Tree Creepers - Finished

It was very important for me to complete this project and submit it for the Oxford Branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild Members’ exhibition. The theme of the show is “Five Minutes from Home”. The idea was to look for inspiration close to home. I did not even have to leave the house! A few years ago a large willow tree in the neighbouring school grounds was severely pollarded, it never recovered from the shock and died. The remaining trunk has slowly decayed but Mother Nature has been quick to reclaim the old tree as her own. Very soon the ivy began its invasion and I have watched it creep ever upwards. One of the many birds that visit the trunk every day is the tree creeper searching for insects within the fissures of the rotting wood. These two 'Tree Creepers' are the subject of my embroidery.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I am very pleased to have completed the embroidery but it is not as I had originally intended. Given time I would have thread painted all of the ivy leaves but I ran out of time and in the end had to be content with outlining some of the leaves. Although I like the finished design with the outlined leaves I feel discontented with it because it is not how I envisaged it. Yet I am contented that I found a way to 'finish' the design and submit it for the exhibition.

© Carol-Anne Conway

"Five Minutes from Home" is on display at the Vale & Downland Museum, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8BL from 9 April - 4 May 2013, 10-4 Monday to Saturday. Admission is free.

© Carol-Anne Conway

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The Ivy

Now there were only the ivy leaves to stitch but the deadline was drawing very close and I had other pressing matters to attend to! I would like to be able to write that I had planned to show the different developmental stages of the ivy leaves by the way that I stitched them but that is not the case. As time drew shorter it became apparent that I could not stitch all of the ivy leaves as I had originally intended. I was compelled by lack of time to devise an alternative plan.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I had already split stitched the outlines of some of the leaves and liked the way that they looked. I decided to thread paint a selection of the leaves but leave the rest of them as outlines.

© Carol-Anne Conway

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The Tree Bark

The bark that still clings to the tree has a rougher texture than either the exposed wood or the tree creeper. I stitched an under layer of colour in long and short stitch but made the angle of the stitches more irregular than I normally would.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

When I had finished I thought that the bark still looked too smooth so I over stitched with irregular cross stitches to rough it up a bit. It still does not have the course roughness that I was looking for and it is nowhere near as effective as the wonderful bark I saw in the Threads of Silk and Gold exhibition. I am slightly disappointed with this bit but don’t have time to rework it. The deadline was drawing close and I still had a lot of stitching to do.

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The Eye, Beak and Feet

I was anxious about stitching the eyes, beak and feet. I felt that done well they would give my little tree creeper character; done badly, they would completely ruin the design. I turned to Trish Burr for help. Not Trish in person but the books by her that I have and also the stitching guide for the Chinese Flower. From those I selected an eye and a beak that I thought appropriate from my feathered friend and closely followed her instructions. I was very pleased with how they came out.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

Many of Trish’s birds have bullion know feet. I did not think that they were appropriate for my bird, which has long talons on each of his toes. I decided to stitch them in a similar way to the beak, using the same colours. Again, I was rather pleased with them.

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The Bird's Back

I was looking forward to stitching the bird’s back and wings even though I thought that the markings might prove challenging. I carried on working upward from the tail. The first challenge was working the distinctive bars on his wings. All of the needle painting I have done so far has focused on gradually blending from one shade to the next. These stripes required a more sudden colour change. I had to greatly reduce the staggering of the stitches and make them more like and overlapping satin stitch rather than the clear staggering used in long and short stitch. I was careful not to let the overlapping stitches become too bulky.

I did not think that this method would work so well for the speckling on his back so I first stitched all over with the darker shades of brown, blend the shades as I normally would. I then went back and overstitched with the paler shades, adding flecks and specks to give an impression of his markings rather than trying to faithfully copy every marking.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

I am rather pleased with how they came out.

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The Bird's Tail

I will work from the tip of his tail to the top of his head so that the stitches lay one on top of the other as feathers do. His tail is more or less the one colour with a little shade variation to distinguish the individual tail feathers. I think they need defining more but I will wait until I have completed his back to see how things balance.

© Carol-Anne Conway

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The Bird's Breast Reworked

I did take out the breast and rework it. I used fewer and paler shades than in the first attempt but still only used white very sparingly. I also altered the angle of the stitches. In the first attempt I followed the line of the bird’s body; this time I looked closely at my source picture and aligned my stitches with the direction of his feathers. I am happier with the breast now.

© Carol-Anne Conway

My original plan was to stitch the bird before the tree but I realised that needed to at least stitch the trunk around his tail and foot before I could continue with the bird. The bark has peeled away from the trunk here to reveal the smoother, paler wood beneath it.

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

© Carol-Anne Conway

I found it easier to stitch this under artificial light as I did not feel I needed to do a faithful reproduction of the photograph but rather give an impression of the wood. This was quite relaxing to do, just selecting thread at random and working irregular shaped areas, blending where they met. Over the course of a few evenings I filled completed most of the exposed wood. I want to go back and add some details but I will probably do that when the bulk of the stitching is complete.

© Carol-Anne Conway

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Progress Report - March 2013

Early in February, J’s car broke down and we car shared for over 2 weeks while awaiting spares and repairs. Getting both of us to and from one in one vehicle added nearly 2 hours to my working day and made a serious dent in my stitching time. As I could not stitch most mornings I have started stitching in the evenings again. That has not been ideal for either of my current projects. Any artificial light reflects of the beads and the needle is difficult to see against the dark fabric. I mostly worked on the seeded background in the evenings and saved the more intricate beading for the weekends. Somewhat surprisingly I have made good progress, so much so I thought that I might complete side one by the end of February. Unfortunately I was unwell at the beginning of the week and did not even feel like stitching for a day or two, so I did not quite reach that mile stone.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I have also been working on Tree Creepers but not progressed this as much as I would have liked. I find it really difficult to do colour matching under artificial light, even a daylight bulb. And, I am having way too much fun with my beading, truth is whenever I get a little stitching time I gravitate towards the beading. I have just under 2 weeks left to finish this piece, I am doubtful that I can do it in time but I will do my best.

© Carol-Anne Conway

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The Bird’s Breast

I would have liked to start with the bark. I thought that by the time I had done that, my stitching would have improved enough to tackle the bird. However, I am doubtful that I will have sufficient time to complete this project (my deadline is the middle of March). I plan to stitch the bird first and see how much time I have remaining. If I am short of time, I may have to rethink how I will stitch the bark and ivy or even abandon this project all together!

I began by stitching his breast. According to my bird book and the photographs I have seen it is white but, of course, white is never just white. I wanted to capture the shading and the shape of his body.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I stitched this during the evening using my daylight magnifier. I thought I was doing quite well! The next morning by daylight, albeit grey, miserable daylight, I could see that the colours are all off. I think that I will take this out and stitch it again. I also think that the angle of the stitches is not quite right.

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The Tree Creepers

The theme for our member’s exhibition is ‘Five Minutes from Home’. The idea is to look for inspiration close to home. I did not even have to leave the house! A few years ago a large willow tree in the neighbouring school grounds was severely pollarded. It never recovered from the shock and died. The remaining trunk is slowly decaying but Mother Nature is quick to take advantage of every resource. Very soon the ivy began its invasion and I have watched it creep ever upwards. Of the many birds that visit the trunk every day is the tree creeper searching for insects within the fissures of the rotting wood. I decided to make these two 'Tree Creepers' the subject of my embroidery.

Photographing the peeling bark and ivy was easy. As the tree is opposite my bedroom window, I was elevated to the right height and close enough to use a standard zoom lens. Capturing an image of the Tree Creeper proved far more difficult. I spent a long time with the camera trained on a spot that he visited frequently – except when I had the camera set up. Even when he did come into frame, he moved so quickly that by the time I had taken the shot he was gone! Eventually I did get a photograph I could work with and managed to cut the bird from that and position him on the piece of tree trunk that I had photographed previously.

My picture was good enough for me to trace the outline of my design but I will be using better pictures that I have found on the web as a guide when it comes to colour placement and stitching the details. Armed with a printout of one of these and a list of the DMC threads in my stash I set off to a purchase more threads, especially browns, and some linen. I wanted a high count linen; the highest that my LNS had was 34 count. I purchased some anyway but latter decided that it was not what I wanted for this project. I sourced some 55 count Kingston linen on the web and ordered two small pieces in white and cream. I decided to use the white for this project.

I printed the merged photograph larger than the finished design and knocked back the colours so it was very pale. I drew an outline directly onto this copy, leaving out any parts I did not want and slightly altering a few of the ivy leaves. I then transferred this onto tracing paper and used the photocopier to reduce the tracing to the required size. Because I had traced the outline with a strong black line the reduced image was still clear enough to show through the fabric without the aid of a light box. I traced the design onto the fabric with a Micron archival pen. I was pleased with the tracing except for a slight bleed at the end of his beak – probably the worst place for it to happen. I may have to extend his beak slightly to cover the outline.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I have set the fabric up in my seat frame. I backed it with a light weight calico and placed a piece of cling film over the fabric before inserting it into the frame. I am very lazy about taking embroidery out of the hoop – I try to make it extremely tight which is quite hard work, once it is done I like it to stay put! I will tear back the cling film where I plan to stitch and hope that the remaining film will protect the ground fabric.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Progress Report – February 2013

I have managed to do a little stitching most mornings but never as much as I would like, of course! However, I feel I have made good progress with Pouchette. For a long time I felt that I had done just under half of the main design. Suddenly I seem to have most of the main design on side one done. I still have all of the background to seed and side two to do as well but this feels like a big step forward.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

What I have not done this month is any stitching in the evenings (except one evening this week). I think that is because it has been such a dull, grey month that I am feeling S.A.D. – seasonal affective disorder or the winter blues. I’m not saying that I am depressed, definitely not, but I am totally fed-up of the greyness and feel tired and lack-lustre in the evenings. However, this week I realised that nearly a month had passed without me starting either of the projects I mentioned in my previous Progress Report and I resolved to do something about it. 'Nothing' is not entirely true; I had done some design work on the computer and purchased some supplies so there was nothing to stop me getting on with either of them. I’ve decided to do a piece for the exhibition and the other evening I transferred the design, framed up and started stitching.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I think that I should put Pouchette aside for now and make this my morning project but I am enjoying the beading so much I cannot tear myself away for it.

The bird thimble holder, which I forgot to mention last month, has not progress very much. His body is complete and I have begun to make the many, many tail feathers but because I usually work on these during the evening they have fallen victim of my S.A.D.ness. I will probably resume work on this when the lighter evenings return.

This morning was another dull, grey morning so the photographs are very poor quality today!

Happy Stitching