My last post was about the fox piece that I started at the Mandy Pattullo workshop I attended. I really like Mandy’s work and I wanted to do a bit more with some of the ideas that we discussed at the workshop, so here are a couple more pieces. They are worked on top of a variation of a hexagon rosette all done in Laura Ashley fabric and then applied to a base. These were then washed at 90 degrees and tumble-dried. This gives a nice antique-y feel to them, but it also makes what is already pretty dense fabric almost impossible to stitch into. I live and learn. I thought just embroidering through the top layer would be okay but the furnishing (decorator) weight, if anything, got denser rather than softer. Still, the end results were pretty and confirm me in my view that more is more with regard to decorative pieces. A few tasteful marks would have been useless.
First is this piece which has a vague look of seventeenth-century crewel work to me:
Compare it to one of Mandy Pattullo’s pieces and you can see the influence:
The second is rather more folk-arty, I think:
It reminds me a bit of Pennsylvania Dutch art which I have always loved since my mother’s penfriend sent me a tiny PD pendant when I was a very little girl:
This one is applied to an IKEA linen tea towel cut in half. This would be lovely to stitch into were it not for the upholstery weight rosette behind it. I am particularly proud of this piece for an odd reason: I managed to find my set of yo-yo or suffolk puff makers which I bought years ago before I realised what a fruitless task making suffolk puffs is. But on this they really work and the gadget makes them quick and easy to make. I had three go-s at the plant pot before this finally worked.
I am really enjoying making them, and the medical profession is very keen on my doing embroidery at the moment, and so everyone, temporarily at least, is happy.
