Pastures New

It is the 25th of the month so time to celebrate all that is new in your world and mine!

This month my New to Me's have been very different to say the least.

First up,

We have packed our bags and left the NE of England after 25 happy years here. All our worldly goods and chattels (including most importantly my sewing supplies!) headed North and are currently resting, I hope, in a cavernous warehouse somewhere in Scotland!

We on the other hand are resting in the sunny climes of SW France. One day in the not too distant future (!) we will meet up and the next chapter in our lives will begin.

As anyone who has sold a house in England will know, it can be a tortuous process, so our R & R in sunny France has definitely been earned :)

Before we left the NE, I had time to enter this piece for the Capability Brown exhibition at Wallington Hall.

What I didn't mention in my previous post is that the piece is up for sale, definitely a New to Me experience! All exhibitors were given the chance to sell their pieces at the exhibition, with 25% of the asking price being donated to the National Trust. I have never sold any embroidered pieces before, and thought that I might never get the chance to have a piece viewed by so many potential purchasers again, so went for it. I have no idea whether it will sell or not, and I am quite happy whatever the result, but delighted to have the opportunity.

So that is my New to Me this month, now it is your turn.  As ever please help to spread the word by linking back to this post in your post and/or adding the blog button to your sidebar.








Check out the other links too and, maybe, leave an encouraging comment along the way. The emphasis of this link party is to celebrate the trying so a little encouragement here and there would not go amiss! 
The link will remain open until 23.59GMT on June 30th, so you have some time yet to try something new and link up and join the party :)

An InLinkz Link-up

If your New to Me involves some Christmas or Holiday crafting don't forget to link it up to this month's Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew Link Party here

You could be the lucky winner of these gorgeous screenprinted FQ's

courtesy of the lovely Lu at Summersville

Making an exhibition of myself!

Despite the title of this post, I haven't been going around embarrassing myself, well not to my knowledge anyway :)

I have, however, finished and handed over my piece for the forthcoming Capability Brown exhibition to be held at Wallington , a National Trust property in Northumberland near to where Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, the celebrated landscape gardener was born. The exhibition is organised in conjunction with the Northumberland Embroiderers Guild to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of Brown's birth, and is part of a nationwide celebration that includes dance and theatre productions as well as displays of stitch and textile art at venues that have a link to Capability Brown's work.

In my local EG branch, we were invited to create an exhibition piece to be displayed on an A4 canvas that depicted an aspect of Brown's work or legacy.

Having visited Wallington on numerous occasions I hunted through my photos for inspiration and finally settled on this image taken on a walk in the grounds on a winter day.

Inspired by an EG workshop with Beryl Frank, I uploaded this image and another from the walk to Spoonflower and with a bit of tweaking ended up with these two fabrics.

The aim was to use the Spoonflower fabric as a frame for a canvaswork insert. So, armed with some graph paper and colouring pencils the design for the canvas was born.

Of course, I couldn't resist incorporating some gorgeous hand-dyed threads from 21st Century Yarns and a sprinkling of seed beads!

Put that all together and you end up with this.

Still Waters - my entry to Landscapes of Capability Brown

The exhibition runs from June 11th to October 30th so if you are in the area you have plenty of time to enjoy a day out catching the display and ending a wander around the grounds with a coffee and cake in the Clocktower Cafe :)

If you are in the UK, but Northumberland is a bit too far away, do check out the other exhibition venues around the country here there will be lots of wonderful examples of stitch and textile art to inspire you I am sure.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and