A tale of crafty endeavours, garden battles and feline intrigue
Marbling
This year, Crafty Creatives changed their subscription boxes to concentrate on a single craft each month. I decided to stop my subscription because I knew I would end up getting duplicates of things I already have (as my craft supply collection is way out of control) but I did get January's box, which was marbling. It was a lot of fun trying out different techniques, I mostly used the "randomly swizzle a needle around in the ink" one...
Here are some of the best results on paper:
The kit included some fabric (I think it was a thin cotton - on the right below) and I also tried some thicker calico (on the left below). The thinner cotton took up the colour way better than the calico, both ended up quite stiff so not suitable at this point for the embroidery I had planned. I haven't tried washing or rinsing them yet though.
There was also a ceramic heart pendant in the kit, which came out really nicely. I'm going to try varnishing it with glittery ModPodge.
Here are some of the best results on paper:
The kit included some fabric (I think it was a thin cotton - on the right below) and I also tried some thicker calico (on the left below). The thinner cotton took up the colour way better than the calico, both ended up quite stiff so not suitable at this point for the embroidery I had planned. I haven't tried washing or rinsing them yet though.
There was also a ceramic heart pendant in the kit, which came out really nicely. I'm going to try varnishing it with glittery ModPodge.
The monsters are getting restless...
Portraits of Phylisss, Maximilian, Castiel and Clarissa are currently available in my shop.
They would add monster magic to the walls of any home or office!
They would add monster magic to the walls of any home or office!
RSN Crewelwork Animals and Insects
Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this. I went on holiday to Berlin (photos in later post) and picked up a lurgy, since then I have just felt like hiding in bed reading...
Before that, I went to a Jacobean Crewelwork day course at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace, concentrating on animals and insects and led by Becky Hogg. It all started off quite chaotically as we were left in the waiting room for half an hour due to an admin mix up. Once we had found the classroom, we were given a huge amount of animal, insect and tree images to choose from to build up our piece, as Becky gave a detailed history of the technique. Once we had arranged our chosen images, we decided on the stitches to use.
We then traced the image onto our fabric using a lightbox (not simple as it was hard to see the lines, so my fox and deer ended up less delicate than I intended!) and chose our wool colours - most of us chose three colours then several shades of each colour so there were no gaps in each colour range.
Becky then taught us the stitches we would need. This was really interesting as it turned out I had been doing many stitches in a completely different way than the RSN recommend! I had no idea you are only supposed to do one loop for french knots fpor example, so if you would normally do 4 loops, you use 4 strands in the needle and do one loop instead - it definitely makes the stitch much neater. There were so many stitches to practice that I stitched hardly any of my actual design and shamefully haven't done any of it since I got home. I can add it to the goldwork squirrel that I haven't finished from the last day school I went to! I hope I can still remember the stitches when I go back to it.
I really wish the RSN was nearer, I would love to do their Certificate or Diploma course. Sadly I am not a fan of 6am starts or dealing with Clapham Junction train station :(
Here is the Palace in the cold early morning:
Before that, I went to a Jacobean Crewelwork day course at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace, concentrating on animals and insects and led by Becky Hogg. It all started off quite chaotically as we were left in the waiting room for half an hour due to an admin mix up. Once we had found the classroom, we were given a huge amount of animal, insect and tree images to choose from to build up our piece, as Becky gave a detailed history of the technique. Once we had arranged our chosen images, we decided on the stitches to use.
We then traced the image onto our fabric using a lightbox (not simple as it was hard to see the lines, so my fox and deer ended up less delicate than I intended!) and chose our wool colours - most of us chose three colours then several shades of each colour so there were no gaps in each colour range.
Becky then taught us the stitches we would need. This was really interesting as it turned out I had been doing many stitches in a completely different way than the RSN recommend! I had no idea you are only supposed to do one loop for french knots fpor example, so if you would normally do 4 loops, you use 4 strands in the needle and do one loop instead - it definitely makes the stitch much neater. There were so many stitches to practice that I stitched hardly any of my actual design and shamefully haven't done any of it since I got home. I can add it to the goldwork squirrel that I haven't finished from the last day school I went to! I hope I can still remember the stitches when I go back to it.
I really wish the RSN was nearer, I would love to do their Certificate or Diploma course. Sadly I am not a fan of 6am starts or dealing with Clapham Junction train station :(
Here is the Palace in the cold early morning:
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