Tuesday, 7 April 2009

Sunday, 28 December 2008

putting it together









Just to prove I am getting near the finishing line.
Don't think the Bayeux Tapestry has much to fear, but it has some idiosyncratic qualities, let's hope the museum wants to adopt it.

Saturday, 18 October 2008

rolling on

I am decorating all with big wheels now........................with the aim of unifying the splodges of design. Why do I always make things so big?

Friday, 17 October 2008

progress


I have stitched some scenes from the Steam engine museums past, and then patchworked some more for the embroiderer's guilders as we studied the artifacts


















Evidence of a bit of progress at last


Can't get it the right way up!


This guilder is a bit small and miss-shapen, don't know if I can bear to do it again tho.


Thursday, 2 October 2008

stitching now

Against all the odds and evidence the piece is moving along, I will take a pic tomorrow and post it as sometimes I can see more clearly when the work is in a different form...................

Monday, 15 September 2008

Francophile

I actually managed to get my head together enough to dye today [careful how I spell that], I wanted some kind of dark background and while doggy walking I thought a burnt orange with black line stitches and blue highlights might work.
However once I start dyeing anything can happen.
Too impatient to check instructions I can never remember, i used the direct dyes, salt and hot water, seems to have worked.
The orange is a beautiful glow on the washing line even now, but maybe under burnt. i added some violet as you do, and now the loose weave stuff is brown, so I have draped it over the rusty mattress springs in the garden to see if I can get some rusty circle stains. Added salt and water so it will either mark or disintegrate ere long.
good fun, I don't know why it takes so much effort to get me going, maybe something to do with the results, who knows.
I have installed a new screen saver this week, one of my pics from the Bayeux Tapestry multiplied itself to fill the screen, so now I have lines of excited Franks rampaging across the screen.
Have to take my Dancer pieces to the Stowmarket exhibition and visit the Deadly Virtues at Raveningham this w/e, so feeling productive. Mostly the effect of a holiday and the continues sunshine I expect.

Friday, 5 September 2008

remember to breathe


More going on in my head than in practice.
I had to finish my Awakening Anger for the seven Deadly Virtues exhibition, plus Envy Lurks which I now quite like, tho as ever i doubt I have pushed it far enough.
I guess that is why one is supposed to work in Series, to push and explore the idea instead of a series of One Offs which once I have finished I realise I could have done better tra la.
I think when we get back from getting wet on the South Coast [not in the sea sadly] i will try and get the dyes and paints together and construct a back ground for my figures and machines. I suspect it should be dark so they ...........mmmmmmmmmmerge.

I could maybe use the wheel middle thingies from the Cleo when they wired a new set on, and dared me to knock off. I have done my best. Hub caps!
Maybe I could get circles and bumps from them, maybe spray thru?? dunno. Allison is using plumbers washers and screws sewn on, but she does neater work than moi.
However I am trying to keep in mind Sue's advice to be more kind to myself and not to feel I should rush at everything, usually gritting my teeth.
I am reading a costume drama novel set in the 1870s by Cynthia Harrod Eagles [coo] and including Elizabeth Garrett Anderson as a character so maybe that will inspire moi too. I checked her use of the terms mum and dad, suspecting anachronism but they came into use in the mid C17th so i am more willing to trust her research.


Daughter, whom we will see in November, when she sprogs, wants me to do a stitching based on Tamara de Lempika's Woman with Dove. I started but it all looked too ghastly, pink stitching yuk; i think my daughter would like something more muscular.
However i shall take Dovey Lady with me and see if I can't make something of her.