The Accidental Embroiderer

A funny incident

Well, NEOS is over for another year and I’m glad of a little peace and quiet. (For new readers, NEOS is “North East Open Studios”, a yearly art event during which we hold a group exhibition for local artists) It all went very well, and to my surprise I sold quite a lot of things. However there was one funny incident, which I thought that the embroiderers who read this blog might appreciate

A man came into the exhibition, and after walking around for a while, settled in front of one of my pieces, a large embroidery featuring three crows in a tree. Finally he told one of the people there that he’d like to buy it. She took it off the wall, and said conversationally “Yes, it’s a lovely embroidery, isn’t it?”

He stared at her in horror. “You mean it’s an EMBROIDERY?” And he walked out of the door and left it behind

 

Oh no! It's an embroidery!

 

I thought this was very funny but I couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong with embroidery. Someone suggested that perhaps he associated embroidery with old-fashioned handiwork like cross-stitch, and didn’t want to be seen buying crafty things like embroidery, when he meant to buy arty things like paintings. Oh well, it didn’t matter. And the piece was sold a couple of days later to someone who didn’t seem to mind that it was embroidery

 

September’s freebie and an apology

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted and I really do owe an apology to regular readers. And even now I’m still not quite finished with preparations for the big NEOS exhibition next week, but I thought I’d at least better post a freebie so people don’t forget me!

This is one from the files – a bright Pennsylvania Dutch inspired design of two birds. It’s for the 5x7 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop and it’s just embroidery – no applique in this one. The are a few jumps – it’s impossible to avoid them entirely when you have duplicate motifs that aren’t connected. But I hope this won’t be too much of a problem for you

Two bright birds in a Pennsylvania Dutch style

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with some pictures from the exhibition so you can see what it was like. Meanwhile, here is the design (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet