Firstly, I’d like to say thanks to Jacqueline at Needleprint for the fantastic post on the St Cuthbert’s Banner project. It never ceases to amaze me how generous and kind everyone is and how much support you all give me, and I am truly thankful to everyone who takes the time to read my blog,…
Another quick Banner update for you: I’ve now finished the sheet with all this panel’s wood avens on: I’ve made a start on the next one I’m doing, the first of the two foxgloves, so I should have that to show you shortly. It’s coming along, isn’t it!
As with the second panel, there are nine ferns to embroider, and here are five of them: They look fine when they’re applied to the velvet and nicely edged with gold, but (and I think I’ve mentioned this before, about a dozen times) they’re a pain to do. They’re small and fiddly and, frankly, a…
Back to the beginning again, with the third panel, the right hand one this time. First up, a sheet with all the pearlworts for this panel: Can you spot the not-so-deliberate mistake? If you can, you’re doing better than me, as I’d taken the linen off the frame and put it away in the cupboard…
I’ve now finished the second (of two) sheet of foxgloves. So for the usual before-and-after pictures, here’s the transfer, ready to be stitched: And with all the embroidery done: I like the foxgloves, even though they’re fiddly to do – the small flowers at the top are less than a centimetre (under half an inch)…
I hadn’t realised it’s been such a long time since my last post – sorry about that. Time does seem to fly, doesn’t it! Since then, I’ve finished the rest of the ferns for the second Banner panel. Here’s the transfer for them: I made these transfers quite a long time ago, and it looks…
We have a new flower! The side panels have a flower on them that the top and bottom panels don’t, the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Foxgloves are most commonly purple, but a wild subspecies, D. purpurea, subsp. heywoodii, has ivory or pale yellow flowers. Here’s the basic design, transferred onto linen: I’m not sure why I…
There are quite a lot of ferns on the side panels, and I’m afraid they’re still not my favourite to do. The eagle-eyed amongst you when studying the Banner design may have counted up nine ferns on the left panel. If so, you either more eagle-eyed or better at arithmetic than me, as I managed to miscount…
There’s just the one sheet of wood avens for the left panel, and here it is: There aren’t any here of the largest size that we had on the bottom panel, but there is one of the tiny ones, which is very fiddly to do. As before, they’re outlined in buttonhole stitch, filled in with…
Back to the beginning and starting the second Banner panel. For no particular reason, I’m doing the left-hand side one next, which you may be interested to hear introduces a new flower. More on that when the time comes. Mostly, however, it’s flowers you’ve already seen using techniques I’ve already described in detail. As such,…