The Accidental Embroiderer

Another good show

Well, that’s NEOS over for another year and I’m absolutely exhausted! As I’ve said before, you wouldn’t think that just sitting behind an embroidery machine and talking to people would be so tiring, but you can take my word for it that it’s totally draining

But I should definitely not complain because it was such a successful show - I was astonished when I counted up the number of things that I sold, and the number of commissions that I accumulated. The three pieces that I posted here (the crows, the deer and the salmon) were all sold as were a lot of others

Not only that, but there was actual competition for some pieces! I could have sold some of them several times over, and it got to the point where I promised to produce copies of some things. Here are two of the pieces that I had to stitch for a second time to satisfy a second customer. Thank goodness that this kind of embroidery can easily be done several times over!

 

Next time perhaps I should produce a forest of Bird Trees!

 

And this Autumn Landscape could go on and on!

 

 

It’s almost show time!

Well, it’s almost opening day for NEOS, and here’s the poster which we produced for it. My contribution is the yellow-brown picture of curlews, second from the right side, half way down. It’s not a great reproduction of the original and you can't see it at all clearly, but it’s just supposed to be part of the larger poster, and it’s fine for that

 

The poster for our exhibition

It goes without saying that if you happen to be anywhere near us, please do come by for the opening, which is next Saturday at 7. There will be lots of refreshments, some live classical guitar music, and lots of conversation!

I’m not at all happy with what I’ve done for the exhibition, but you win some and you lose some, and I’m now inspired with some interesting new ideas to work on after the show

Here’s one of this year’s efforts - a collection of the crows that are so common around here. They may not be very colourful or exotic, but I love the way they collect together and have loud cackling conversations with each other. The picture is done in a combination of embroidery and acrylic paint, which probably sounds unusual, but it's a combination that can work very well

 

Crows in the Crow Tree

A flowery freebie.

Well, we’re still in August, but as life is becoming increasingly busy, I’d better get the September freebie out now while I still have the time.

 

A few little flowers for September

I haven’t the least idea where the idea for this came from or how I meant to use it, but it’s colourful and pleasant, and it’s nice to have such an intricate design for the 4x4 inch (100 x 100mm) hoop, so I hope you can find a use for it somewhere. Here it is, in .pes v.6

As always, there will be a few people who for some reason can't download my files, so if this is you, please do let me know (via the "Comments" section) and I'll e-mail it to you directly

Almost time for NEOS…

As the moment I’m definitely in headless-chicken mode, trying frantically to get organised for our upcoming NEOS exhibition. North East Open Studios is an annual festival of the creative arts in this area which features work by many local artists, and it’s always an impressive event. So I’ve desperately trying to produce a few things for the show, which always takes time. But here are a couple of things which should go well (I hope!)

First there’s this salmon, which is a very old design and I think I’ve posted it several years ago. But it was popular so I thought I’d produce it again. It’s made with an appliquéd layer of Mylar, which gives it a nice realistic sparkle

 

Dee salmon

And then there’s just this little deer, trotting through a field of greenery. It’s nothing special, but it's decorative and I liked it

 

Deer in the green

So there are two which can go up on the wall. However the exhibition doesn’t begin for another ten days, so I’ll try to be back next week with a freebie for September

Animals in the forest

A couple of weeks ago I posted two animal designs that I’d done for my friend Cherri. There was a lynx and a raccoon, which Cherri wanted to use in a quilt she was planning to make. Several readers suggested that I should post a picture of the completed quilt, and as Cherri agreed, here it is

The Forest Animals

 

It’s called “Friends of the Forest” and I think it’s pretty impressive. All the bird and animal designs are mine, but they’re put together in such an original and interesting way. 

Cherri makes a lot of quilts (among other things) and if you would like to see other works by her, you can follow her on Instagram, @cherriberi1

A freebie with Flair

Many years ago - so long ago that it feels like another life - I produced a series of designs and articles for Flair magazine. This was a British publication, alas no longer in print, that was devoted to machine embroidery. I’m not sure why it went out of business - I hope at least that my designs didn’t contribute to its demise!

A few weeks ago, while tidying up my workroom, I came across an old copy of Flair that featured one of my designs on the cover and I thought that it might be of interest to some more modern embroiderers

 

From way back in 2007...

This is a very simple design - I don’t think that I’d do anything that simple today. But as it was meant to be used by people who didn’t perhaps have much experience at embroidery, it was probably best to keep it simple. So here it is again...

 

A design with flair?? Well, from Flair, anyway!

 

And if you'd like it, you can download it here, in .pes v.6

Some zoological embroideries

I spent my professional life working as a research biologist, so as you can imagine I’m always interested in animals - both in their biology and their possibilities as models for art. And if you follow this blog you will know that most of my designs feature birds and animals - sometimes lifelike, and sometimes more cartoonish or abstract

Some time ago my friend Cherri suggested that I design some realistic animals for a quilt she wanted to make, and as you can imagine I jumped at the chance. So here are a couple of results. First there is this quite lifelike lynx. It’s not an animal I would have chosen to do, but I think it turned out well, The zig-zag pattern comes from the fabric that Cherri used for the appliqué step and again, although it’s not what I would have chosen myself, to my surprise it looks very good

 

A zig-zag lynx

And here is another animal - a little raccoon. Actually this is a very old design which I did many years ago, but it goes very well with the other creatures that Cherri used for her quilt

 

A very old raccoon

These designs have made me think seriously about doing more animals in a less arty, more realistic style. The animals are beautiful in themselves, so there's no reason why embroideries that reflect that shouldn't be attractive too

A fish inspired by the past

As many readers will know, I live in a beautiful part of Scotland, in the middle of the Cairngorm mountains. This place is so full of history that you can’t escape it - we’re surrounded by reminders of the past, ranging from recent manor houses from the 19th century, back through castles dating from the 13th century and earlier, right back to the remains of prehistoric times. But my favourites of all these early Scottish cultures have got to be the Pictish and Celtic civilisations, entirely because of the exciting and original artworks they produced, and I’ve used their art as inspiration of much of my own work.

The other day I was browsing through some old images of my embroidery from past years and I came across this fish, which is obviously based on Celtic images. I have no memory of when or why I did it, but I think I’ll use it as the basis of another, more complex design which will include even more Pictish and Celtic motifs. It sounds interesting - watch this space and the new version might just appear in the next few weeks!

 

A Celtic fish, reimagined for the 21st century

An eccentric - although colourful - freebie

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working hard on a commission for a woman who wanted a series of funny, colourful birds. I’ve finished what she wanted and am now totally fed up with stitching out eccentric, colourful birds! However there is one bird left over, which I thought might find a home as a freebie with blog readers. It’s for the 5x8 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop and is embroidery alone - no appliqué. The flowers and leaves stitch out first, and can easily be left out if you prefer. And do feel free to use whatever colours you like for both the bird and the flowers

A free pink heron

This won’t be to everybody’s taste, but you may be able to find a use for it somewhere. Here  it is, in .pes v.6

A nice bright owl from the past

One thing that's stopped me from posting regularly is that at the moment I’m up to my ears in various private jobs and commissions. This means that although I’m still designing and digitising madly, I can’t really post the work here, or not at the moment anyway. So I’m going back in the files to find some old designs that haven’t yet seen the light of day here on the blog

This one is so old that I have no memory of when I did it, or what inspired it, although it was probably during one of my folk art phases. It was done for my friend Cherri, who stitched it out. As you can see, it’s a pocket design, showing the owl perched on the edge of a pocket. I love this sort of thing and have a lot of pocket designs sketched out in the files, so all I need now is time to digitise them! So I expect that you’ll see a lot more of them in the months to come

 

The bright owl sitting on his pocket

 

Bur meanwhile, this is a nice colourful example of the sort of thing that can be done