Harvey Show

Do you ever have those times when you start something and then wonder why you made life difficult for yourself? I have !!  I decided to hand stitch the scroll using a brick stitch, similar to the design etched on the Viking shield that had inspired me, but! .... 9 1/2 hours later .....I wondered what had possessed me. I hate unpicking so continued, and finally finished it.  I'm happy with it, just not the amount of time it took to stitch.  I've still got to outline it with a gold thread yet, but in the meantime I've been playing around with Anglo Saxon alphabets and the next step is to applique some onto the background plaid.

I used the embellisher machine to push the frayed scrim into the plaid and then gently ran it all over the scroll to hold it firmly in place.

After all those hours sitting and stitching I need to stretch my legs, back and neck so I've had the weekend off to do other things.  Hubby and I decided to go to the Harvey Show on Saturday and had a wonderful day.  The weather was perfect ... warm (not hot!) sunny Autumn day, just lovely.

There was wood chopping and sawing, farming machinery, vintage cars, side show alley with the kids rides and food stalls.

Best of all was the exhibition pavilion with the flowers, cakes, vegetables, photography and embroidery.  The bottom left hand photo is of part of an amazing textile quilt that had a farm/country scene with loads of animals on it, it was truly amazing and a work of art ... just love the cheeky emu peeping out from the side.

And what would a country show be without the equestrian events ... unfortunately we missed the Clydesdales as they'd been on in the morning, but we got to see the small buggy display and the toddlers with the miniatures ... always makes me smile and think of "Thelwell".

All in all, a relaxing and enjoyable day ... if only all weekends could be like this.  Now its back to the ironing ....

That pesky wabbit ...

I hope you all had a lovely Easter.  Thanks to that pesky wabbit my 2 weeks of starving and losing 1.3 kg has all been a waste of time - after chomping through tonnes of chocolate over the weekend I've put it all back on again .... oh well, it was fun at the time (eating the chocolate ... NOT the dieting!!).  So here we go again, counting calories and eating salads ... ho hum.
I'm sure sitting on my backside stitching all day doesn't help either, but I'm happy with the progress I'm making on the wall hanging.

I appliqued a knot pattern on the top edge of the hanging, using a brown velour fabric and gold thread.  It shimmers depending on which way you hold it to the light.  I've just placed some of the finished elements onto the fabric to see how its coming together.

Then below is the start of the scroll design.  I've machined stitched the dyed scrim in place using the same gold thread, and now I'm in the process of filling it in with hand stitching - a long, slow process.

I needed a break yesterday after 5 hours of stitching, so walked around the garden and decided to go snap happy and take some pics of the flowers.  We've had a bit of rain recently during the night, and a few overcast days, and its done wonders for the garden.  The leaves on the rose trees are actually green and not a crisp brown where they've usually been fried by the sun.

So for all you folks in the northern hemisphere who are despondent after a long cold winter, here's some summer colour to cheer you up and remind you of what's around the corner for you.

 Whilst we prepare for our winter ahead.

 

 

Happy Easter

Have a happy and safe Easter.

With love x