Greetings, and apologies for the hiatus since my previous post!

Those of you who come to my blog purely for the photos may find this post a bit disappointing, but those who are my true friends may enjoy learning a little bit more about me and my interests other than photography!

My interest in needlework as art dates back, I think, to some of my earliest memories of visiting my maternal grandparents and being fascinated by a piece of work, featuring a peacock, created by my grandmother.

This photo of it does not do it justice, but hopefully conveys something of the atmosphere.  As a photo it is terrible, suffering as it does from camera motion blur, reflection from the glass in the frame, and various other defects, but it is the only picture I have of the piece, which is in England.  In mitigation, it was taken several years ago, long before I learned to use a camera properly!  (The blue star in the top corner is indicative of the piece having won a prize in a competition in which mother entered it after grandma had died.)

The next two images show needlework pieces created by an earlier ancestor, and a male to boot!

These two pieces are currently in my possession as remembrances of, if I have remembered correctly, grandma’s father-in-law, my great grandfather.  He served with the British Army in Burma and on the Northwest Frontier (of India), circa 1890, and it is thought that he worked the pieces on the voyage to or from that part of the world.  I am delighted when pieces like this, especially the one on the right, show up on Antiques Roadshow, as they occasionally do.  I took these photos (and all the rest of this set) yesterday (Sunday, Feb 11).  These two show reflections from the glass behind which the needlework itself resides, in spite of having used a circular polarizing filter.

My mother was also a fine needleworker.

This picture shows one corner of an embroidered cut-work tablecloth she made.  I believe that it took her many years to complete, having little time for hobbies while raising my sister and me!  After we were safely out of the house she resumed her hobby, becoming more and more interested in tapestry/needlepoint.

The picture on the left above is one of her late pieces – a cushion cover which now adorns my favorite armchair, while on the right is one of my first experiments in the same medium.  Interestingly, they both show the same problem of being out-of-square, but in opposite directions  This is because her stitches go diagonally downward from left to right, while mine go in the opposite direction.  I have no doubt that hers is the preferred direction, but we both pulled our stitches too tightly, pulling the canvas out of square!

The photo above shows a piece of my counted cross stitch work, in which the stitches go in both directions, so the piece stays square.

Continuing the floral theme, Stitch08 and Stitch09 are two of my pieces worked some 30 years ago using various embroidery stitches.

I worked this next piece in counted cross stitch on a dark blue/green fabric.

It was made soon after I met my wife Ruthi, who collected owls.  It is probably the most difficult piece I have done because it seemed that no two adjacent stitches were in the same color, plus the fact that many colors were obtained by using strands of two different colors worked as one.  The finished piece measures approximately 8″ x 11″.

The owl combines my interest in needlework with nature and “things with wings” – the latter theme being continued with the following examples; 11 and 12 being counted cross stitch, 13 being needlepoint, and 14 in long stitch.

After marrying Ruthi, I made a series of seasonal pieces.

We hang these, in seasonal rotation, in our condo, with the Valentine one, Stitch15, being currently on display.

After completing that set, I purchased a kit to make a wooden workbox with a counted cross stitch sampler top, but for various reasons – including getting hooked on photography – it sat on the shelf unstarted until last summer, but I didn’t get very far before getting sidetracked again after my cancer diagnosis.  I have now resumed work with a much greater sense of urgency!  Below is a small section of it.

For scale, the reddish-colored heart-shaped piece in the top center is just 1″ square.

I hope to be able to show you the finished box in a future post!

Have a great week!