The first milestone

Today is an important day: it marks the first milestone in completing the Banner.  And here it is:

It's a sheet of foxgloves, and yes, you've seen other ones before, but what makes this one important, is that it's the last one.  There are four foxgloves on the Banner - two each on the left and right panels - and this is the fourth one.  For the first time, I've done all the embroidery for a particular flower.  No more foxgloves, ever!

Of course, it'd be better if it was the last of the ferns, but their turn will come, and for the first time, I really feel the end is in sight.  We can start to count down a few more milestones in the weeks to come.

Four more ferns

Another update for you: the remaining four ferns for this panel:

I'm pleased with progress so far - I've just got two more sheets of flowers to do (a foxglove and the cowslips), then that's it for this panel, and ahead of schedule too.

I haven't done them yet, though.  Back to work!

Foxglove

Firstly, I'd like to say thanks to Jacqueline at Needleprint for the fantastic post on the St Cuthbert's Banner project.  It never ceases to amaze me how generous and kind everyone is and how much support you all give me, and I am truly thankful to everyone who takes the time to read my blog, comment or post themselves. Thanks to each and every one of you!

Back to business, though.  I've now finished the first (of two) foxgloves for this panel:

The foxgloves never show up that well at this stage as they're quite light on a white background, but I think they're my favourites of all the flowers.

I'll try and think of them when I'm back to my least favourite ones: yet more ferns...

Wood avens

Another quick Banner update for you: I've now finished the sheet with all this panel's wood avens on:

I've made a start on the next one I'm doing, the first of the two foxgloves, so I should have that to show you shortly.

It's coming along, isn't it!

Third panel update: five ferns

As with the second panel, there are nine ferns to embroider, and here are five of them:

They look fine when they're applied to the velvet and nicely edged with gold, but (and I think I've mentioned this before, about a dozen times) they're a pain to do.  They're small and fiddly and, frankly, a bit boring.  So, it's best to get them over with, I suppose, and now I'm over half way through them.

You might have noticed that two of them, with seven leaves each, are bigger than the others, with six.  Amazingly, this is deliberate.  I may be speaking too soon, but I think I've finally got the hang of them; on the very similar second panel (and on the design), two of the ferns are bigger than the rest, so here I've stitched an extra leaf each.  This also means that the four remaining ones are all six-leaf ones, so that's good!

Starting the third panel

Back to the beginning again, with the third panel, the right hand one this time.  First up, a sheet with all the pearlworts for this panel:

Can you spot the not-so-deliberate mistake?  If you can, you're doing better than me, as I'd taken the linen off the frame and put it away in the cupboard before it occurred to me that I'd forgotten to do the central French knots.  Back out of the cupboard it came!

I don't like doing French knots in the hand - they're far easier to do with the fabric in a frame, but it didn't seem worth mounting it back up for just a few knots, so I just did them like that anyway.

It meant the fabric now looks a bit crumpled, but that'll be sorted out when it gets damp stretched later on.

Sculpture in Gateshead

As I was looking for a bit of practice with my new camera, my friend Steph suggested a trip to Gateshead riverside.  Gateshead, on the south bank of the River Tyne, have made quite a feature of public scuplture, with Antony Gormley's Angel of the North the most famous, but by no means the only, example, and there are a series of sculptures along the river bank

It was rather a rainy day, but undeterred, we headed across the river from Newcastle.  Walking down the path, the first piece we came to was Cone, by Andy Goldsworthy:

Goldsworthy's work in natural settings is always striking, and Steph's a big fan, so that was a good one to start with.

A little further along was Rolling Moon by Colin Rose:

I presume by the name that it's intended to evoke the passage of the Moon in the sky, but it also reflects the curved shapes of the iconic bridges over the Tyne.

A close up of the steel sphere:

Further down still is Goats, by Sally Matthews:

These slightly larger than lifesize recycled metal goats are foraging amongst the undergrowth up the bank:

Moving down to the road next to the river, we next saw the Thornbird Railings by Marcela Livingstone:

To me, they look like a flock of swallows.

Finally, on the way back, we headed past Rise and Fall, by Lulu Quinn:

This is filled with LED lights that light up in random patterns, but I never seemed to click the shutter at the right moment, so you'll have to take my word for that!