Thursday 24 May 2012

Hiya

Hello there. I am Pippa Foulds and for as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by needlework and making things in general. My other great passion is history, so combine the two and you can see where we are going!

I always wanted to embroider ‘properly’. My wonderful husband patiently put up with the incomplete kits as I fell down somewhere with the instructions and eventually built me a bookshelf to accommodate the ever growing pile of embroidery books designed to ‘show me how’. No one really embroidered in the family to teach me, if only……..

Then at the Knit and Stitch in Harrogate a lovely lady told me about a Royal School of Needlework class ‘up north’ with Tracy Franklin. Plucking up the last of my courage I signed up for the RSN Certificate. Three years later, Certificate achieved I’m half way into my Diploma and I loooooooove it.

So, I thought that maybe some like minded fellows out there might be interested in what I create and where it might lead.

                                                        RSN Diploma Blackwork piece

Here’s the piece for my Blackwork module just about ready for mounting and still on my frame. It’s taken from a Leonardo sketch of the head of Leda and I’ve quite enjoyed doing it after some initial trauma as I’d never done anything in Blackwork before! It’s done on 36 count linen and the threads are Mulberry silks - with a lot of invisible thread as well, grrh! Hope you like it although it’s not what you might initially expect as traditional blackwork. Took  me from January to May to complete - 8 days tutoring and lots of homework!

Would love to hear your comments.

See ya soon.

9 comments:

  1. Loving the blog! Hooray for you! :) That blackwork piece is ruddy gorgeous!
    x x x

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    1. Thank you so much Lucy and thanks for all your help on the set up. We're under way yippee!

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  2. I love your piece, it's so beautiful.

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    1. Thank you so much, Kimberly. Look out for the next RSN module!

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  3. I've just worked backwards through your posts :-)

    Welcome to the world of blogging. I am so envious, I would love to do the certificate and dipolma with the RSN but cannot fit it into either my diary or budget at the moment. One day maybe!

    I'm not very familiar with black work and am more used to the traditional style. I've seen one other piece like this and it blew me away as does your beautiful piece. Congratulations on passing the module.

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  4. Hi Carol
    As you can see this is all new to me. Glad you like it. Other people's blogs help me with ideas so much and I just wanted to share my love of hand embroidery.

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  5. Hi Carol, I just came upon your blog, and decided to start at the beginning! This piece is amazing! May I asked what you used the invisible thread for?

    Nina

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    1. Hi Nina
      Hope you enjoy my embroidery travels.
      The invisible threads are really fine hair like threads that I've used for definition in the face and to fade out the background, bit like fine pencil strokes. They are generally used for textile conservation but are a great tool for embroidery too. Mine came from Restore Products in Cheshire in the UK.
      Hope this helps.
      Pippa

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