Summer cloth - slow stitching and hand embroidery.

I have been working on this summer cloth for the last 6 weeks. very enjoyable too ! The circles came from my large circular meditation cloth - same motif around the border. I used colours from the garden and wild flowers. The birds, butterflies etc outlines came from the drawings on tracing paper I make to transfer drawing to cloth. I end up with pages and pages of these outlines and they are beautiful in thier own right. I just put the ideas togther to contrast.

The idea is to conjure up all the things I like about summer. An evocation of the season. A rejoicing too. As it takes so long to stitch it like recording time within the work. Looking at some pieces I can remember the music or story I was listening to as I stitched. Thats why embroiderers were sometimes accused of magic and witchcraft. They trapped things into the stitches. Lets hope I have caught summer here and can loook at it in the long dark cold days of winter. It will be shown at Quenington next June.

 

Embroidered Skomer sketchbook page finished!

 At last the whole piece is finished. I have been working on the left side this week.

I put in some more sea chamomile and the puffin head,top left, that balances the bottom right work. The piece measures 40x30cms. Whew! Summer is definitely over then. Bring on the Autumn colour! Now I can start work on my next project.

Summer garden colours in stitch.

 Too hot and dry in the garden but some flowers like it. The colours are bright and beautiful.

 I wanted to have a piece I could pick up add some stitches to and put down. So I gathered together some fabric scraps and loosely based on these abstract collages I made ( Sue Dove online workshop)

 assembled, played, pinned and stitched down. Then it gets addictive like a jig-saw puzzle.

Then it takes over so you can't think of anything but swirling bright colours and which bit to stitch next in which colour? Such is embroidery for me. The backing is a bit of blanket so it is quilting nicely. I have put a little free machine embroidery in patches of colour to help blend, catch down and contrast textures. I don't know how big it will get, just seeing where it takes me. I can keep adding as I go and layering over if I change my mind about colours. Stitching is just running stitch- like kantha stitching.

Field Scabious.

This is the second piece in this diary/sketchbook series. 23rd July - yoga on the common, my green and turquoise mat, heat, Field Scabious, wind through the dried grasses, grass baked crisp.

 2 layers of fabric- outer painted with dyes, inner painted white and printed side panel. I drew the flower. Hand stitched.

 I used the drawings I made in July 2 years ago as reference.

Butterflies

 Now is the time to do the big butterfly count for the Butterfly Conservation. I managed to snap this beauty on the Common- its a common blue.

 I get out the butterfly notebook I made years back and try to remember all the names and food plants.

 It is a very good year and we had a bumper count in the garden yesterday. ( trying not to stand too long in the sun because it was a scorcher!)

Some of my previous work on butterflies on vintage napkins.

Dappled light on the grasses by the canal- finished.

 I finished it yesterday- close up of 'grasses by the canal' 11cm x 31cm. Paint and dye on calico. Hand stitched. 3 layers of fabric.

Whole thing- but long and thin so difficult for photos. I tried to capture the bright light of summer and dappled shadows - something to work on ( next time, next time) I am pleased with it but always there is knowledge that it could be better and that is the drive that keeps me working! Hot summer days here- no rain for the garden. Meals eaten outside on the new patio under the parasol. Summer clothes.We are not used to this!

The Guild at 51 - summer delivery.

 It is beetle mania time at the Guild at 51, the gallery in Cheltenham where I sell my work. The exhibition is a collaboration between a jeweler, Elaine Day and a glass worker, Amanda Lawrence It is wonderful and in the window the colours glow and shine just like beetle wing phosphorescence. I took my little beetle in a box in to add to the insect theme.

Also this large framed piece that was inspired by the formal gardens at Hidcote. Just right for this time of year - we are having a heat wave.

Summer concertina sketchbook.

 I am now filling the summer concertina sketchbook with birds and flowers. A robin,

 wren,

and coal tit so far.....................3 more pages to go...........2 weeks to lift off!
My stewarding dates will be Sunday 11th, 25th March, 8th and 15th April. 11-5 Newark Park, Ozleworth. National Trust admission fee applies. Do come along and say hello, please introduce yourself it is lovely to meet my blog followers.

Daisies blooming on the book cover.

Daisies have grown on the summer book cover!

Summer book cover- in progress.

Book cover in progress- first stage- machine embroidery to secure snippets of silk and cottons in garden colours.

A riot of colour in the summer border.

Finished! Photography difficult in this winter light, every time I have taken a photo the colours change. The top one better in the greens- close up has gone a little blue. It is the Newark Park garden border by the crinkle-crankle wall (yes that is a real thing!) by the lake. Yellow daisies, day lilies and orange dahlias with chocolate colour leaves.

When bees are a buzzing.....

Now for something entirely different! This week has been wet,wet, wet. The light is beginning to improve however and the first daffodils are in the shops. £1 a bunch is the such a promise of Spring to come and such a good pounds worth of joy. The snowdrops are up and the first primrose has flowered. The birds have begun to sing in the mornings when I am getting up. I am working on the final piece for the exhibition - a summer border at Newark Park. I made the small sketches on a hot day in July. You remember those? Bees a buzzing and sun hats firmly on? I have to remind my chilblains about those days to come. I am revelling in the colours. Normally I work in the season as it happens but maybe with this it will contain a longing for the warmth and colour.

More work on the puffin page.

I am working in the bottom right hand corner of the puffin page.

 This is the whole thing, getting there now but still work on the left hand side to finish. It is slow work, I am finding it hard to hold, don't want to use an embroidery hoop for fear of damaging stitching and marking cloth.It is 2 layers of calico so firm enough for the embroidery but it has wrinkled a bit. Nothing is ever perfect.

 Started work on the pages of the summer book, banded wedge shells,

 limpet with barnacles,

puffin and tower shell.

Summer concertina sketchbook.

Now there is a gannet flying past on the Skomer page. The gannetry is on Grassholm another little island in the group off south west Wales, you can see it from Skomer. Stokholm is the third and if you like islands there are lovely books about Stokholm by Richard Lockley. I love gannets, the masked riders of the sky. Their dives are spectacular as they fold up like a fan and plummet into the sea.

This is an older piece from a few years back. We have seen them in Scotland and in the Scilly Isles. We saw them at a distance in Wales, easy to spot once you know their characteristic shape and black wing tips.

I have started a summer concertina book. The aim is to have one for each season and a box for each one. The summer one will have shells and sea birds on.

puffin page- sea chamomile?

 I am working to finish the puffin page. The birds were nesting amongst a carpet of white daisies,

 that smelt like mayweed or chamomile but was larger than chamomile. I don't know what it is and couldn't find it in my plant books or on the Skomer website.

Anyone know?

Spots of colour finished

  I have finished this formal summer garden with its spots of colour. (13ins x 18 ins)

It seems a long time since I finished anything but it has been a busy summer with lots going on. Now its time to consider what I am going to show at Newark Park in the Spring. Concentrate the mind! Time to make some lists that always helps.