Two hours to do that!!!

As you can see, I've added another bird to my Corinne Lapierre style collection. A white goose. My embroidery's not exactly as per the pattern in the book, but it's good enough.

The goose joins the owls and blue tit, though the chickens have flown the nest, given as Easter presents along with a shed load of chocolate. I also received a massive amount of chocolate back, which I'm ashamed to say I've already scoffed. Delicious it was too.

Today was another Stitch Art class at Leeds art gallery. Once again we took inspiration from the current exhibition, 'Found Cities, Lost Objects', and in particular this huge wall hanging by Young In Hong. It's entitled 'Burning Love' and - to quote from the exhibition programme it 'illustrates a scene from a candle-lit vigil that was held in Seoul, South Korea, in 2008. The demonstration was triggered by the South Korean government's reversal of a ban on US beef imports and saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to join the protest.'

This wall hanging looks as though it's painted or dyed material that's been spread over a backing fabric like unbleached calico, but I think the base is canvas and it's not fabric that makes the image we see but thread. The whole thing - and it's massive - is embroidered. Presumably it was made in smaller sections and attached together, or the complete piece was made in an industrial setting like a textiles factory. I mean, you'd never get that through your home sewing machine! The mind boggles as to how much thread this artwork swallowed up.

There are un-stitched areas where you can see the bare canvas, and lots and lots of threads hanging down, left deliberately long and loose. The image really does look like a dense crowd of people in a city setting, even though when you get close up it's all abstract shapes that swirl about in front of your eyes.

Anyway, we were given teeny embroidery hoops with calico stretched over them, and could pick our thread colours from a large box full. Now, two hours might seem a long time to sew, but honestly the time passes in the blink of an eye. So please don't laugh when you see the piddling effort I managed to produce. My interpretation of Young In Hong's beautiful textile piece is very much a work in progress ...

Oiy! You weren't supposed to laugh ... I'll keep working on it this evening, and see if I can't at least cover the entire area - small as it is - in thread. I doubt somehow it'll end up hanging in Tate Modern, but it'll keep me occupied and hopefully away from ferreting around in the kitchen for yet more chocolate. The waistline can't take any more calorific feasts.

Bye and best wishes.

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Sari scraps, PVA, a couple of books and a necklace

I'm typing this as snow's falling, and has been steadily all day. It's not settling to any great extent, though I bet by tomorrow morning the paths will be slippery with ice. Which always makes me paranoid about falling over and at the very least looking undignified, but at worst breaking a bone or twisting an ankle. Oh well, it's ideal weather to stay inside and craft, isn't it? I finally got around to listing packs of sari scraps on Etsy this morning. I only made up six bundles as I've no clue whether they'll sell or if I've set a reasonable enough price point. Time will tell. This is a link to the listing, if you're interested. This vaguely pink fabric isn't from one of my Etsy packs. It's from a bit of experimenting I was doing yesterday. I'd seen a post on Instagram showing how a DIY version of batik could be done without using hot wax. The Instagrammer used PVA instead, and I wanted to try this out....

In praise of wool

Just a quick post today. I'm offering you a short but peaceful break from the overwhelmingness (is that a word?) of Christmas. By now you've probably eaten your bodyweight in sweets//roast potatoes/pigs in blankets/cake/After Eights ... whatever your festive indulgences are. You're under-exericsed, over-stimulated, feeling broke and possibly guilty about an argument with a relative or friend you've never entirely got on with. So, here's something to take your mind off all that. I've two videos to refresh and revive, and they both concern wool. Interesting fact. Well, I found it interesting. About 1% - yup, one per cent - of the world's textiles are made of wool. Out of curiosity, I also googled how much is made of cotton. That's higher, but it's only about 24% and that's heading downward instead of up. Synthetic fibres are the bulk of all textile manufacture. Anyway, back to woolly wonders. My firs...

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

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