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It’s occurred to me that I haven’t yet posted pictures of all the things I showed at this year’s NEOS exhibition, so that’s what we have this week. This is a first attempt of an idea that’s been haunting me for a while. When you spend a lot of time watching natural things like birds and plants and insects, sometimes they can seem to be turning into each other, That is, if you look at a mass of coloured butterflies fluttering above a bed-full of colourful flowers, it can be difficult to tell immediately which is which. So I’ve been working on some designs that use this idea, and this is the first one to be finished. I’m not sure just how successful it is, but it was popular at the show and I think it was eventually sold

 

Transformation

There are several other things in the pipeline that are along these same lines – I’ll post them when they’re finished

Now – in the good old days, I used to have no problems posting new designs here every week or 10 days – but that was when the things I did were a lot simpler! Today I work just as much on the designs, but the problem is that because they’re becoming larger and more complicated, there’s usually no way I can finish them off in just a week. So it’s just not going to be possible to post as often as I once did, for which I’m very sorry – I really enjoy posting and reading readers’ comments. But I’ll still post whenever I can, and will keep on putting up free designs every few weeks, so I hope you’ll know that I’m still here

It’s very strange but the first two blog readers to comment on yesterday’s free pigeon both said that if he were lonely, then all anyone had to do was to stitch him several times, and he’d have some companions

Well, if anyone actually wants to stitch a flock of pigeons, then the least I can do is to provide some of them! So here are two more from the same flock that will go with the first one

Two more for the flock

One word of warning – when I pass on designs to anyone I always stitch them out and watch carefully just to make sure that there are no glitches or problems with them. Of course I’ve stitched these two out, but as I never thought anyone else would be using them I may possibly have left one or two small mistakes in them. But even if I have, the quality of the final stitchouts should be OK

So HERE is number 2 and HERE is number 3, in .pes v6. As always, let me know if you can’t download them

 

November is getting on and I still owe you a freebie for the month. So – here’s yet another bird! Last year I prepared a really big piece for our September exhibition, inspired by the huge flocks of pigeons we see here benefitting from the farmers’ autumn flocks. The farmers may not like them, but I find them really attractive – the birds are beautiful in themselves, and the sheer size of the flocks is just breathtaking. So I did a picture of part of a flock for the exhibition

A flock for the exhibition

Although not everybody would want a big flock of pigeons, I thought that just one bird might be lucky enough to find a home somewhere. So here’s a single pigeon taking off, perhaps looking for his flock-mates

The lonely pigeon

It’s for the 4 x 4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop, and it’s embroidery only (no applique). To download it in .pesv6, just click HERE

As you may know, recently some readers have not been able to download these files from the blog. Most people have no problems, but for some others it’s just impossible. So if you are one of those, drop me a line via the “Comments” section of the blog and I’ll send the file to you as an e-mail attachment, which usually works. Good luck!

 

Anybody who reads this blog will know that I have a major obsession with birds. There are just so many things you can do with a bird’s image – it can be dramatic, artistic, colourful or natural, and still look good. So at the moment I’m working on several new collections of birds of different kinds, and here are two of my recent “Comic Birds”. They both started life as herons, as you can see, but they’ve rather developed into comic creatures

Maybe an ex-blue heron?

Yes, who would meddle with him, indeed!

Rather to my surprise, I sold that last grey heron at a recent exhibition. It was bought by an elderly Scots lady who for some reason took a strong liking to it. However she wanted me to add something to it – she wanted me to embroider the words “Fa wud meddle wi’ me?” underneath it. And if, like me, you’re not all that familiar with the Doric dialect (which is spoken in Northeast Scotland), apparently that means “Who would meddle with me?” said in a warning, aggressive tone of voice

As I’ve mentioned from time to time, I was brought up in a family of artists in Chicago. Among my parents’ friends was Max Kahn, a kind and gentle man, and a well-known artist and lithographer. Not only was I fond of Max, I liked his work as well

The other day I found an old card featuring one of Max’s lithographs, and it took me back to the old days when we would visit Max and his wife, artist Eleanor Coen, in their studio and see their recent work.

Max’s cat – the original

After some thought I decided to try and express Max’s idea in embroidery. I don’t usually copy other people’s work, but I didn’t think Max would have minded, and I thought that embroidery would express the texture of the cat’s coat and the little girl’s hair

A tribute to Max’s cat

I’m not sure if it’s a success or not, but it reminds me of those old days. Who knows – if he was still with us, maybe Max would have tried designing for machine embroidery himself!

Oh well, that’s enough of arty things. Next week I’ll be back to the more decorative

A couple of months ago I was busy preparing pieces to exhibit at our NEOS show. I had recently finished work on a flock of siskins – those little brightly coloured birds which we have in abundance here in the Scottish Highlands.  I chose a simple light green background to stitch them out on, but when I saw the result I wasn’t happy. These little birds are always scurrying around in the middle of leafy trees and bushes, and the stitchout just looked too plain and bare to me

 

Simple siskins

So I painted a background that reflected more accurately the leafy background that you see where they usually live, and tried again

Well, it was certainly a more realistic background, but again I wasn’t happy. Was it maybe too “busy”? Could you see the little birds clearly enough?

Complicated siskins

In the end I chose the second “busy” version to frame and exhibit, and it was sold, but I’m still not sure which was the best. And I’m still brooding about it!

I won’t be posting for a while now as we’re going down to Edinburgh for a short break, but I”ll be back later in the month

As usual, some people have been having problems downloading the last freebie.But I've had a very interesting message from a blog reader who has some advice that might be useful:

 

"I could not download the design by just clicking on  the design , but when I  used my  mouse and right clicked on the pes file  and did a save as, the design came right up."

 

This might be worth trying

Well, I’m pretty much recovered from all the stresses of the NEOS exhibition, and I see that it’s about time for a new freebie. I found this design in my old files and have no idea where it came from originally, but it’s pretty much in a Pennsylvania Dutch style so I suppose it must have come from my old folk art days

An unstitched folk art bird

I did stitch it out but the stitchout seems to have disappeared and I think someone must have bought it at the NEOS show without my noticing. But because it’s gone I can’t post a scan of it, so this image taken directly from the design file will have to do. The design is HERE: it’s for the 4×4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop, and it’s in .pes v.6

Now – some readers may remember that for a couple of months now I’ve been having major problems uploading these files. It had something to do with some things that had been happening at Typepad, but I HOPE they’ve got it sorted out now. Anyway, if you want this design but can’t get it, drop me a line via the “Comments” section, and I’ll send it to you directly.

Good luck!

Going over the collection of embroideries that I had at our NEOS exhibition, I see to my dismay that I seem to be doing the same things over and over again – colourful birds in green bushes, fish in Celtic scrolls embellished with Mylar – always the same things. I MUST find some other sources of inspiration.

Since I’ve realised this I’ve begun to work on some definitely different things, but they’re not yet finished, so for the time being I’ll just have to post some of the “old school” designs and hope that too many people don’t unsubscribe in weariness at the same old stuff

So here are yet more fish with Mylar, in the same familiar style. I can’t seem to keep away from Mylar fish, and they do look very appealing. These were one of my most popular pieces at the exhibition and commanded a lot of attention – most people just couldn’t imagine what gave the fish that interesting shine – and the framed picture eventually found a new home

 

Do they look familiar?

Anyway, now that the show is over for this year it’s back to normal design life, and I’ll now work on a freebie or two for next week

Well, that’s our yearly exhibition over, and as usual it was fun and exhausting at the same time. The North East Open Studios event is always well-supported, and involves almost all of the artists who live in this area, and our local exhibition was as popular as always. There was a great deal of interest in the embroideries – people weren’t used to seeing embroidery used in a way so different from the usual cross-stitch and crewel work. I was particularly pleased to see that the pieces with Mylar were of particular interest, and they also sold well. I must do some more of those!

Anyway, here are a couple of photographs of my table and some of the works 

The table, with the machine set up and loose embroideries scattered around for people to handle

 

Some of the wall art pieces, a few of which I’ve shown in past posts, and others which I still have to post.