Samples 2015: Week 19, Carnation ‘Blackjack’

Dark red velvet, 6cm square, embroidered with narrow free zigzag stitch in a shaded pink rayon 30 thread. I always find velvet... uncooperative! To put it politely. So this was a bit of a challenge for me. But as usual, it’s solubles to the rescue - I used Aquasol to carry the design and control the velvet pile, stretched in a hoop.

 

The unevenness of the stitching is on purpose, honest – I deliberately didn’t keep turning the hoop to keep the satin stitch straight along the lines, raggedy seemed more appropriate.

 

Source picture

From this article in the Saturday Guardian 09/05/15:

“Gardens: what to do this week. Try growing summer veg in raised beds made of straw, sow kale, and plant a modern carnation.”

Carnation ‘Blackjack’: ‘It’s clove-like scent makes it great for the cutting garden

Sample design
OK, so it’s a bad week when I have to resort to a photo from the gardening page. But I couldn’t stomach even opening a lot of the newspaper the day after the election results.

And then the obvious way forward for me with these flowers would’ve been layers of white-edged petals, so not that… I decided to pick out the pale outlines only, on a dark red velvet.

Two down, one to go

Yesterday I delivered a box of goodies for the Contemporary Craven Christmas exhibition, which opens next week in Skipton. Is anyone really thinking about Christmas shopping in the middle of October?!
Lots of felted crochet corsages and necklaces (all new designs – must get some in my shops too), embossed velvet brooches, and a few mini soluble lace bowls. Struggling to get any photos though, the light here is awful – it’ll be a bit brighter when all the trees lose their leaves, but that’s not something I really want to hurry up.

Differing Viewpoints

The new Textilia III exhibition opened yesterday in Halifax (details on the website). We had a lovely opening, thanks to Karen Lewis and Joan Tillotson of Calderdale MBC, as well as Rachel, Jane and Margaret of Textilia III who did all the hard work. All I had to do this time was hand over my work - four framed pieces and five little bowls, all on my Antarctic theme. I took a few pics for the group website but they're not great as there were a lot of reflections.

Apart from that I'm still putting together ideas for the christmas shows. Inspired by a custom request on Etsy (thanks Nia!) I made a batch of embossed velvet brooches. And remembered how much I love those - when they work that is, lots don't get past quality control! I think they'll be great for one of the shows.

Still on textile jewellery (something of an obsession), I'm also designing new felted crochet corsages and possibly necklaces too. A lot of trial and error here - I made some real horrors! But maybe some promising ones as well? We'll see.