With Gently Smiling Jaws

This was inspired by Lewis Carroll's parody on Isaac Watt's poem, 'How doth the Little Bee', as quoted by Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The poem goes:

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin

How neatly spreads his claws

And welcomes little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!

Obviously it had to be set in an Egyptian scene or a rabbit hole, and since rabbit warrens are dark and black on black would never have worked, Egypt was the obvious choice.

I decided that this should be an exercise in couching for effect and open canvas. I also decided to try a range of threads. The various elements to be included had, of course, to include a crocodile and fish, so I opted to have this in the foreground with Egyptian inspired motifs in background.

The pyramids are stitched in 4 strands of Marlitt, worked horizontally every other row. The thread was not drawn across the back, but brought diagonally up to start the next row so that it did not show through the unstitched areas. I prefer to use the 'finger-tip-to-elbow' measure for length of thread when starting, but in this case I used lengths of about 30" so that I could complete all the diagonal lines and the right hand slanted line with one length of thread. I did not want any change of thread showing. Marlitt has a tendency to keep its kinks when drawn from the skein, so I ran it over a damp sponge to remove them before I started to stitch. I couched the long stitches vertically with two strands of the same Marlitt. When couching, probably because the thread was passing through the canvas more often, I found that it tended to shred and that the optimum length to start with was about 10". I also used Marlitt for the obelisk.
The sky is CD Pastel couched with Madeira Metallic 33. The sand dunes are also CD Pastel couched with a gold machine embroidery thread. The Nile is couched with silver machine embroidery thread.
The Crocodile is cross-stitched in Kreinik metallic, as are the poor little fish that it is about to swallow. The background canvas is an 18 count, random-dyed sand colour. Because it was the right colour and had variations, I decided that the middle ground should be left unstitched.

I worked on this from December 2008 to March 2009. It took a little under 70 hours to design and stitch and measures 6" by 4".

Earthnight, 27th November 2000

I made this for a competition in Scotland in 2008. The theme was Night and the sub-class was an embroidered cushion, The title comes from the inspiration, a NASA photograph of the Earth at night, dated 27th November 2000.

                                         

                                                   

I was fascinated by the strings and clusters of light and the areas with few or no lights and as it fitted, in my mind, with the theme I decided to create a cushion with a wrap-round map of the earth at night. I did not want the bright areas to be 'in your face', nor did I want a contrast in the colours of the land-masses. During daylight hours the earth is a series of bands of colour, but they don't show up in the same way at night. After some consideration, head scratching and fiddling with options, I decided to keep it simple.

The ground is grey linen, the continents are outlined in running stitch and the infill is cross-stitch. The only exception is the Antarctic which shows as lighter that the other continents. I worked that in a zig-zag running stitch. All the stitching is done with the same (DMC) black stranded cotton.
I then added white beads, packed or spread to reflect the values of the bright areas in the NASA photograph. I secured the beads by sinking them between the arms of the cross stitches AND strangling them. I was determined that they would stand proud and not wiggle!

The finished cushion is about 15" tall and 8" across. If it was a picture it would be about 25 inches wide. It took 109 hours to complete.

And the competition?
I'll admit I was disappointed. It wasn't that the piece did not get placed, I don't think this was some of my best work. What disappointed me was that in the show guide, the hundreds of beads I had so carefully sewn on were described as 'pins stuck in'.
That's what comes of not having Artist's Statements. We may hate having to write them, but at least its our chance to describe our work and how we did it, in our own words. 'Pins Indeed!'

Flying Geese

Based on the quilting block of the same name, I designed and stitched Flying Geese in 2005 for entry in the Royal Highland Show 2006.

The class description in the schedule was "Sampler - Birds", and from within the convolutions of my brain came this. "Sampler"; Websters Dictionary defines a sampler as "a practical example of needlework patterns". Tick. "Birds", well Geese are birds. Tick

The background is a Beaty Stitch variation, the triangles are Jacquard, Hungarian, Byzantine and Oriental stitch. The right hand side is the reverse of the left. Apart from being (I thought) an interesting and attractive design, it is also an example of how to get a different effect by reversing a stitch, and an exercise in compensation (and we all love working out those compensating stitches).
Flying Geese was worked in Soie d'Alger on 18 count canvas. It measures 5" by 5" and took fifty hours to design and stitch.

I thought I had pretty much hit the schedule description with this. The judges didn't agree. It came last. The winner was a colourful and beautifully worked cross-stitch picture of hens and a rooster.

Despite my disappointment, I got a great deal of enjoyment out of designing and stitching Flying Geese and my mother, who was an avid quilter, enjoyed having it on her wall and showing it off to her friends.

Glenda

Glenda, a teacher. was about to retire and her colleagues wanted to create a special present for her. How they decided on a sampler I don't know, but my SiL volunteered that she knew someone who designed samplers.

When I was asked if I would design a "sampler" for Glenda I immediately thought of the Wizard of Oz - well you would, wouldn't you?

I was quickly disabused of that notion.

Questions were asked. What do you want on it? What size? Answer, "Don't know." That's a good start, I thought. "What does she like? What are her hobbies and interests?"

Elucidation. Hill walking, cats, the theatre, books, music, her garden and her church."

"You want me to include all of that?"

"Yes. And places she's lived. Can you do that?"

Well it was a brief of sorts. I discovered that the story started in Boreham Wood and ended in Rutherglen, which gave me a framework for the idea of a road zig-zagging up Britain, with motifs to either side.
Was I expected to stitch this? "No, so the instructions have to be clear enough for people who don't have much or any experience." It seemed that her colleagues were all going to do part of it.

Into design mode, I decided that the whole thing had to be done in cross-stitch and running stitch. I trawled my library for appropriate motifs (thank you Jo Verso) which I could amend to fit and decided that the border should be boot-soles to remind Glenda that she might be retiring, but that they journey goes on. I had to provide the master diagram, in colour, but I also provided stitch diagrams for the cross-stitch and running stitch on the assumption of a total lack of knowledge of the stitchers. It's incredible how much detail you have to go into. I take my hat off to all you professional designers and teachers. 

They sent me this picture of the finished sampler, and yes, the road is yellow brick.