Day: 17 August 2021

One of the joys of summer in Norfolk is a poppy field.

So I wanted to include a poppy. It’s another from a cross-stitch magazine, designed by Joanne Sanderson. I enjoyed the richness of the colours in this one, and the outlining made a huge difference.

Next: a swan. This motif does several duties: memories of feeding swans with my parents as a child, the swans at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Yeats poem (which is one of my favourites) and Swan Lake. This is a Maria Diaz design, and again the outlining made a huge difference.

Next is one of my favourite places: the Globe. This symbolises my love of theatre and particularly Shakespeare, and I’ve been fortunate to see several productions here (Mark Rylance as Iago was a standout), as well as to an amazing production of Faustus in winter by candlelight in the Sam Wanamaker stage here. Going to the theatre/gigs was the thing I missed most in lockdown — streamed performances just aren’t the same. Best Shakespeare ever: for me that’s Ian McKellen in King Lear.  The design is from a Bothy Threads Shakespeare sampler; my son bought me the kit for Christmas and I’m looking forward to stitching it later.

Finally on this section, a guitar — another Maria Diaz design, though I changed the colours a little bit to make it slightly more like my own guitar. This one symbolises my love of music. (I couldn’t fit a piano and cello as well!)

Ouch – three months since I last posted! In that time, I have done some other projects – a wedding sampler which I’ll post after the wedding, and a sampler for my daughter’s 21st, which I’ll post later.

But updates on the big project.

Righty.

I’ve always been fascinated by peacocks, and I really enjoyed stitching this one. It’s a Lesley Teare design from a cross-stitch magazine, full of complicated fractional stitches and those backstitched swirls.

Next was the rose – I adore roses, and have quite a few in my garden. I remember my dad trying to grow a blue rose (Blue Moon); my mum’s favourite was a very deep red (Deep Secret). My late agent bought me a beautiful Brother Cadfael when my dad died, and I’m not allowed anywhere that sells David Austin roses without adult supervision, because they just come home with me. (Madame Hardy – well, obviously that had to be there. And Darcey Bussell. I have my eye on Emily Bronte and The Mill on the Floss. Of course it’s an arty garden!) This is another Lesley Teare design – ‘vintage rose’, and I loved the shades in this.

Next, the stained glass window. This represents my love of church-crawling – I did want to stitch my favourite view of Norwich Cathedral spire here, but couldn’t make it work. So instead I used a Bothy Threads (Derwentwater) design; the ‘panes’ of glass are in single rather than double thread, giving that lovely quality of light coming through.

I definitely wanted bluebells. A bluebell wood is one of the deep joys of spring; my favourite is probably Blickling Great Wood (because we can take the dogs), though I also love the ancient woodland at Foxley. And it took lockdown for us to discover that we had a bluebell woodland roughly fifteen minutes’ walk from our back door… This one’s from a cross stitch magazine.