Gallery time: machine embroidery gardens etc

Above is one of my favourites: I've called it Let's linger here.... because that is just what I would like to do!Sit in the sun on the grass or a chair and watch those lovely flowers.
And daydream as to what lies beyond that enticing gate....
Made by myself entirely using free machine embroidery techniques with a play of matt and shiny threads which cannot be seen from a photo.
I made this one after the one below:

Above this writing is a picture of a garden at Water perry gardens which I made a few years ago and which won first prize at a national ''embroider a garden'' competition.....It was made from a photo I had taken myself and then I roughly sketched out the contours on some silk, painted the path and the sky and used free machine embroidery running stitch to embroider the plants and flowers and the trees.

No software was used at all : it's all done as if the thread and needle are a coloured pencil to draw with- entirely by hand ( but using a sewing machine if that makes any sense)

I also really enjoy working a Van Gogh painting in machine embroidery and have done quite a few over the past few years : his use of colour is just so fabulous that one learns an enormous amount from copying and trying to copy make you see, see a bit more, and then look again and see even more different hues and colours juxtaposed in a most inventive and innovative way.

Here are some I made earlier- as Blue Peter would say....

I really adored doing this peach blossom tree : the shadows on the ground were a huge challenge and the fence is literally dozens upon dozens of very different colours!

The Willows were an absolute MUST as when I was still living in Holland I saw these willows along the canals and streams in between the fields every day on the way to school as I cycled past...They have a fantastic sculptural shape when freshly pollarded.

The self portrait was my next HUGE challenge as I had never ever done a face before!

I do think the machine embroidery with the threads and bold stitching emulates the texture of the thick oil paint in the originals so much better than a postcard or print does...


On the right a small picture of a tiger lily , free machine emboidery again this time from a drawing of a bunch of flowers my friend Cha cha brought round for me one day.

It WAS meant to be the first of a trio of pictures BUT I found covering the calico with the dense green stitching for the background SO VERY TEDIOUS even though I did change colours and tones to keep interested- I could NOT face doing another one

let alone two more!