Houses and Hideaways.

This month the Sketchbook Challenge Blog has a special theme of Houses and Hideaways and is linked to a blog hop; if you have hopped over from there, you are very welcome.

 One of my first exercises in white work was a picture of my house worked in Hardanger Stitch. I have to admit two things, one it is in fact a rather grand interpretation of my house, and it was the first and last time that I tried Hardanger. Having just been to the Norwegian Fjords I noticed we were in fact not too far from Hardanger where this type of embroidery was popular from 1650-1850.  If you like precise work you should give this a try as the results are satisfying.

In case you would like more details of what Hardanger embroidery is I have looked it up for you:-

Hardanger embroidery uses satin stitch blocks known as Kloster blocks, consisting of 5 parallel satin stitches, worked over a group of 4 x 4 ground threads. These blocks enclose areas of fabric where a number of warp and weft threads are cut and withdrawn, leaving a network of loose threads and large holes within the shape defined by the Kloster blocks. Various decorative filling stitches are then worked over the remaining loose threads and holes to create a lacy effect.

Some of the stitches and special techniques used are:

·        Simple satin stitch surface motifs, often resembling stars, ships, crescents and crosses.

·        Other decorative surface stitches such as fly stitch, running stitch, cable stitch and French knots.

·        Woven bars: weaving the needle over and under four threads until they are completely covered, and wrapped bars (overcast bars) where the thread is wound around groups of four threads.

·        Filling stitches resembling wheels, spider's webs and dove's eyes.

·        Picot: twisting the thread once round the needle before inserting the needle to produce a decorative loop.

·        Edging stitches such as four-sided stitch, buttonhole stitch and fancy hemstitching techniques for finishing items.

Another stitch project came from a stay in a flat right on the harbour front in Lyme Regis; it was so noisy but only because of the crashing waves.

 I brought back a postcard and made a small hanging loosely based on it.

 Some appliquéd and stencilled houses.

 The fragments of machine embroidery worked on dissolvable material are supposed to represent the houses going up into the hills and at the base are the waves worked in cords again on dissolvable material. 

 This is a view over The Cobb the setting for ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’; the film starred Meryl Streep who walked along The Cobb in the rain, very dangerous and probably done by a stunt man.

If you would like to follow along with the blog hop see my earlier post for a list of the participants.