Creative 2017

C17: Day 194 – Leaves

July 13, 2017

I thought that it might be a good idea to do a small leaf in each of the greens, not just to help with identifying which colour might work best, but also to help me decide how to do the embroidery of the leaves themselves. I have decided on a fishbone stitch, which is probably […]

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C17: Day 193 – The vine

July 12, 2017

This is going to be a hard one, because the test today is about colours, and it’s hard to photograph colours well, especially with an ipad and especially at this time of night under mixed artificial light. I have one pale green (first top curl), and then a choice of a dark green that’s quite […]

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C17: Day 192 – Armour

July 11, 2017

Tonight, I had a bit of a practice of my stem stitch as I realised after my post last night that I had done it a bit wrong earlier, with some of my stem stitches basically being outline stitch instead. So that’s the new outline around the head. I also wanted to have a go […]

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C17: Day 191 – Outlines

July 10, 2017

It’s been a while since I’ve done any embroidery, so it’s good to practice. Today, I had a go at outlines. From the right-most foot clockwise, that’s single strand stem stitch and whipped back stitch in DMC; two strand stem stitch in DMC; and the arm is two strand stem stitch in silk. I think […]

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C17: Days 189-190 – Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

July 9, 2017

I knew yesterday that what I wanted to do would take more than the 15 minutes I’m supposed to be spending per day, so I saved it up yesterday’s time for today. Glad I did – it all took a lot longer than I anticipated! The first challenge was to actually figure out which box […]

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C17: Day 188 – Colouring in

July 7, 2017

I don’t have a huge library of embroidery silks, especially not actual silk silks, but I had already bought a selection of colours that I thought would work for this piece several months ago. It’s hard to pick colours off the internet, and not all of the ones that I bought quite fit, but hopefully […]

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C17: Day 187 – Curlicues

July 6, 2017

I don’t think I’ve ever written the word curlicue before, but it’s just screaming out to be spelt curlique instead. Missed opportunities there, English Language. Anyway, the knight and snail now have some.

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C17: Day 186 – Is the vine fine?

July 5, 2017

Further refinements to the vine, but is it fine, or just a crooked line?    

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C17: Day 185 – Refining the design

July 4, 2017

It’s still not quite there, but it’s improved!

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C17: Day 183 – Potential vine

July 2, 2017

Quick stab at a vine, expertly helped by Grabbity trying to steal the stylus. Possibly too elaborate, though. Will have another go tomorrow, perhaps with Grabbity shut out of the office.

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C17: Day 182 – Knight & snail ride again

July 1, 2017

A couple of years ago, I embroidered a goldwork knight and a snail from the 14th Century Gorleston Psalter. The knight fighting, and ultimately losing, to the snail is one of many themes in the psalter’s marginalia, as well as in other manuscripts of the time. No one quite knows why knights fight snails, but given […]

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C17: Days 180 & 181 – The last of the calligraphy

June 30, 2017

Some numbers, some words, and some feeling rather grateful that I’m done with this month. Whilst I have enjoyed this form of calligraphy, I’m slightly surprised to find that I have no real desire to carry on with it. I’m happy to have done a month, but also happy to be leaving it here.

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C17: Catching up – W, Z, I, J, A, M, N

June 28, 2017

More catching up! The upstrokes on the W, M and N are particularly hard.

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C17: Sometimes, life gets in the way a bit – E, C, G, L, I, H, K, V

June 26, 2017

The last week has been really rather hectic, with visits to friends and family, so I’ve been rather more separated from my practice than I’d like. It might take me a while to catch up, but here are four pages of practice. I’m getting better at joining up lines without it showing too much, but it’s […]

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C17: Day 171 – O, Q

June 20, 2017

Nice and satisfying today.

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