March samples, part 1: ICE!

Here on Skye we escaped the snow that other parts of the UK suffered, but it was bitterly cold and windy. And, there was a fantastic bonus - natural ice sculptures!

Waterfalls froze solid. This is Eas a Bhadrain, just beside the main road between Broadford and Portree:

But best of all was Mealt Falls, up on the Trotternish peninsula. The water that normally drops straight off a steep cliff was blown back by the freezing wind, and coated the plants and fences with ice. A magical sight!

Not an easy subject to tackle in machine embroidery, but I did do a couple of little samples.

First grasses coated in ice, I loved how you could see the stem through the ice. I machine embroidered the stems on Lutradur 70 then cut round them by hand. Overlaying two layers gave depth.

I also had a go at a fence with ice covering every wire and dripping with icicles: FME on Aquasol with silver on the bobbin and shaded turquoise on top. I'm not trying to be realistic, I wanted a colour to contrast with a white background so I could also get shadows. Plus a bit of twinkle!  

I'm still wondering how to interpret some of the other phenomena... but I can't improve on nature, so maybe I'll just be happy with memories of a rare and beautiful sight.

Starfish

I live on the sea shore now! After 10 months that's still so novel and exciting.

One of the marine themes I've been exploring, on and off, is starfish. Such a variety of shapes, colours and patterns, who could resist? 

I started with a favourite technique - FME on soluble to make lacy shapes. These cast pretty shadows if they're mounted on pins and lit at an angle.

I was a bit disappointed with these tbh. Not sure why... too far from the original inspiration, and not interesting enough in ordinary daylight? And, I remembered I meant to give up creating fragile wall pieces that need box frames and are impossible to photograph! So I didn't take them any further. They're just pinned randomly on polystyrene here.

So, going off at a tangent, I tried felted crochet next. A nice loosely spun pure wool, in pink-orange-red. I tried raised, textural crochet stitches, and plain crochet with chunky French knots. After felting in the washer they looked like this:

The really knobbly one, using popcorn stitch, is fun - it's very 3D. And the French knots worked well too. Now what? These are quite big (9-12cm), but perhaps smaller ones, made with finer wool, would make brooches?

Back to the Bernina, and soluble fabric (I never stay away long!). But not lacy embroidery this time - the soluble fabric allowed me to decorate a cut out felt sunstar. Embroidering felt this way means you can go over the edges, and end up with a slightly stiffened shape without the usual fluffy edges. It's only about 6cm, so don't zoom in. More brooch potential, I thought...

A wildlife trust walk at an exceptionally low tide provided my first glimpse of living maerl beds. Maerl is coralline red algae, a sort of seaweed with a hard chalky skeleton that grows unattached on the sea bed. It provides shelter for a wide range of marine creatures, including brittle stars.

I used the embellisher to create my maerl bed, needle felting lengths of pink-purple textural yarns to white felt.

Then I machine embroidered brittle stars on soluble fabric.

 The brittle stars were fun, so I made a whole tangle of them for another little framed piece:

That led to the idea of a lacy structure of finer brittle stars held together by crossed legs!

Instead of mounting in a frame, maybe something like this could hang in a window?

Aargh, there I go again, creating things that are impossible to photograph nicely! (for me, anyway)

And finally (for now), I tried a brittle star bowl. Just a little one, 7cm diameter. The most open bowl I've ever made, and a very different technique to my Botanic, Ice and Metamorphic designs. Amazingly, it worked!

The idea needs some refining, and I didn't like the brittle star centres, but it's opened up a world of new possibilities... watch this space! 

Welcome to my new studio!

After a relocation of nearly 400 miles from Ilkley (Yorkshire) to the Isle of Skye, I'm now all set up in my new studio - fancy a peek? 

 

Sorry the photos are a bit dark - there's too much light streaming in the window, reflected off the sea! Because this is the best bit, the view from my desk:

I look out on Broadford Bay, to the islands of Scalpay, Longay and Pabay and the Applecross peninsula of mainland Scotland. The constantly changing light and sea are mesmerising, the shore teems with birds, and there's always the chance of an otter passing by. Inspiring, or distracting? We'll see...

John has done sooo much work on this room for me, I'm really grateful and delighted with how it's turned out. It was quite dingy when we arrived, but he's painted it all white, including the dark wood around the windows, and installed extra lights over both tables. Then three sets of shelves have been installed, and all my cupboards have been reassembled.

Now my machines are set up and most of my boxes are unpacked. I'm itching to stitch! What shall I tackle first? Um... curtains. The rest of the house isn't quite as complete. 

 

Feeling very lucky... I'll leave you with a closer view from the window:

 

The Isle of Skye

Just back from a lovely week in Skye. Such an amazing island, wild and beautiful, we’ve been many times but it just gets harder and harder to leave… sigh.

At high tide the sea came in to a few feet from our cottage window, so the view changed all the time and we didn’t even need the binoculars to watch the herons and grebes fishing.

Glorious wildflowers everywhere, including masses of my favourite foxgloves and flag irises. Inspiring colour palettes for stitching.

Standing on top of the Quiraing (see photo) we spotted whales in the bay way below and tore off to see them a bit closer. Probably Minke – as we last saw in Antarctica! We seem to like the same places ;-)