2016. . . A Look Back and A Few Things Not Mentioned Yet

2016 has had its amazing moments and its challenging ones.  As many of you know, I fell in September and broke my elbow.  I actually taught class for 4 days holding my arm thinking it would get better--it did not.  Anyways, that little fracture was a huge wrench thrown into the mix for me trying to balance family, teaching at NC State, teaching outside of NC State and research/stitching/sketching. 

This photo captures my 2016: 

This was taken a couple days after we brought our new daughter home from the hospital.  I was feeding her in my studio right before her newborn photos were taken.  My studio is a complete disaster--that has become the normal, organized piles have multiplied into organized chaos. I have grown to love this photo as it has reminded me of house beautiful the seeming chaos can be.  All I can say is more than anything, 2016 has shown me what teamwork is.  Having a husband that is so supportive of me is not something that I take for granted.

I broke my right (ahhh yes right) elbow at the beginning of September and that proved more difficult to manage than I would have thought.  I've been trying to catch back up since then.  I was trying to get these posts out before year's end so I wanted to do a bit of a rundown on some of the things that I have not had a chance to talk about before 2016 was too distant in the past. You can guess what my New Year's Resolution is (posting more and more regularly 😀)!

RSN Certificate: finished!
I am so excited and thrilled to say that I officially passed my Royal School of Needlework Certificate of Technical Hand Embroidery with distinction!  I must admit that I still do a little dance each time I say it.  I am very glad to have done this course as I have learned so much through it concerning embroidery and I have gotten to know some amazing people too!

SAGA:  Lecture and Teaching workshop.  
I had the wonderful experience of teaching for SAGA at their National Convention back in September.  I did a 1 day Workshop of Haystacks of Giverny and presented my lecture Evolution of Consuelo about my thesis project from graduate school.  I had a wonderful time teaching the workshop and I cannot tell you how excited I was to be given the opportunity to talk about the research from my Masters Thesis Project.  It was the first time I was able to talk about it since graduate school.  It was a great reminder of all the work I had done going into it and it seemed like everyone enjoyed hearing about it and seeing my gown and samples. 

I wish I had some photos to share, however, I broke my elbow the weekend before this convention and in the craziness of teaching without my right arm I forgot to take any.  I had a great group of stitchers though and it was wonderful to learn more about SAGA.  Everyone was so gracious in helping me (and my elbow). I also learned that doing a cross stitch with a broken elbow is totally fine but stitching a chain stitch with a broken elbow was pretty painful.

Textile Society of America: Research Poster
My research poster was accepted for the TSA Biennial Symposium in Savannah, GA in October.  This is me right before the poster presentation began with my poster in the background.  I presented the research I have been doing on my Color Interactions Illuminated in Goldwork Embroidery project.

EGA National Seminar
I was pretty busy in Alexandria as I presented a lecture and taught 2 two-day workshops.  Below are some photos from my Gregg Floral contemporary goldwork class.  I am looking forward to teaching a mini-class for EGA at their National Seminar in Asheville in 2017!

 Opus Anglicanum Exhibition
My year ended with my husband and I taking a trip to London just before Christmas and seeing the amazing Opus Anglicanum exhibition currently on view at the V&A. To say it was incredible seems like a shallow assessment of such a beautifully and curated exhibition.  The most incredible thing for me was to see pieces that I had read about and had not seen in person yet.  I was totally the nerd writing and sketching as I slowly made my way through the exhibition.  It was interesting too to see a few pieces that I have seen numerous times in different light (literally different lighting)--details that I had "seen" before and missed completely, colors that had been difficult to see in the previous locations now evident.  

The exhibition guide is wonderful too so if you cannot go and are interested in Opus Anglicanum, it is well worth the price.  I've put a link with the image to it on Amazon below.  Great essays and wonderfully detailed photos!

Additionally, I've ordered The Age of Opus Anglicanum by M.A. Michael (one of the curator's of the Opus Anglicanum exhibition).  It is a collection of papers from a Symposium at the V&A in 2013 on Opus Anglicanum.  I cannot wait for it to arrive! 

EGA Sun Region: Red Sails in the Sunset Seminar 2016

This past weekend I had the amazing opportunity to teach at the EGA Sun Region "Red Sails in the Sunset" Seminar.  I really enjoyed meeting and stitching with some pretty wonderful stitchers!  The closing speaker was Gwen Nelson (former President of the EGA) who presented a showcase of some of the pieces from the EGA collection.  It was my first experience teaching for the EGA and I already am looking forward to the next!  Below are some images from the two workshops that I taught and the awesome students that I had in class with me.

Day 1:  Interpretations of Moss workshop

The students were responding to a photograph of moss digitally printed on Kona cotton (from Spoonflower) and re-embroidering the patterns of the moss and lichen with creative metal and basic embroidery techniques.  Techniques included (but I did not limit them to):  long straight stitches, french knots (with cotton floss and with smooth purl), bullion knots, stem stitch, s-ing and chipping.  It was a lot of fun seeing which techniques they enjoyed and how different each student's moss and lichen became. 

 

Days 2 and 3:  Dandelion of a Thousand Wishes workshop
 Students learned creative metal techniques using my Dandelion design.  The techniques they learned included:  a variation of burden stitch, couching, silk wrapped purl, stretched pearl purl, cutwork, cutwork over string padding and chipping.  It was a very non-traditional approach to goldwork and the students seemed to really enjoy themselves (it was a super group!).  I've included a few photos here of some of the student's in progress work.  It was so different seeing how shiny their dandelions were using the new metal threads (I had used tarnished and old bits for mine).  It was also great fun seeing how they clipped and pinned back the dandelion fringed pieces as their pieces blossomed!

Kits!

Kits are ready for the EGA Sun Region and the EAC Inspiring Threads Seminars!  I'm looking forward to meeting and stitching with new friends!