You may have wondered…

what I was going to do with the hank of sari silk [although some of it feels like sari polyester] I bought earlier in the week.

You and me both.

However, today it told me it wanted to be a Lois Walpole bowl,  in these muted colours, so I had to go through the hank removing the brighter ones.

I have another piece of this corrugated card, so I hope there will be enough of the other colours to make a second bowl.

I also did a proper landscape drawing [sort of], on some paper which had been washed with inks. I picked out some of the foliagey shapes with Inktenses, and deepened some of the colours in the ‘water’ and ‘grass’. I’m quite pleased with it, and may have another go.

This was all this afternoon – in the morning we went to a small exhibition by students from Winchester School of Art, in the Theatre Royal. I was particularly impressed by Amy Madron’s projected images and Melanie Evans’ layered sheers with screen printing [?] and a tiny amount of stitch. Worth visiting if you are passing, although it finishes on Monday so you’ll have to hurry.

You will probably have guessed that I’m avoiding talking about the landscape I started on Wednesday. I spent an hour or so last night, while listening to a rerun Rebus [don’t get me started on what a waste of Ken Stott/Ian Rankin that series is] putting running stitches in the hills, and half an hour this afternoon taking them out again. Too heavy [I’ll have to go down to a single thread of floss or hand stitch with machine embroidery thread] and I need to think very carefully about stitch direction.

While I was unpicking I pondered on why I don’t want to machine embroider it, although everyone who's commented on it obviously thinks I’m mad not to. Partly it’s because I’m not a very competent or confident machine embroiderer – and yes, I know I'd get better if I practiced, but I don’t particularly want to. Embroidery for me is a slow, contemplative process - and machining isn’t. I also find machine stitch quite restrictive – basically all you can produce is a line. It may wiggle, it may have blobs, it may have loops of the bobbin thread showing – but it is still a line. And usually an unbroken line is not what I want – although in this case it might be...

I did take a good look at the piece and to try to decide how I might machine embroider it – and it didn’t actually solve the problem of the orientation of the stitching. It would just be quicker to sew and  slower to unpick.

So sorry machine embroiderers –  I admire what you do, but I don’t want to do it myself.

Just like half-marathon running – ‘Go Mrs Cheese Minor’ who will be hitting the streets of Gosport/Lee on the Solent tomorrow while the rest of the family cheer her on.

No new stamp today ...

because yesterday [when I needed to start it to let the glue dry for today] - I had a really productive day and actually did some embroidery!


I have three challenges to work on and had been completely devoid of ideas, but several came all at once - a bit like buses.


The one below, which doesn't look very exciting at the moment, will become my response to the Stitched Textile Design group challenge for February. Probably. Provided it doesn't go wrong.

For some reason, since I got my new Bernina, I have lost what little confidence I had about free motion embroidery - daft, really, when the Bernie is supposed to make it easier. However, yesterday I decided to give it a go. Polyester satin was probably not the best choice to try to regain confidence with, but I'm not too disappointed with the outcome. The current plan is to add some transfer dyes over the top of the quilting - an odd way round, I know, but I want to experiment.

I did another piece for the Dyehard Surfacing challenge, but as it's black on black it doesn't photograph well ...

This lot above is for the 'Around the World in 20 Quilts' challenge, 'Brave New World' - which has to include recycled materials. Hence the old jeans and newspaper. It has progressed a little further but I can't reveal all until the end of March.

I did play around a little more with yesterday's stamp, as I have some ideas for embroideries based on it. The one above is on some 'end of the day' hand dye - the mop cloth which I use to catch spills when dyeing, often ends up in a bucket with the left over soda solution and dye. [On this day there was obviously a lot of red left over.]

I think this one will have some simple stitching in a 50s 'Needlework Development Scheme' style, perhaps with wadding or felt underneath. I do like adding wadding to embroideries, I like the softness and the slight puffiness.

This is the same stamp on canvas - it was so pale I had to go round it with wash out pen. I have actually started embroidering this but so far all it has is a few rows of brown tent stitch.

Finally - I must wax lyrical about my new book. I came across it by accident while Googling for something else and ordered it from ABE Books [cheaper than Amazon for once, although ABE Books don't seem to be able to spell the title correctly either ...]. I don't usually like to buy books sight unseen but I am so glad I did.

It is full of beautiful pictures of wonderful textile related art work. I am too embarrassed to say how few of the artists featured I had heard of - so I will just mention two whose work I have been lucky enough to see for real , Hilary Bower and Rozanne Hawksley.

I thought I knew of every textile book published in the last few years but I had never heard of this one, perhaps because it is more art oriented than embroidery oriented, but it is very inspiring if you are interested in textile art.

Gushing over for today!