This week’s snapshot is brought to you by impending deadlines and a wee Dragon with chicken pox.
Hope you all have a lovely (and itch-free) weekend!
Category: Commissions
Someday Soon?
I’m about to start a Parisian-inspired piece, so I’ve been googling a lot of cherry blossoms.
Pinned from elleamberley.co.uk
It’s not helping my Spring-longing very much…
I think it’s time to step out of The Hovel and do some embroidery in the sunshine!
I’ll just get these frames painted in, they’re a suitably Parisian shade of cream, croyez-vous?
Commisison – I love you, I know (The Golden Years)
I pride myself on being able to offer products that are unique – partially because there’s quite enough mass production in the world already and partially because I’m not sure I could make the same thing over and over even if I wanted to. (This is part of the reason I make art rather than repeatable things like bags or clothes or jewellery.)
But then I got a request for an ‘I love you, I know’ after someone had seen a post on my Facebook page saying it had sold. So I had to consider my policy…could I still offer unique pieces and give people the chance to say ‘I love that one, can I have one too?’
Luckily, the answer is a resounding yes!
There is always another way to approach words – in this case we’ve got three whole films (I refuse to acknowledge any others) and quite an array of costume possibilities, not to mention fonts, frames and stitches.
I was informed by the commissioner that the pieces were a birthday present for her husband and that she wanted to hang them over the bed. So I went for that gold bikini (and discovered along the way that it is mostly green).
It tickles me to imagine family life in the Skywalker-Solo household, I hope the bikini makes a reappearance, even if only for special occasions.
Commission – Ellen
I made this piece for my gran’s 90th birthday at the end of February. It’s one of the first pieces I’ve made about someone I know and I really struggled with it!
The first thing I knew was that it had to be bright. From purple hair and turquoise eyeliner to Indian fabrics and sequins for all occasions, there is always lots of colour around Ellen.
I also wanted to capture her sort of energy; curious, enthusiastic and irrepressibly sunny. (Does anyone else get letters from their grandparents about roadtrips across the States, politics in the Middle East and art – all within the same paragraph?)
In common with many people who stride easily past their four score years and ten, Ellen is an irrepressible optimist. She got a tattoo at 80, and can be counted on to denote her approval with an ‘aw, isn’t that darling!’
I’m not sure I’m ever going to adequately compress the essence of the person who helped me make my first quilt, showed me that more is more when hanging pictures in your house and let me try on every bright and beaded item in her wardrobe at the same time into an embroidery, but here’s hoping I get another chance to try in 10 years!
U+273F
Here’s a first for me, a commission in Unicode!
The Lovely Young Man is a computer scientist and introduces me to all sorts of charming people who solve problems about information and toil down the data mines. When they’re not pushing back the boundaries of human knowledge, they come and commission embroideries…
I always love to play with the distinction between the digital and the handmade, so I’m particularly pleased at how this one turned out.
Apparently I have a very consistent way of making my stitches, it wasn’t until I turned one of the canvases over that I realised that the back was almost as pleasing as the front!
Last Chance for Love(tokens)
Are you a Valentine’s Day person?
I really want to embrace it, but despite being in a relationship with the same person for the whole of my adult life, I find it a bit of a struggle.
When I was at school, about five of us used to get together for Chinese food and one of those massive chocolate chip cookies you can get from kiosks in shopping centres.
Then I went to uni, met the Lovely Young Man and did Valentine’s Day student style – which was to say that we’d buy a bottle of wine that cost (slightly) more than £3, cook something that didn’t involve pasta and try not to talk about what deadlines we had coming up.
Now of course, instead of not going out because we’re skint, we don’t go out because we’ve got a Dragon. I suspect that we might revert to Chinese food and giant cookie this year (which sounds better and better the more I write about it. Look, here’s a recipe, we can do a bake-along).
Perhaps you’ve got the handle on this romantic thing, or maybe you’re a little bit at sea and want some ideas that don’t involve cheap lace or petrol station flowers…
All the pieces shown above are ready to go!
Or if you want to commission something special, why not something like this?
Your last date to commission a piece for your beloved is 27th January – this Monday!
Click on the photos to be whisked off to great adventures (or more information).
Christmas Gift Guide and Manifesto
Here’s my version of a Christmas gift guide, it’s a little unorthodox, so hold onto your (Santa) hats.
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Don’t buy stuff!
I know, it seems a mite unusual coming from a person doing her level best to encourage you to part with your pennies, but there is almost no one on your Christmas list who needs stuff. We are very lucky.
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Give doors that open.
Great, you think, so if I’m not giving stuff what do I get Aunty Jen? Not to mention the kids…
But stuff goes nowhere, it just sits about until you trip over it one last time and finally send it (hopefully) to the charity shop in the hopes that the giver won’t notice its absence and ask about it. (They never do.) Why not approach gifts as a way to open a door. So that what you give isn’t as important as why or from whom, or even who or how it was made.
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Tell a story.
So find your favourite book at a charity shop or independent bookseller and (this is the most important part) tuck a note into it telling the recipient where you were when you read it or why you love it or why it reminds you of them.
Or explain that you want to support local or fairtrade or organic makers and get them a voucher or a veg box or a handmade widget. But tell the story!
So you can still buy earrings and socks and novelty hot water bottle covers as long as the reason isn’t ‘It was on 3 for 2 at Chainz ‘r Uz and I was desperate.’
I know this takes more effort and it may mean that you need to practice over a few years. But halfheartedly buying stuff for the sake of it almost never makes either the giver or the receiver happy.
Where do I come in? I like to provide the most difficult service of all. I’m here for the people who don’t even need fairtrade recycled hand-crafted widgets. Your mum with all the ornaments and kitchen gadgets she’ll ever use, or your friend who just buys what he wants (when he really wants anything, which isn’t often).
To them (but mainly you) I’m offering a touchstone, a portal, a wardrobe door which gives a glimpse of a time you shared, a book they love, a place they’ve visited and all the memories, associations and thoughts that will bring a smile to their face whenever they see their piece. (Plus, it’s handmade, reclaimed and I rarely employ children!)
Now, go forth and give!
(or contact me to order your personalised piece)
Christmas commission and posting dates:
Last date to commission a piece for UK delivery by Christmas:
this Friday 29 November
Last posting dates for stock orders:
USA/Europe: Friday 13 December
UK: Friday 20 December