A little update
Hello all,
Well, we've been in Birmingham for a couple of weeks now and I love it so far! We aren't properly unpacked, we need more furniture, we don't have internet, and I haven't been out promoting Sparklewren in the city yet, but I am very happy to be here :-)
Yesterday, I made some good progress with the Hope2Haiti charity cincher, which I will be continuing this afternoon. I'm at the embroidery stage, which is lovely and relaxing. As I like to draw little birds and such in pencil (as you may already know), settling on how to embroider is quite tricky in a way... my natural inclination is to embroider as I draw, but I'm working in a light silk floss on a muted gold silk, so it is kind of the reverse of working with a dark pencil on a white sheet of paper. Ie: you are creating highlights rather than shadows (which I used to do with Karisma colouring pencils many years ago, but I'm out of practice). But even so, I'm having a great time working on it. Infuriatingly, my limited internet access means that I can't upload/download/stream, so I don't think I can share an in-progress snapshot right now. I'll maybe try to sort it out later though.
I also have some metallic leather corded pieces to be getting on with, and my friend V's latest corset (a "petrol" green satin with gold silk casings and gold lace), though for right now my focus is this delicious embroidery. I love using just one colour, though I know that once Cathy Hay starts her embroidered corset for beneath the peacock dress I'll be jealously wanting to learn proper silk shading! *And* goldwork. I've dabbled in both, but some proper tuition or tutorials would be helpful. I'm so jealous of my colleagues who all seem to be attending amazing embroidery classes at the moment!
In other news, I today went swimming (happiness), have seen two of my wonderful friends who are local to Brum recently (one of whom was gifted my wren corset whilst she was here, as she tried it on and it fit her brilliantly), am surrounded by a fair share of gorgeous decaying old jewellery workshops (there are some beautiful buildings here), and am generally enjoying the convenience and excitement of living in a proper city again. There's still so much to do though, not least of which is figure out where the good fabric shops and haberdashers are!
Well, we've been in Birmingham for a couple of weeks now and I love it so far! We aren't properly unpacked, we need more furniture, we don't have internet, and I haven't been out promoting Sparklewren in the city yet, but I am very happy to be here :-)
Yesterday, I made some good progress with the Hope2Haiti charity cincher, which I will be continuing this afternoon. I'm at the embroidery stage, which is lovely and relaxing. As I like to draw little birds and such in pencil (as you may already know), settling on how to embroider is quite tricky in a way... my natural inclination is to embroider as I draw, but I'm working in a light silk floss on a muted gold silk, so it is kind of the reverse of working with a dark pencil on a white sheet of paper. Ie: you are creating highlights rather than shadows (which I used to do with Karisma colouring pencils many years ago, but I'm out of practice). But even so, I'm having a great time working on it. Infuriatingly, my limited internet access means that I can't upload/download/stream, so I don't think I can share an in-progress snapshot right now. I'll maybe try to sort it out later though.
I also have some metallic leather corded pieces to be getting on with, and my friend V's latest corset (a "petrol" green satin with gold silk casings and gold lace), though for right now my focus is this delicious embroidery. I love using just one colour, though I know that once Cathy Hay starts her embroidered corset for beneath the peacock dress I'll be jealously wanting to learn proper silk shading! *And* goldwork. I've dabbled in both, but some proper tuition or tutorials would be helpful. I'm so jealous of my colleagues who all seem to be attending amazing embroidery classes at the moment!
In other news, I today went swimming (happiness), have seen two of my wonderful friends who are local to Brum recently (one of whom was gifted my wren corset whilst she was here, as she tried it on and it fit her brilliantly), am surrounded by a fair share of gorgeous decaying old jewellery workshops (there are some beautiful buildings here), and am generally enjoying the convenience and excitement of living in a proper city again. There's still so much to do though, not least of which is figure out where the good fabric shops and haberdashers are!