Circus fun….

On a totally unrelated theme, my little Kingfisher class (30 year 1 children) produced a magical big top filled with circus acts for a summer fayre art competition. Each class at school enters the Frensham fayre competition every year – and here is our entry…

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Inspiration came when I found a large circular piece of wood at home – and a child’s brolly at the local charity shop. The children covered the brolly in papier mache before painting it. They covered the wooden base in a mix of sand and glue and painted lolly sticks to go around the edge. We then brainstormed all the acts that might be found at a circus and, with a little adult support, they made peg dolls of each of these. The children even made the props, a fire ring, canon and knife thrower’s wheel.

I am so pleased with the result! And my little Kingfisher’s cannot believe how it has turned out.

Quick update – they one first prize – whoop, whoop!

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Sal 15 – going fishing

Sorry folks, but not much stitching going on here. What with report writing and assessments my weekends are not my own! I have managed to attach the second fish to the background, not quite a shoal I know.

Here is where I was up to last time….

And here is where I am now… Unfortunately I have mislaid one of the fishes fins, so am now deciding whether to  make another of simply put the second fish to bed!

Thank you for popping in. Happy stitching and I hope to see you all in another 3 weeks.
We are a small group of crafters using a variety of different techniques. Please check out the fabulous stitching by all the other members of the SAL. If you are interested in joining us you can contact Avis for details.
Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Linda, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Catherine, Clare, MaryMargaret, Renee, Jenny, Carmela, Jocelyn, Sharon

 

 

Face off!

Finally felt ready to tackle the problem with the stitching on my canvas work piece and so spent over an hour carefully removing the stitching that had taken me a whole day to put in!

It is always at this point that I wonder whether or not I have done the right thing, but there was no turning back now. The tutors suggested that I replace the original stitching with a twill stitch which did go in a little quicker and give a better coverage of the canvas. The only thing that I am unsure about is the shading as the stitch is much bigger! So now the face looks like this…..

And here is an overall picture of the whole canvas…

So now I have to await my next visit to Hampton Court – hopefully all the tutors will now agree as I don’t think I could take it out again!

Happy stitching everyone!

 

Facing up to it!

Aaahh! This is really all I can say following a day at the RNS and much reverse stitching. I was so pleased with myself and beginning to envisage an end to my canvas work – I should have know better. Here is my piece before I went to Hampton Court.

As it was a Tuesday I had two different tutors who instantly picked up a problem with the stitch that I was using on the face of the woman. The stitch is quite boxy and square creating lines around each stitch that meant not all the canvas was covered.

We tried adding additional tent stitches and running a bar of thread underneath the stitches, but neither worked, leaving me with two choices; leave in the stitch and in my notes to the accessors, explain the problem (and lose marks), or take out the stitch. I didn’t have the heart to take it out on the day and instead chose to complete more of the background so at least it looked like I had made some progress.

Happy stitching everyone!

SAL 14 – Fishy on a little dishy…

I have had quite a lot going on over the last few weekends so have not made as much progress as I would have liked. In fact I only sat down last night to work on the piece for the first time in three weeks! Nearly a happy dance, but not quite yet! I have finally gotten round to putting all the elements together for one of the fish. Here is what it looks like now…..

I don’t think that I have quite managed to get the right body shape – mine looks a little two round – probably because I have used too much stuffing. Here is the second little fish going in….

Hopefully the next time we catch up I will have finished at least one of these!

Thank you for popping in. Happy stitching and I hope to see you all in another 3 weeks.
We are a small group of crafters using a variety of different techniques. Please check out the fabulous stitching by all the other members of the SAL. If you are interested in joining us you can contact Avis for details.
Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Linda, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Catherine, Connie, Clare, MaryMargaret, Renee, Jenny, Carmela, Jocelyn, Sharon

Canvas work – hole in one!

Another trip to Hampton Court which was a little bit of a mixed bag. During the morning I thought that things were progressing nicely until that is I realised that I had miscounted my stitches. I was feeling rather cross with myself as I pulled out an hours worth of work and probably wasn’t taking as much care as I should – so, cut the canvas too!

Aaahh – a hole! Luckily for me Owen was on hand to help and he caught the canvas threads with a thick cotton (+glue). The area is still very fragile, but hopefully you cannot see the hole and the rest of the stitching seems to have been held in place.

In the picture you can see the threads that Owen used -the hole is actually under the dark blue stitching, so I think it is hidden pretty well. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful – and here is my progress to date.

I have been concentrating on the houses in the background of the picture. And after taking this picture I managed to complete the woman’s eye and moved onto the bird at the top right of the canvas which I have been filling with upright cross stitch. Once I have completed the sky I will finish off the face and begin on the woman’s hair.

Hope you all had a more prosperous day stitching!

Canvas work – the eyes have it!

I have been pondering over the horses eye for some time as the colour just isn’t right – so this weekend I decided to take it out and try again. Here is what it did look like….

The face going in

Here is the piece after the eye was taken out – which took nearly an hour to remove! I am already wondering if I made the right decision – but it is too late now!

I used the same whipped stitch to put the eye back in but changed the wool colour to a much darker blue. Still not sure that the centre is big enough – but I will leave it for now and decide when the whole piece is nearer completion.

Added a little stitching up the neck of the horse using a Parisian stitch and started to put the moon in on the left hand side of the piece. Now it looks like this…

Nearly there!

Stitch chart

For once I am actually feeling quite pleased with this piece and can see an end in sight – which is a good thing as I have signed up for the intensive silk shading course in the summer, so do need to finish this.

Happy stitching one and all…