Week 26 - progressing hand-stitch

I got the green light at college to my machine-stitch piece this week. However, we have been asked to focus on finishing our hand-stitch piece first. So this week I have been doing that. I have completed the flowers on the Goosegrass, put in the large stem of the Cow Parsley and put the 'halos' on the Plantain heads.

The large Cow Parsley stem was easier than I was expecting. It is multiple rows of Split Stitch - once I had got the first line right, I could just keep adding rows to make it thicker.

The flowers of the Goosegrass are just blobs of Satin Stitch with small black French Knots on top.

The Plantain flowers are tiny flat sequins held by a French Knot. I found out in my research that the Tudors used to use rings of silver hammered flat to make Spangles for their Blackwork pieces.

I am now working on the pattern of flowers for the Cow Parsley heads. This is proving tricky because my original design won't fit into the canvas (I've drawn it out to check) and I have already done diamonds on the Plantain heads, so I am a bit bored of those!

After that I have to put the pink fluffy petals on the Knapweed heads, the parsley-like leaf on the Cow Parsley stem and possibly a few spots of colour on the Plantain leaves and then I will be finished bar the mounting.

I have also finished my written research that has to accompany this piece this week. I came across a textile artist called Debbie Smyth who also started her career with a fascination with pylons so I have written about her. She uses pins and black linen threads to create large pictures that look like line drawings. Her website is copyrighted so I haven't re-produced her pylon piece here but I urge you to click on this link.

Finally here is the poster for the final show in which our work will be appearing.