Roses are green?

Roses are red, violets are blue, but who says we need to stick to these conventions?  I've been indulging in my new guilty pleasure, ribbon work embroidery.

I bought this gorgeous selection of ribbons from Patricia at Mulberry Silks.  They are the most lovely colours and perfect for this style of work.  I'd chosen green for leaves (obviously!) but found that it made beautiful roses, working well with the dusky purple and lilac.

I'll be teaching ribbon work embroidery at my studio on Saturday 4th March.

Flights of fantasy

Happy New Year!  A time of new beginnings and resolutions.  I find myself busy making lists and jotting down ideas for future projects, looking at my calendar and wondering if I can fit everything into the year. 

When I went back to college to study textile design the method of using sketchbooks to explore and develop ideas and designs was completely alien to me.  I had a picture in my head of what I wanted to create and then I made it - simple!  At first I paid lip-service to the sketchbook, leaving blank pages and then filling them in to suit the design I wanted.  I'm not confident with pencils, pens and paints and visual research was a chore but I found ways around this and gradually found my feet.  I realised that the process of studying shape and form made me think about how I could achieve the same in stitch and before I knew it I was designing for real. 

This method has made me more perceptive and taken my work in some unexpected directions.  The first piece I made for Skipton Embroiderers' Guild in October 2011 is a good example. 

From a Victorian collar found in the Rachel B Kay-Shuttleworth collection at Gawthorpe Hall, my doodlings took me to a key motif and made me think of a chatelaine.  Further research lead me to some of the great women reformers of the Victorian era:  Josephine Butler, Octavia Hill and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon.




The 'keys' in my piece were coloured with inlaid fabrics of blues and reds to represent the blood, sweat and tears associated with reforming women's rights. The collar is constructed from silk organdie, a fabric that pops up time and again in my work.

I was starting to find my own voice!


Having said all of that the photo at the top of this post is a doodle, plain and simple.  Something to make me happy without any real thought or consideration towards design. It's needlefelt applique with fine DMC crewel wools (possibly out of production) which were a joy to stitch with!

Wishing you a happy and creative 2017!

Happy Christmas!

Another year of crafting!  Here are my final two projects:  machine embroidered robin cards for my sewing group and no-sew patchwork Christmas trees with a group of friends. A lovely end to the year.

Wishing you a very happy Christmas and a creative New Year!

Doodle flowers

Looking rather pale in the Northern winter sunshine, this is a quilt that I've just completed for my daughter.  She wanted blue but it had to fit with other soft furnishings in her room and so we arrived at a compromise of this blue/green.

I based the design on a doodle.  Large flowers with loose curly tendrils have been appliqued onto a background and then top-stitched to give the effect of illustration.  The border is strip pieced in a random fashion.

Slightly too late for her first term at Uni but I'm hoping it will be a nice surprise when she comes home today.

Winter Workshop

What a fabuluous weekend!  Three days of making Christmas stars and two of the workshops at my new studio. 

We had a lovely time stitching and sharing, helped by copious amounts of tea and cake.  Thank you to everyone who came along.  Look out for more workshops in the New Year!

Christmas is coming..

With Christmas only 6 weeks away (oh no it isn't, oh yes it is!) my attention has turned to making a few cards for friends and family.

These simple designs use shapes cut from silk and Bondawebbed onto linen.  The Christmas tree design uses open Cretan stitch on the body and a 'closed' version of the same on the base.  The snowflakes use a mixture of fly stitch, lazy daisy and French knots.  The star is simply running stitch.  Easy peasy.

Ring O' Roses

Learning new skills is so enjoyable and none so much as ribbon work embroidery.  I took a class last month with the lovely Nicola Hulme organised by Skipton Embroiderers' Guild.  Not really knowing what to expect, I thought the workshop might broaden my horizons but would be altogether too fiddly for my liking. 

Like the worst kind of convert, I cannot stop talking about ribbon work and have been feverishly practicing ever since!  Here is a little (think button sized) brooch made with a simple woven rose, some buds and loopy flowers (who knows what they really are but they look good!).  Its finished with some fly-stitch leaves and a smattering of glittery thread.  A perfect pick-me-up for any outfit.

Nicola teaches classes in ribbon work and other types of traditional embroidery at her studio at East Keswick.  She is a fantastic teacher and her relaxed approach means that you get great results with your first attempts.  Her website is  www.simplystitch.co.uk