Gutter Lane Embroidery

The response to A Garden in Gutter Lane class was overwhelming and all the spaces are filled. Registration is now closed but keep an eye on this page for next year's classes. In the meantime, I will be presenting a workshop at the the Making Historical Dress Festival in Leicester in September. I don't think there are any in person places left but you can register to take part via zoom. More info is available at https://makinghistoricaldress.dmu.ac.uk/Festival.html

A Garden in Gutter Lane is open for registration. For all the information you will need to decide if this course is for you, please go to www.gutterlaneembroidery.com/garden. Please read the information carefully and follow the instructions for registration if you decide to join us on this eight-week adventure.

For this project we are travelling back in time to 16th century London when Elizabeth I was on the throne and a skilled embroiderer was in great demand. The wealthy nobility was decked in luxury fabrics embellished with silk and gold embroidery. The prosperous merchant class was expanding rapidly and was eager to let the world know of their good fortune. At this time, extravagant embroidery was an unmistakable confirmation of your wealth and good taste. By the end of the Tudor era, the fashion for embroidery had been embraced enthusiastically by anyone who could afford it... and many who couldn’t.
We are on Gutter Lane, just to the north east of St Paul’s Cathedral, in the working heart of the city. The garden is on the premises of the Embroiderers’ Hall and it’s where we’ll find many of the flowers we will be stitching. Flowers were a popular means of conveying concepts of love, joy, compassion, dedication, envy, wisdom: almost any emotion could be expressed with the correct choice of bloom. Some were used more often than others and one flower could be assigned many different sentiments depending on the situation and setting.
An Elizabethan garden almost always had a feature, a maze, an obelisk, a fountain, a pond. Our garden will include many common Elizabethan flowers: eglantine, pansy, strawberry, pomegranate, borage and more. And the feature in our garden will be a needle, because the needle makes this garden come alive!
Watch this space for details of when and where registration will take place...

It's almost ready! Just taking a break from attaching the motifs. It is a challenge to sew them onto the ground through all that silk, metal and glue but definitely worth the tender fingers.

Still having a lot of fun with experimental stitching. I decided to make the outline thread out of plate that works so much better than anything I've used before! Also, I've been looking for just the right velvet/damask patterned metallic ground (there's an official term just not sure which one it is...) but I'd never find the same design so I added the metallic thread to the ribbed silk to give it the illusion of a patterned fabric. Loving this week, moving from frame to frame and project to project... Still keeping up with the chapter re-writes too.

Still experimenting with colour, stitch placement, pearls, and gold thread... some are more successful than others but lots of fun! There are so many extant examples of embroidered honeysuckles, lilies, strawberries etc. from the Tudor period, it will be difficult to decide which fits best with the design and what ever the ground fabric will be... just waiting for samples to be delivered.

Needle in hand once again! Two of the four projects now on the go...

Road Trip! Ruth, Natalie and I took a little trip to Nicolet, PQ to admire the work of Quebec artist Marie Reneé Otis at her solo exhibition Pistes d’éternité in the Musée Cultures des Mondes. Her work is inventive, awe-inspiring and for the most part very vibrant. My favorite, though, was one of her earlier works, only a few points of colour, simply executed but conceptually complex.

Back from soggy London and gradually drying out just in time to experience the eclipse. Totally forgot until Mike mentioned it but I did an eclipse piece seems like a gazillion years ago. Unsurprisingly, it is called "Eclipse"... It is on the wall above the stairs as you go down to the studio and I see it - but not - everyday. That delicate strand across the center is not stitching but dust...

It's almost time for another research trip but before I leave I had to finish the Katherine Parr sleeve. A huge thank you to Carolyn Webb for the incredible reversible red work! No aglets yet, they are out of stock - maybe I can find some real ones in England.

Every year, before the snow flies, Natalie visits from Montreal and Mike and Ruth come from their various parts of Ottawa for a holiday chat. Pete makes us a marvelous meal and then we go to the studio to catch up on the latest in our respective embroidery worlds and share our adventures. This year Ruth took us to the GSWD exhibition in London and Natalie gave us a quick lesson on applying gold leaf to velvet! I had a fabulous day and was reminded how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful embroidery family!