First roll along of the peasant fantasy

I’m making slow progress on this one, but progress is progress nonetheless!

online classes now available

I’ve made both kit and digital only versions available

on the shop now

https://www.opusanglicanumembroidery.com/s/shop

Online classes?

I posted this yesterday on facebook as a way of spitballing the idea

So, if the entire world is on lockdown for weeks on end, do we fancy an impromtu online class. I’m thinking two running side by side, one laid and couched work for intermediate level, and a more advanced opus piece, each with a fortnightly update (I’m going to try for a video, an hour of live chat for problems, and a step by step photo tutorial).

There would be a fee to take part, which would cover the tutorials, with the option of either using your own materials to my pattern, or purchasing a kit in addition to the tutorial fee.
Obviously, this is going to be so we can start at the beginning of April, so I won’t have time to finish the piece beforehand, and we’d all effectively be working side by side, so options would be based on initial drawings, and I’m thinking a theme of angels, perhaps for the laid and couched work the trio of musical angels from the music fantasy, and for opus a female angel with a cat and dog by her feet?

I would need a minimum of 12people per class to make it worth my while.

I’m hoping to do both video and pdf, with one to one support via email for both options, and I’ll investigate some sort of live chat as additional support

Kit to include marked canvas, needle, and appropriate threads in each case

For the laid and couched class, beginner/intermediate level, it’s a larger image than my usual kits, so kit and classes(minimum six tutorials)£70?

For opus, kit and classes (nine tutorials)£85?

Let me know if you’re still interested and I’ll put a sales link tomorrow. once I get enough people it will tkae me a week to sort out and makae up the basic kits and post them, then I’ll look to get the first tutorial up at the beginning of April.

So, this would be the image (obvs this is a cropped version, the project will include hands and feet) for the beginner/intermediate laid and couched work online class. The robes will be adjusted a little so two angles will have patterned robes so we can explore alternate techniques.

The modules would be

basics of laid and couched work

trellis couching and pattern

couched outline stitch

split stitch outlines and wings

hands and feet

faces

And this is an artisits impression of the image for the opus class, adadpted from an angel on the bologna cope, I would be stitching along with you on this one, as I’ve used a new to me image

modules would include

outlining

two colour shading

three colour shading

ground treatment

animals and dappling

hands and feet

faces

underside couching

 

Classes

I meant to post these ages ago, but I’ve been too busy to process so many photos.

Students work from a laid and couched work day at ewe and ply in Oswestry. rememebring whose is whose is beyond my fuddled brain right now, so speak up if you want to claim credit

I like the contrast couched stripe down his middle

we were going with a polocy of “you’re not going to finish in a day, so start at the back end because if you make any learning mistakes it’s less noticeable” hence many tails

This one’s sue’s, she updated him on the facebook group the other day

Two little bagpipe dogs. the one on the stripey base is stephens, and was also updated on the facebook group recently.

I shall have to post about the other class in a day or two, got to go

 

There are still spaces on the Ashmolean three day class. (I will organise one on one video tuition is we end up having to cancel physical classes)

 

strange man with a stick

lUttrell progress. He’s actaully trying to net birds, which won’t become aparent until the next turn of the frame

Am thinking maybe grey would have been more harmonious for the tree bark, but it’s done now and I can’t be bothered unpicking it.

stupid boy

Brenda has finished her piece from the year before last’s opus class at the ashmolean – I think she deserves a massive round of applause for finishing it at all, since she had a heart attack and cataract surgery during the course of working this piece.

Isn’t it lovely?

The stupid boy of the title is her husband, busy doing his fishing whilst Brenda conjugates a bit of Latin because she’s such an all round smarty-pants

She adapted the iamge from the codex manesse

You can still book on the one year class at the ashmolean if you’d like to learn a little opus for yourself, or even some laid and couched work.

I have soem more student pics from this weekends classes at oswestry and at broadwell, but I will have to leave those for a day or two as there are a lot of pics to process, and I have to get ready for work tomorrow

shirts

I have been very bad at taking pictures of shirts, mainly because over christmas I was so busy I forgot. So I had to dig out all the ones I’ve made for Gareth and take pictures. I made one with naughty ladies on for my dad last week and I forgot to photograph that.

THis is my favourite, which he wore on his birthday last week. It was mostly quilting panels, so i had to cut creatively to make the most of the large images

For once I didn’t put a pocket on because it would have spoiled the front panel with the planets. The pale blue is a reproduction of the handwritten calculations that put the first rockets into space, which I thought was very cool.

Gareth was born in 69, so he really liked this shirt.

The bit above the astronauts which the eagle quote had to be included, so I pieced it into the sleeve.
And I struggled to find buttons until I stumbled across some online, but they only had a few of each design, so I mixed up rockets, spacemen, and UFOs

Ever since I started making shirts for Gareth, I’ve wanted to make him one with DNA on, because his Phd is genetics, but for the last ten years I’ve been unable to find anything, then…

Red isn’t his normal choice for colour, but this fabric is exactly how I envisioned DNA fabric, which the strands in pinstripes.

But it seems that DNA fabric are like buses – you wait ages, then two come along at once.

I really like the green circuitboard fabric trimming that one though. Gareth has always told me he’s not great with computers, then when he was cleaning his dad’s house out last summer there was a pile of 1980s computer magazines, and he admitted that when he was 13 he used to earn pocketmoney by writing articles for them. I now realise “I don’t understand computers” means “I don’t want to fix out ever problem you’re whining about on your laptop”

He hasn’t worn this one yet, as it’s more summery, but I can’t beleive two separate manufacturers produced fabric which is a terrible visual pun on cats and cacti – they are both called “catcus”

The question here is not “why did I buy this fabric” but more, “how could i possibly fail to buy this fabric”

And I finally got to use some cute cat buttons I bought at the button queen before I even met Gareth,

And because he likes a seaside shirt

This one is basically because I liked the fabrics –  knights, pirates and vikings

And finally a very plain one with bamboo, which he’s been wearing almost every day. It was just a cheap fabric from leeds market, but gareth grows lots of bamboo in the garden. he was well impressed because apparently it shows a very rare blue bamboo

That one’s almost innocous