Another good show and more...

Well, that’s NEOS over for another year and I’m absolutely exhausted! As I’ve said before, you wouldn’t think that just sitting behind an embroidery machine and talking to people would be so tiring, but you can take my word for it that it’s totally draining

But I should definitely not complain because it was such a successful show - I was astonished when I counted up the number of things that I sold, and the number of commissions that I accumulated. The three pieces that I posted here (the crows, the deer and the salmon) were all sold as were a lot of others

Not only that, but there was actual competition for some pieces! I could have sold some of them several times over, and it got to the point where I promised to produce copies of some things. Here are two of the pieces that I had to stitch for a second time to satisfy a second customer. Thank goodness that this kind of embroidery can easily be done several times over!

Next time perhaps I should produce a forest of Bird Trees!

And this Autumn Landscape could go on and on!

Well, it’s almost opening day for NEOS, and here’s the poster which we produced for it. My contribution is the yellow-brown picture of curlews, second from the right side, half way down. It’s not a great reproduction of the original and you can't see it at all clearly, but it’s just supposed to be part of the larger poster, and it’s fine for that

The poster for our exhibition

It goes without saying that if you happen to be anywhere near us, please do come by for the opening, which is next Saturday at 7. There will be lots of refreshments, some live classical guitar music, and lots of conversation!

I’m not at all happy with what I’ve done for the exhibition, but you win some and you lose some, and I’m now inspired with some interesting new ideas to work on after the show

Here’s one of this year’s efforts - a collection of the crows that are so common around here. They may not be very colourful or exotic, but I love the way they collect together and have loud cackling conversations with each other. The picture is done in a combination of embroidery and acrylic paint, which probably sounds unusual, but it's a combination that can work very well

Crows in the Crow Tree

Well, we’re still in August, but as life is becoming increasingly busy, I’d better get the September freebie out now while I still have the time.

A few little flowers for September

I haven’t the least idea where the idea for this came from or how I meant to use it, but it’s colourful and pleasant, and it’s nice to have such an intricate design for the 4x4 inch (100 x 100mm) hoop, so I hope you can find a use for it somewhere. Here it is, in .pes v.6

As always, there will be a few people who for some reason can't download my files, so if this is you, please do let me know (via the "Comments" section) and I'll e-mail it to you directly

As the moment I’m definitely in headless-chicken mode, trying frantically to get organised for our upcoming NEOS exhibition. North East Open Studios is an annual festival of the creative arts in this area which features work by many local artists, and it’s always an impressive event. So I’ve desperately trying to produce a few things for the show, which always takes time. But here are a couple of things which should go well (I hope!)

First there’s this salmon, which is a very old design and I think I’ve posted it several years ago. But it was popular so I thought I’d produce it again. It’s made with an appliquéd layer of Mylar, which gives it a nice realistic sparkle

Dee salmon

And then there’s just this little deer, trotting through a field of greenery. It’s nothing special, but it's decorative and I liked it

Deer in the green

So there are two which can go up on the wall. However the exhibition doesn’t begin for another ten days, so I’ll try to be back next week with a freebie for September

A couple of weeks ago I posted two animal designs that I’d done for my friend Cherri. There was a lynx and a raccoon, which Cherri wanted to use in a quilt she was planning to make. Several readers suggested that I should post a picture of the completed quilt, and as Cherri agreed, here it is

The Forest Animals

It’s called “Friends of the Forest” and I think it’s pretty impressive. All the bird and animal designs are mine, but they’re put together in such an original and interesting way. 

Cherri makes a lot of quilts (among other things) and if you would like to see other works by her, you can follow her on Instagram, @cherriberi1