Greek Bronze Age Horse Embroidery

I have always loved the copies of the  Greek Bronze Age horses and a few years ago I bought one for myself as a memento.

The horse was very important to the Ancient Greeks showing wealth,  status, military prowess and adherence to the Gods.
 I just love them because of their shape, colour and pattern.
 I dyed some material in greeny-blue and copper colours and then printed over the top using a natural sponge with metallic bronze and copper.I used these pieces as the background and a piece of shiny fabric representing the tin which when combined with copper creates bronze.

Backgrounds stitched together and the horse appliqued.

I used the patterns on the horses to make patterns down the left hand side and influence the embroidery stitches I used.

Rows of herringbone were added to improve texture

 I made some horse stamps and block printed "ghost horses" with bleach.

 Further patterns were made with copper shim and stitch. Verdigris pieces were sewn into the left hand seam and arrows into the right hand curved seam.

 The background was machine stitched to bring the whole piece together.

Finally when the piece was bound,  the corners were decorated with stitch and beads.

Porcupine Quill Weaving

Last month I found some porcupine quills in the cupboard. They were beautiful colours of browns and creams with a hint of rusty orange.
I thought they would look good in a weaving with me matching the colours and blending the yarns to produce different shades.

I discovered just how sharp porcupine quills are when I stuck one in my finger!!!

Library Exhibition of Embroidery

Last week the Embroiderers Group I belong to set up an exhibition of our work  in the library in Grange. The exhibition looked very good when I went to view it.

My contribution to the exhibition was the three pieces below.

Minoan Pot

Ancient Shards

Dragonfly in Amber

I also made contributions to the joint pieces. My square is on the bottom row second from the left.

Waterlilies by Monet

Silver embroideries

My frosty leaves are in the top right hand corner.

The two embroideries on the left are mine -flower and jelly fish

The hare and the owl are also mine.
I always enjoy the joint pieces.

Autumn Harvest

I have been amazed by the colours, fruits, berries and fungi this Autumn. The  fungi were popping up all over the place as the ground was warm from the good summer, followed by warm autumn rain triggering the growth of the fruiting bodies.

As plants finished flowering they started to make seeds for the following years.

Some of the seeds were inside of brightly coloured fleshy berries.

I love the colours and interesting seeds and fruits that Autumn provides but it also means that there will be food for many animals well into the Winter.

Holes - a new short workshop

The first thing I did was to look for pictures of holes and decided holes are everywhere!

I then thought about holes in textiles and decided to go for a bound hole where something could be put behind to show through or to sew threads across a hole and then weaving through the threads.
I then started to make some samples. See below  Fabric behind a hole and embroidered. 

The next samples were made by weaving through stitches across a hole. See below

The final sample was stitches across a hole and then wrapped in groups to make tree trunks.

I have now collected all the bits and pieces for the workshop and hope that the Branch members have lots of ideas as to what they can do with a hole in two weeks time!