Stitching catch-up . . .

. . .  since January, help.  I have done more stitching than this, but not taken photos evidently.  And in the meantime blogger has updated itself and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing.  That'll teach me to ignore the blog.

So,   first, the latest stitching work for church, an altar frontal for Pentecost, hexagons with flame shapes appliquéd on top, made by Threads of Faith, our church stitching group.

 Second - Journey into Space, family fun day, also at church, one of the craft activities, stitching shapes to felt background and sticking to a folded card.

 Third - a completed bag on my Brilliant Bags  workshop at Sherborne West Country Embroiderers.  Several more of these turned up at the Dorset WCE exhibition at Upton Country Park last weekend,both as exhibits and being bought by visitors!

 Fourth -my Dippy Dolls , another workshop , small creatures made from real scraps and bits of interesting knitting or stitching threads.

 Fifth - the last quartet of Contemporary Quilt Group journal quilts for last year - how out of date is that! - in which buttons had to be included.
This one raided my stash of buttons inherited from my grandmothers, and include several from army uniforms.

 This one used printing and painting with interference paints and a lot of swirly free stitching with some lovely Valdani threads bought at Quilt et TextilKunst in Munich.

 The last two show buttons in a normal place - down the front of a blouse . . .

 ... and a shirt, a scruffy painting one, hence the cut up bits.

. . . and that's it till i take a few more photos!

How do you get tags on with this new setup?

Journey to Jerusalem

Well, in spirit not in fact.  With the help of a few other people I got these painted for use at our church during the week before Easter, for reflecting on the events of that week, leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  7' x 3'6" each, quite a task, but one I found really satisfying.  They are painted on medium weight calico, using household emulsion paints, mostly leftovers from people's home decorating.  I call it the feeding the 5,000 principle - collect the bits you've got and do something interesting with them!  See John's gospel chapter 6.
I used photographs as source material.

An olive tree in the garden of Gethsemane.  This one is still out, in a corner of the church.

One of the gateways, rather simplified version!

They did have to be simplified versions, I'm not skilled enough to do anything more precise and accurate.

The view over the city from the Dominus flevit church, up on a hill.  And the garden tomb.

creative stuff at church . .

. . . just over life-size figures, the Rhythm of Life band, made by weaving strips of fabric, plastic, paper in and out of chicken wire moulded over a wooden armature. The instruments are constructed out of card covered with paper, painted gold. This was a project lots of people had a go with, anyone who was in the church building for whatever purpose was encouraged to put some strips in, and they did. There's a guitarist, drummer . . . . . trumpeter, saxophone player (well, nearest we could get to a saxophone!) . . and a violinist. Interesting mixture. I wonder what that would sound like if they all came alive one time and started to play?

The figures were constructed and the work facilitated by Jacqi Lea, a community artist from Southampton.

Then this is done by a group of us who've been involved in making altar covers. See same link as the band (above). We made a strip each,using a drawing of an idea one of us had, relating to the Hard Rain exhibition we have at the church till October. There is a lot of detail in the embroidery, worth a click to see a bigger picture.

This was on the lable that went with it.
The Hard Rain pictures are mostly pretty bleak and that is how our ‘story’ begins. But stubborn little green shoots eventually penetrate the dark landscape and expand into green places where the rhythm of growth takes over , producing fruit that continues the cycle of new life. And the tree spreads out across all of it.

Genesis 1, seven days of creation

These are seven paintings 6' x 3', on calico, using household acrylics, illustrating the account of creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible. They were done when we were looking at the story in the all-age services we have at our church (St. Nicholas, Corfe Mullen, in Dorset), mostly by me, with input from the vicar and several children and adults who come to those services. I didn't really know I could paint like that till I tried! Big and messy, like my stitching! The first one has pieces of paper stuck on, painted over words using oilbars, - "In the beginning . . . The earth was formless and void. . . . God said, 'Let there be light'"
For this one, dry land emerging and plant life developing, I looked up prehistoric plants and found photos of fossils of some very early plants and trees, and some reconstructions drawn from fossil evidence. Interesting!
The constellations Ursa Major, Orion and Cassiopeia have stars/planets made with large holographic discs stuck on. The sun and moon are photos with some additional paint effects.
For this one, birds and fish, I didn't really want to divide the canvas into two, with birds at the top and fish in water below, so hit on the idea of painting just water, with fish suspended over it, and a mobile for the birds to 'fly' around. This was partly with an eye to the practicalities of storage - they are all going to be rolled up when taken down.The creation of humans and animals has an abstract treatment. the hands represent response to the breath of God giving life, response upwards to God and outwards to each other.
And the last one, God resting, has a spiral which symbolises God moving out from a still centre to us, or us moving in towards God. Written on it using a felt tip pen are various words from the Bible about rest, stillness and peace.

They have been used a lot, as backdrops for various activities, and are proving to be very useful and quite inspiring for many people.

Phew! There's sometimes more to what we do than we realise when we are doing it.