This week I am taking a little break away from teeny miniatures, to stretch my skills a bit. As you know I am always looking to learn new stitches and improve on the ones I have, so a couple of weeks ago I bought these:

Royal School of Needlework Essential Stitch guides. I’ve read them all cover to cover and itching to make some sort of stump-crewel-shaded-hybrid monster. 

If you know my piece Fly Agaric, you know that I worked that specifically to learn and practice stitches I never did before – so in that I tried satin stitch for the first time, seeding stitch, woven spider webs, long and short stitch (badly) and mastered french knots. I always intended to create a series of Poisonous Mushrooms pieces to show my development – just like a traditional sampler – so I’m staging a revival.

Amanita phalloides – Death Cap mushroom

I started off with this fabulous old field guide I found in a book sale last year. Full of lovely hand drawn illustrations.

I used my brilliant transfer pen to transfer my drawn design based on the Death Cap but a bit more simple and graphic, to the Salmanca fabric, which I had pre-dyed in tea to make it look a bit like old parchment or something. This bit is raised band stem stitch, very simple and I like the ridges it produces, a bit like a mushroom grows I think.

I will blog my progress this week!