Apologies (again) for the silence – I’ve been busy, but I’m afraid on stuff I can’t discuss as I don’t have the clients’ permission. That all sounds very mysterious and dramatic, but it isn’t really! No difficulties in talking about my next project, though: I want to put together a small exhibition of work. I…
Before I get onto the assembly of the final piece, I wanted to point something out about the design. It is of course a grid pattern, based on one used in the Lindisfarne Gospels and on contemporary stone crosses. On the top of the piece, I did my best to keep this as accurate as…
I am going to embroider my carved stone dogs. Not a separate embroidery using the same design, I mean the actual carving. I keep getting blank looks when I say this to people, but I think it could work! It is possible to stitch stone – I have a very small piece by Clyde Olliver…
Last time, I’d got half of the design traced on my improvised light box. I’ve now got it all traced: and then the fabric stretched onto a frame: Time to start the embroidery! You’re not going to be too surprised to hear that gold is going to feature here. All the outlines are going to…
Next year, the Lindisfarne Gospels are coming back North. From July to September 2013, the Gospels will leave the British Library and be on display at Durham Cathedral. The Gospels, one of the great treasures of Anglo-Saxon art, are reflected in several of the Cathedral’s textiles, and in the lead-up to the Gospels’ arrival the…
I’ve been commissioned to make a small piece; the client didn’t have any pre-conceived ideas about what form this should take, but did want it to feature a horse. We’ve been discussing ideas for a little while, but never came up with anything we were happy with. Meantime, I was working on the ‘Earth’ mini roundel….
I’ve finished the mystery present – I’m still not going to say anything else about that, in case the recipient reads it – and can now start on something I can talk about. This is also going to be given away, but at least this time it’s not a secret! Quite a while ago, I…
Last year’s work on the Banner meant that I couldn’t do some other projects (and a commission) that I would otherwise have done. One of these was for the Embroiderers’ Guild North East Region’s exhibition, ‘Mining a golden seam’. This exhibition featured contemporary goldwork (in its widest sense) embroidery and textiles inspired by the North…
(Just a quick reminder – there are still a few days left to run on the competition, so if you haven’t already done so, get your answer in now to win a St Cuthbet’s Banner flower!) As I got close to finishing the Banner, several people asked me the same question: what would I be…
This really should have occurred to me before, but after someone emailed me to ask how I drew the spirals, it finally dawned on me that not everyone would know what a Spirograph was. That was a pretty big assumption on my part, so sorry about that, but better late than never – here’s a quick…