined and some less so. This is another image from the booklet about the Staffordshire hoard – although it isn’t part of the hoard, rather an example of decoration from a book of the period. Wish I knew what it says.

As you can see I didn’t space it correctly, so the twiddly bits underneath are some of the details I didn’t have room for.

I love its exuberance – the way the letters intertwine and the little faces added wherever the scribe fancied. It made me think of graffiti – the scribe could make his mark by adding his own little flourishes and decorations, just as a graffiti artist has his own tag. It was great fun to do.

This was also fun. I remembered  the exercise we had done in Contemporary Textiles, drawing with three pens rubber banded together. So this is my teasel drawn with a big fat pen, a very fine one, and a calligraphy pen. It was quite difficult to keep them all touching the paper at the same time, but I am very pleased with the final effect.

 

I am trying to keep in mind that the purpose of my drawing is to inspire embroidery – and therefore I should be thinking about making the sort of marks which translate into stitch.  The drawings which I like best, I realise, are those, like the teasel and the ‘kimono’, which I can visualize as stitch.