I Finished a UFO (unfinished object)!!!

Many of you may remember my Green Canvaswork Sampler that I had stitched in preparation for my RSN Canvaswork piece.  It's one of the pieces that just got published!  I had stitched a grid of 25 different squares and had started a composition to the side using my RSN Goldwork Lily of the Valley design.  I finally went back and finished the piece on the other side of the squares! 

The funny part is the fight to not go back and redo everything on a piece that you had started a few years previously.  I had stitched the whole lily of the valley part and the background inside the flower.  I only had the background to finish.  I thought that by doing the background in wool (in tent and cashmere stitch) that it would let the lily of the valley stitched in cottons and silks to stand out off the background.  After doing my RSN Canvaswork piece, there is so much that I'd like to change about this piece, however, I felt that it was important to keep it true to the skill set I had at that time. 

Other links: 

Green Canvaswork Sampler

Green Canvaswork Lily of the Valley

RSN Goldwork Lily of the Valley

2016. . . A Look Back and A Few Things Not Mentioned Yet

2016 has had its amazing moments and its challenging ones.  As many of you know, I fell in September and broke my elbow.  I actually taught class for 4 days holding my arm thinking it would get better--it did not.  Anyways, that little fracture was a huge wrench thrown into the mix for me trying to balance family, teaching at NC State, teaching outside of NC State and research/stitching/sketching. 

This photo captures my 2016: 

This was taken a couple days after we brought our new daughter home from the hospital.  I was feeding her in my studio right before her newborn photos were taken.  My studio is a complete disaster--that has become the normal, organized piles have multiplied into organized chaos. I have grown to love this photo as it has reminded me of house beautiful the seeming chaos can be.  All I can say is more than anything, 2016 has shown me what teamwork is.  Having a husband that is so supportive of me is not something that I take for granted.

I broke my right (ahhh yes right) elbow at the beginning of September and that proved more difficult to manage than I would have thought.  I've been trying to catch back up since then.  I was trying to get these posts out before year's end so I wanted to do a bit of a rundown on some of the things that I have not had a chance to talk about before 2016 was too distant in the past. You can guess what my New Year's Resolution is (posting more and more regularly 😀)!

RSN Certificate: finished!
I am so excited and thrilled to say that I officially passed my Royal School of Needlework Certificate of Technical Hand Embroidery with distinction!  I must admit that I still do a little dance each time I say it.  I am very glad to have done this course as I have learned so much through it concerning embroidery and I have gotten to know some amazing people too!

SAGA:  Lecture and Teaching workshop.  
I had the wonderful experience of teaching for SAGA at their National Convention back in September.  I did a 1 day Workshop of Haystacks of Giverny and presented my lecture Evolution of Consuelo about my thesis project from graduate school.  I had a wonderful time teaching the workshop and I cannot tell you how excited I was to be given the opportunity to talk about the research from my Masters Thesis Project.  It was the first time I was able to talk about it since graduate school.  It was a great reminder of all the work I had done going into it and it seemed like everyone enjoyed hearing about it and seeing my gown and samples. 

I wish I had some photos to share, however, I broke my elbow the weekend before this convention and in the craziness of teaching without my right arm I forgot to take any.  I had a great group of stitchers though and it was wonderful to learn more about SAGA.  Everyone was so gracious in helping me (and my elbow). I also learned that doing a cross stitch with a broken elbow is totally fine but stitching a chain stitch with a broken elbow was pretty painful.

Textile Society of America: Research Poster
My research poster was accepted for the TSA Biennial Symposium in Savannah, GA in October.  This is me right before the poster presentation began with my poster in the background.  I presented the research I have been doing on my Color Interactions Illuminated in Goldwork Embroidery project.

EGA National Seminar
I was pretty busy in Alexandria as I presented a lecture and taught 2 two-day workshops.  Below are some photos from my Gregg Floral contemporary goldwork class.  I am looking forward to teaching a mini-class for EGA at their National Seminar in Asheville in 2017!

 Opus Anglicanum Exhibition
My year ended with my husband and I taking a trip to London just before Christmas and seeing the amazing Opus Anglicanum exhibition currently on view at the V&A. To say it was incredible seems like a shallow assessment of such a beautifully and curated exhibition.  The most incredible thing for me was to see pieces that I had read about and had not seen in person yet.  I was totally the nerd writing and sketching as I slowly made my way through the exhibition.  It was interesting too to see a few pieces that I have seen numerous times in different light (literally different lighting)--details that I had "seen" before and missed completely, colors that had been difficult to see in the previous locations now evident.  

The exhibition guide is wonderful too so if you cannot go and are interested in Opus Anglicanum, it is well worth the price.  I've put a link with the image to it on Amazon below.  Great essays and wonderfully detailed photos!

Additionally, I've ordered The Age of Opus Anglicanum by M.A. Michael (one of the curator's of the Opus Anglicanum exhibition).  It is a collection of papers from a Symposium at the V&A in 2013 on Opus Anglicanum.  I cannot wait for it to arrive! 

Exciting News: I Got Published!!!

I'm beyond excited to share this!  Four of my pieces were chosen and published in the newly revised version of Pauline Brown's Encyclopedia of Embroidery Techniques!  I just received my copy today. 

You can find my work on:

Page 39:  Green Canvas Sampler

 Page 128:  All the Buzz: Goldwork Beehive Sampler

Page 148:  Hope: Jacobean Crewelwork

Page 150:  Lily of the Valley Goldwork

Click on the titles above to link to the blog posts I wrote for each piece.

Lighthouse Landscapes

Recently, I've been playing around with color mixing, contemporary goldwork and mixing it all on digitally printed fabric.  For this piece, I started looking at lighthouses in North Carolina and Prince Edward Island.  I have always loved lighthouses as I grew up going to the Outer Banks near Cape Hatteras all the time.  In my research of lighthouses on Prince Edward Island, Canada, I found the New London Lighthouse and loved the quaintness of the lighthouse and the drama of the beautiful coast in the background--seriously there are some amazing photos of this lighthouse!

I started by roughly watercoloring a piece of cold press paper with a "land" area and a "sky" area.  I wanted to keep the watercolor loose so that my stitching could add the detail.  I then scanned it in and had it digitally printed on a cotton/linen canvas fabric.

Once I had my canvas, I experimented with different fabric scraps and decided on this beautiful silk and metallic tweed/brocade I bought this summer at the Silk Society in London for the body of the lighthouse.  The roof is created with leather kid.  Pearl purl is used to define the details of the lighthouse and create the balcony and mica bits were used for the windows.  For the sky and the grass, I used long straight stitches and Valdani thread and mixed in some cutwork. 

Overall, I'm fairly happy with this piece. The only sad part about it for me is it photographs a lot heavier than in person.  The silver I used in the clouds shows as gray here but in person, it is just glimmers of silver and the grass is not as dark as it is showing. 

I really enjoyed working on this piece, and I think that this idea has a lot of potential going forward.  It was a great challenge to try and create a lighter feeling composition with goldwork materials and to mix the color mixing techniques with the gold materials.  Even more exciting are the ideas I have for future pieces!

New Color Sampler

For the course I taught at Penland, I had the students use basic stitches and focus on color mixing by using multiple threads in their needle at the same time.  I ended up stitching this inchy sampler while I was there while I demonstrated the basic stitches.  It ended up being very relaxing finishing it up in the evenings and it showed the effect of mixing complementary colors.  Overall, it was pretty fun to stitch this sampler and compare the different rows and stitches to each other.

I used Appletons wool on linen twill.  Bottom line is 1 strand of purple, next row up is 1 strand purple + 1 strand yellow, 3rd row up is 2 strands purple + 1 strand yellow and top row is 3 strands purple + 1 strand yellow.  The stitches are all basic:  bullion knots, straight stitch, running stitch and stem stitch, chain stitch, cross stitch and french knots.

Penland: Working in Lilly Loom Studio

Last week I had the unbelievably amazing experience of teaching at Penland. Penland is just magical.  Truly if you ever have the opportunity to go there- go!  I have never experienced such generosity in knowledge and encouraging spirit in my life.  It will certainly be a memory I will treasure!

Growing up just an hour from here, Penland was always on a pedestal.  Only true artists went there!  It has been a dream of mine to go so to be given the opportunity to teach there was truly unbelievable.  I also got to choose my studio assistant, so I brought my student from NC State, Sydney Jones.  She had been a stand out student of mine in my Color Theory in Embroidery course and I had asked her to come with me after that class.  I think both of us "came down the mountain a different person" as Carola (one of the students in the workshop) phrased it. 

 My workshop was on the top floor of the Lilly Loom building with massive windows overlooking the mountains.  It was incredible because you could work in studio without feeling like you were really "indoors"!   The group of students I had was very diverse.  Two of my students were mothers of two of the other instructors, both of them also artists in their own right as well.  One was a husband to one of the instructors.  A few students were trying out embroidery for the first time.  A few had a good bit of stitching experience.  A couple had never been to Penland before and we had Carola who had been to over 15 Penland summers!  She had also done the workshop with Luke Haynes earlier in the summer and stitched some on her smaller quilt she had done in his workshop.  She was filled with stories, both about Penland and life in general and it was so much fun listening to them all!  

 Michelle stitching away.  She was using french knots mixed with chain stitches in a beautiful way to render water.  It was lovely to see the subtle ripple the mix of stitches created.

 Sydney is one of my talented NC State College of Design students and was an excellent Studio Assistant for me!  I had taken my class over to the "Japanese Binding and Decorative Papers" workshop by Yukari Hayashida.  Seeing the beautiful marbling and papers that her class was making inspired some of my students to try some marbling and rust dyeing. It was really such an amazing experience to be able to go and visit other studios and see how it influenced the students in my workshop. 

 The view from my room window.

  Ann showing her progress during a group show and tell session.  Hillary Fayle was the Studio Assistant for Leigh Suggs' workshop and shared her work with my class.  It was amazing meeting her and hearing about her process of making her embroidered leaves and seeing her new work.  Lots of us are now excited to experiment stitching with leaves, etc.  See Ann's leaf that she embroidered below too!

 

Kit was working on interpreting the colors of the trees in the woods.  He is married to the incredibly talented Deborah Horrell who was teaching the "Small, Smaller" workshop with Tom Spelth. 

 Helen describing her piece to everyone during a group show and tell.  She had painted a beautifully delicate arrangement of flowers and focused on using 1 strand of floss to add subtle detailing.

 Sydney found an old rag in the dye lab that had some beautiful colors and stains on it so she decided to use it for the ground fabric.  She is using mixes of metal thread techniques and thread mixing to respond to the colors and shapes on the dish rag.  I keep telling her to turn the hoop over because it is hard to see how much she has stitched until you see the stitching on the back! 

 Becky hanging up her silk organza that she has painted on with some pigments.  She also completed a beautiful inchy sampler using colors extracted from a piece of kudzu that she brought in and experimenting with different numbers of strands and color mixing.

 

To say this has been an amazing experience is such an understatement.  The people I have taught and met at Penland are magical.  Thank you to everyone who has made this time so special. 

UK: Stitching a Cultural Identity- Week 2, Classes Started at the Royal School of Needlework, Guided Tour of Hampton Court Palace, Hangout with Mr. X Stitch, Oxford and St. Paul's Cathedral

Week 2 started off with a guided tour of Hampton Court Palace with historian Vanda Nadolny.  She showed us through the palace explaining the history of the palace and the people that have graced its halls throughout the centuries.  She focused especially on the tapestries, describing to us the stories and process behind the creation of the tapestries and how they are cared for today. 

I'll update this shortly with a link to Rachel's blog post about this tour. 

Monday evening, we enjoyed an exciting trip up to King's Cross to "Drink, Shop, Do" and cross stitching with Mr. X Stitch himself at his X Stitch Hangout.  If you are ever in London on the first Monday of the month, I highly recommend it!  The cakes and drinks are delicious and the cross stitching is so much fun!  Jamie, Mr. X Stitch, teaches you the basics of cross stitch and provides a great environment with other stitch enthusiasts and stitch curious people.  

Notice Jamie wore his NC State hoodie from when he visited NC State to present a lecture and cross stitch workshop to our students in Raleigh!

Check out Angela's video blog post about our evening with Mr. X Stitch here.

Tuesday was the students first official day at the Royal School of Needlework (RSN).  There was a lot of excitement as we met Natalie from the RSN and she walked us up to our classroom at Hampton Court Palace.  The RSN tutor for the students was Mandy Ewing.  Mandy was amazing and the students and I loved her.  She is so very, very knowledgeable and had a great sense of humor!  She had just gotten back from teaching for the RSN in Williamsburg, VA, USA in May with Tracy Franklin and Jenny Adin-Christie. 

The students spent Tuesdays and Thursdays for 4 weeks stitching at the RSN.  Mandy taught them 2 weeks of crewelwork and 2 weeks of goldwork, focusing on lots of sampling and starting a final motif that combined the two techniques.  When I developed this program, I thought these two techniques would complement the appointments we were going to and also would give the students a range of new skills (also thinking that if they weren't a huge fan of one they would probably like the other).  

On Day 1 of the RSN, the students received their scroll frames and materials kits.  They spent the morning learning the proper way of framing up and then embarked on their crewel adventure!  It was really fun watching them all so excited about beginning to stitch.  I especially enjoyed seeing the colors they chose for their crewelwork as you could really see their personalities come out in their choices. 

 Angela and Gillian choosing colors.

 

Rachel framing up.

  

Everyone getting ready to start to stitch!

 The view from our classroom!  

You can read the student's blog posts at links below:

Ashley wrote about the Royal School of Needlework

Rachel wrote about the 1st week of classes at the RSN-- updating post will blog link shortly!

Wednesday we took the train to Oxford.  Excited about their projects they started at the Mr. X Stitch Hangout, Carly, Katelynn and Rachel all spent the time on the train cross stitching away!

We enjoyed a two hour walking tour of Oxford with our animated guide Tom, a local writer and Oxford graduate.  It was quite exciting to see all the different colleges and gardens.  Oxford is beautiful and filled with history and stories!  We then had an appointment in the Study Room at the Ashmolean Museum to see some amazing examples of 17th Century stumpwork.

 I'll update this shortly with a link to Rachel's blog post about this tour.

Our last stop during Week 2 was St. Paul's Cathedral.  We arrived right as they were opening so the students were able to tour the inside before the crowds got very crazy.  Then we went up to the Broiderers' studio to meet with Anita (head broiderer) and two of her volunteer broiderers.  They were so generous with the students and I with their knowledge and process.  We were able to see new projects they were working on, restoration projects they were doing and pieces from the collection at St. Paul's.  My all time favorite has to be the Hammersmith Cope with the Jubilee Cope not far behind on my list.

It was so amazing for the students to see such a wealth of different techniques and mixes of techniques.  Additionally, it was truly wonderful having the tour with the broiderers as they explained their whole process and different decisions with the students for both new and restoration projects.  All three embroiderers were trained at the RSN and also shared experiences of the different projects they had done during their training and as part of the RSN.

During our St. Paul's trip, we were also able to see the "miniature" model of St. Paul's (if you ever go you must see this!!!! It's part of the Triforium tour) and climbed the roughly 600 steps up to the top to see an amazing view of London.  It was actually sunny for us too so we could see for miles!

You can read more from Katelynn's blog post here. 

Week 3 and 4 coming shortly :)!