Lovely Lavender

Last week, I had another trip up to Oswestry for what I think will become an annual pilgrimage to attend one of Alison Holt’s free-motion embroidery courses.  I had a great time up there and met friends old and new.  You can see all the students' work here on Alison's website. 

As my Mum is not able to sew any longer, I have inherited her old sewing machine and I’d decided to take this with me as it is considerably better behaved than my basic old sewing machine.  (My new computerised machine isn’t ideal for this course).  At the last minute, I realised that I didn’t have an extension table for it, but with my new-found skills for cutting polycarbonate, I fashioned one to fit.

My craft room is not at its tidiest at present!

The theme for this course was Colourful Landscapes and I found a great image of a lavender field, presumably at sunset due to the shadows, which I was immediately drawn to.  My style choices always seem to include contrasting shadows!  I traced the image from my iPad and then transferred the image onto Habutai silk.

After outlining the colour blocks using gutta, the silk was painted in as close an approximation to the colours in the photo as possible.  I didn’t gutta the shadows but simply painted the darker green over the light green once it had dried.  I was planning to not stitch the green areas. 

The next day, the threads were chosen, trying to capture the different tones of the colours in the photo, and then the stitching could begin.  The stitching works from the back to the front so I started with the lavender at the horizon line using tiny stitches for the distant plants.  As the stitching comes forward, the stitches get larger to give the sense of depth and perspective.

Finally, on reaching the lavender in the foreground, rather than stitching zigzagged rows, I stitched lavender heads in the various shades of purple I’d selected.

Once I’d got stitching, it became obvious that the shadows weren’t dark enough.  This could have been resolved by more painting, using fabric markers or stitching.  I opted for the stitching, adding a dark olive green to the shadows all the way down the rows, plus a little acid green to the bright side in the foreground for texture.

This is the embroidery at the end of the course.  I even managed to sew a little signature in the bottom corner!

Upon returning home and looking over the piece again, I decided not to add more and potentially mess it up.  It was finished off in a lovely pewter-coloured frame.