I have to apologise for missing a week of blogging, but I have an excellent excuse! A couple of weeks ago Storm Arwen hit Britain and totally flattened most of Aberdeenshire and Moray, as well as quite a lot of other parts of the UK. Thousands of trees were thrown down and most of the electricity system for this area was trashed. We were without power for over a week, and although many people were a lot worse hit than we were, still it was not a comfortable time. So I thought that in the circumstances we were in need of something bright and cheerful!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a circular design which was inspired by Mexican folk art. This week we have another in much the same style – perhaps less "Mexican" in feeling and more American folk- arty, but all the same from much the same school. Here's the inspiring design

 

The original folk art birds-in-a-tree

 

and here is the embroidery.

 

An embroidered version

You can see the similarities but also the differences between the two. The original painted version is much more detailed and intricate, and of course embroidery can't always be forced into that kind of fine detail. But both versions are at least cheerful!

Anyway – I will be taking a couple of weeks off from blogging to allow for the holiday season, as we probably have more to think about at the moment than embroidery. But I will be back in the new year with a couple of freebies to celebrate 2022, and to hope that the coming year will be easier and happier than 2021 has been for many of us. I wish you all a very happy and peaceful holiday season

Well, it is (almost) Christmas, so a few more seasonal designs may be welcome. These two are quite straightforward – both for the 5×7 inch (130 x 180 mm), with no applique and very few colours, so they don't need worksheets – it's pretty obvious what colour goes where. On the other hand, the stitching is quite dense – there are a lot of stitches and the designs take a surprisingly long time to stitch out. Here is a swirly Christmas tree

 

The swirly tree

 

and here is a branch of holly. I used metallic silver for the star on the tree, and metallic gold on the holly's bow, which adds a nice sparkle

 

The holly

 

Here is the file for the tree, and here is the holly, both in .pes v.6

 

Oh – I nearly forgot – may I wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all the blog's American readers. We don't celebrate it here in the UK so it does tend to pass by un-noticed, which is a pity because I always used to love it when I lived in the US

 

An old friend of my husband's, who has lived in Aberdeenshire for many years, is very interested in Scottish castles, and over the years has taught us a lot about their fascinating history. My husband thought that I might be able to make him an embroidery of a castle as a Christmas present, so I've been working hard on that. It wasn't easy. In many ways, a castle is better suited to be the subject of a painting rather than an embroidery. Our castles are very old and rather crumbly, after all, and perhaps not suited to the crisp, clean finish of most machine embroidery.

 

Craigievar Castle, from the 17th century

But I tried my best with Craigievar Castle, which is not all that far away from where we live. It's not too bad, but I think the embroidery only really works because both the background fabric and the applique fabric are hand-painted in a pretty rough, sketchy manner, suited to a centuries-old castle. Never mind – you can still tell that it's Craigievar, and I hope that John will like it.

As I've mentioned before, although I love Christmas and the Christmas season, I do NOT like the way that the holiday has been extending further and further back in the calendar – Christmas carols in November and all that sort of thing. However I do appreciate that if you're going to do embroidery with a festive theme, you do have to start early. So here (in November, I'm afraid…) are three squares with a holiday theme. You could use them in Christmas cards, on mug mats or on all sorts of Christmas table linen

 

    Christmas 1

 

Christmas 2

 

Christmas 3

 

I don't think these designs really need worksheets – they're all for the 4 inch x 4 inch (100 mm x 100 mm) hoop, and all of them have one applique area (that's the square background). You just need to follow the colour instructions and you should produce work that's pretty much like the pictures. I did use a metallic silver thread for the "Silver" colour which does add a nice festive shine to the results

Anyway, here is number 1, here is number 2, and here is number 3 – all in .pes v.6

For some reason I seem to be doing a lot of cats recently. I'm not sure why – certainly I'm very fond of cats but I like dogs too and indeed I like all animals and include a lot of them in my work. But there's something just so appealing about cats' furry coats that seems to ask to be interpreted in embroidery. And when you consider the complicated stripy pattern that you see in tabby cats – well, it's irresistible to the digitiser!

 

A furry kitten

This is done in the "scribble style" that I've been using a lot recently. First I applique a fabric shape onto the background, then overstitch it lightly and finally scribble over it in various colours. As usual with scans of these works, you can't see the furriness of the stitchout in much detail, but take my word for it – the kitten really looks quite furry! However it's not quite right – I think maybe it needs another colour worked in there somewhere, and I'll remember that when I do my next tabby cat. So it's not a perfect replica of a tabby kitten but it's not too bad

OK, I know – you paint with paint and you embroider with thread. But embroidery is a craft, and like all crafts it is limited by the techniques that you must use to make it. But let's start with painting. This is a spectacular example of Mexican folk art that's been in my "Inspiration" file for years.

The original painting

I was reminded of it recently when it was sent to me by a blog reader, who said that she'd had it digitised so she could stitch it out. Well, nobody could blame her for that – it's really beautiful. BUT – she then said that the digitised version had involved 4,999 colour changes. 4,999! And goodness knows how many jumps there would have been. So in the first place it would have taken an absolute AGE to stitch out – imagine changing the thread 5000 times!  But also the back of the piece would have been matted with knots – not only those caused by starting and finishing a colour, but also because of all the jumps.

So, as beautiful as this design is, it is intended to be a painting and NOT an embroidery. But I liked it so much that I was tempted to interpret it in a design that could be easily embroidered. As you can see this is not a copy, but I hope it has the same energy and spirit as the painting that inspired it

 

Embroidery inspired by the painting

There are a few jumps, but not many, and there are 29 colour changes – NOT 4999!

A couple of weeks ago I reported on our annual NEOS exhibition, where I sold a respectable number of things. One thing was clear to me – although people admired many of the pieces, almost everything that was sold involved animals or birds. This is no surprise to me – I prefer them myself, which is probably why they appeal to other people too! One piece that was sold was a special favourite of mine – a panel of three wagtails, which went home with a friend and neighbour who lives not far from here

 

Three wagtails

Wagtails will probably not be familiar to American blog readers, – I think they live only in Europe. But they're charming little birds who love nothing better than to run around lawns, looking for insects in the short grass and bobbing their long tails wildly up and down. They are definitely well-named!

 

The wagtails in their new home

Regular blog readers will know that I love Mexican folk art – I find the simplified but sympathetic animal forms and the vivid colours quite irresistible. Well, the other day I found this design somewhere in my files. It's clearly inspired by Mexican art but I have absolutely no memory of where it came from or even when I did it. That's the problem with doing so many designs – you tend to lose track of them!

Two Mexican birds from…where?

But I thought it would make a nice colourful freebie, especially just now as we're heading into winter again and may need some reminding of summery times. It's a nice compact design, for the 4 x 4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop, and with no applique. Here is the design file (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet

Well, the NEOS show is now finished and I'm exhausted! Who would have thought that just sitting and sewing and talking to people could be so tiring? But it was brilliant to be able to talk to so many people – the embroidery machine is a huge draw and fascinates everybody, and many people had some really interesting ideas for embroideries that I might do

I had a large table in my usual place and as usual rather over-did the display

 

Too much of a good thing?

OK, maybe it is a little bit over the top – maybe rather too many colours and shapes and all sorts of different things to look at – hangings and cards and loose embroideries among other things. But it did get people's attention, and after all that was what it was supposed to do!

As you're probably tired of hearing me say, our annual North East Open Studios exhibition is about to open, and yesterday I went along and set up my machine there and got prepared for my usual embroidery demonstrations. These demonstrations are always very popular, as most people have never seen an embroidery machine in action and don't often have any idea of what it can do

So I was setting things up and putting out some sample stitchouts for display when someone came along and bought one of them! This was the rooster I mentioned a few weeks ago

 

The popular rooster

It's certainly a good beginning to the exhibition for me! However, I won't be posting here for a week or so, because I'll be at the exhibition full time and won't really be able to think of anything else. Now – I know that a few blog readers live quite near here in Aberdeenshire, so if that's you, please do come along to "Art in the Buchat", which is our exhibition at the Glenbuchat Hall. It's on from the 11th to the 19th of this month, and we'd all love to see you!