Being inspired

The photograph is of old settling pits at St Day which is a village not far away from us here in Falmouth. St Day is a typical mining village and there are lots of remains from the tin mining industry of yesteryear but which sadly is no longer in existence today. In this part of Cornwall old engine houses are a very common sight. I took this photo as the orange colouring was so striking and was inspired by it to do a quick embroidery. I silk painted the background and stitched randomly over it, and then machine couched hand-dyed threads to get the effect of the layers of silt. Then I hand stitched using french knots and buttonhole stitch to get the effect of fissures in the ground. The final touch was the thread trees on the skyline. In this area the wind is quite strong and continuous and all the trees grow with a decided slant and are often more skeletons than solid trees. I had great fun doing this and liked the results so much that I had the piece framed so I could hang it on the wall and enjoy it daily.

Today I had steroid injections in my arm and it has felt like lead ever since! It has been a good opportunity to sit and read and not feel guilty that I'm not catching up with the ubiquitous UFO's. I'm enjoying K is for Killer by Sue Grafton. I like a good murder mystery! I was also able to watch some of QNN and see Eleanor Burns demonstrate a really quick way to put a binding on. This might revolutionise my bindings in future because in the past I've always sewn them on in the final step by hand. No more of the H word! Almost as good as my quick mitre method for double binding that gets machine stitched at one fell swoop! Trouble is my method needs good accurate measuring in the first place and its hard to fudge if its wrong!