Karen

Flowers

In my last post I mentioned the online course I was doing with Suzanne Allard, and that bright florals weren’t really my thing. Figurative painting – as in proper ‘doing a painting’ of an object, like an artist – isn’t really my thing either, for that matter. I’m usually happier with needle and thread and abstract marks.

And then I said to myself, who doesn’t like flowers? I had a go at some flowers with collage, which I find more approachable than painting. What I like about collage is that you can take some shapes and colours and move them around on the page before committing to anything permanent.

Like I said, flowers aren’t my thing, bright colours aren’t my thing, etc etc. And what do you know, I quite like it.

What are sketchbooks for if not to try stuff and have some fun?

I had a little go at painting leaves with a watercolour sword brush. Definitely need more practice with that, but it’s a really lovely brush.

And I really like the way the scrap of paper forming the centre of one of these flowers just happens to have the word ‘blooming’ on it.

My desk is looking a little chaotic, but I am having some serious fun here.

If you’ve ordered threads and/or fabrics (thank you), they’re on their way. Rummaging in the stationery cupboard, walking to the post office, and playing in a sketchbook or three have brought me to a very happy place indeed this week.

Respite

It’s been a difficult few weeks and I needed a couple of days down time, so I’ve taken refuge in some no-pressure sketchbook work.

coloured pencil on acrylic/ink background

I’ve just started Suzanne Allard’s online course 31 Bright and Fun Sketchbook Paintings. I really like Suzanne’s calm and confident teaching style, and I also like seeing how other artists approach their work. The bright florals are not completely my thing but there are plenty of inspiring ideas and techniques to try, and it’s nice to sit back and watch someone else talk you through their approach to their art. And there’s always something new to learn.

My own sketchbook pages are nothing like the ones in the course, but I’ve been trying some of the layering techniques just for the fun of it.

pen and Inktense crayon on acrylic ink background

Without really meaning to, I often find that my sketchbook pages are full of marks that could feasibly become stitches. Not really surprising, given that drawn marks are mainly dots and lines.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that I no longer enjoy using acrylic paints. The ecological aspect has bothered me for some time (as in acrylic=plastic) but having had a little play with them again I find that I really don’t like the slightly plasticky sheen.

sketchbook page background, gesso/acrylic

Layering or mixing acrylics with gesso makes them less shiny/glossy/plasticky. In the spirit of using what I’ve got, I’ll probably use my existing supply and then not replace them.

I do, however, like acrylic inks – also plastic, but I’m guessing not quite so bad as the paint. I like the inks because they behave like watercolour but they’re not water-soluble once they’re dry so you can easily go over them with other media without disturbing the base layer.

sketchbook background page: gesso and acrylic ink

The problem I have with layered backgrounds is that I end up really liking the base layer as it is and I don’t really want to add anything else on top of it. I’ve therefore ended up with a sketchbook full of nice backgrounds, which is also fine I guess.

I’ve had a little tinker in the watercolour sketchbooks as well.

I used low-tack masking tape to divide an A4 page into postcard-sized areas. The marks on the top two were made by dipping a stick in walnut ink and drawing on wet paint.

I’m resolving to make more time for this as it’s something I really enjoy, and besides all work and no play etc. Wishing you an equally playful and creative weekend.

Shop policy update

I’m still up to my ears in thread but in the meantime I’d like to share my newly-updated shop policies, in the interests of clarity and consistency. These apply exclusively to customers outside the UK, so if you live in the UK most of this post won’t apply to you, and you can happily skip forward to the picture at the end.

If you are overseas (that is, not resident in the UK), please take the time to read the following:

When completing the checkout, please ensure that you pick the correct country from the drop-down menu. Any orders where the address and country do not correspond (for example, a US address with UK as the country) will be cancelled and refunded and you will need to place your order again. Choosing UK, when you don’t live in the UK, will cause the automated checkout to apply UK shipping rates, and this is insufficient to cover posting overseas. You must pay the correct shipping rate for your country. In most cases, the ‘everywhere else’ shipping option covers USA, Canada, Australia and mainland Europe; shipping costs to these destinations are almost identical. It costs the same to post one small item (e.g. a thread skein) as it does to post several, so the more you buy, the more cost-effective the postage charges become. If you are in any doubt about the postage costs, please contact me before completing the checkout.

Your purchase may be subject to additional customs charges depending on your location. You can use online import tax calculators to estimate what the additional import charges will be before you buy. Please be aware that I have no control at all over how much you will be charged in import duties; it is your responsibility to find out before making a purchase.

Your customs office may occasionally open and inspect your parcel before delivering it to you. While I appreciate that this can be disappointing (because they usually don’t repackage your parcel as attractively as I did in the first place) please understand that I have no control over this.

When paying by card, please try and remember your purchase when your bank statement arrives. The amount will look different because of the currency conversion. If you initiate a dispute with your bank because you don’t recognise the amount, I then have to prove to your bank that you did make the purchase, and I am charged a non-refundable fee even when the purchase was genuine. Please contact me before initiating a dispute if you are in any doubt about your purchase.

And there we are. I hope that’s clear without being unnecessarily heavy-handed.

In the meantime, we have this (among many other delights) to look forward to:

It will be done when it’s done (actually it will be done when our bathroom’s done, as I still have to paint the ceiling again). It’s been a very busy few weeks.

August

Eight months down, four to go. Each month seems to vanish faster than the last.

As always, no plan, no design. Just pick up a threaded needle and start stitching.

In the traditional Celtic calendar, autumn begins with Lammas on the 1st of August. The weather presenters will have us believe it’s still summer because it’s warm and the sun is shining. But weather is not season, and here in the UK you can see the light changing throughout August, and by the end of the month you can smell and feel autumn as well as see it.

I really like the softer muted colours that come with autumn and winter, and I’ll enjoy choosing some of them for the rest of the year.

Thread winding is still very much ongoing in preparation for the shop update some time next month, and the advantage for me is that I get to replenish some of my own threads too.

I also like to road-test them to check the quality. I’ve got a couple of new suppliers this time so I need to satisfy myself that the threads are up to it. Very happy so far.

end of August – road-testing new threads

August wouldn’t be complete without a view of the other side. The side we don’t show the world, the side we don’t choose to look at, the side that makes us what we are. Whether we like it or not, it’s there and it’s got nothing to hide. As always, I like some of these marks better from the back. One of these days I will turn the stitch journal over, stitch on the back and let the ‘wrong’ side be on show.

We’re having our bathroom renovated next week. I’m kind of dreading the upheaval, the noise, the mess, the dust, etc but very much looking forward to a long soak in a hot bath when it’s all over. I’m not sure how much the disruption will slow down the thread winding, but I’ll do my best to keep up.

Threads on sale

While we all wait for me to wind the latest batch of newly dyed threads, there are a couple of special offers in the shop right now.

**EDIT/UPDATE – now all sold out, thank you. Your threads are on their way.

These are the perle 8 silk skeins that are discontinued, and are reduced to clear. When they’re gone they’re gone forever as I won’t be buying this particular thread again.

Please read the full post before heading to the links – thank you.

There are some beautiful perle 8 sets here:

And there are some single skeins (not dyed by me; please read the shop listing for full details) here:

Please, a caveat if I may – if you are in the US, please check that you’ve picked United States in the drop-down country menu and not United Kingdom. If you accidentally pick the UK option the system will charge the UK postage rate rather than the correct overseas rate, and this causes extra work and stress for me as I then have to email you to explain. Overseas shipping is expensive. I only charge what it actually costs, and I often make a small loss on international postage. The difference between UK and US shipping costs is about £10. This happens surprisingly often – several times a week, sometimes – and I simply can’t afford to lose £10 every time I ship goods to the US because the correct postage hasn’t been paid. It really isn’t fair to make exceptions.

If this continues to happen then I will have no option but to consider – with immense regret – discontinuing overseas shipping altogether.

Also – if you’re in Europe, please be aware that your country will charge import duties. This is an unfortunate consequence of Brexit and nothing to do with me; I have no control over the amount charged and I don’t profit from it in any way. You can use an online import tax checker to estimate what the additional cost will be.

Apologies for the ranting. Of course I could vastly inflate all my prices and call it ‘free’ shipping. I’d be interested to hear your views, particularly if you’re not in the UK.

Catching up

Operation Restock the Shop continues apace and is keeping me more busy than I thought it was possible to be.

Here’s what’s been happening this week:

A few are dry and ready to wind:

It will take me at least a few weeks to sort and wind everything here. There are some positively scrumptious colours, and they’ll be in the shop as soon as I can get them there – optimistically the second week in September, realistically probably a bit later.

As always, I won’t announce the shop update – I prefer to sidle everything in quietly – but keep an eye out if you’re interested.

For now I’ve got my eye on some of those delicious threads. Dyer’s perks, I call it. Looking forward to a colourful weekend.

Creative English Paper-Piecing

After weeks and weeks of work, play, and production, I think my new course on English paper-pieced patchwork is about ready to be let loose.

There’s a free preview, so make sure you watch that before committing – just so you know what you’re letting yourself in for.

Mostly what you’re letting yourself in for is me trying (and occasionally failing) to keep my hands in shot where you can see them. I think it’s probably – mostly – good enough though.

Many people think English paper-piecing is hexagons. Not the way I do it. In fact there are no hexagons here, apart from a few accidental or antique ones.

So, what do we cover in this course?

We start with English paper piecing (EPP) for absolute beginners, where you get to make a little box like this out of simple squares:

Then we make a paper-piecing sampler where you can practise piecing triangles, curves, and irregular shapes:

We get creative with fabrics and paper:

And we do some colourful sketchbook work:

Before you know it, you’ll be branching out unaided and doing your own thing.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, we do a (pretty brisk) overview of making a patchwork cover for your sketchbook, we have a whistle-stop look at how quilt-as-you-go works, and we see how to turn a pretty square of patchwork into this:

Do I sound as if I’ve recently taken a course on Basic Marketing for the Self-Employed? I promise you I haven’t. But here’s the thing about being self-employed. You have to do All The Jobs, including all the marketing and self-promotion, which is my least favourite thing. My second least favourite thing, by the way, is video-editing – as you’ll see if you embark on the course. It’s all very informal, as usual.

OK, enough self-promotion and advertising.

In other news, I’m now setting about trying to restock the shop somewhat as all the fabrics are sold out. More on that later.

In the meantime did I mention that I have a new course out…?

😎

July

How quickly the days pass.

There were (and still are) some hot days. Many weather forecasters in this country are jubilant every time the sun is shining as they announce the arrival of more ‘lovely’ weather. They’ve taken to describing 28 degrees (which for this part of the UK is very unusual) as ‘warm’. Only a few years ago the same temperature would have been described as ‘very hot’. There hasn’t been any rain for several weeks, which is also unusual for this part of the UK. I try to stay away from getting too overtly political here but global warming worries me, and I find this normalising of rising temperatures by the mainstream media to be particularly alarming.

I find myself uncharacteristically short of patience in hot weather; I’m not good at tolerating extreme heat and very bright sunlight. Thank goodness for autumn waiting around the corner and the return of darker nights. I caught the faintest whiff of autumn early yesterday morning, and soon the light will begin to change.

In the meantime of course I keep going, because this is life and there is joy in every day. The joy might not always be immediately visible on the surface, but it’s there nevertheless just waiting to be found.

There was a funeral this month for our friend. A day edged with sadness but filled with happy memories of an amazing woman and a talented artist. We are so lucky to have known her during her long life.

July detail – a day edged with sadness but filled with the joy of remembering

Sometimes if there’s a bit of border yarn left over I curl it around in the corner as you can see below. A kind Instagram reader commented that it looks like a Koru (I had to look it up) which symbolises harmony and eternal movement, and how lovely is that.

The other side isn’t always that neat, but then I think neat can be over-rated.

I’m immersed in the creation of video lessons at present for my new paper-pieced patchwork course. It’s slow going but I think it will be ok in the end, as most things are.

Papa’s got a brand new pegbag

Sincere apologies to James Brown and Pigbag. Couldn’t resist.

Also apologies for the slightly surreal title and intro there. A week off has done me the world of good, as you can see.

But I genuinely did need a new pegbag. My old one was literally falling apart.

I used the old one as a template and made a paper pattern, which turned into paper-pieced patchwork, and then it all went a bit Mondrian:

Completely hand-pieced and hand-stitched, it went together pretty quickly really. It’s lined with medium-weight calico for extra strength and stability.

And the back:

I made its mouth a little less gapey than the previous one.

It’s full of pegs and ready for the next wash day.

I was even able to salvage some of the lining from the old one. This batik fabric was one of my favourites and I used the last of it many years ago. You can see the difference in colour and quality between the side that’s been exposed to the light and the side that’s been kept in the dark.

Jobs for next week include trying to get my new patchwork course videos recorded. The shop will remain closed while I attend to recording the lessons, and then I’ll try to dye/restock threads probably in September.

Always busy.

A Long Life complete

(content warning – mentions end of life)

I started this over two years ago, and finished it last week.

30,000 straight stitches on vintage silk, taken from various handmade silk lingerie garments, backed with soft brushed cotton. The number of stitches is equal to the number of days in the life of someone who has lived to the age of (just over) 82, which is a reasonably optimistic estimate of average life expectancy in this country. It’s not a memorial of a particular individual; more a general reflection on (or of) human life.

I’ve used hand-dyed silk and cotton threads, mostly equivalent to perle 8 or 12, and changed colour after completing each set of 365 stitches (every four sets I added an extra stitch to account for leap years). There are 532 (and a bit) rows. The whole work measures 6 inches (15cm) wide, and 22.5 feet (6.9m or 271 inches) long.

I counted the stitches and rows as I went along, to keep a running total and to keep track of the beginning and ending of each year block. I didn’t start a new row for each year.

A Long Life notebook – keeping the score

If there were seams, buttonholes, buttons, lace, or rust stains on the silk as I carefully deconstructed the garments, I left them in. That’s life.

I didn’t expect to become so emotionally invested in it. There was a distinct moment of sadness and even a little shock as I placed the last stitch. While a life as long as this is to be celebrated as well as mourned, I couldn’t help but think of all the other, shorter, lives that end too soon.

The briefest moment separates life and death. I can totally understand the Greeks’ idea of the three Fates, and Atropos cutting the thread of life.

A Long Life (from finish to start)

Until that day, of course we go on.

Author: Karen

Flowers

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Respite

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Shop policy update

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August

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Threads on sale

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Catching up

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Creative English Paper-Piecing

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July

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Papa’s got a brand new pegbag

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A Long Life complete

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