Just so people don't worry, I will be offline until the 2nd Oct, 2007 as I will be at Spring War.
27 September 2007
25 September 2007
Slip Patterns and Silk Thread
To answer a couple of questions from the comments.
The patterns for the slips I am working on are adaptions from period examples. These ones come from the set of uncut slips from Traquair House in Scotland. They are late 16th/early 17th Century. The patterns were good but not quite the right shape, so I changed the orientation and made them squarer. When they are sewn on they will have a rough diamond shape to them, which is seen on many other period examples.
I think there are images of these slips in Historical Needlework: A Study of Influences in Scotland and Northern England by Margaret Swain.
The silk I am using on this project is a flat, non-twist silk that I buy from a nice person in China via eBay. The prices are very reasonable and you can order single colours if you like.
The patterns for the slips I am working on are adaptions from period examples. These ones come from the set of uncut slips from Traquair House in Scotland. They are late 16th/early 17th Century. The patterns were good but not quite the right shape, so I changed the orientation and made them squarer. When they are sewn on they will have a rough diamond shape to them, which is seen on many other period examples.
I think there are images of these slips in Historical Needlework: A Study of Influences in Scotland and Northern England by Margaret Swain.
The silk I am using on this project is a flat, non-twist silk that I buy from a nice person in China via eBay. The prices are very reasonable and you can order single colours if you like.
23 September 2007
Yellow Slip Pattern
This is the pattern for the last of the slips, the yellow. The second picture is the slip at two hours work. I have run out of one of the greens required, so I have ordered some more. I will work on all the others areas and leave that till last. I should have enough time to get it all done.
22 September 2007
Devil's Food Cake
Needed a break from sewing so I made a cake. Got carried away with the decoration!
21 September 2007
Pharaoh Drinking
He loves to drink running water. Normally, he uses his water fountain, but sometimes he still likes to play in the bath with the shower head.
This is my boy playing in the water. He doesn't like baths but he is a bit of a water baby. He is standing in the water coming out of the shower head.
20 September 2007
Blue Slip Finished
I had the day off today and managed to get the blue slip finished. I ran out of one of the colour greens. I had ordered more but they sent me the wrong ones back and I forgot to reorder the correct colours, so there is one bit with a slightly lighter green in it. I am going to work on all the bits of the last slip - the yellow one - and hopefully the green will arrive in time.
19 September 2007
Getting High Resolution Images from the Victoria and Albert Museum Online Image Gallery
The Victorian and Albert Museum has started a new service on their online images gallery. You can now "order" high resolution images of items displayed in the gallery.
You need to register with the website. Once you have done this and logged in, as you use the search engine to find images, just under the right hand bottom corner is a link saying: Order High Res Image.
Click on the link. It will then add it to your order. Once you've finished adding the images you want, you use the left hand navigation bar to "View Your Order". Once you've completed the required details and promised to abide by the usage instructions, it will then send you a link to a page to download the high resolution images.
The first time I used it, it sent the link to me via email. But the second time it didn't. If you don't get the link within a few hours, you can view the order by clicking on "Recent Order History". Click on the order number, and the link will come up.
Once you have downloaded the images, clear the order so that you aren't using the museums valuable storage space. They are being very generous and user friendly by providing this service, so it is of benefit to us to be polite and follow their requests.
Due to the technical issues, you can only order 30 images at a time.
Email or IM me if you have problems.
You need to register with the website. Once you have done this and logged in, as you use the search engine to find images, just under the right hand bottom corner is a link saying: Order High Res Image.
Click on the link. It will then add it to your order. Once you've finished adding the images you want, you use the left hand navigation bar to "View Your Order". Once you've completed the required details and promised to abide by the usage instructions, it will then send you a link to a page to download the high resolution images.
The first time I used it, it sent the link to me via email. But the second time it didn't. If you don't get the link within a few hours, you can view the order by clicking on "Recent Order History". Click on the order number, and the link will come up.
Once you have downloaded the images, clear the order so that you aren't using the museums valuable storage space. They are being very generous and user friendly by providing this service, so it is of benefit to us to be polite and follow their requests.
Due to the technical issues, you can only order 30 images at a time.
Email or IM me if you have problems.
18 September 2007
Slips - All - In Progress
I thought I'd post a progress shot to show what the full piece of fabric looks like. I have to decide what colour fabric to put them on. What do people think? Red, blue, green, black?
17 September 2007
16 September 2007
Flower Pattern
This is the pattern I used for my pink bag. It is free for personal use. You can share with people in hard copy form. That is, you can give people print outs or photocopies, but not post it on your own websites. Feel free to link back here.
15 September 2007
14 September 2007
Stash
Apparently Malaysia is the world home of cheap ribbon. I was able to pick up these very nice colours of ric rac very cheaply on ebay.
13 September 2007
Purple Slip @ 16 Hours Work
I haven't been working on it much. I had a very unproductive but enjoyable weekend of watching lots of movies. I tend to be a tv show person more than movies, but I was in a movie mood.
It's been extremely busy at work and will continue to be for a few more weeks, so the blogging may be intermittant during that period.
7 September 2007
Giving Embroidery Movement
Sigarda is currently working on a piece whose design is based on the Lindisfarne Gospels. The coversation turned to stitch selection. She is currently working a section in chain stitch. I suggested that using split stitch might give the work some movement. It's a bit hard to describe what I mean, but it's the effect you get when you hold this work up to the light at an angle, and it has light coming off in different directions, following the direction of the stitching. Even though it's flat, their is direction and texture in the work.
The silk heraldic work above hints at what I'm talking about.
5 September 2007
Not Feeling The Love
People, I am not feeling the love. There is a distinct lack of comments on the blog. Are my posts boring?
So, I am going to use a tried and true method to get some feedback - bribery!! ;-)
I have a heap of Aunt Martha and other transfers for embroidery that I don't have any use for. So if you would like some free transfers, please leave a comment on any of the posts on this blog.
Feel free to comment on an old post or one of the newer topics. Comment on the post or a general comment on what you like about this blog or what could be done to improve it.
Or, post a link to your blog or pictures of your embroidery work so we can all check it out. At the end of the week, every comment (that's right, each comment earns an entry) will be put in a hat (either Elizabethan cap or Aussie Akubra) and I will draw three names to receive transfers. Comment early, comment often!!
So, I am going to use a tried and true method to get some feedback - bribery!! ;-)
I have a heap of Aunt Martha and other transfers for embroidery that I don't have any use for. So if you would like some free transfers, please leave a comment on any of the posts on this blog.
Feel free to comment on an old post or one of the newer topics. Comment on the post or a general comment on what you like about this blog or what could be done to improve it.
Or, post a link to your blog or pictures of your embroidery work so we can all check it out. At the end of the week, every comment (that's right, each comment earns an entry) will be put in a hat (either Elizabethan cap or Aussie Akubra) and I will draw three names to receive transfers. Comment early, comment often!!
4 September 2007
Art of Knitting - Block 4
This one was a bit tricky. Still need to work on handling the second colour wool.
2 September 2007
Finished Pink Pillowcase
I finally found the finished embroidery for the pillowcase - it had fallen behind a cupboard. So I made it up on the weekend.
1 September 2007
Pink Floral Bag
I made this bag on today. I made the flower pattern myself. The bag looks a bit wobbly but it is actually square. The pink fabric is Heather Bailey.