Author: Linda Kemshall

I always like to have a hand stitched project on the go – there’s nothing worse than twiddling your thumbs when you could be sewing or knitting is there? I had some time to kill recently and having enjoyed making the samples for our Running With Stitch online course so much I decided to start another piece but tweak it a bit. I stayed with the idea of a simple landscape (and being my work there had to be a moon up there too) but I choose fine cotton fabrics rather than the transparent and loosely woven fabrics I’d demonstrated with during the course.

I’m lucky that I have a stash of fine cotton threads that Laura and I have dyed over the years. You can see I’ve sorted out some colours that I think complement the fabrics but there are lots of lovely hand dyed threads available online if you don’t dye yourself and would like to achieve a similar effect. It can be unpredictable to know how the colours will appear if your threads are variegated like mine but when the thread and fabrics are high contrast I think it adds a spark to the finished piece.

I’ve included a photo of a detail of one of the landscapes I made for the course just so you can see how much stitch I like in my work and how those contrasting colours of stitch really sing. This new piece will be just as densely worked but I’m bringing in some herringbone and fly stitch alongside the running stitch. Fly stitch is a great option to represent grasses and leaves so I’ll be using that in the foreground to add colour and texture. If you look really closely at the left hand corner of the first image you’ll see I’ve made a start with the first row!

The red and gold image is a detail of an appliqué of mine that you might have spotted in the shop on my website. I’ve included it here to show how I created little spots of colour with French knots and scattered straight stitches – those might have a part to play in the new piece too. The final image you may remember from our Inspired by Banjara video workshop. I love the idea of weaving a thread through a grid of running stitches and am wondering how I might adapt that technique to my landscape without it looking too regular and formal. Maybe using a single colour of thread that matches the fabric might be the solution? This is only a small piece and I don’t want it to be too busy with many different elements – I shall proceed cautiously! So, lots of ideas floating around at the moment. I’ll get to work on some stitching and let you see how things evolve.

Hope you are all making time to be creative – if you need inspiration browse the www.designmatterstv.com website as there really is something for everyone. Running with Stitch is available in Online Courses for £25. You can watch as many times as you like and take as long as you like to make your own landscape piece. Get stitching and lose all sense of time in the process – or is that just me and my obsessive personality?

Talk again soon – Linda x

I’ve been busy painting and stitching – nothing new there you might say. There comes a time though when everything starts piling up as I finish one thing and move onto the next project. I have begun to realise (again!) that unless I move some of my work on to new homes I risk being  buried alive. So, I’ve been sorting through some of the heaps of work I have and listing them here on my website. Several of the newest pieces have sold straight away and I’m very grateful to any of you who have supported me in this way. This little acrylic cat painting was really fun to paint and I’m glad someone else liked him as much as I did! I’ve also added a couple of the quilted and embroidered pieces that were featured in Quilting Arts Magazine a while ago – you can find them in the shop.

I’m happy to say the wren and the blue tit also found a new home last week. It’s quite liberating to work small sometimes – many of my quilts take weeks or months to create so it’s satisfying to tackle something that can be achieved a bit quicker than that. I do spend quite a few hours on my paintings because I love the fine detail but pincushions are a little less demanding. As well as being a useful object for anyone who loves to sew, they provide the opportunity to combine lots of colours, imagery and techniques and can be completed in less than a day. You can try things out just to see ‘what if’, without the stress of maybe making mistakes with a more important piece! I’ve got lots of pincushions and I’ve just listed these two in my shop today.

At the moment I am experimenting with oil painting after a gap of quite a few years. It’s a slow process and a steep learning curve so I appreciate being able to turn to a small project in-between waiting for layers of paint to dry! The smell of oil paint and turpentine is something I remember from my student days. I LOVED it and was immediately transported to another world as soon as I went into the studio!! Nowadays we are a lot more aware of the dangers of inhaling such heady substances so I’m substituting low odour mediums. Not so exciting but probably more sensible! If I can master the oils I’ll let you see what I’m painting – if it’s a disaster it will never be mentioned again!!

Hope you are all making time to be creative in these difficult days. I know from experience it does help.

Bye for now – Linda x