Today is 8th January, and I am well aware that it is several weeks since I posted a Stitching News. So here I go!!

December was a very busy month with little time for much creativity. One highlight was a brief visit to Killerton house  (National Trust) in Devon, to see the Red Dress Exhibition.

https;reddressembroidery.com//

The detail in some of these panels is quite extraordinary. Enlarge the last photo and note the beading, as well as the stitched detail on the blue and red dress.

If you click on the red dress link at the top of the photos, it will give you all the information about the project; I must admit that I knew nothing at all about it, even though it was completed eleven years ago! It is a fascinating read. The exhibition is touring abroad once again, but if you look up to see when it next visits the uk, you can see the exhibion dates and venues.

I have felt a big chasm developing in my head: a “nothingness” which has been inhibiting any creativity. It is a long boring story as to why I am still waiting for cataract surgery. My poor vision is inhibiting the start of any project.

I have frequently mentioned, over the years, that “inspiration does not “just happen”, and I have just been reading a blog post by a fascinating American needlewoman called Ann Wood.  I have mentioned her in my posts, in the past. She is endlessly creative and sews virtually everything she makes by hand. She loves recycling fabrics, and often uses mixed media in her creations.

In her most recent blog  she writes;

“Listening to yourself is a skill. Getting unstuck requires strategy. Ideas need a place to show up. Daily  practice makes that space. Keeping the practice small puts it firmly in the doable zone”. 

She is inspirational! I needed to read that in my present state of mind, so today, (11th January) I have got myself going again. I got out a box with some of my favourite scrap papers, created over many years. I am going to refresh and replace my very depleted collection of cards. My photos are as valuable as a sketch book, for inspiration, and browsing through them, as well as some sketch books has switched on a light again!

I found a selection of monochrome papers in tones/ shades of black and white. I created these during Covid. I had started with various black and white papers, then used bleach, marking pens, printing blocks, masking tape etc, to add or subtract marks, but have done nothing with them since. So, I have cut some of them into 1.25″ squares, using a fine back marking pen to sharpen some of the lines. I have arranged them on 5″ squares of cartridge paper, and glued them down.

Below is a photo of one of them. I have cut some         circular rings from a red painted paper, and just laid them on top.

I actually like it at this stage. It is simple, and has places for the eye to rest to take in some of the detail.

Below is a totally different photo, similar in some respects to cards I made last summer, but this time the imagery has all come from my discard box of eco prints. The “vase” looked totally nondescript on the scrap of paper, but I made a template for a vase, drew around it over the scrap of detail, and cut it out. The isolation from its surroundings, plus highlighting the detail with my fine drawing pen, brought it to life! Nothing has been glued to the back ground yet and I have another couple of grass blades to add to the vase, tomorrow.

A dash of watercolour on the plant material has also made a big difference.

The strip of paper to the left of the vase panel will have dyed threads stitched into it, picking out the hues and range of tones on the painted background.

Till next time, happy stitching and creating.

Di

Good day to you all. This month has brought wide variations in weather, once again; torrential, short sharp downpours, strong winds, snow, and below zero temperatures as well as mediterranean blue skies and brilliant sunshine. We have violets, and primroses peeping through all the wet, soggy, leaf litter …

The winter flowering Nerines, which gives such a welcome splash of colour, have lasted really well this month through all the storms.

However, the garden really needs lots of attention, but coughs and colds combined with a lack of energy, have kept us inside in the warm.

I am still not doing any sewing, which is SO frustrating, so I am spending some time building up a fresh stock of cards, having sent various cards to friends and family, and also selling a stash recently, too.

I just need to be doing something creative. I cannot sit still with idle fingers!

Several years ago I bought a first edition of Mary Thomas’s Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches.  I was enchanted by the miniature black ink drawings in it. I treasure it.

Then, I thought it would be fun to try to source a copy in a very poor condition so that I could use the pages for eco printing onto, as well as using the illustrations about stitch into collages.

(I have talked about the copy I sourced, below). It would be a real joy to combine my love of two passions; stitch and eco printing. Howeer, I hasten to add that there are no eco prints in this post,

Above is a photo of the very beginning stages of my thinking about a series of collaged cards still developing from my painted cartridge paper with the yellow dye!! 

They are still abstract, and I am still using a vaguely circular theme within the collage. In addition, I am now also incorporating some of the delightful, tiny illustrations and text from an old, (possibly second or even third hand) embroidery book. I bought it very cheaply. It was very tatty, some pages were loose and damaged, but that really didn’t matter to me at all. I am repurposing it and combining it with my own little drawn interpretations of imaginary plant matter, which might possibly be foraged from an ‘abstract garden’!

The next photo is of four individual cards created from the above mentioned resources. Each of the four cards  are 3″ square.

As you can see, I have enhanced the imagery using watercolours. The one thing that the photograph just doesn’t convey, is the built up layers of collage, which adds so much more to the imagery.

Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity of doing some leaf pressing with our 6 year old granddaughter when she came home from school.

)I had purchased a microwaveable flower press and decided to make it very easy and enjoyable for her to see how we might use it, by pressing and drying some leaves before she came home.

I ended up with a selection of colourful dried leaves. She loved them, and I showed her a very simple concertina folded book that she may like to put the leaves in. She was very keen to get started. as she loves making anything. We used ‘magic tape’ to anchor the dried leaves onto the pages.

She then wrote the names of the leaves by them.   

Next time, I shall show her the drying process itself if indeed I can find  some usable leaves! 

I had just hoped to arouse her interest first and get her excited. Mission definitely accomplished. She loves her little book, and is looking forward to working into another little sketch book, next time.

Finally, I really wanted to make some Christmas cards again this year, but they absolutely had to be very simple. That was my first priority. I have a wealth of hand painted papers that I have created over several years.  I decided that they could become my main resource. Many of them were painted recycled papers, abd I use this resource frequently in my collages.

Four of the finished Christmas cards are shown below.

I cut a strip off the length of the paper, then folded the strip in half across the width before tearing it on the fold. I then had two oblongs to work with. Each oblong gave one long narrow triangle and two smaller asymmetrical triangles, which need a small adjustment to even up the shape.

I clearly needed to work to the size of my blank cards. The two sizes of card I have used here are standard 4×6″ card (approx 10×25 cm), and the smaller cards are 4″ square ( apppro 10cm square).

I used the end of wooden paint brush to dip into a tiny bit of gold paint, then printed it onto the cut triangles. So, each initially long strip of paper gave me 4 Christmas cards.

Happy creating, until next time!

Di

It was a very grey, breezy morning here today. A brisk walk around the harbour really brightened my day.

It was a busy scene with visitors enjoying the last few days of half term. Many of the boats were sheltering in the inner harbour, and the gulls were screaming as the wind tossed them up and around. An invigorating start to my day!

Below is an updated photo of one side of one of the cartridge papers that I had painted waste dye solution onto. The morning before we were going away, we unexpectedly had a couple of  spare hours so I made a snap decision to add some collage with some scraps from my scrap bag of papers, glued over the marks already on the surface. The printed lilac papers are old work sheets from one of my workshops, and the much darker paper is distressed, painted, recycled brown paper.

While we were away, I worked into them with my drawing pens, reinforcing the circular imagery I was looking for. Mother nature is a constant source of inspiration lending itself to wide variation and interpretation. Endless ideas.

Below are three sections of the reverse side that I have beenworking on in the last 24 hours.

No collage this time, just the use of drawing pens. Ideas are formulating  and I need to do more playing!!

I have been musing a lot over interpretations of these in fabric and stitch, and ideas are starting to evolve, which is the whole purpose of creating this sketch book. I am enjoying the exploration and it is leading to thinking more laterally, too.

It is so good to be able to be creative in this way, while my poor eyes prohibit much in the way of close stitching.

Until next time, enjoy your creative exploits!

Di

What a chilly old day! A winter woolly is out today for the first time! I hoped for sunshine this afternoon and wasn’t disappointed. What a difference a couple of hours sunshine makes to us all.

We have had work going on in the house for just over two weeks, and apart from keeping the kitchen really fresh and clean, I have not bothered with housework, so, as you might imagine there is nowa big clean up to do!

We have back to back commitments over the next two weeks, hence my desire to write this post and get it out quickly. Due to my poor old eyes, I have very slowly managed to complete the fourth of a series of four abstract collages. Below is a close-up of one of the four, followed by a photo of it framed.

All four will be hung in the Textile Plus exhibition next month.  Details given in the October 2025 /1 post.

I shall be stewarding on Tuesday 11th November.

I have been thinking about what to take away with me, and have splodged some left-over Procion dye solution to two A3 sheets of cartridge paper, shown below, as a start for creating a concertina sketch book

I will use this to gradually gather ideas for some hand stitching during the winter evenings, (eyes permitting).  I think the marks on the paper may inspire me. I shall have to wait and see!! I have purposely made some circular motions with my sponge) brush.

Both sides of these papers have been painted, offering the potential to work on the front and reverse sides of the folded book. I am only taking two black drawing pens, at this stage. I shan’t be taking any collage papers, glue, or stitching equipment away with me.

I really like the fresh yellow on my painted papers. It is uplifting; a very positive start for a sketchbook. I also applied some very dilute green, which is offering a lovely subtle contrast.

I am taking another of my small hand-made sketch books, which I was working in about 4 years ago. Then I was creating ideas loosely based on “circles”. Something might just spark an interesting starting point now.

There are several suggestions in this book that I could take further; a range of inspirational ideas.

Until next time … Happy Stitching or drawing, painting, or whatever you may be working on at the moment!

Di

Good morning to my loyal readers and a couple of  new readers, who have been in touch recently.

The season is changing! Cooler temperatures, shorter days, and of course the change of clocks on Saturday 25th  of this month, are sure signs. The very heavy rain storms and high winds during September flattened the flowering plants. Leaves have been dropping, for a while now, as are acorns, and sweet chestnuts. A recent walk in Westonbirt Arboretum heightened our senses and awareness. Storm Amy, the first named storm of the season, sounds as though she may well cause havoc for some parts of the country this weekend too, as we are all asked to be cautious if out and about in the expected stormy weather.

Below is a photograph of the birthday card I made for our three year old granddaughter. She has just had her birthday, with celebrations over last weekend. She very much loves flowers, and the photo shows a water colour painted Eco print, with a larger than life, ladybird getting up close and personal! Again, ladybirds are a great favourite of hers.

I have been working on preparing my work for the Textile Plus exhibition, “Fragments”. As many of you know, I love to work on a small scale, so the title of “Fragments” was very appealing. As a group we are quite diverse in what we produce. We have an interesting and varied set of skills within our group, including: hand and machine embroidery, painting, eco printing, weaving, felt making, quilting, patchwork and applique, dyeing making our own printing blocks etc. Some of us enjoy mixed media work, others enjoy traditional skills. 

Last year, I made a series of miniature collaged and stitched panels with hand painted/printed and marked papers which I then hand stitched into. They are abstract in composition, but most of them have a vase, or tub of flowers in them. They were fun to make and stitch. I always used a tiny, fine needle, and always a pair of needle point pliers to pull the needle through the layers of paper.

They are a necessity in my hand sewing kit. I bought them years ago in the market for the princely sum of £1.00, and I would be utterly lost without them!

I know there will be something for everybody to enjoy and be inspired, so I hope you will add the details below to your diaries.

The exhibition will be set up on Monday 10th November, and will  be open to the public from 10 am- 5pm on Tuesday 11th to Saturday 15th November at The Poly,  24 Church Street, Falmouth,  TR11 3EG.

I have been feeling very frustrated because of my poor eye sight, but have given myself a good talking to and am really grateful that I am perfectly well in all other respects, so, until I can get my cataract surgery, I can concentrate on the skills I have that are not dependent on really close stitch work. Painting, dyeing, and eco printing come immediately to mind. Equally, a very good sort out and tidy in mysewing room would not go amiss either!

Until next time, enjoy your creativity, and also enjoy sharing your skills with friends. That really gives me so much pleasure, particularly seeing the responses and excitement it generates! It always has, and it always will.

As our grandchildren would say, … “sharing is caring”.

Di.

Welcome to this September newsletter. 

Our area of Cornwnall has had some terrific downpours over the last week or so. They come from nowhere and can cause havoc with the huge amount of water that falls. Sadly, this resulted in localised flooding, last week. Thirty homes and businesses were flooded in Mevagissey, purely as a result of the unbelievable rain we had within about an hour.

Textiles Plus, is a group of 12 ladies, all of whom bring a wide range of skills and interests to our meetings. I joined them maybe three or four years before Covid. We met last week  having had a break during August, and it was great to catch-up on what we we are all working on. We are gradually finalising work for our next exhibition, “Fragments”, which will be in The Poly, Falmouth, from 11th- 15th November this autumn. Please put these dates in your diaries. It would be so good to see you. I aim to be stewarding two days, and will give further details when we have sorted them out.

We always have a group entry, and this year it will  hang in the window. We have actually produced two pieces each. They are individually attached to a thick black A5 card, and two will hang ‘back to back’. The idea being that any movement in the room will create a gentle movement of air, helping them to slowly turn as they hang.

Below is a photo of one of my pieces. Vintage lace, which I have embellished with dyed threads, hand dyed buttons, glass beads, and a miniature abstract hand painted collaged, stitched card. This also references my colour palette of threads, buttons, and beads.

Another date for your diaries;

Gate Quilters, Sewers and Crafters, of which I am also a member, are holding a coffee morning in aid of Cornwall Air Ambulance, on Wednesday 8th October, 10.30 -1.30. Please come and join us. We have a “double bed quilt” as 1st prize in our raffle, 2nd prize of a lap quilt and two cushions as 3rd prize. There is a selection of other prizes too.  Coffee and cake, as well as fabrics, books, hand made gifts, and a brickabrac table too.

I have given some serious thoughts to the quilt I am going to make for our third granddaughter, Poppy. She will be 3rs at the end of the month.

Colour is going to be a major factor in its design. I want it to be vibrant and joyful.

It will be a scrap quilt, and the 10″ patchwork repeating block will be the Maple Leaf block. Some half square triangles, some whole squares the background colour white, and maybe a very, very pale blue, which I will dye. I shall use a mix of hand dyed plains, prints, and a huge range of scraps of which I have many!!

I have deadlines for our Textile Plus exhibition, so although I can do some planning in my head, I shan’t do any anything else, until after the exhibition, when I can apply myself regularly. It will be a great winter project.

Finally, below are two more 6″ square cards in my latest series. Hand painted papers, and hand dyed threads.

Happy Stitching!  … until next time,

Di

Good morning to my readers. Thank you so much for your continued support. I really do appreciate it.

It has been a couple of months since my last Stitching News. The summer has been busy, and I have had little time for sewing. This whole year has been something of a sewing drought for me, and consequently, I have had little to share.  I am also waiting for cataract surgery on both eyes. So, as many of you may well understand, close work has been more than a challenge. A friend has recently lent me a magnifier, which is making a big difference.

I had a lovely time at the beginning of this month, visiting and staying with two great friends, and attending two classes at the Oxford Arts and Crafts Summer School. The atmosphere was buzzing with friends meeting up and excited students, showing what they had achieved during the week. There is always a wide range of classes which can be booked for day courses or longer. Chatting to other students, many of whom have been going for years, it has become their focus for an annual break. There is a very happy, relaxed and friendly atmosphere in the school.

My first class was with a new tutor to me; Jayne Emerson. She was teaching gelli plate printing. She was a good tutor, inspiring and very well prepared. It was all new to me, and to be honest, it took me quite a while to produce results I liked. I ended up with a large amount of printed papers, many of which I shall  definitely use, and others I shall over print. For myself, I was aiming for abstract results on paper rather than representational ones.

Jayne demonstrated a wide range of different techniques on paper and fabric and everyone’s results were very different.

Below are three collages I have created from sections of my gelli prints and mounted onto 6″square cards.

My second class was with Amanda Hislop. It was based on the coastline. We started by painting three or four different backgrounds, all based on coast line, and on different cotton pieces, approximately 4″×3″, of  which Amanda had brought for this purpose.

We used tiny amounts of acrylic paints and a couple of brushes; different in size and texture. We were encouraged to complete about three small painted pieces before we broke for lunch.

After lunch, we discussed how to use these on our background fabric. (The specific requirements for the background had been given in our requirement list for the class). I had taken a piece of an old  vintage linen tea towel. Amanda suggested a few different ways to use this with our painted pieces, such as laying out suggested pieces of our painted cloth on it … We also discussed a range of different hand stitches to create texture on our painted results.

As you can see from the photos, I decided to tear my small painted pieces up, and tear my background fabric into units that were a little larger. Other class members chose a range of different applications. We then tacked them onto our background in preparation for stitch. I think I shall attach these to pages in a handmade sketch book with more detailed notes on the techniques we used.

Everyone’s work was very different, even though we had all used exactly the same limited colour palette of paints. I turned most of my painted fabric pieces over to the reverse side. The paint had bled through, which had produced a lovely soft palette of  hues. I preferred this to the much brighter side, feeling it to be more natural.

It was a great class, with a very talented tutor. Lots of mileage in the samples, a very nice way to create a subtle background for a variety of scenarios.

Happy Stitching until next time!

Di

Hello to all my readers.

I am feeling more like my old self again after a much needed long break. We arrived back home, to be greeted by our very wild garden this week!

The weather has clearly suited it, as there has been lots of sunshine and rain. It does make me smile though, because it is very colourful, and the weeds and wild flowers spring up everywhere, all tangled but still nodding their heads! The insects are very active, and the bird song is loud and cheerful. Our Acers are singing with their wonderfully vibrant colours. That said, the garden does need a lot of attention, which has been our priority since our return. It is beginning to sit more comfortably on the eye!

I am very much looking forward to the Oxford Art and Craft summer school, which runs from Monday 4th August to Saturday 9th August with the Saturday set aside for one-day classes. Having noted that, there are individual classes during the week, too.

https://oxfordshireartandcraft.co.uk/index

All classes are held at The Oxford Academy in Littlemore, OX4 6JZ which has parking and is also accessible via public transport.

This is my third year of attending, and I am pleased to say that I shall be a student in two classes. One is the “Shoreline Colour; placement with hand stitch.”        The second is a “gelli plate printing class”, where we shall be monoprinting on paper and fabric. As I am a complete novice at the latter technique, I am particularly interested to find out all about it. I am really looking forward to both days. Who knows, perhaps I might meet one of you! It was a lovely surprise to meet two friends, totally unexpectedly, last year.

I have done no stitch work  for months, but … read on.

About four weeks ago, I deconstructed a handmade concertina book that I made in 2023. In other words, I cut it up on the folds!! I had done some minimal stitching within it but wanted to do much more. I dithered about it all last year, and then a couple of months ago, I  just decided to go for it. A good decision!

I had built up the original lining paper background of the abstract collages in several stages. I had used white emulsion paint and black ink initially for mark making, using various brushes, droppers, card etc as tools. When the paper had dried, I tore some strips from my scrap bag of painted papers, also some news print from old magazines and local newspapers some of which had been used to protect my table surface at different times and they were already quite marked with paint and inks.

I had some old packaging papers and dressmakers tissue, as well as some old wallpaper scraps. From this selection, I randomly glued the torn papers in place. Some overlapped others. Marks were glued over,  etc etc.  After making more marks over the whole surface as well as adding occasional scraps once more, I was beginning to feel I had something to work with. Finally I used a couple of my eraser printing blocks in two or three places.

Sadly, it did not occur to me at the time to take photos of that end result, but below I can show you what has happened in the meantime. I have 8 panels to work on altogether, and I have posted four of them here, to give an overall impression of the finished ideas. My intention was that they reflect abstract ideas of various gardens; shrubs, climbers, trees, pathways, fence panels etc. Everyone’s interpretations will be different.

There may be a tiny bit of stitching which is incomplete, indeed, I can see some in one of the photos as I look at them now,  but I am pretty sure no one else would!

I have stitched into them with a wide variety of my hand dyed threads, and that stitching has changed the surface again, hugely. Nothing was pre-planned other than I had a vague idea of wanting an organic surface that could be the starting point to stitch into.

Immediately below is a close-up of the bottom left panel in the group of four, seen above.

The third photo shows an enlarged section of the top left panel.

(The eight panels will be for sale individually, at our Textile Plus biennial exhibition of work, which will be held at;

The Poly, Spring Gallery, 24 Church Street, Falmouth, TR11 3EG on Novmber 11th- 15th, from    10 am-5pm,  Tuesday to Saturday.

Happy Stitching to all … until next time!

Di

I do hope everyone has had a lovely Easter weekend break. The weather has been mixed, but in the main pretty dry.

I am just writing a very short post to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about my Stitching News. The last two and half months have been pretty tough, consequently I have done no stitching, planning, and indeed have had no inclination to even think about it.

As adults, there are times when we might have to go “off piste” so to speak. Other priorities take over, and our usual lives are put on hold for a time.

I shall be back to writing and hopefully creating and stitching again before too long.

My lovely husband and I have come up to the southwestern coast of Galloway this Easter weekend to spend some quiet, recuperative time, staying in a friend’s cottage on the coast. We shall then take our time travelling back to Cornwall, visiting family and friends on the way, during a further two weeks.

Very gradually, I am looking forward to picking up a needle and thread once again, and hoping that inspiration will work its magic.

Very best wishes to you all.

Happy Stitching!

Di

Welcome to the first blog of February to those of you who have only recently started to follow the blog, as well as “more seasoned” readers.

Winter is moving forward gradually and particularly robustly in some parts of the country. The temperatures remain stubbornly cold, with icy car windows on far too many days. 

It is such a joy to see the snowdrops, hellebores, crocus, and primroses that are waking up properly now, and the arrival of our frogspawn is also very welcome! They all give us hints and hopes that maybe spring isn’t too far away!

I started the little panel above, my “modern sampler”, a couple of years ago.  I had enjoyed gathering and working on some of the elements within it, including the English paper pieced units. Every  piece of fabric is cut from sari silk that I occasionally used to hold together my prepared “leaf parcels” during Eco printing sessions.

More often than not, though, I use a medium to heavy weight cotton thread to secure the parcels of trapped leaves during the steaming part of the process. I have stitched across the width of the panel using a sample of that thread. It is approximately a quarter of the length down from the top.

When I started to sew strips of the printed/dyed strips of silk together to form the background to this panel, I soon became aware of just how difficult the very fine silk was to work with and became very frustrated with the whole project, and decided to put it away for a while. That was two years ago! I have resurrected it this month and am enjoying working on it again. This time, I have stabilised the panel by stitching the pieces down onto Calico.

The variations within the almost monochromatic colour palette come about because occasionally I had used rust-water with the white vinegar whilst eco printing. Other times I had just used plain white vinegar.

Everything I have learned about the process I have gleaned by reading articles from the Internet accompanied by a great deal of experimenting on my part.

Experimentation is an invaluable tool in every creative learning practice. A wealth of knowledge can be developed from taking ideas further, or “making mistakes,” and exploring the “what ifs …?”, plus the seredipity factor, of course! Completely fresh ideas and wonderful surprises may be found. They never just present themselves, they are the product of  the times spent exploring and pushing techniques.

I have started to quilt this piece now and will give an update next time!

Rob came back from one of his seal surveys recently carrying a lovely weathered piece of wood. It had been deposited well above the normal high tide line in one of the recent storms.

I fell in love with it straight away as the colour palette resonated with some of my recent work.

Below are a few other photos of other items I have been working on this month.

The last of the photos is a selection of papers that I painted with leftover dye from a fabric dyeing session I did at the end of October last year. All the papers were originally recycled brown paper!

Until next time, Happy Stitching!

Di