There haven’t been many posts recently as I have been finishing things off and there hasn’t been much to report, but suddenly I have quite a lot to post about.
This is a big project from my work on Laura Ashley. I made a start on it ages ago and just didn’t like what I’d done. The colours were too pastel for me. But a couple of months ago I got it out of the box and started again, and for some reason, I totally fell in love with it. So, I have done a lot more work and the piece is almost ready.
As usual with my work it is made in panels. These were inspired by the printed panels from Quilters’ Trading Post. They are fashion plates of Regency costumes, which I have combined with Laura Ashley fabric and lots of fabric samples including silk and embroidered wool, and lace. Again, a lot of the fabric would otherwise have gone into landfill, so there is recycling and upcycling involved.
My interest in Laura Ashley was originally in the seventies with the milk maid and country cottage ranges, but I have become increasingly interested in her later product ranges and the way in which everything became much grander and country house-y. There is some nice scholarly work about the brand coming out of it, which I will outline at some point, but this project is about the airy muslin loveliness of the Jane Austen type view of the eighteenth century, which will be contrasted with the gruesome Hogarth vision.
For the moment, though, this is the pretty top.
This is fly stitch done in a wine-red Madeira luna thread which has a lot of wool in it. The second part of the stitch is done through a clear bugle bead. The little dots are done with colonial knots which are much easier and reliable than french knots and give a nice dimple in the middle.
These are pieces of old-ish lace over silk samples. I love stitching through this thick upholstery silk because it is so crisp.
This is a lovely bit of tiered lace, with some composite embroidery from Judith Montano Baker’s Elegant Stitches, which is a fantastic source book for embroidering crazy quilts. These panels are essentially well-ordered crazy pieces.
I used this panel to work in a piece of my favourite Laura Ashley fabric, the swan print:
More of the panels to come.
