Update 11 July 2020

I did say “less text“...well that didn’t last...oh dear, grab a coffee ppl!

After doing the hair, I figured the woodcut is most probably German. Now that the shark has so much detail, I think the mermaid’s will need more work.

I think the sea only really comes to life when the palest blue is added. I’m using a single thread, as doubling it means the colours don’t blend as well.  I did a section with doubled thread, but had to juxtapose with a single again as the “quality of the line” was completely lost.

Il Futuro
Ok, so here’s the handsome chappie that’s going to be stitched. As an image I think it’s really great. I like his pose, especially that he’s not looking directly at us.  Love he’s reading a letter...who could it be from?

He’s a Royal Artillery soldier about to go off to the Battle of Waterloo.  I think because it’s a watercolour representation, it’s already been simplified for sewing.  I’m going to use a mixed bag of stitches, mainly satin, stem, long & short and gold threads etc. It’s a nice size, not too small around the face.  Very small faces can be particularly tricky. I love his hat, so that might get ‘special’ treatment. I don’t think the colour of his trousers is accurate, must be a faded reproduction because they’re more blue than grey in the image and I think they were actually light grey.  He has some gold, but not too much.  It might help to copy the image using coloured pencils first, but the danger is that I’ll have exhausted my enthusiasm and then won’t proceed.  But saying that, deep shadows need to be understood e.g. elbow creases.

 Have a good weekend !

Update 10 July 2020

Ok so I’ve given the mermaid some hair but I don’t think it’s accurate, so will be working on that.

Her tail and the two fish are the elements that I think about most, I don’t really want this piece to be about her hair but a funny thing happened...

(Since drafting this post I completed one of the fish, that turns out to be a shark but I gave him scales.  Not sure if other fish will be the same? I like the idea of male shark and female shark being different. If the next shark turns out better, this shark will have to have a new look.)

As I gave the mermaid’s features form, I could see the original drawing for the woodcut suggested somewhere in there.  That was a complete surprise and actually magical, because now I’m really back in the past.

I think this is quite a pious image along themes of hope for safe journeys, sort of thing, because if you look more closely you can see her hands look as if she’s praying, she’s wearing a modest chemise and her hair is covered.

I also think she was younger in the original design drawing than in the woodcut, but that’s what happens when you start gouging at delicate faces with wood carving tools...it’s all about the “quality of the line”, as they say.

I think the fact that her bosoms are not on show and she is altogether a demure mermaid, make her to me, seem more like the guardian angel of the ship, than pure fantasy borne of physical longing...?

Her tail is going to be hard, as are the fish.  Why? because if it ain’t hard, it ain’t worth doing.
Hard is when you learn, when you find things out and when you develop as an artist.

Hard can also produce dreaded banishment to the attic for several years but, hey, better late than never, right?

I’m already working on my next project, which is going to be very different indeed and in fact I’ll tell you now because I’m super-excited...it’s going to be of a soldier about to go off to the Battle of Waterloo.

Look what I found in the attic...

More projects with a maritime theme.

Ok, so this was meant to be for someone...you know how it is.
There’s a seagull, two shells, a boat(two sails), the sun, a lifesaver, some seawater and one cloud.

I should mention each mini motif is only a prototype.  The colours are not final choices and I would like to work with finer thread.

To give you an idea of scale, the sea shells are 2mm!

As Pat Trott says in her book Three Dimensional Embroidery “ illumination is better than magnification”.  So get your hands on a daylight lamp ppl!

Saying that, it is actually relatively easy to stitch DBH fast in this way, as you can see two threads intersecting to guide you to the next place to take a stitch. It’s not knitting, it’s more forgiving than that.

Anyway, on finding said item I could immediately identify what needed to be done to sort it out.

So all the items are made Punto in Aria, aka, DBH around your finger or between your fingers.
At first it’s fiddly, then you quickly realise it’s a very good way to make miniature cute things that make you smile...

So here’s how you do it...

Photo 1 is how you start.
Photo 2 is how you end the first row.

Eventually you end up with this...

Now a funny thing happened as I rummaged in my bag of bits.  I found this...!

Now ‘this’ may not look like much to the uninitiated but for anyone that’s about to make a mermaid’s
tail, this is potentially a fish scale...

Must dash, have to water the plants and feed ‘he who cannot cook’...

Update 8th July 2020

We have a crow’s nest, more water, some rope and sailcloth seams...

I’ve managed to injury my thumb while gardening, wish I had one of these clever masculine inventions called a Sailmaker Palm...

Let’s have some more sea...

I’m using stem stitch here to convey movement of the water.  It’s such a versatile stitch, in that you can switch to its mirror image, which is outline stitch, and also it can turn very easily into satin stitch.

7th July 2020 - Update

Hi Everyone

Working on a new project.  I plan to plot my progress from now on using less text, more stitching and more images.

I’ve missed the sea and decided to make this as a way of coping...


This is a woodcut from around 1500s.

I think the ship is a Portuguese Caravel.

Happy New Gregorian Year to Everyone!

* The Diagram for the Basis of Plaited Braid Stitch is down the bottom of this page

I hope you all had good holidays and enjoyed some downtime where you could reflect on all things creative and maybe develop some ideas from that feeling.

I bought a lot of books for myself over the holidays.  You know how it is, what I tried to resist in the rush up to Christmas, eventually made it into my shopping bag in the New Year sales.

I now have a feeling of pressure coming at me from all sides e.g. I'm literally running out of space!

I decided to cancel my subscription to Evernote, as I'm self-imposing extreme economy on my household........its a long story, but basically I have taken over a lot of things from my DH and 'economy' is now served up three times a day, and also between meals...

Thank Goodness, economy is 'self-imposed' and rather fun in many ways, like a kind of game where you have to suss out who's trying to fool you out of your money the whole time.

Whereas if its not self-imposed its basically called 'poverty' and if there is one thing no woman in her right mind will do, and that is become voluntarily broke!  Am I right ladies?

Isn't the cold weather completely clarifying and bracing!  

We went to the Caribbean again in November, I know, I know, that had to be a break from economy, or who am I fooling?

Yeah, and because there had been all those hurricanes out there, I decided I couldn't read anything other than books about natural disasters.

So I read a collection of short stories about people surviving natural disasters, hurricanes, floods, stranded in snow storms etc.

It was then I realised I really enjoy reading about HOW TO SURVIVE anywhere...and especially how to retain 'grace'.

Last January I started the year walking along a beach on the Eastern Coast, which is basically Dutch, and faced the natural ferocity of an invigorating sub-zero wind that lashed my face and made my eyes water like crazy.

I walked on, the stronger and colder the wind blew, the more well I began to feel? 

By the end of the 3 mile trek my hands were red and sore even in my pockets, and my feet were completely numb.  That's when I headed back and gradually my ears recovered and sensations returned to my feet.

It was wonderful!

The best way ever to welcome the New Year, face on, laughing in the face of adversity...!

I'm going back there next week and I'll take some photos.  I like it there, the people are pretty strange, its like a tribe or something, where their roots are Dutch and they know that you're NOT of Dutch decent.  

I have no problem being an outsider, I've been one all my life.
I'm so used to it now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Yeah and the other thing that happened last January, was I reconciled with my mother.

I don't know if anyone knew, but I had a Cold War with my mother for 17 years.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, it kind of stinks if I look back, which I don't anymore...

Anyway last year I reconciled with her.  I basically just let all my pain and anguish (read anger) just ebb away and I saw her for how she is now, old, in pain and tortured.  I decided to call it a day and offered her genuine friendship again.  

So lets hope reconciliation and courage in adversity continue to extend their magical powers over us mere humans.

Oh, and the other thing to report here is I kind of learnt how to read Tarot cards and now I'm starting to look at Runes.  I like what I'm learning about Runes.  Especially as their basis is more than likely from the Phoenician alphabet.  

So here is the image of the knot that in my opinion is is essentially Plaited Braid stitch, completed on a spike:

It took me a LONG, LONG time to find it, but at last I did.  So this proves that the knot\stitch was recognised in the culture of the day, probably coming from fishing or cord making traditions from much earlier times e.g. possibly Bronze age?  

Because hair braids from the Bronze age have been recovered virtually in tact, and they used incredibly complex knot-making skills in those days, make no mistake. 

That's my take on this whole Plaited Braid thing anyway...