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Progress: embroidery by students

24/4/2017

Today we are going to have a look at a few embroidery pieces my students work on. As I have only two hands and there are only so many hours in the day, tutoring others to embroider is THE solution. It is the perfect way to see some of my ideas put to work, without me actually stitching them :). First up is a crewel piece by Elisabeth Stix, which was started during one of my crewel embroidery courses.

Elisabeth's piece is really big. It has been inspired by a beautiful piece of wall paper. You can see a glimpse of it on the right in the above picture. Elisabeth works on and off on this epic piece. Just stitching what takes her fancy. She mainly uses Heathway Milano crewel wool, but beads and other threads are also included.

Latest addition to the piece is this adorable monkey in Turkey rug stitch. He is just such a lively chap amongst all the greenery! And I love the fact that his coat is so nicely mottled. Elisabeth must have had great patience whilst filling such a large area with Turkey rug stitch. And a lot of courage cutting it into shape :).

Next up is Sabine Gallner's peacock clutch bag in the making. This piece was started during my goldwork embroidery course a few weeks ago. Although it was originally inspired by an antique clutch bag, we have moved away form an exact copy. It is quite a challenge to use these long stretches of wire check to fill the peacock's tail. They later get secured with pearl purl and a blue spangle with a bead. You can get the idea from the one in the left-hand corner. This will be a real showstopper once finished!

And last, but not least: two creative bees made during yesterday's goldwork embroidery workshop. The left bee was stitched by Monika Wilms. She is now planning to stitch a larger floral-with-creepy-crawlies-piece which will combine stumpwork embroidery and goldwork embroidery. So looking forward to mentor her on that one!

The bee on the left was started by Sonja, a lace-making friend of Monika and Sabine. Sonja had not embroidered in a long time and had never done any goldwork embroidery. I think she did a terrific job!

Would you like to stitch your own Bee Creative piece? A full kit with instructions in either English or German is now up for sale in my webshop. Alternatively, you can purchase the instructions for direct download.

One more thing: I would love to start a student gallery here on my website! Showcasing embroidery pieces made by you from my kits, downloads or conceived during my embroidery courses. If you would like your piece included, please do send me a picture. I will start compiling the gallery in the next few days!

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Lenny Kravitz, Pansies and naked bottoms...

17/4/2017

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Let's start with a joyful 'Happy Easter' to you all! Then we talk a bit about embroidery. And at the bottom of this blog article there will be, very aptly, naked bottoms. I won't judge you if you scroll :).

Let's kick-off with my canvas lion who somehow reminds me of Lenny Kravitz. So now the piece is referred to as Lenny the Lion :). Early April, I received another broderi box from Nordic Needle. This time filled with pretty golden, yellow and rustic red threads. When I saw the threads, I knew they would suit a lion well. Luckily for me, Millie Marotta has issued a new colouring book called: Wild Savannah.

It took me quite a while to get Lenny's face right. I wanted to use a single colour and only generate some definition through the use of different stitches. I used an amber coloured 100% silk called Autumn Orange by Vineyardsilk. I so love this twisted spun silk with a pretty lustre! It is such a well-behaved thread.

For Lenny's manes, I ran riot with stitches and threads. So much fun! I used a variegated rustic red cotton thread called Chili of the Wildflowers range by Caron. And a dark red velvet thread by Rainbow Gallery. Also from them is the yellow thread aptly called 'Fuzzy Stuff'. I feared the worst, but you can actually stitch with it :). Also in my broderibox and thus in Lenny's manes: Londonderry Linen thread 'Maple Sugar'. Quite nice to stitch with and a real 'calmer' in the manes-craze.

But best of all, was a spool with a metallic thread called Bijoux 'Tiger Eye'. Since my family widely believes there are magpies in our ancestry, it is no wonder I like threads with a sparkle! I finished Lenny by filling in the African sky behind him with a thread from February's broderibox: Tropic Seas from the Watercolours range by Caron.

As you can probably guess by now, I thoroughly enjoy my monthly broderiboxes. It is the perfect way to learn about new materials. And in order to prevent these lovely goodies from cluttering up my stash, I've set myself the challenge of using them straight away. So far, I stuck to my plan!

Let's move on to the pansies, shall we? Last week saw three women stitching away in my studio. They took part in my silk shading embroidery retreat. Personally, I think silk shading is an embroidery technique which you either love or hate, you can or you can't. It is deeply personal and progress is slow. My lovely ladies worked from a picture of a large blue-violet pansy. After five days of stitching diligently, eating lots of cake and laughing until our bellies hurt; you can see Elena's pansy on the left, Sabine's in the middle and Monika's on the right. I think they did a great job! Hopefully, I get to see the finished results upon their next visit.

Now: THE naked bottoms! As probably many of you know, my husband is a Catholic and I am a Protestant. Since we live in a predominantly Catholic environment, I sing in a Catholic church choir and worship in the same church. Although both Christian denominations, there are some differences and I am not always getting it. I usually blame that on John Calvin :). However, this Easter Mass, I wasn't the only one who was confused... This is what happened:

Due to a severe lack of priests, we got the 'monk-who-never-smiles' on loan from the local abbey. So far so good. However, he compared integrating the Lord's resurrection into our everyday lives with an ad for the protection of the environment. And you guessed it: This ad featured naked bottoms on a bench. With his ever-straight-face he even described these naked bottoms as being: Greek, Roman or of such making that they 'needed a little more space'... This left us very, very confused!

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Goldwork: Student Projects

3/4/2017

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Happy Monday to all my old and new readers! There has been a surge in newsletter subscribers recently thanks to Mary Corbet's excellent blog on copper monogram stencils. And I've been featured in Nordic Needle's newsletter too. Very grateful for this #communityovercompetition attitude!

As promised last week, today I will share with you the projects my goldwork course students started last week. Please keep in mind that they only had five days to plan, frame-up and start stitching their projects! First up are Erika's Madonna and Monika's Iris. For the Madonna we took an actual picture of the wooden figure and transferred it onto Zweigart Newcastle linen. The Madonna will be mainly stitched using the or nue method with Japanese Tread #12 and an array of Chinese flat silks. Her face, hands and baby Jesus will be silk shaded using flat silk. The Iris stitched by Monika actually comes from an older Inspirations issue. It is a terrific piece to learn basic goldwork techniques. And we even found a quicker way to do the burden stitch filling of the petals that does not involve plunging :)! Can you figure out what it is?

Next up are Kristin's Christmas ornaments from Hazel Everett's excellent book on goldwork embroidery. At first she wanted to do a much simpler design, but as I know her to be a good stitcher, we plunged right in. And the outcome is really good! So much so, that we all decided to spent Christmas with her in Berlin this year :)!

Mari-jan came with a very beautiful stylised design of an iris. It is exactly the kind of design I would like to stitch up myself one day. We decided to not only use a variety of metal threads, but also to incorporate silk shading using Chinese flat silk. As Mari-jan is also a student of Chinse Embroidery with Margaret Lee, she knew how to handle these 'threads-with-a-personality'. Follow Mari-jan on Instagram to see this project develop: @marijanbakker.

And last, but not least: Sabine's version of the peacock clutch bag! This is going to be such a stunning piece when finished. As we could all see that happen, we ordered five more peacock clutch bags from her :)! I will try to nudge my dear ladies into sharing project updates with me. I can then bundle them up and publish them on this blog every once in a while!

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Historical Embroidery News...

Progress: embroidery by students

Lenny Kravitz, Pansies and naked bottoms...

Goldwork: Student Projects

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