Applying the cowslip

Time to start adding the flowers!

I should just mention that while the finished panel will be vertical, it's mounted horizontally on the frame, so the flowers in the photos will be sideways on.  I could turn the photos round, of course, but I thought it would be better if you see them them way I'm seeing them as I work.  With most of them it doesn't really matter, but with some of them, it does look obvious.

Such as the cowslip.  Each panel has one in the centre, and it seems to be a good place to start, and then work outwards.  So, using my grid as a guide, I first added the bunch of leaves:

I'd meant to take a photo of each flower head as it went on, but I forgot, so I'm afraid you're going to have to skip the interim stages and go straight to all three having been applied:

It's a start, and applying the flowers is a lot quicker than stitching them in the first place!

For anyone who wasn't reading when I reached this stage with the first panel - don't worry that the cut edge of the linen around the applied pieces looks a bit rough.  Once all the flowers are in place, they'll be edged with gold, and the linen edges will be concealed.

Starting the left panel

Starting to put it together, that is, as the flowers are all embroidered.  They did need to be damp stretched, though.  Here they are, all pinned out ready to be dampened:

Now they're all beautifully flat, I can cut them up.  It almost seems a shame, doesn't it!  It'll be worth it, though, as the finished panel (and Banner, when I get that far) should be more than the sum of its parts.

Back to the second panel, though.  It'll form the left side of the Banner, and should look something like the design here.  As before, I'm applying the flowers by eye, but guided by a marked out grid.

For this to work, I need the grid on both the design and the panel itself.  The panel will be vertical when part of the Banner, but will be mounted horizontally on a frame to work.  To make things as simple as possible for myself, I need the design to be horizontal too.  As it's too long for the full thing to fit on my drawing board sideways on, I cut out the panel I need and taped it to the board (don't worry - I have another, pristine, copy put away!).  I could then draw the grid on in pencil:

Then there was the rather tedious but absolutely vital task of mounting the velvet panel on my biggest embroidery frame.  I'd cut out and lined with linen all the velvet panels previously, when I was starting the first one, so that was one less job to do now.

The grid was already marked out on the linen on the back, so I tacked over it, to transfer it to the front of the fabric:

Now I'm all ready to start adding the flowers!

Second sheet of foxgloves

I've now finished the second (of two) sheet of foxgloves.  So for the usual before-and-after pictures, here's the transfer, ready to be stitched:

And with all the embroidery done:

I like the foxgloves, even though they're fiddly to do - the small flowers at the top are less than a centimetre (under half an inch) across.  I like doing them more than the ferns, for example, and I think that's because they're more interesting.  They're prettier, there's more going on in both the design and the stitching, and they look more natural.

There'll be a couple more of them on the right-hand panel, but for now, that's the last of the embroidery for the left one.  I'm really pleased with this - according to my schedule, I needed to get all the embroidery done by 12 March, so I'm finished three weeks early!  Putting the first panel together took me longer than I'd expected, but now I've made up some time I should still be able to keep on track overall, even if this one take a bit longer than anticipated too.  That's the theory, anyway - time will tell if it works out like that.

The rest of the ferns

I hadn't realised it's been such a long time since my last post - sorry about that.  Time does seem to fly, doesn't it!

Since then, I've finished the rest of the ferns for the second Banner panel.  Here's the transfer for them:

I made these transfers quite a long time ago, and it looks as though while doing them, I realised that I'd been doing too many individual leaves, and after the first one, started doing fewer.  I wish I'd remembered that when I first came to stitch them!

Here they are stitched:

There's just the second foxglove to go now, and I've already made a start on it, so hopefully it shouldn't be too long before you hear from me again!

Cowslips

The left Banner panel has a cowslip in the centre, the same as the bottom one, which again consists of three flower heads in different sizes, the smallest being about 2.5cm (1") across.  All threads and techniques are the same as before.

Here's the linen with the transfer on it, framed up and ready to go:

I'd traced the flowers as they appear on the design, but I feel that with all the flower heads, it looks a bit heavy and some of the definition is lost, so I'm leaving one out in each case.  These have a pencil cross through them, as a reminder to myself not to go ahead and stitch them in a fit of absent-mindedness.

So, with the little green cups at the base of each individual flower stitched:

Then the flowers themselves:

As with the earlier cowslip, I filled the little gaps between the individual flowers that are too small to cut out with split stitches in a red to match the velvet:

Finally, I worked the leaves, so here's the full thing, completed:

 The embroidery for the second panel is coming along very well - I think I'm slightly ahead of schedule!

A cultural morning

Taking a morning off from sewing, I went to see a new exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery at the gallery at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.  This is entitled 'Writers of influence', and ranges from Chaucer to J K Rowling, via Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolfe and Dizzee Rascal (plus many others).  They're all fascinating to see, but the real star of the show, and what looks like making the exhibition a real blockbuster, is the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare.

This is the only portrait of him that has 'any claim to have been painted from life', as the caption put it, which is as good as we're going to get, and good enough for me.

This is quite a coup for the gallery as this is the first time ever that it's been displayed outside of London, and as something of a Shakespeare fan, I was determined to see it today, the exhibition's opening.  There were a lot of people there, most hearteningly of all a bunch of teenage boys.  They weren't on a school trip (it's Saturday), and they weren't there with their parents, they'd come along because they wanted to.  Maybe our culture's in safer hands than we give it credit for.

Photos weren't allowed in the gallery, of course, but outside in Mowbray Park, I did take one of a rather different literary figure: the Walrus.

Lewis Carroll (also in the exhibition) had family and friends in Sunderland, and stayed here often.  On one visit, he went to see the skin of a walrus, being displayed to the public by a sea captain (you had to make your own entertainment in those days).  Sunderland had a massive shipbuilding industry, and he would have seen many men heading to work in the shipyards.  They were wooden ships, and the men were woodworkers, or, of course, carpenters.  So, The Walrus and the Carpenter, surreal as it is, was directly inspired by Sunderland people and things.  Carroll's work was an influence on John Lennon, who wrote I am the Walrus.  He's in the exhibition too.

The walrus skin was stuffed and was on display in the museum for a century or so before finally falling apart; when I was a kid the head, mounted on a plaque, was still proudly displayed over the door.  That's had it too now, so a life-size bronze statue was commissioned in its stead.

Walking back through the park, I passed the statue of Jack Crawford, the 'Hero of Camperdown', and the boy who quite literally nailed the flag, or the colours, to the mast during a sea battle, giving us an enduring expression.

The inscription on the sculpture in the foreground reads:

'On open seas

or dry land

nail your colours

to the mast'

There'll be an exhibiton on in your local museum or art gallery or library, and it'll be every bit as interesting as this one and will tell you just as much about where you live.  Go and see it.

Gibside Chapel

You've been following me for some time now using split stitch to give (hopefully!) realistic shading to the Banner's flowers, but I've also used it for some small landscapes, including one of Gibside Chapel.

Gibside, on the outskirts of Gateshead, is now a National Trust property; most of the buildings are sadly now ruined, but the pretty Palladian chapel is still in good order, and the gardens and landscaping are beautiful.

As part of an outreach initiative, local craft groups, including the Embroiderers' Guild, were invited to spend a Bank Holiday weekend at the Chapel, giving demonstrations and answering visitors' questions.  As part of that, I decided to stitch a picture of the Chapel itself.

I took a photo of the Chapel from the front, and traced the basic outlines to form the design, which I then ironed onto linen.  Using the same split stitch shading techniques that I'm now using for the flowers, I could then fill in the areas for the sky (a rather sunnier blue than the reality!), the grass, including the shade under the trees, and most of the architectural detail of the building itself.

The trees and final detailing on the building were done with French knots, and some back stitch with a single strand of cotton for outlining.

Apart from a bit of artistic licence with the sky, I tried to keep the colours as close to the ones in the photo as possible; my hope was to produce what looked like a miniature painting, but in stitch.