End of Term and a little more Recreational Stitching

Tags

#royalschoolofneedlework, Canvaswork, Crewelwork, Future Tutor

1st Term draws to a close

The end of my first term as a student on the RSN Future Tutors course is fast approaching and I am required to hand in my completed embroideries for assessment on Thursday this week. Then I get to enjoy a two week break for Christmas, before returning to class ready for Term 2 in early January 2020.

For this course each assessable embroidered piece needs to be stitched and properly mounted on card to meet the brief and RSN requirements – including my name tag stitched onto the back. The pieces also need to be accompanied by the relevant paperwork with includes the Design drawings, the stitch plans, any reference images, any sampling or testing of threads and stitches, a record of time taken to stitch, a materials list, and of course the self assessment forms. I will admit that completing the paperwork sometimes feels more onerous than the stitching, but in the end it does give me a good set of reference material for future development of my stitching, and hopefully will assist me to teach the technique in the future.

For this first term I have themed each of my embroideries around the ‘Grounds and Gardens of Hampton Court Palace’ and I will have three technique pieces to hand in, these being Jacobean Crewelwork ( Frolicking in Home Park ) , Canvas Stitches ( Dawn over the Thames at Hampton Court), and Canvas Shading ( Artichoke ). All of the embroideries in this term have used Appleton’s 2 ply crewel wool, with some stranded cottons, linen, and cotton perle threads also added into the Canvas stitches piece. My Canvas Stitches piece is based on a beautiful photo taken by the talented Noleen Wyatt-Jones, while the other two are based on my photos taken around Hampton Court Palace. A glimpse of the inspirations for each piece and a segment of the stitched works are in the photos below.

Rear Left Photo – Deer in Home Park, HCP. Front left – Deer element in Jacobean Crewelwork.

Centre Photo – Dawn over the Thames at Hampton Court – taken by Noleen Wyatt-Jones. Canvas Stitches in progress.

Rear Right Photo – Artichoke in the Hampton Court Palace vegetable garden. Front Right – Canvas Shading in progress

In addition to stitching the three main assessable pieces, this term we have also completed an initial set of introductory classes, had two ‘Master Classes’ in Mountmellick and Ribbonwork, enjoyed a number of interesting Art and Design Classes, and explored historic embroidery via a Collection Lecture on Counted work. It has been a very full term indeed.

Recreational Stitching

Amongst all of the coursework I have also managed this term to attend 3 of the RSN weekend classes that are offered to all stitchers. I attend these as recreational stitching just for my own pleasure, though I find I also learn a lot from observing various tutors and their teaching styles, along with getting to meet a great cross section of keen embroidery students.

This weekend I was fortunate to have attended Rachel Doyle’s 2 day class in Stumpwork Figures, and it was a wonderful class with a great kit and many tips and insights on creating a figure in stumpwork. I still have a lot of practice to do on creating hands and faces to get my figures looking realistic. I found that the sparkly blue fabric that Rachel used for the background gives a great icy effect to the piece but is very hard to photograph.

Stumpwork Figure – Ice Skater by Rachel Doyle

Here is my version of the little stumpwork Ice Skater. I think I might have to trim her ear muffs a little smaller yet, and that front hand needs to be smaller and tucked into her sleeve a little further, however it was a great weekend learning experience.

Now I must get back to finalising my assessment paperwork and finish mounting my Canvas Stitches ready for Thursday.

Wish me luck and Merry Christmas to you all.

RSN Diploma – Module 1 completed

Tags

#royalschoolofneedlework, Canvaswork, RSN, RSNDiploma

Finished

I was privileged to be able to view some wonderful Canvaswork pieces during the Royal School of Needlework – Animals in Embroidery exhibition and as a result I have actually come to a much better appreciation of the complexity of this technique. The texture that can be achieved through a wide variety of stitchs is remarkable. It is a real pity that Canvaswork does not photograph very well as seeing the dimension and texture that can be achieved in real life has totally changed my opinion of it.

Canvas Stitches is the alternative module that you undertake either in the RSN Certificate or the Diploma, depending on which certificate technique you first choose (Blackwork  or Canvas). Having done certificate Blackwork, Canvas Stitches became my first Diploma Module.  When choosing the design for this piece I did a lot of thinking about whether to continue with the Oak leaves and Acorns theme that I had followed throughout my Certificate pieces or to move onto other images and options. In the end I decided to stay with my established theme so the all of my pieces would ‘hang’ together when displayed. The RSN brief recommends landscapes or water scenes as good for this technique, and the tutors advise against images with strong straight lines (including diagonal) as the nature of canvas is to produce blocky images. While most students will work from a photograph and try to recreate the image as closely as possible, I was keen to develop my own designs for my diploma modules and so this design was born.

My ‘Frog on a Windowsill’ certainly has to be my most travelled piece as I have worked on it at three different RSN schools – in Durham, in Bristol, and at Hampton Court Palace. The tutors in each of the locations provided great advice and each influenced different aspects of the final piece. Tracey Franklin made brilliant choices in the blended sky/mountain background colours, Deb Wilding had great suggestions on stitches that would give the frog his knobbly texture, Lisa Bilby was able to point out areas that shading would bring to life, and Rachel Doyle is an absolute star at problem solving. I think in all, as I moved around RSN venues, at least 10 tutors provided input to the piece and I feel enriched for having their support.

The personal learning that I take from this piece is that if I were to do the certificate over again I would actually choose to do Canvaswork first in the Certificate as I think the process of choosing and blending threads for this technique provides a really good grounding for being able to really see the colours needed in Silk Shading. This is only my opinion of course based on my recent experience of doing both techniques.

Another lesson I have learned in this module is the benefit of keeping the working piece very tightly stretched on the frame. Due to all the travel I had been at pains to be particularly vigilant with regularly tightening up my framed work and I was able to reap the benefits when taking my canvas off the frame to find that it had remained reasonably square. This made the mounting process just that bit easier though believe me that Canvas is a difficult fabric to mount well and very hard on the fingers!. Finally my Canvas Stitches is finished, mounted and submitted for assessment.  On to the next module – Appliqué.

Shaded background with Autumn leaves

Knobbly Frog

 

RSN Diploma Module 1 – Canvaswork

Tags

#HamptonCourtPalace, #royalschoolofneedlework, Canvaswork, RSN, stitches

Undertaking the Canvaswork Module has been both a joy and a pain so far. I explained in an earlier post how I came to take on Canvas Stitches as my first module in the Royal School of Needlework  Diploma, when usually Appliqué is recommended as the starting module for this qualification. On the one hand I have enjoyed the process of working through selecting and blending threads to bring my project to life. Now that I have a better understanding of the types and qualities of some canvas stitches, I have even enjoyed the process of selecting stitches to convey the elements of an image. On the other hand I have not particularly enjoyed the sheer drudgery of have to fill ever single hole in the canvas – which is a definite requirement for this module.

Thankfully the piece is reasonably small. The module brief suggested it should be no bigger than 6 * 8inches and I have followed this suggestion. However that is still leaves a lot of surface to be stitched when all canvas threads must be covered. Ensuring good coverage means having sufficient strands of thread in the needle to fill the spaces – for example a lot of the areas I stitched  in stranded cotton required at least 10 strands in the needle. The technique chews up a lot of thread, and sampling stitches on the side of the work has been really useful.

The Canvas has 18 Threads per Inch (TPI) and is a reasonably stiff canvas with a rough surface as I found out on the first day when I accidentally dragged my knuckle across the underside of my piece while tensioning and took a layer of skin off the back of my knuckle joint. I learned to be a little more cautious of canvas after this incident. Having silicon thimbles for both protection and to grip the needle has been invaluable.

Once again the skilled RSN tutors have been really helpful in guiding me forward and on the whole I am happy with how this piece is coming together. I have used a range of threads; stranded, wool, silk, linen, metallic to name a few and think I have managed to achieve good texture on the bullfrog. I also wanted to convey the vibrant colours and semi transparency of Autumn leaves against an early Autumn clear sky and I think this has worked fairly well.

There is still work to be done on this piece but time is running out and mounting day approaches. I am now finishing all of the surface stitching including the twig stems that will hopefully bring this ‘Frog on the Windowsill’ piece to life.

Autumn leaves

 

Visiting RSN satellites – Durham and Bristol.

Tags

#HamptonCourtPalace, #royalschoolofneedlework, RSN, Travel

I have been off the air lately due to limited internet access as I have been travelling around the U.K. visiting and stitching at the RSN satellite studios in both Durham and Bristol – with a fly by of the RSN Rugby site along the way.

This part of my stitching adventure started with picking up a hire car in Kingston and setting off for Durham in the north east of England. I was accompanied on this trip by my Husband who is keen on trains, so stops along the way included the Tram museum in Crich and the National Rail mueseum in York. After spending a couple of days exploring York and a visit to Whitby to see the Abbey we arrived at our apartment in Durham.

The Abbey at Whitby

Tracey Franklin has a wonderful studio in a historic part of Durham in a street just behind the main town market square. The studio consists of one main room with a mezzanine office level, and Tracey has packed it out with all sorts of embroidery goodies.  During my visit I was tutored by both Tracey and Pippa Foulds and I managed to commence my Diploma Canvas Stitches piece under their guidance.

Tracey Franklins studio in Back Silver Street, Durham.

Tracey Franklin in her studio at Durham.

 

While Appliqué is usually the first technique worked on the Diploma course it had been agreed by all that a framed up Canvaswork would be easier for me to cart around the country, considering the many separate pieces that can go into constructing Applique. Regular followers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that my Canvaswork piece has Oak leaves and acorns included in the design, though this time the Oak leaves have taken on a decided Autumnal hue. Autumn is certainly coming in the North of England now and we saw some beautiful leaf colours as we travelled around.

Inspiration for my Canvas Stitches piece

After three wonderful days a Tracey’s studio we bid goodbye to Durham and started the drive south to Bristol. Along the way we drove through the town of Rugby and I managed to get a quick snap of the front of the Arnold House were RSN C&D classes are held in Rugby.

The RSN satellite at Rugby

We arrived in Bristol in the late evening and early the next morning I headed to the studio of Kelley Aldridge in the Kingswood Estate were the RSN classes are held.  Kelley herself was in attendance an gave us a guided tour of her studio.  Due to Kelleys busy schedule with the RSN Future Tutors course, the four classes I took in Bristol were brilliantly led by either the vivacious Deb Wilding or the calming Lisa Bilby, and they were both assisted by Chrissie Mann. Both tutors had great ideas on elements or stitches to incorporate into my piece and assisted me greatly to move my Canvaswork along – though by this time I had come to realise that Canvaswork is probably not my favourite technique. I think after the excitement of the certificate classes I have found the repetition of preparing lots of thread bundles for various canvas stitches a bit slow going. On the up side you do get to use lots of interesting threads in this technique.

Entrance to the RSN Bristol

Part of the shop and studio spaces at RSN Bristol.

This has just been a very brief summary of what was actually a really great opportunity for me to see how others lay out and manage their studios. I gained insight into the space and equipment needed and a better appreciation of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure every student has a good experience from their time at an RSN school.

I am very grateful to both Tracey and Kelley for allowing to undertake lessons in each of their satellites. I have so many ideas running through my head on how I can set up my own studio space once I return home – no more spare bedrooms at my place!

 

 

Summer Holidays – with recreational stitching

Tags

#royalschoolofneedlework, Canvaswork, needlebook, Needlecase, RSN, Travel

For the last two weeks I have been having a short break from taking RSN classes.  The RSN doesn’t schedule classes during the assessment periods (there was an Assessment week at the end of the last of the summer Intensive classes) and the late August/ early September period is also their Summer break before classes start up again in mid September. I know that my RSN tutors have earned their break, and I think after 8 intensive weeks I really needed to focus my eyes somewhere else as well.

I have used these two weeks to get in a little travel, starting with five days in France and, after a short trip back to our U.K. base, another 5 days in Iceland. These trips were not meant to be anything more than relaxing sightseeing however I have not been able to resist a couple of thread and fibre related excursions.

In Paris, which was mostly hot and sunny,  I used the Metro to get around and managed to visit a few haberdashery shops – you can see which ones in the photo of business cards attached. Some beautiful silk and linen threads, some plain handkerchiefs ideal to Monogram, interesting beads, along with a couple of small kits from Sajou made their way into my luggage.

Shops I visited in Paris

 

During our short break in Iceland, during which we experienced rain, sleet, freezing temperatures, blowing winds and hot sunny periods, my fibre explorations were limited to fondling Icelandic wool products, with some lovely felting to be seen in many shops. There were so many amazing sights to enjoy – waterfalls, tectonic plates, lava beds, and northern lights –  that each day was filled with excursions and exploring.

Little felted folk

Waterfalls

Northern Lights

 

On both of these trips I took along recreational stitching in the form of a Rachel Doyle Canvaswork kit called ‘The Wool Rack’ that I had picked up in the RSN shop. Rachel has intended this small kit to be made up onto a pincushion and each stitched square is about 2cm square.

Rachel Doyle – Canvas Stitches ‘ The Wool Rack ‘

My reasons for commencing this kit included using it as an introduction to some basic Canvas stitches before commencing my next RSN class in Durham on the 7th September, and as a lovely reminder of the wool rack that can be found in the RSN studios at Hampton Court Palace, which I managed to get a photo of during a special studio tour.

The wool rack in the RSN Studio at Hampton Court Palace

 

I decided that to give myself more practice in Canvas stitches I would extend the stitching area of this small project out to 10 columns of 5 stitches. This gave me room to practice some of the additional canvas stitches that are recommended in the RSN brief for the Canvas Stitches Module. Rachel had allowed plenty of extra canvas around her design so it was possible to extend the grid of squares reasonably easily. I intend to make up my stitched piece into a Needlebook.

We have arrived back at our U.K. base tonight and currently I have 4 columns of stitches remaining on this project. After a couple of days here catching up on washing etc we will then head north by car aiming to reach to the RSN satellite site in Durham ready to commence my next class. My next update should be about the Canvas Stitches class.