January Meeting 2013 Stumpwork Animals

Our workshop this month was taken by Gillian Darrington one of our own members. We had been asked to bring a picture/drawing of an animal we would like to embroider.
Gillian set up a display of some of her very attractive stump work animals, as shown below, to give us an indication of what we would be making!

We were asked to draw our animal onto calico in pencil and back stitch around the outside line. We then chose the coloured threads we wanted and began working in stem stitch filling in the shape of the animal. The lines of stem stitch gave shape to the contours of the animal's body.

Most of us used 2 strands of 6 strand embroidery thread in a variety of colours to produce shading.

We found the hand sewing quite therapeutic and took our animals home to finish. By the end of the meeting there was quite a menagerie in the room!
 We are bringing the animals back to February's Meeting where we will attach them to our backgrounds.
Thank you Gillian for a good workshop and we are looking forward to finishing our animals and turning them into pictures at the next meeting.