PORTRAIT OF ESTHER

 

 

At last I have completed the stitched picture of my niece Esther.  She is an enigmatic soul with a big heart and I wanted to capture that spirit in this portrait.

 

 

I clipped this picture from a recent photo to use as the basis.

 

 

The first step is to print out the photo to the required size which I then tape to my led light box.

 

I lay a piece of cotton organdie on top and draw the outline in erasable gel pen that disappears when I iron the finished piece.

The next step is to choose the background fabric and the colours I want to use for the stitching.

I found this lovely colourful batik in my collection and some pieces of bronze and blue organza to use to give depth to her hair.

 

Here is the portrait after the initial stitching has been completed. I've used running stitch for the hair in different shades of brown, backstitch for the outline and satin stitch for her lips. 

The next step is to interface the face area with some iron on interfacing, I use a very fine woven cotton one as it works well with the cotton organdie.

 

I use the light box again to trace Esther's name and birthday along the sides and mark where the boundary of the portrait will be.

Now the fun starts, I pin and tack the portrait to the background and start the decoration by stitching through both layers following the patterns on the background. Then I made a line of running stitch on the boundary which I whipped with a contrasting thread.

 

Finally I carefully trimmed away the excess organdie and then I decided to re-stitch the script in a stronger colour as the pale colour didn't stand out enough.

I've used this method on several of my family portraits now and soon they will all be assembled into a wall hanging to celebrate the centenary of my mother's birth next year.

ANNUAL AUTUMN FAMILY VISIT

 

 

 I'm back from my annual visit to the family in England.

 For the first week I had a fun time with Jo, James and Jimmy my grandson.  Here he is with the book we made together after he saw my tiny suitcase padlock.  He thought it would be great to have one to lock up his 'Mission Impossible' book. We shopped for the chain and other bits and pieces to make him a belt too.  He had acquired the book fabric for free earlier in the week when after waiting patiently in the shop for his turn the shopkeeper gave it to him for being so well behaved!

 

I showed Jimmy how to fold and prepare the pages before he stitched them together with the cardboard for the cover.  I cut and hand stitched the fabric cover and made an elasticated pocket for the front to carry the key ring as per his instructions. We then attached it to the card with wundaweb hem tape and with a colourful Marvel fabric to line the inside cover.  If you look closely at the writing you can see how proud he is of our joint production.

 

We had a day alone together when Jo was at work and what fun we had walking to the beach only 20 minutes down the hill from their home at Whitstable.  Here is Jimmy pointing out where they used to live, the Isle of Sheppey away in the distance on the horizon.

 

 

We pottered along the beach collecting pebbles to paint and shells to draw, how lucky we were to have such a beautiful sunny day.

 

Here are my sketches with Jimmy's signature.

 

Halloween was coming too so we made the traditional carved pumpkin and Jimmy added some luminous teeth as ears as well in the mouth!

 

I didn't have a lot of time for sketching as we were so busy doing other things but here is a quick one I captured when he sat still for long enough!

 

Anther sewing project we designed together was a tool belt using some fabric Jimmy discovered in the sewing shop, it's got pencil holders and a key clip as well as the hanging pocket. The Darth Vader belt carrier is attached with Velcro so it can be taken off and used as a wristband.  I had to wait till I got to Justine's to make it on her sewing machine and use her eyelet tools for the belt holes.  Jimmy was thrilled with it when I presented it to him on Saturday.

 

And finally, a bit of stitchpicking I found time for in the evenings when we were relaxing in front of the TV. A portrait of my darling grandson copied from a photo taken when he was only a day old.

I'll be back next week with part two of the visit, culminating in the big fancy dress party.

UK SPRING TRIP 2015

 

We're home at last from our spring family visit to England and we managed to see all of our family during the 12 days we were there.

The trip started with the ferry from St Malo to Portsmouth which takes all day and is a very relaxing way to cross the channel.  This is a sketch I drew just before the boat set off but I didn't do any more drawing, can't think why although I was engrossed in a rather good book I was reading on my Kindle!

 

After a day of shopping at Marks and Spencer for our annual top up of new clothes and shoes we spent the night at a hotel in Winchester.  On Saturday morning we went to Bournemouth to the Russell Cotes museum to see an exhibition of Alphonse Mucha's posters and sketches. 

 

 If you don't know his work here are a couple of copies of his posters I have done in coloured pencil.  He was famous for his Art Nouveau posters and it was wonderful to see them for real, they are over 6 feet tall and printed in quite muted colours. There were also some of his paintings and sketches on display as well as some of his designs for household items like spoons.

 

 

We sat and watched a biographical film of Mucha's life and were amazed at the amount of other work he did, in particular a series of 20 enormous paintings of the history of his home country, Czechoslovakia, which he donated to the national museum before he died in 1939.  If you live in England it's well worth the visit to see this exhibition and the museum it is being held in is equally fascinating being a Victorian house on the cliffs overlooking the sea and filled with amazing collections of art and artefacts from all over the world. 

 

 

Our next rendezvous was on Sunday morning with all of Bob's family for his Mum's 'Christmas' get together which usually happens in the spring as we don't go to England in December.  We met all the brothers and sisters in law at a local pub restaurant for a delicious lunch after which we took Mum back with us to the log cabin at Tilford we had booked for a week's holiday.

 

Tilford is only about 45 minutes drive from Mum's home so it wasn't too much of a strain for her and we had organised a bedroom with ensuite bathroom for her to make everything as easy as possible. 

Farnham town was only a short distance and we went in several times to shop and enjoy a coffee in the sunshine.  We were very lucky with the weather, sunshine every day all the time we were there so we were able to sit on our veranda in the afternoons and I managed a few more sketches which I'll show you on the next post in a few days.