This weekend I’ve been preparing for next week’s move to West Molesey for my studies at Royal School of Needlework. I’m really excited, I definitely need to get away from here, from these memories, and start afresh. It was pointed out to me today that I’ve become a broken record of late- I need new things to talk about.

I made a couple of cushions today. I seem to be unable of making things without decoration on, but lacking in time I had to root through my things and find stuff to use. I ended up finding two of my very earliest embroidery projects that had been done for fun and not for college work. One was unfinished, I finished it. One was intended to become a purse… A cushion’s second best, right? It was odd, finding things that there were three years old… and that I still liked. I didn’t do much ‘crafting for fun’ back then, so all my three year old work, in my mind, is AS Level work- and therefore a dreadful bore.

The first, an Art Buchwald quote rendered in pretty poor chain stitch:

The second, some sort of screaming face in chain and satin stitch?:

I remember finding the second one to be a mammoth task. I wasn’t as quick as I am now, I didn’t know as many tricks as I do now. I guess that’s why I left it unfinished (although all I left was a bit of the nose and the eyebrows) I remember watching The Crystal Maze while I did it… well the re-runs anyway, it’s not that old. It also has the tell tale signs of being an early Rosa embroidery of the lines being drawn on with biro before I stitched. Oh, the wonders of washaway embroidery pens!

They will sit proudly on my bed as a reminder of my beginnings. Never forget.

What do you want first? The good news or the bad news?
I like to have the bad news first. The good news then helps nurse the pain of the bad.

So here it is;

At least the bad news looks pretty, eh? I stitched this while in Sydney as a present for a good friend. It’s a cross stitched rip off of this Turner Prize entry.

And the good news?

(Taken from Arlee Barr’s photostream)

Yes yes, I am now a guest poster at Mr X Stitch! One friday of every month I shall release secrets from The Royal School of Needlework to the world. I will keep you posted on my posting.

So, as I said in my last post- My big sister has tied the knot! Since she’s my one and only sibling, and therefore by default- my favourite sister, I knew I had to put in a lot of effort into the wedding present. Just buying her some quilt covers would not do.

I decided the whole ‘international’ theme would be a good one to go by- so I wanted to do something distinctly British. If she was going to be getting married to a foreigner, away from the homeland- then she’d sure as heck have to be reminded of the little island she grew up on with me. When the inspiration finally hit, I realised how obvious it was. Royal Weddings. You can’t get more British than Charles and Diana’s wedding memorabilia. A nation obsessed by one couple, every time you go into a charity shop over here, you can rely on finding at least a mug with a classic Chaz and Di wedding design on. I did a quick google search and found this; my starting point.

And this? My finishing:

As the astute amongst you can see- it’s very different from the inspiration, and not just because it’s embroidered. I decided I had to make it at least a little Australian… Didn’t want Mister Sister getting uppity.

I swapped all the standard leaves for Eucalyptus leaves, and I swapped a bouquet of thistles for a waratah, a native Austrlian flower. I made the mistake of using Bullion knots, and lots of them, to depict the bizarre texture of a waratah. It took me ages, but everyone who saw it recognised them straight away- so a little victory for me there.

One of the changes I was most happy with was changing The Prince of Wales feathers for Archaeopteryx feathers. Mister Sister is a palaeontologist, and loves Archaeopteryxs the most. I asked him what colour “Archeop-whatever feathers” were, but being big and clever he just sent me a text he’d written for Uni and basically just fobbed me off with the whole “your guess is as good as mine” excuse. Helpful. I went for dark blue and maroon.

I’m quite proud of my acorns. They’re pretty cute, huh?

And finally, on the original the words ‘Ich Dien’ are inscribed. I did a little research to find out what they meant, and according to Yahoo Answers, it means ‘I serve’. Well, as if that was getting by on a wedding present to my sister. I discovered it was derived from ‘Eich Dyn’ or ‘Your Man’. And yeah. That’ll do.

I embroidered it all on a table cloth I’d bought from a charity shop, that had already been embroidered by someone who really liked flowers and bows. The embroidery itself is about A2 size, but the table cloth is bigger. It was hung where the reception was taking place, and it became quite a talking point, and dancing-infront-of-point too. In the grand tradition of weddings, here’s Father of The Bride dancing. My excuse for posting this photograph is a size comparison shot.

But I don’t really need an excuse, do I?

I am in Australia right now, Melbourne to be precise!

My sister has found a fellow to dote on her every whim and so is marrying him as quick as can be. He and his family are Melbourne residents so our English based family have just had our air mile saving hearts broken by flying half way around the world. Holidays are exciting though, so we’re all having a lovely time.

The beauty of Melbourne is it is so damn crafty. Firstly, my craftivist idol is based here- Rayna Fahey AKA Radical Cross Stitch. She also co-runs the Craft Cartel nights (I believe) and I was upset to learn that alas, there was not one on whilst I’m over here… but hopefully I can meet the woman behind the cross stitched fences all the same.

There’s also Meet Me at Mikes, which is a shop I’m hoping to go check out tomorrow. They had a Brown Owls craft night the day I arrived but 24 hour journeying makes Rosa a crabby human being so it was to the apartment and to bed with me.

When I return I will have stitchery for your eyes.

A couple of pictures from indie tracks… they didn’t come out wonderfully and they were all of the same person anyway so it’d probably be quite a boring post if I did more than a few.

Lovely weekend.

A while ago I sent this piece to Valued Sony Customer, a fellow Phat Quarter lassy.

It upsets me that in this day and age, to keep yourself natural is courage… but I feel that those amongst us who do, with their heads held high, ought to be commended for it all the same. This one’s for you, ladies.

To further illustrate my point, a couple of bits:

Firstly, one of my favourite pieces of feminist grafitti activism:

http://jumpoffthebridge.com/2009/04/as-long-as-theres-no-hair.html

Secondly, a link to a frankly terrifying advert for a bikini trimmer and a very interesting thread of comments:

http://www.feministing.com/archives/014633.html

Whilst the manlier amongst us might go to Larmer Tree festival, cover themselves in mud and keep us all updated with pictures on their iPhone- My fun comes in the form of little festivals based on steam trains with farms nearby and twee indie pop bands playing in churches… Indietracks Indiepop Festival.

I took all my photographs on disposable cameras so you’ll have to wait a while for actual documentation of the extreme fun I had, but in the mean time, have a couple of snippets.

You remember when I told you about Eithne Farry? Well she was running a workshop there called ‘Hey Ho Let’s Sew’ to promote her new website (That I was unable to find… google search fail.) I of course went along ever so eagerly, and I ended up making this dainty little corsage:

I also got to meet her and I can now vouch that not only is she super talented but she’s also a lovely person. She has a new book out soon which I am very excited about indeed.

And finally, a little touch of what makes indietracks so unique and wonderful:

(I actually found that that was the friendliest donkey. Charlie the llama however – terrifying.)

Remember this?
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Well I made you a promise. And here it is, here’s your free pattern, should you wish to stitch with me:

Here’s a link to a full size pattern, for clarity.
Click

If you do stitch it up- I’d be super grateful if you could pass a picture of it on to me. I can be emailed at rosagmartyn[at]gmail.com

I have in my head, an image of a perfect embroiderer. One who has reems and reems of threads and cotton and hoops and needles and books upon books of needlepoint. They have every possible accessory organised in the most perfect way.

I am the total opposite. I am a student without a student loan. So unbelievably poor. I get by on what I can. If I need something, I’ll buy it. I won’t buy it on the off chance that I might need it.

I’ve never bought threads in bulk. I don’t have a rainbow of every thread colour I might ever want, and I certainly don’t have those all in a lovely quality of DMC or Anchor… Most of mine are in ‘Venus’, 35p a skein, and you can certainly tell when using them to embroider.

This morning I went to buy myself two new skeins. One dark pink, and one to match a leaf from my garden. A one and a half hour roundtrip for a small amount of floss. Dedication.

I do have the odd prize possession. Amongst these, a washaway embroidery pen and wash away avalon film (which makes me choke… I much prefer the pen, but for precision it can’t be beat) but my favourite of them all- a pair of Fiskars Needlework Scissors.

I cannot begin to explain how completely amazingly useful these scissors are. My granny bought me a pair for Christmas 2007, for me to use them almost every day, until they disappeared. She bought me them again in 2008, and told me “I’m not buying them again!”

I’m really protective of these scissors. I once got in a small dispute over them when a girl from college asked to borrow them and fearing they’d be taken from me, I snapped “No because I’M USING THEM” I found this instantly hilarious, unfortunately she failed to see the funny side. There was bitching about me for sure that day. All for the love of fiskars.

This morning I had a blood test and they took so much blood I couldn’t believe it. I thought they were being greedy when filling up the first tube, four tubes later and I thought they might just be trying to kill me. Anyway, I’m still alive and am awaiting the results to see why I’m losing weight, why my toes are going numb and why I cannot sleep. Sigh.

A little scan from a page in my sketchbook.

The Four Tops- Just walk away Renée