HAPPY CHRISTMAS

 

It is nearly Christmas so I can now share with you my cards for this year.

 

My daughter and her family are going skiing in Sweden this year so I decided to base their cards on a typical Swedish symbol.

 

The Dala horse has been made in Sweden for centuries, originally by carpenters for their children using up scraps of wood and then for sale to earn some extra money.

 

The traditional colour is red and they come in many sizes but I decided to use some of my fabric scraps to embroider using my own wooden horse as a model.  This mauve fabric is from a cashmere jumper Justine gave me a few years ago,  I love the contrast against the zigzags.

 

Although most of the horses are red or blue I had a lot of fun choosing suitable backgrounds for each person.  I gave Kirsty the hearts as I feel she's a romantic person.

 

Sarah loves trees so she got a scrap of silver birches, a favourite tree seen all over Sweden.

 

Steph got the blue sky as she loves geography and is a bit of a dreamer, often found staring into space!

 

 

And finally here's the card I made and printed to send to the rest of the family and friends, a drawing inspired by the Christmas tree mat my mother embroidered when I was a baby.  We were living in Sweden at the time, 1950, and I was the first of four children.  The mat has been used every year since then although for the first time it's now under Joanna's tree as I thought it was time to pass it down through the family.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo before I handed it over, maybe I'll have to ask her to take one for me.

Have a very Happy Christmas everyone and I'll be back soon. 

 

 

 

 

STITCHPIC SKETCHBOOKS

 

Hello everyone, thank you for popping in to see what's going on in my blogland, no doubt you're all busy with Christmas preparations so I thought a couple of escapist images might cheer you up!

I have been busy hand stitching little pictures and I came up with the idea of putting them on sketchbooks as gifts for family and friends.

 

These first two are for a charming French couple who we met through Luba and Hervé.  Michel gave me a huge stash of knitting yarns recently when he was clearing out his ex wife's house after she died and I have used some of them in this picture of the sea at Perros, attached to a piece of Luba's linen.

 

This was my first stitched cover, sketchbook no 43, inspired by a photo taken by an English friend Rose Jones.

 

 

 

My lichen got attached to a sketchbook for my niece Esther's birthday.

 

Luba got the lily I stitched using more of the samples she gave me in the spring.

 

I spent a few weeks in the autumn embroidering Dala horses for my family Christmas cards but one got left behind so I added some Japanese style boro stitching to bring the thin layers of the fabric background together and attach it to the velour spine and back of the cover.

 

As you can see I've already put the year and book number on the spine, something I usually do in gold outliner pen when the book is completed.  This one is coming on holiday with me in January when we go to the Canaries for some winter sunshine.

 

 

And finally a very special project I made for my granddaughter's 17th birthday in November.

She has left school and begun to study art at college and I wanted to give her a memorable sketchbook to use.  Thinking about her love of trees and her interest in graffiti I collaged her name in scraps of nature inspired fabrics onto a piece of black linen then stitched all over in pale green. 

The book is A4 in size, the biggest I've ever made and quite hard to handle when stitching the signatures together. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the finished article so you'll just have to imagine the cover with her name wrapped around from front to back.  I'm looking forward to my next visit to see what she has drawn in it.

BUSY WINTER STITCHING

 

Hi everybody, sorry I've been away from the blog for a while keeping busy making things for sale as well as presents for family and no doubt you're all tied up with Christmas preparations too.  My needlework has taken over my life and I'm really loving interpreting my sketches as stitchpics.  Here is one of the strange yellow sky that happened in October after storm Ophelia.

 

While I was in England I acquired some water soluble stabiliser and couldn't wait to try making a picture with it using tiny fabric scraps and yarns from my wool stash.  I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and I have made a couple more to make into cards for birthdays.

 

I went to my bookbinding friend in the village to collect some tape and while I was there Ann showed me her hand-made paper scraps left over from her professional bookbinding work which are far too pretty and precious to throw away.  I said I would be happy to take them off her hands to use for my artistic projects and came home with a bag full of all colours and sizes.

 

I wove some strips into a piece big enough to cover a book and I think it has turned out rather well.  There's plenty more to have a go with later when I get the time so I'll share them with you later.

 

I've been busy stitching Swedish Dala horses for another project and here is one I kept for myself to cover a book with.

 

 

It was just the right size for a square book, no 44 in my sequence so I stitched the number and year on the spine before I completed the binding.

 

 

My portrait collection is coming along too and here is Joanna my youngest daughter with her lovely smile.

 

And her son baby James a few hours after his birth nearly 6 years ago.

 

 

And finally Justine posing by a tree with her hair blowing in the wind, glamorous as always!