Well, my Monday got off to a good start. On the domestic front, two loads of laundry washed & pegged out on the line to waft in the breeze. On the missing bag front, some kindly person had handed it in at the railway station and I collected it today, all contents accounted for. (Though what someone else would've wanted crumpled tissues, till receipts and a pink plastic hairbrush for I don't know.) I'd gone to the station after a nifty detour into a charity shop, and that went well too.
A massive bag of crewel and tapestry wool for £4.00. I've been learning this year how to embroider with regular stranded cotton, and the next aim is to embroider using crewel wool, so this'll be perfect.
I love the simplicity of these Appleton labels wrapped around the vintage wool. Okay, enough of my bargain buy, let's get back to the Harrogate Knitting & Stitching Show. Today it's all about the work of Jessie Chorley. She was there in person, and if I hadn't already bought her book off Amazon I'd have picked up a copy at the show and got her to sign it.
There was so much to look at in detail, and I kept seeing ideas for colour combinations in thread.
This is such a generous size for a pin cushion, and I really like the brown section near the base, with the seed stitching and curving line. It's interesting how the swan is represented with the simplest of outlines, but it's instantly readable as a swan.
These embroidered trees are fab. I noted the price tag on them, and thought 'oooh, that's very reasonable. £24.' Then - me without my reading glasses - peered a bit closer and noticed the zero after the 24... doh!!!
I really like the crescent moon shape in the tree above, plus the stitched lines that look like scribbling, as if you were just randomly scrawling with pen on paper.
The trees look best when they're displayed as a group, don't you think? You couldn't have possess only one. You'd need a woodland.
Lots of applique, much of it scattered with densely packed seed stitching.
Hours of slow stitching must've gone into this.
More applique. In my mind these are a couple of fashionable vintage handbags.
Lots more squiggly lines of sewing. In her book 'Journal with Thread' Jessie Chorley suggests using a 'doodle cloth' to practise your stitching on and work through ideas. It's like a form of play. You're not concentrating on making a particular thing - like a bag or cushion - you're stitching on a piece of material for the fun of it, and in doing so, gaining confidence in your sewing skills and colour choices. Maybe that's how some of these pieces she exhibited started out?
That's almost it for the pictures I took. Hope you liked 'em and please let me know if you got to the show yourself. I'd be interested to hear what your highlights were.
Let's hope next year's show is just as good because - despite being a pricey day out - it was well worth it.
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