Embroidery, design and creativity: a vicar's wife and her vocation
After researching and choosing my Pre-Raphaelite muse, The next job was to find a way of stitching a portrait that would be somewhere between a photograph and a painting – a sort of augmented reality – with shading and textures that added to the picture and did no become jumbled, blocky or busy. Materials I …
Continue reading “Jane Morris Blackwork part 2: stitching a portrait”
Blackwork is a counted thread technique that was popular in Elizabethan times. It is traditionally worked with black threads over white linen, in detailed repeating patterns or textures. it made a good adornment for collars and cuffs in times when lace was an expensive luxury. however, the fashion caught on, and there is even a …
You will have gathered from the build up that I was not sure how I would get on with canvas work. in the event, it turned out to be a very surprising genre for several reasons. Firstly, the amount of time it took was astronomical. I am not a fast worker at the best of …
The observant among you will have noticed that my posts have somewhat dried up of late. There is a reason for that, or rather, lots of little reasons. I have been working very hard at my RSN modules, and also at being a vicar’s wife and sunday school teacher, so when my blog mysteriously stopped …
Time and tide wait for no man. My RSN certificate course progresses, and the next module is canvas stitches. At this point in the syllabus, I technically get a choice between canvas stitches or black work. But I fully intend to carry on after my certificate to do the diploma, and whichever module I choose at …
Continue reading “Introducing “Dunstanburgh view”: RSN Canvas stitches piece”
I finished Wild Rose the silk shading piece last friday, and as I sit down to blog about it, I find myself reflecting on the timeline of a project, and how a design brief and a spark of an idea gradually develop and grow into a finished embroidery. For me, a project falls into several …
The final part of the rose to be completed was the very centre, worked in bullion knots and french knots. These turned out to be a really important element in the whole design, because once the bullions were lined up with their corresponding shadows I had previously shaded on to the petals, the whole thing …
In my last entry, I wrote about how Wild Rose came about, the research, the sketching and the framing up. Now it is time to catch up to the present day. Once Tracy had rearranged her studio for me (so that I could sit comfortably and so my wheelchair wasn’t blocking the door etc) and …
Continue reading “The Wild Rose Project: stashes, shading and… superglue?”
Let me get this out of the way straight away: I am really sorry for the long radio silence. Last summer we upped sticks, and moved from our little curatage in Oxford to a new parish in West Yorkshire. With all the packing, moving, unpacking, settling in, transferring my RSN certificate course from Hampton Court …
Continue reading “A new home, a new tutor, and a new project!”
In my imagination, there are literally hundreds of blog readers out there, waiting with bated breath, all asking themselves “But what has happened to Emma’s embroidery? Why hasn’t she sent an update?” To answer the second question first, I have been incredibly, breathlessly busy. I ended up having to finish birdy in an almighty rush …
