I thought I'd better catch up on my blog posting as I've been rather tardy about it lately. Today's been another beautifully sunny day and I'm just back from a long healthy walk, ready to crash out on the sofa for the evening. I've got a book to read, 'The House of Whispers' by Laura Purcell. I realised when I started it that I'd read it before, but I can't remember how the story ends so it's worth a re-read. The book's set in Cornwall, and is a gothicky creepy read, full of unexplained noises and lights out to sea, talk of supernatural goings-on and featuring as it's central character a devious servant with an over-fondness for gin and laudanum.
This is the latest completed page of my Ann Wood stitchbook challenge. Mainly masses of seed stitches. It's not the most complicated of pages, but I enjoyed sewing it. You can't really see from the photo, but I used Christmas material on the left hand side. I turned it over, so it wasn't glittery, and embroidered over the leaves in green, then added red French knots for the berries. Also, fly stitch on one of the fir cones.
On Wednesday it was back to Leeds art gallery for the monthly Stitch Art session. This time we looked at a current exhibition by an artist called Karanjit Panesar. It's titled 'Furnace Fruit', and is a mixed media installation, including sculptures and film. This is an excerpt from the gallery's website, if you want more info about it.
I have to admit, it wasn't an exhibition that immediately appealed to me. Too sparse, not enough colour and pattern to catch my interest, but we were tasked with finding something about the display that we could interpret in stitch.
I focused on this, the shape based on a pomegranate, and also the wooden block it stood on. My drawing's not up to much, but I drew enough to give me a starting point for my needle and thread.
We had pomegranate dyed squares of cotton to sew on, and a small embroidery hoop to stretch our fabric over. I initially choose grey and off-white embroidery thread similar to the colour of the sculpture, but stitched them in lines meant to represent the pattern in the unvarnished wood below it. I added little pomegranate coloured 'seeds' too. As the class was only two hours long, I didn't get a huge amount sewn in that time, but finished it off at home.
I made my design into a padded circle, using polyester wadding and stretched over cardboard cut from food packaging. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, especially given how uninspired I initially was.
When it comes to non-stitchy crafts, I've been doing loads of gell printing lately. For whatever reason I've felt the urge to make piles and piles of painty papers.
It's a good job copy paper is inexpensive! I've also been printing on tracing paper, and that takes the acrylic paint really well. Not sure what all these prints will be used for, but it's been great fun to make them. Messy, but fun.
Okay, I'm going to find myself a chocolate bar and settle down to an hour of watching telly. After which I might get another surge of energy and tidy up my overflowing work table (a.k.a. the dining table), which is choc-a-bloc with books, papers, reels and skeins of thread, fabric baskets, and goodness knows what else.
Hope your weekend's been enjoyable. Bye and best wishes.
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