French Knots

I hated needlework at school, mainly down to the witch of a teacher we had. She made me sew brown paper for a whole year.

 

it is wonderful to be discovering the joy of it. Julia taught me how to do French knots and they look so effective. I love, love, love, the slow, slow, slow stitching process. About 400 more knots to go!

 

 

Opening Night

We had a fine night for the opening of our exhibition in the Church of Ireland in Glandore, what a wonderful space. I got talking to a lovely young woman who liked my Imbolc piece. She liked the monochrome aspect after all the colour in the other works. Winter is more interesting than I thought.

 

 

 

Exhibition Time

Time for my first exhibition with the Liberty Stitchers. I have had to get work framed and mounted, make greetings cards, sort pricing and labels, sort an artists biography and even source business cards. I am looking forward to the feedback now.

 

 

 

Fruits of the Forrest

I bought a necklace in the charity shop but didn't like the mustard coloured beads so I took them out and this is the end result. Much more my colours and I still have some spare beads for someone.

 

 

 

 

 

Hanging time

My stitchings are framed so every picture in the house has to move around to make room for these in the living room. It is difficult to take photos of frames with glass in so this is the best I can do. Geoff at Fastnet Frames made box frames and I am very happy with the end results.

 

 

Agapanthus Days

I started off wanting to do a seascape with agapanthus in the foreground. I then fell in love with this retro material and used it for the flowers which are not quite agapanthus. I love the colours and will probably make another one. I had a play with the image on Waterlogue too.

 

 

 

Haunting the Charity Shops

This is my new favourite pastime. I loved doing it when Mum was alive and seeing her face light up when I gave her one of my finds was all the thanks I needed. She would often get compliments when she wore a new outfit to the Day Centre Club. She would tell her friends that I had bought it in a posh shop. After she died I stopped going because it made me cry too easily. 

I now have a new reason for going and that is to search out material for my stitching. While I am doing this I find things that will be nice to wear too. Scarves are a very good find because there are lovely patterns and the rolled edges are perfect for stems. Some of the scarves get to be worn a few times before I chop into them. 

Cutting into a new find is the most difficult thing. It is best done in my stitching group where I offer a piece of fabric to others and they make the first cut. 

Tutti Fruitti

I have used the beads we made in Devon to make two necklaces in some earrings. The green and red beads have been turned into a necklace for jenny B and I have called it Tutti Fruitti.

 

I am keeping the other one for myself and I have called it the Wild Atlantic Way. I had to add a few extra beads from my stash but the majority were made by Kevin. I added fleurite to represent sea glass on either side of the beads and filled in with silver lined seed beads which remind me of the silver strands in Connemara. The necklace has had one outing and has been admired already. I will treasure it because Kevin had such fun making the beads.

 

 

Card making

I experimented with making some cards from the samples we had been given when our stitchings were photographed. I am very pleased with the results and will make some more for the exhibition. Printing the photo on the canvas paper makes a big difference as it allows you to see the details of the stitching.

 

 

 

 

A Green Day

I collected my latest commission from the ceramic artist Mairi Stone. I love her work. Mairi was kind enough to show us her studio and explain the process. The glazing is done using powdered glass as normal glazes can look dull on porcelain.

 

My stitchings were in the car and we had a look at them together. Mairi said she would like to buy one and we agreed to talk more about doing an art swap after our exhibition in Glandore. It made me feel like a "real" textile artist.