Embroiderers' Guild Annual Exhibition

The Embroiderers' Guild of the ACT held their annual exhibition this week. I entered a few pieces that I've shown previously plus these two pieces. 

The first one is called "In Flanders Fields" and was my entry for the postcard challenge, which had the theme "Stitching Love and Hope". We were asked to re-interpret the silk postcards sent home by soldiers in France and Belgium during World War I. I'm really thrilled because my card won the viewer's choice prize.

I also entered this leaf. Back in March, I finished an autumn embroidery, and I saved all the thread snippets, which I then put between two piece of solvy, machine-stitched over it, cut out the leaf shape on the Accuquilt Go Cutter, and then hand-stitched the veins and stem. Unfortunately, this isn't a very good photo but it gives the effect of a decaying autumn leaf.

A Postcard from Tuscany

Many years ago, I came across Sue Newhouse's Creative Hand Embroidery.

I liked her techniques and ideas, and completed this daisy field based on the project in her book:

I then looked around for an idea to use the techniques in a work of my own design. When a friend showed me a photo she had taken while holidaying in Tuscany, I knew I'd found a good subject for my work. However, while I knew what I wanted to do in the foreground, it took me ages to figure out how to do the background and the stone building. I eventually solved those issues (I drew the background trees and stone building with water colour pencils, rows of running stitches give the stone effect for the building and a few small straight stitches for the door and windows) but had just started stitching the grass when I started having problems with my hands. So once again it got put on hold.

It finally resurfaced last year and I've now completed it - after 3 attempts at the olive tree. Unfortunately, I've mislaid the original photo but here is my completed piece:

And here it is framed:

I enjoyed handing it over to my friend recently. She didn't know I'd been working on it, so I think it was a bit of a surprise.

Recycled

I recently took part in another fabric postcard swap with the theme 'Recycled' and received this lovely postcard.

My effort was somewhat simpler - although hand-stitching into denim isn't easy, I managed to do it in an afternoon.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I really like the way denim ages and for me it's an obvious choice for recycling but I was very amused recently when I picked up a pair of new jeans, which my nephew had left here to be hemmed. I said that I must do something with them and 4-year-old Emma beamed up at me, "Make a postcard?" I usually let people wear their jeans a few times before I start trying to turn them into something else. After all, they need to be worn and washed repeatedly to get that wonderful unevenly faded effect. :)

Fabric postcards

I took part in the January and February fabric postcard swaps through the fabric postcards group on stitchinfingers. However, I only recently heard that the January card had reached its destination.

The theme for January was China, so I couched gold Madeira thread onto a red silk background in a fan shape.

Here's the lovely postcard I received from Teresa:

The theme for February was Vintage. I did this outline in brown thread on a burnt orange silk background (it looks much darker in this photo). I'm very proud of myself for tackling facial features - something I've tried to avoid in the past - but I'm still struggling with the ideas that the 70s count as vintage. Instead of being between 100 and 20 years ago, I think vintage should be from 100 years ago up to anything I don't remember. :)

The card I received from Faye is definitely and delightfully vintage.

Fabric postcard swap

I've been doing lots of things in recent weeks but I either haven't finished them or don't yet have photos of them. However, a while ago, I participated in a postcard swap through Stitchin Fingers Fabric Postcards group. This is the postcard I sent off.


And here's the beautiful and elegant card I received.

Postcard

Sometime between my recent adventures (Egypt and surgery), I received this beautiful postcard from Maggi. Thank you, Maggi, I love the subtle colours and intricate details. I want to learn how to do machine embroidery and would love to be able to make something as beautiful as this.

Fabric postcards

Sometime ago, Sylvia suggested that we do a one-on-one postcard swap and soon after I received this beautiful postcard from her.


However, it took a while for me to do my return postcard. A few of my ideas didn't work out and I didn't particularly like this representation of leaf litter, although I love it now. (A friend admired it today and I'm thinking of sending it to her.)


After more playing around, I sandwiched a piece of aqua polycotton between two layers of organza, added aqua and gold yarns plus Angelina fibres and ended up with these. I sent one to Sylvia and one to a friend who was interested in what I could do with the embellisher. The others are yet to find homes.