The Island, A Study in White Work, part 1

I visited Blenheim Park several times to photograph potential subjects for my piece for the Celebrating Capability Brown exhibition. I had considered focusing on a tree or group of trees but my attention was constantly drawn to the Island and its reflection in the lake. I walked all around the lake taking photographs from every aspect but, of course, none of mine could match up to the professional photograph that Blenheim Palace had provided us for inspiration.

© Blenheim Palace
The Finest View in England

I printed out an enlarged and cropped version of the image then outlined the individual trees, the shape of the island and the reflections with a black marker.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Before I traced the design onto my fabric, I washed the linen to remove the dressing and pressed it while still damp to eliminate any wrinkles.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I planned to do some pulled thread embroidery on this piece so wanted the linen to be framed up with the grain as straight as possible. I decided to use a new frame that I had picked up at a sale. The packaging described it as a slate frame but the fabric is held in place with a dowel rather than stitching it to a twill tape. My first attempt was unsuccessful as a) the grain was not as straight as I wanted and b) the line slipped out of the dowels when I adjusted the stretcher bars.

© Carol-Anne Conway

To overcome this problem I decided to stitch a channel into each end of the fabric through which I could thread the dowels. I had read that it was not necessary to lace the sides of the fabric to frame with this system but later I was to regret skipping this vital step in framing up.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching