When I started this blog, it was with the intention it would be a blog of my work (and I have pretty closely adhered by that). Well, could I ever set myself up a more difficult task? I have trouble keeping up with the blog because I have trouble producing enough work to share!
I debated on showing the piece below to you but I do it for a couple of reasons. First, to ask you, have you all seen a renewed interest in embroidery? I am seeing evidence of it all around me and wonder if I am just taking note and it has been there all along or is embroidery on the upswing again. And secondly, I want to share a couple of links to work that I find beautiful. This one is to recent embroidery, the work of Rosemary Milner (who I know nothing about other than I find her work so endearing). The other is to an exhibit of very old (18th century) bits and pieces of textiles (including embroidery) left with abandoned babies at a foundling hospital. The former inspired me to do the piece below, the latter feeds my nostalgic wonderment.
This insect was stitched on my sewing machine using free motion embroidering (no guidelines were used, hence the slight skewing!) on top of a piece of vintage (antique?) lace given to me years ago by my mother’s friend, Sybil, on top of a sample piece of matelasse given to me by an interior designer. (lucky me to have such generous friends!) I hand stitched onto the bee (I can stitch better but I wanted that amateur feel!!) It measures about 3.25″ x 6.25″.