A Slow Stitch Journey

Last weekend I had a great couple of hours at the Selvedge Christmas Fair in Marylebone. Such a fantastic atmosphere, and well curated, interesting stands. And, of course, I ended up with a nice haul of vintage linen and some fantastic antique silk threads!

These scraps of hand-dyed silks, and torn rust prints, speak of past finery and the passage of time.

Collaged strips of lace, faded silk, and rusted gauze, form the background of this piece. I've started slowly stitching the layers, it speaks to me as I'm going along - does anyone else find this?

I've been sorting out threads for my new corset project. I love these hand-dyed cottons from . Gentle natural colours, that work well with my silk scraps laid out for my vintage embroidery.

So it turns out that to do an embroidered piece about corsets, you first have to make a portion of one to include. This has refreshed my skills at costume making, and I love the feel of fine discoloured cotton lawn, and rummaging for the perfect vintage buttons.

Several of my recent small collages have been experiments, to explore the idea of using vintage materials. There's been a larger piece simmering in my mind for a while. I want to contrast the nostalgia of the materials, with the repression that they often represented to women of an earlier generation.

Mango and magenta are two of my favourite colours to work with. They can add life and depth to my underlying palette of rust and linen. Allowing scraps to meet and mingle on my worktable can give rise to new ideas for the next piece.

Using sashiko stitching for the most part, but I couldn't resist throwing in some french knots. They are just so satisfying, and they can define a line without needing a hard edge. Silk on linen, with rust-dyed scraps.

This is one of the earliest pieces I did when I discovered slow stitching last year. I had great fun selecting and placing tiny oblongs of silk and rust, then playing with the direction of the simplest of stitches.

Here's my original sketch, drawing pen and a tiny set of watercolours that always come on holiday with me. I think these were in the New Forest. I adore foxgloves, I love the speckled throat and slightly hairy texture, and of course the colour. Sketching isn't essential for embroidery, but it makes the work more personal.

I love how the richness of the magenta stands out against the faded linen and antique lace. I know it's the chain stitch that makes it look too stylised, but I'm loving doing it, it feels so right in my hands.

Further explorations of stitching over transfered designs. Here are some foxgloves that I sketched years ago, brought out to feature on this collage.

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