What a fabulous weekend spent on a two day course at the RSN, with Becky Hogg! Although I have nothing against the Royal family, I felt that I needed to be away from the expected 24 hour media coverage of the ‘Wedding of the Year’. So it was a weekend away to work on my gold work.
The course covered a number of techniques that I already had a little experience with – but also included some new to me such as; cutwork over string padding, pulled and threaded pearl purl and several different couching methods.
Goldwork is however, notoriously slow and after day 1, there was little progress to show for all the hard work, mostly padding and a little passing work…. and we didn’t escape all the Wedding day activities as two very special guests showed up to assess our work ( Rachel and Owen – in their best bib and tucker)…
During day 2 we applied cutwork over the string padding, coiled and stretched pearl purl which we then interwove with cotton threads – adding colour to the coils. We also couched a leaf to be cut out and added later (sorry no picture of this). So here is the two days of progress…
I had thought about posting a picture of Becky’s finished piece, but I think I will leave everyone guessing a little while longer. Instead here are a few pictures from around Hampton Court, it looked glorious in the sunshine.
sweetfallenangels 
Such beautiful and very fine stitching. And Hampton Court is so peaceful and lush. I would visit there any time.
It is wonderful in the sunshine!
It looks like an amazing place. I really like the combination of greens. Looking forward to seeing more soon.
I do really enjoy going to Hampton Court – it gives you time to really just sit and stitch in a lovely environment.
You made great progress Deborah! You don’t have to tell me how slow goldwork can be! And cutwork over string padding can be just tedious when you get it wrong each time. I look forward to seeing your finished piece!
It could take some time!
It looks fantastic
Thank you, although because the cutwork was covered first it has meant that it has split when you try and put stitches around it. That is the only problem with a short course – they like you to learn all the techniques rather than work each in order.