Another weekend course at the RSN at Hampton Court, this time Progress with Jacobean crewelwork with Heather Lewis.
One of the delights of being at Hampton Court is walking through the palace before it's open to the public. Apart from a few red-coated wardens scurrying to their posts, you find yourself walking through the quiet corridors alone.
One of my favourite sights is walking past the Tudor kitchen while the roaring fire is being built up.
Our class was in the RSN's degree studios in apartments 7 and 10, which I'd never been in before. Our studio overlooked the Fountain Court and was reached after a long walk up an old-fashioned winding staircase, complete with winching basket at the top.
One of the apartments was damaged by a fatal fire in 1996. The apartments were repaired and repainted, but not redecorated in order to "preserve their 'as-found' quality for future generations".
Anyway, on to the embroidery. We had a choice of two designs and I chose the parrot. This is Heather's sample piece and what we were aiming for:
And here's mine by the end of the two-day course:
We started with trellis stitch for the main body, which I knew was tricky so spent a lot of time on. Buttonhole stitch for the wing, which is difficult to stitch densely and I'm going to unpick. Long and short stitch for the bottom tail feathers, which I was satisfied with. The close herringbone stitch for the other tail feather will be unpicked too. More easy, surprisingly, was the padded satin stitch for the crown and beak, and the burden stitch for the shoulder of the wing. Raised stem band for the branch was also quite easy.
