FINISHED!!! (Lots of piccies)

My new "Medieval Tile" workshop sample book has been finished...

...in plenty of time for my stint at Wooler with the NE Region of the Embroiderer's Guild.

All panels have been attached to heavy watercolour pages...

...and the reverse of each page has been covered in printed tissue and stamped tile prints.

I've decorated around the edges with little pennants and sparkly bits...

....which gives it a rich finished look.

I am very happy with it!

I stitched an extra one for the cover...

...and put the others on each of the six inside pages...

...with nice "back-sides"!! :-)

This is how it looks from the top.

I like these books done using binding rings...

...but the next one will be a folded one again!

Can't have life getting TOO repetitive can we?! :-D

In case you don't already know...

...all my lovely print blocks come from Jamie at Colouricious...

...and my metallic threads, cotton and felt fabrics from my "family" at Empress Mills

(I really can't imagine what my life would be like without these lovely people around!)

x C

#5

The 5th little stitched panel...

...with quite a bold 5-petal design in the centre.

I love doing these...

..and...

...although I've got LOADS of things to be getting on with...

...I shall be really quite sorry when the series is finished.

Hope you are keeping cool...

x C

#4

Back to yellows and greens...

...but with some beautiful, fluted bugle beads this time.

These are about 6mm long...

...and I put a size 11 bead at the end of each...

...before doing some metallic thread stitching in between.

Finally I added some red beads on the printed area...

...just to add a little something...

x C

Taking it further...

The little projects I showed you in the previous post were so enjoyable that I wanted to take the theme a little further...

...so...

...I printed a few more tile pieces...

...and began embellishing!

Because these don't have to be done in a couple of hours...

...I can really go to town with them.

And...

...they can build into something bigger...

x C

Stitched Tile Pavement

Well...

...part of one anyway :-)

Unfortunately I only have 24 hours in a day, and only 7 days in a week...

....and getting many of these done is difficult right now.

So that I can put samples up at the show next week, I've stapled some onto a background for now...

...so that I can get them off again easily.

These are made using my larger tile blocks...

...from Colouricious of course!!

Printed light onto a darker hand-dyed fabric background...

...stitched around on the machine...

...then seed stitching by hand to finish off.

Very time consuming...

...and the plan is to have a "floor" that measures about 6ft x 8ft ...........eventually.

Ho Hum

...onwards and upwards....

x C

Tile Books

I've made a little stash of these...

...ready for the show at the NEC.

Hand stamped tiles...

...hand tinted and embellished...

.....on handmade leather paper....

...then machine stitched....

.....finished off with my own "Lava Beads" made with Butterfly Softspun!!

These will be for sale on my stand N14 in Fashion & Embroidery...

...where rolls of "Butterfy SoftSpun" will be available too.

Hope to see some of you at the show!!

x C

Pavement panel #2

On the machine today...

...after doing all the usual prep over the last couple of days.

This one is smaller than the first...

...so not quite so difficult to manipulate under the needle!!

I've got a few tiles left over...

...so the plan is to do a couple of book covers.

I'm enjoying these!! :-)

Yesterday I drew a load of Fleur de Lys shapes to cut some templates and will start cutting them out later today. I'll have some for sale at the show...

....and the rest will go in my shop afterwards.

Have a good week.....

x C

A tiled masterpiece!!

Ok....so it's fairly obvious that I'm very, VERY happy with this finished piece :-o

...so much so that I'm allowing myself to refer to it as a "masterpiece" !!

It took a LOT of hours to get it all done...

...making the "Leather Paper"....

...printing the tiles...

....hand-colouring each one...

....painting the background fabric...

....positioning the tiles in a pleasing manner (not that easy to do believe me!!)...

...then stitching the tiles in place and finally stitching on the "grout" lines.

The result...

Sorry about the lighting problems...

...it's dark and grey here again today...

...but those of you coming to ICHF next month will see it in all it's glory!

...a different kind of Medieval....

Yesterday I posted some pictures of my new "Medieval Inspirations" sketchbook...

...today you are being given images of my latest tri-fold book...

..."Medieval Tiles #2".

It includes designs from floor tiles...

...some manuscript illuminations...

...and diapering patterns

This is another sample for my class at the Yorkshire & Humber Regional Summer School next month.

(It's coming around at great speed!!)

I'll post some of the finished book when the glue is dry! :-)

x C

A Shropshire break-away and Lingen Stitchers...

Got home yesterday after having a delightful break away in Shropshire.

Stayed just outside Craven Arms on a lovely camping and Glamping site - Greenway Touring and Glamping Park...

so that we could poke our noses into a number of English Heritage sites...

...and I could do my workshop with Lingen Stitchers.

Visits were made to Wroxeter Roman Town...

Stokesay Castle...

Much Wenlock Priory

Buildwas Abbey...where I found some lovely medieval floor tiles!! :-)

and Ludlow Church where I photographed all the Misericords.

 (Wouldn't fancy settling my backside on top of the last one...might get bitten!!)


The workshop with the lovely Lingen Stitchers went very well indeed!!

Everyone got stuck in to printing then stitching...

...and they have to finish the pieces in time for their exhibition over the August Bank Holiday weekend!

The Gladdyvan will go back into dock tomorrow...

...then I have to get myself into gear and catch-up with things that got left behind whilst gadding about!!

Have a great holiday weekend...

x C

Post before going....

I thought that I'd better get my act together and do another blog post before I take off north...

...to do some talks and workshops in York and West Bridgeford.

I have been doing quite a lot of stuff here...

...but some have to stay firmly under wraps (for now anyway)....sorry!

I can show you some pages from my Medieval Tile Tri-fold book though...

(This is the one that folk will be working on in my workshop here in May ...which is now full up :-)

So here goes...

I'll show a few more when I come back :-)

I always struggle to decide what "things to do" to take with me when I go away!

This time I'm away for 2 weeks...

...in a caravan on my own...

...so I will definitely need to be occupied!

I've been thinking about doing a small book on my "Lavender & Lace" theme for a little while now...

...so I've packed a box of goodies...

...rubber stamps...

...fabrics...

...laces...

...ephemera...

etc to help me while away my evening times.

I'll show a bit of that later too...

Right!

Time to sort out all the fabrics, threads, yarns and printblocks for the two workshops!

x C