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| My Italian Garden |
A few weeks ago I had an awful day at work, and decided I needed to do something to treat myself. Just as I was thinking this, an email came in from the RSN - their monthly newsletter, advertising their upcoming courses with available spaces on them, including a new three day course on a technique I'd never heard of - Casalguidi taught by
Shelly Cox. So my sister and I booked in together for a girly weekend.
The idea of the course was to learn the basic stitches and then to design our own Italian Garden using the techniques. Shelly worked up her own as a reference:
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| Casalguidi Sample by Shelly Cox |
The major stitches are the very raised Stem Stitch "log", Bullion knots, Single and Double Buttonhole stitch, wrapped tendrils, Woven Picots and Buttonhole triangles- which are a little like crochet. The background is a series of pulled stitches, and it's all worked in various thicknesses of cream Perle cotton - which I'd never used for embroidery before.
I really enjoyed the course and it was great to be able to sit and chat whilst stitching with lots of other embroidery enthusiasts, I learnt a lot and also took the opportunity to stock up on more books for my stitching library at the RSN shop - as well as my next project to be posted,
This was my progress at the end of the three days- including some homework:
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| Not shown: experimental stitching at the side of the piece |
It looks like I didn't complete much during the course - but the background is very time intensive (but an enjoyable stitch to work), whereas the raised stitching goes in pretty quickly - I'd finished the entire piece by the end of the following week, stitching after work and the Saturday day.
My sister decided to go for a herb garden theme - when she finishes it I'll post a picture if she lets me!
One of the (many) advantages of going to the RSN is that they are based inside Hampton Court Palace, so we were able to have this lovely view at lunchtime.
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