My brain feels a bit like scrambled eggs at that moment… which may well explain today’s piece of machine embroidery! My completely obsessive love of over-challenging myself seems to have found new heights in my work and it’s very much this mix of being hugely excited by a lot of what is going on and going well, but also very much wanting a nap. Maybe now I’m at the point of embroidering people pigeons for their birthday cards I should perhaps consider the latter!
Last week was the exhibition that accompanies the Hand and Lock Prize for Embroidery, which is a seriously lavish celebration of embroidery talent. There are several categories to the prize, including Fashion and Textile, with Open and Student levels. Whether you love all the individual exhibition pieces or not, there is no denying that the Prize attracts a veritable cornucopia of talent and is the ultimate ‘up yours’ to anyone who doesn’t think embroidery can be art.
I don’t remember how I stumbled upon the existing of the Japan House in Kensington, London, but I am very glad I did. Apparently it is supposed to be ‘presenting the very best of Japanese art, design, gastronomy, innovation, and technology’ to deepen our appreciation of what Japan has to offer. It’s a really interesting and honestly incredibly persuasive initiative from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, especially when they put on some incredible textile exhibitions which you can enjoy for free.
If April is the cruellest month, then May is the month of utter madness when the weekends become extensions of the working week and thriving is renamed surviving… I am tired. Still, it has passed, many totally uncrafty things got done, but a few crafty ones snuck in there as well.
Machine embroidery is a lot of fun and there’s a huge wealth of designs out there that come both with the machine and are available either for free or a small price. As I did for my previous monogrammed card, these designs can be combined either on the machine itself or using some embroidery design software.
It seems like a lifetime ago I was sat in the London Embroidery School’s basement studio stabbing myself repeatedly with pins while doing some lace appliqué. Their in-person classes won’t be resuming until end of August but in the meantime the team have been working very hard to bring you some online offerings, including some Instagram stitch-alongs and a mixture of free and paid classes on their Youtube channel.
Recently, they advertised an online monogramming course that caught my eye which, at the price of £20 for three hour long videos I thought was worth taking a chance on.
I think a really exceptional workshop is one that not just teaches you a few new skills, but a whole new perspective on the possibilities a craft offers. That’s very much how I felt about the weekend spent with Jacqui Carey, where I finally found the easy way of creating warps (particularly with metallic threads) but also saw a more creative side to kumihimo beyond just copying patterns and playing with colour designs.
One of the many, many things I like about dyeing, dyes and dyed objects is they make fantastic photography subjects. Maybe that’s because, for me, a load of coloured splodges in a suitable colour scheme are high art and that combination of things is really the essence of dyeing.
There is a new member of the family that I have yet to have the pleasure of introducing you all to yet… My new Bernina 790 Plus. (Complete with embroidery module because the thing wasn’t monstrously huge enough without it).
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A book about knitting in the New York Times Bestseller list? Apparently not as outrageous as it sounds. Welcome to ‘Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World’, Clara Parkes’s collection of tales of knitting conventions and events across the world.
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