Firstly, the end is very much in sight for the turquoisework palace. I’d always wanted some sort of steps or fence at the bottom to balance it out, so after another game of thread chicken, it’s gone from this:
to this:
Not without a fair amount of unpicking and repositioning though. Now I need to design/choose a pattern for the gate in the middle and then decide whether this is it; if I should add any more rows/layers to the bottom of the fence or if I should add anything to the currently voided area between the top of the fence and the palace.
The second update is from rather longer ago. You might remember that I started a scissor keep kit (well it was literally a few threads, beads and the design) I bought from eBay to go on the new pair of embroidery scissors I had for my birthday. By the time I blogged about it I decided that I didn’t like most of the original design anyway and had already gone well and truly off piste. Last seen it looked like this and I intended to removed the ‘dark satanic mill’ on the right.
Given that I need to set up the magnifier to work on it, it’s taken a while, but thanks to my new sharp scissors, I finally unpicked the black thing and replaced it with a tree. I also ditched the idea of putting the weird flowers/stars and elongated star in the sky and created a cloud instead.
Liking the design so much more now! I’m going to put some simple leaves on the tree, add some more eyelet flowers to the right of the herdy and toying with a back stitch outline in light grey round the cloud and the herdy’s head as they are a little lost against the background fabric.
I’m always extremely grateful to every one of you who takes the time to leave me a like or a comment on my blog posts – it’s lovely to think as I type away that people enjoy what I create and take the time to say so. At the end of my last post I asked for feedback for the final part of the design of the buildings section of my Turquoisework Palace and I am particularly grateful to Rachel and Rosemary for their advice.
Looking at the completed wings, Rachel’s idea of a half dome firmed up my own thoughts on the problem.
I had always been aiming for a gentle curve from the central dome to the outside edge and to me, there was just too much of a jump from the little turrets to the level of the wings. After some stitched doodling I came up with these:
The next job was to choose the thread and pattern. All the domes are stitched in a variegated sea green-teal-navy-green 21st Century Yarns four stranded cotton with a splash of magenta pink (although there is more pink on some than others) so I decided to carry on with that. I’d tried to use patterns with rounder components in the domes, so I found another design which featured the sort-of-stars and lozenges I’d used on the central dome. It was more open that the other patterns which made it rather bare at this scale so I added the vertical lines down the centre of the stars.
The eagle eyed among you may have noticed in the second photo that I’ve finally got round to adding a pattern to the small turrets.
Which brings me to Rosemary’s suggestion about the flying buttresses. Initially, the turrets were supposed to be sitting on top of the buttresses – probably impossible architecturally, but it’s a fantasy palace. But thanks to Rosemary, I started to rethink the design. What if the turrets weren’t sitting on the buttresses? What if they were actually tall slender towers behind? In which case, you would see the bottom edges of the towers through the arch of the buttresses. I doodled in a line to follow the edge of the tower and looked again. Not only did it work, but I preferred it. Continuing the pattern as if it had passed behind the buttresses was a bit of a counting challenge though!
So the palace currently stands like this. The buildings are finished and all I have to do is to choose a trellis pattern to add to the bottom as a wall feature which will hopefully balance the design, which is a little top heavy at the moment.
So many thanks to everyone who has given advice, feedback and encouragement, whether in person or online, to get me this far into the piece. I’m very pleased with our joint efforts!
Last seen, the centre of the blackwork palace was pretty much complete.
Next job was to put in a couple of lower wings just to balance it out.
And then find suitable stitch patterns to fill them in. I wanted something more foliage/plant like for the bottom blocks and the interlocking leaf design ticks that box.
It was more difficult to find an appropriate design for the arcades above. It needed to be the right scale to fit in between the arches but also not overwhelm them. After several failed experiments I ended up creating my own design.
It works better at a distance.
I’m really happy with the overall shape now. Just wondering whether to add some sort of roof/shallow dome on top of the wings to soften the change in level from the flying buttresses. Any thoughts?
Last Saturday I was delighted to be asked to run a workshop for members at the Spring Meeting of Yorkshire and Humber Embroiderers’ Group (YHEG). This overarching group emerged from our active and thriving Yorkshire and Humber Embroiderers’ Guild Regional Group in the days before the Embroiderers’ Guild imploded, abandoning all its branches across the country and emptying their bank accounts on the grounds (perfectly legal but very distressing for the branches) that as a charity the monies of all branches were actually the Guild’s. In the wake of this destruction and devastation the Guild did offer £250 to each former branch who wanted to restart as an independent stitch group and many, including SEATA, to which I belong, did so.
Our EG Regional Group had always been a fantastic support and resource for all the branches and we are lucky that the people involved in the old Regional group are passionate champions of embroidery and textile art and decided to create an independent regional group (YHEG) to fill the gap. Anyone can join (for the princely sum of £10 a year) whether they belong to a Stitch Group or not. At the moment this gives access to three meetings a year. AGM in Autumn, Spring Meeting (workshops) and the Summer Gathering (speakers and trading stands) at the Regen Centre in Riccall, near York, as well as resurrecting the two-day Summer School. Costs are kept as reasonable as possible. For the Spring Meeting the cost was £15 for two x two-hour workshops, unlimited help yourself to hot drinks and a buffet lunch for members and £30 for non-members, which added to the tables each group had to sell unwanted stitchy stuff and to raise funds (heaven!) is a bargain.
I decided to offer the encrusted seascapes workshop I’d created for In The Stitch Zone back in 2022.
It works well as a workshop on a number of levels as it allows people to choose their level of stitching both in terms of variety and complexity of the stitches used and also in how much they add to the basics of a shell (or shells) and the organza strips. I only had the one sample (above) so it was an excellent excuse to stitch a couple more.
I particularly like using neutrals for this sort of encrusted work as it takes away the worries of colour choices for people who aren’t confident about using colour and it really brings the structure of the stitches to the fore. However, I also like indigo with neutrals so the second sample I stitched was on a scrap of indigo dyed sheet. I actually started it it the disastrous market I mentioned in my last post, hence the slightly washed out look of the photo under indoor spotlights.
I always start with scraps of organza and a shell. With a freeform embroidery like this, staring at the blank hooped up fabric can be as daunting as a blank page or canvas, but scattering the organza and stitching down the shell helps to break that deadlock and while you are using simple stitches to attach the shell, your creative subconscious is already working away, deciding what will be next.
Doodling with stitch, in effect. I also like to use any left over thread in my needle after I’ve stitched the frondy bits, to add to the French knot/bullion knot/bead bit at the bottom. It gives a more random feel than using a single strand and ending up with lots the same colour and also helps to build it up as you go along. I love French knots, but doing loads all in one go can be a bit tedious.
I returned to the neutrals for my third sample, stitched on lovely slubby silk noil.
And decided to try out some new stitches like the back to back rows of up and down buttonhole stitch on the left and the threaded zig zag chain in the middle.
I never refer back to the previous sample and although the basic premise of organza scraps and shell is the same and there are some stitches I use which are recurring favourites, like feather stitch, Palestrina stitch and French knots, each one is unique.
I’m adding this officially to my Workshops bar at the top of the page so if you’re interested, get in touch.
I had the opportunity to do a craft market at the Natural World Centre at Whisby Nature Park near Lincoln at the beginning of the month which unfortunately turned out to be very disappointing with very low footfall and interest and I didn’t even cover my pitch for the weekend. However, trying to put a positive spin on it, I did get lots of time to sit and be creative.
My first project was finishing a pendant upcycled from an odd silver stud earring. I’d removed the post and drilled a hole to turn it into a pendant some time ago. The earring has a recessed triangle which had obviously been inlaid with something in the past and my plan had always been to stitch a panel of French knots on pelmet vilene and set it into the space. However, in spite of having carefully made a perfect paper template and equally carefully traced it onto the vilene, the first attempt was far too big so I had a sulk and consigned the pendant back to the work in progress tray.
I decided to go for round two on the French knots firstly because the fail was long ago enough that I’d got over myself and secondly because I recently won the most epic job lot of Stef Francis silk threads on eBay including some skeins of extra fine variegated silk which would be the perfect weight for the panel. The hardest part was choosing the colour but I eventually narrowed it down to this delicate greeny aqua, marked out the shape even more carefully and this time nailed it.
While I was stitching it I was concerned that the colours would be too washed out and certainly against the white vilene they didn’t look anything special, but now they’re set in the pendant I think they work beautifully against the silver, but I might just be biased since I love anything in the turquoise/aqua/sea green/seafoam line…
With the pendant finished, I turned my attention to a couple of clip on earrings with large ‘tray’ fronts which would once have held big plastic gems. I’ve somehow acquired a few pairs of these and I upcycled a pair last year with hand embroidered pieces of hand made felt.
I wasn’t happy with the silver tabs as they encroach so much onto the embroidery so I decided that for the next pair I was going to remove the tabs and let the stitching take centre stage. Beyond that, and the vibrant pink/red felt I had decided to use, I had no plans.
Poking about in my tool box I found a little pot of watch/clock parts, including some brass cogs which then inspired the design: couched down cogs with fly stitch ferns.
The design is quite delicate and wherever I had positioned the felt the tabs would have covered the cogs, so definitely a good choice to remove the tabs. I might not have sold much but by the end of the day I was two new pieces up.
Time to introduce the second Move It On Project of 2024. This one is for March and April and revisits a piece I started and got a fair way into for one of my Stitch Zone Projects last year: the Turquoisework Palace.
I really enjoyed creating it, working out the design as I went along and then choosing patterns to fill it in but once we’d finished the sessions I put it on one side. I found it didn’t lend itself easily to working on out and about as I was quite reliant on my book of stitch patterns and like a lot of counted thread work, it requires a level of concentration that you don’t need with something more freehand where you’re working an embroidery stitch that is already in your muscle memory.
The last time I shared it (last July!) I’d finished the central domes and the rooms beneath and it looked like this.
I’d spotted a missing stitch and was planning to go over the central motifs to make them look more like windows, but it didn’t get round to progressing any further.
Until now. I have a rough plan in mind for the rest of the structure, with another lower section on either side, perhaps with some more arcading and since it’s ended up quite high on the piece of fabric, some steps and decorative balustrades at the bottom.
But first job was to sort out that pesky missing stitch and emphasise the ‘windows’ and then find patterns for the flying buttresses and the smaller towers.
The little domes were particularly challenging. I had chosen patterns for the larger ones with lozenge shapes to echo the shapes of the domes, but finding something in a similar style but smaller scale for the smallest ones took some doing and I partly stitched and then unpicked a couple of patterns that just didn’t work before I found this one.
At this stage finding the right pattern seems to take almost as long as stitching it. I need to choose a design that has the right ‘weight’ and density to balance the overall pattern but is also appropriate for the size of the space I want to fill. Big patterns get lost in a small space and small patterns can be too dense and busy for a larger space.
I’m pleased to be back on with it though and hoping for another finish.
Literally on the last day of February I put the final stitches into the pages of my Northumberland Holiday Journal and reattached the covers with a real feeling of pride. I know my Move It On projects are about revisiting and re-evaluating unfinished project, not about completing them, but it was lovely to hold the finished book in my hand.
Last time I was considering using crosses (as stars) to attach the Kielder Observatory embroidery but after a couple of trials I couldn’t make it work successfully on both sides, so I went for the standard running stitches, many of which disappear into the seed stitch background anyway.
This gave me a sound basis for whipping the running stitch twice, once in either direction as I had for the Kielder label on the other side, but in variegated perle, which gives it a bit of a beach rope feel. And leaving enough room round the edge of my writing on the label enabled me to attach it with a row of chain stitch. It took a little while to get there but the later labels are much better than the early ones.
I running stitched the final embroidery down with a delicate superfine silk thread in sand and pale turquoise to match the background.
Luckily before I stitched the final spread in place, it occurred to me that once again, I’d created a piece of artwork and not signed it, so an afterword on the back page might be the place to do that. I used the last piece of the tea dyed aida I’d used for the frontispiece for my name and date and also thought, for the first time, it might be a good idea to add the blog name too.
If you follow me on Instagram (@underatopazsky) then you may have seen my video going through the whole book. Although it’s a bit shaky and amateurish, it does give an idea of how the finished article looks.
Onwards and upwards and the March/April Move It On Project has been selected. More next week!
As the end of the month approaches, so does the end of the finishing off stage of my Northumberland Holiday Journal. The next section to be completed was the Alnwick Garden spread. I used a tubular ribbon in variegated shades of green to whip the stitches from the other side of the page and then added French knots in a pink thread which was a similar shade to the gathered flowers on the facing embroidery.
The colours tie it all together nicely and I continued the French knots in the same pink thread to attach the garden embroidery.
The reverse of the French knots was a line of very close and rather more uneven running stitches, so whipping is a good way of making them look neater. I wanted to use silver thread to echo the stars but it was too thin, so I whipped the stitches twice. First in a heavier variegated purple and blue stranded cotton and then, the opposite way, in the silver thread which works much better against a stronger base.
I’m thinking possibly little silver crosses around the edge of the facing page as the silver thread is too stiff to make satisfactory French knots, but I’m not sure what the reverse would look like and how I could turn it into a neat border.
Among the many bits and pieces in my collection of broken and unloved jewellery are some vintage sentimental ‘Mother’ brooches. Although there is a market for vintage brooches in general, these are still seen as old fashioned; partly, I suspect, due to the wording. However, we still use the term Mothers’ Day rather than Mums’ Day, so I wondered last year if I could make them into something a little more up to date and wearable. I’d seen some faux medal brooches made from ribbons and oddments of vintage jewellery on Pinterest and being awarded a medal for being a Mother seemed appropriate. So last year I made these:
The blue one sold almost straight away, and this year, having obtained a couple more ‘Mother’ brooches I decided to make two more. The first was pretty straightforward. The original brooch pin was still in good condition so I could use it as the top of the medal. Grosgrain ribbon is sturdier and less likely to ‘walk’ than satin ribbon, so I used another piece of the orange floral ribbon I’d used before and simply blanket stitched it over a pelmet vilene core to give it more body. I added a needlelace edging in variegated thread to bring out the greens in the pattern and the brown agate heart pendant was just the right size to be the ‘medal’.
The second was a little trickier. The ‘Mother’ brooch in this case was a carved mother of pearl heart in a sad and sorry state with a damaged brooch back and a chunk broken off the edging. It was still so pretty I was determined to use it, but as the ‘medal’ rather than the top. I managed to remove the remains of the back without further damage and added a carved bone rose from a broken vintage clip on earring to cover the broken area.
Then I needed a base ribbon which was about as wide as the heart. After turning out all of my ribbons, I found this gorgeous dark gold 1940s hat ribbon which set the note for the colour palette. I layered it up with vintage black satin ribbon, gold organza ribbon and a heavy cotton striped ribbon, carefully applying tiny strips of bondaweb to the back of each piece and ironing them in place. Then, to add some subtle sparkle and keep the edges down I added feather stitch and blanket stitch.
On this scale the multiple layers would have been too thick to sew through and turn inside out, so I folded over a piece of satin ribbon and blanket stitched it over the top to finish off the raw edges.
Then I added beaded blanket stitch edging featuring some lovely pale gold seed beads. It’s so easy to do and makes such a satisfyingly neat finish.
Lastly I stitched part of another broken brooch with a working catch onto the top.
Combining vintage hat ribbon, broken brooches and and odd earring, I really like that this medal is made up from things that women would have worn in the past. It may not be as in your face floral and brightly coloured as the others but I rather prefer its understated elegance.
I’ve counted up the completed pages and I’m just over half way through finishing off the Northumberland Holiday Journal. And that includes going back adding additional stitching to the running stitches on the label sides of the spreads this week.
I was discussing it with Debbie and she suggested adding to the running stitches and making more of a feature of them. I wasn’t sure initially, as I hadn’t wanted the stitches to stand out, but I’d already done that on the back of the Mount Grace page, and the more I looked at the pages, the more sense it made, making the labels feel more balanced against the larger embroideries. So I’ve gone back through the pages I’ve already done and played with different ways of threading and whipping the running stitches.
Whipped running stitch for Mount Grace.
A double threaded running stitch for the Drakestone to Harbottle walk
And a sort of reverse chain but hiding the thread under the running stitches for Bamburgh Castle, which is the spread I finished this week.
I used running stitch in a dark blue/grey thread so it toned with the greys in the background to the Beast and also the indigo thread I used on both sides of the Lindisfarne spread which is over the page.
Heartened by Ruth’s championing of the feather stitch I used earlier, I made sure I left a bit more space around my writing and used it again, rather more successfully this time I think.
The indigo thread is the same as I used for the petals and the yellow stranded cotton I whipped the running stitch with is the thread I used for the centre of the flower.
The journal is feeling much more cohesive now and making a feature of the running stitches that frames the label is working brilliantly. Definitely a good shout, Debbie – I’m really pleased with the results. Thank you!
I'm a professional scavenger making a living selling curbside garbage. This blog details my finds and sales. It also acts as an archive for things beautiful and historic that would otherwise have been destroyed.
Under A Topaz Sky 