Through the eye of a needle…

...for Knots in the String.

A week or so ago, husband and self had a clean out of the bunker under the townhouse – what we euphemistically used to call our ‘wine cellar’ because we had a wall of racks and had collected boutique wines from around the state.

There were a few bottles of wine that we hadn’t gifted away since we stopped drinking alcohol, a beautiful cane doll’s cot dating from the 1920’s, a unique 1970’s doll’s house and a collection of framed pictures.

We went through the pictures and decided which ones should go to the recycling shop and which should stay for posterity.

In so doing, we found a number of framed stumpwork embroideries that I had completed over the years. I decided they shouldn’t be sitting in the bunker but should be on the wall above my cabinet of curiosities.

As my husband hung them for me, I recalled that Sabrina Simpson

had asked about my relationship with stumpwork…

(Jane Nicholas’s own work)

The first time I saw stumpwork was a rather seminal moment.

I had gone to the embroidery shop of that time, The Garden Path, to buy some threads and in the window, in singular glory, sat a framed piece of work advertising a class by a visiting embroiderer. It was a palest pink hellebore. Maybe there was a miniature 3 D insect as well and I just knew I had to learn the how-to’s of stumpwork.

‘Stumpwork, also known as raised embroidery uses an array of different materials and embroidery techniques to tell a contemporary story in stitch using three dimensional elements. Techniques include silk work, goldwork, counted work, flat and raised stitching, bead work, padding and needlelace. Stumpwork designs are varied and imaginative offering scope for a high degree of creativeness.’ Royal School of Needlework

I had no idea of the techniques, that I would be using wires, pliers, surgical tweezers, clear nylon threads, silk threads so fine that to breathe upon them seemed a sin. Always working onto silk dupion or in my case, Thai silk. It seemed such a regal embroidery, with the shush and whisper of silk always in one’s ear as needle plied through cloth. The plants and insects that the teacher modelled with her threads were botanical and entomolgical illustration at its best. I’d attended Burnley Horticultural College in Melbourne to learn botanical illustration, so this medium seemed an extension.

The Threadlady, my brilliant teacher, was Australian woman, Jane Nicholas, world-renowned, highly respected and quite brilliant at her artform.

Seminal again, because the day I met Jane was one of those moments when bells ring – a kindred spirit moment – and we just clicked. We both loved papermaking, artists’ books and boxes, mixed media work and we could have talked the leg off an iron pot together.

As is normal with visiting instructors, they would bring other pieces of their work for us to inspect at the end of a course and to inspire us to attend future classes.

(Jane Nicholas’s own work)

As I surveyed Jane’s work with forensic attention, it occurred to me that the embroidery was so 3D, so sumptuous, that if one had something small enough, one could hide it under the embroidery.

Would you believe that my life hung on the spinning of the Coin of Fate at that point? Glistening, spinning round and round. Heads I follow my imagination, tails I just stay ‘old me’…

One look at Jane’s work and my imagination spun off into the stratosphere – journals detailing terrible events, shrunk down by magick, and hidden under the embroidery.

Thus began my writing of The Stumpwork Robe. , Book One of The Chronicles of Eirie.

Three years - studying Jane’s work, gaining permission to use her designs as the foundation of that infamous robe and writing the novel, being coached by Cornerstones Literary Consultancy (London) at the same time.

That’s how Fate works – one small event catapulting life into a direction one might have dreamed of but never ever expected.

Of course, I kept stitching.

Every year that Jane came to teach, I would do a masterclass, and privately we would have dinners together and talk art of all sorts, life, theatre and families into the wee small hours. She came and shared our beach cottage because that is something else we have in common – the need to flee to the coast away from the madding crowd. Jane has written all her books tucked away in a beautiful corner of the southern coast of New South Wales.

But by the time Jane began extending into Japanese-inspired goldwork, I no longer had time for the masterclasses, the Chronicles of Eirie requiring my time. But we maintained our friendship, underlining I think, that kindred spirits remain strong in perpetuity.

Every now and then, I muse on friendships and what inspires them – this one truly was by threading silk through the eye of a needle.

Reading:

Nothing has changed from last week with the Sally Page books both on Kindle and audio, but I am on a re-read in print.

The latest Jilly Cooper is by the city bed but on the coast, I rely totally on the Kindle. The other night, my Kindle battery was flat and so I settled on a re-read of one of the most intriguing fantasies ever, by a writer I truly admire.

The book is The Ill Made Mute by Cecilia Dart Thornton. Her world-building is astonishing and her lead character a total enigma. Much like Dart Thornton who wrote the trilogy (The Bitterbynde Trilogy) and then almost disappeared from the writing world. There were a few wonderful short pieces but nothing of the scope of Bitterbynde. Like most of her fans, I do hope she writes another offering, but the scale of Bitterbynde is so huge and consuming, maybe she is done. She’s a very private person and only occasionally pops up on Instagram. Like I say – an intriguing enigma.

Interestingly, it was Cecilia who suggested the title of A Thousand Glass Flowers for Book Three in my own The Chronicles of Eirie for which I will always be grateful. To have it offered by someone I hold in high esteem is very special.

Watching:

Good Grief – Netflix. Beautifully apt exposé on grief. I liked it.

Fool Me Once – Netflix. Another Harben Corbin offering. Lordy! So many red herrings!!!! Keeps one interested though.

The Last Post – Britbox. A story of the British military police in Aden in the 1960’s. Dramatic and sad. Great English actors. Hasn’t the outrageous fire of Rogue Heroes but good, nevertheless.

All Creatures Great and Small – Britbox. Latest series. Always superlative. I always feel warm and fuzzy and honestly, can’t commend this new interpretation highly enough.

Untold – the Race of the Century Netflix. Fab doco on Australia II’s win of The America’s Cup. What a boat, what a team, what a skipper and what a nation that year! After 1983, when Australia broke America’s back, the beautifully streamlined 12 metre yachts, stuff of romance, became parodies of what yachting used to be. In my opinion, it just doesn’t have the cachet now.

Doing: Writing. Stitching. Gardening. Cooking. Swimming.

And coping with a very licky Terrier who completely ripped off a nail sheath the other day.

It’s WWIII preventing the licking and infection and I’m not sure I’ve won the war. I’m forever growling at him and he and I got to the full-on glares last evening as I tried to dust his toe in antibiotic powders. His eyes deadened to depthless black and there was a stiletto-like glint as teeth whistled by my hand so that hot, angry air brushed over my fingers. I need a chainmail glove to my armpits as he’s very much over me.

But on a much nicer note, ballet is back…

No graceful pictures, nothing worth hanging on the wall as I was not at all supple, but it was wonderful to be back with friends again, listening to the communal groans from the barre.

(Psst: not just me then…)

However, my favourite stumpwork pieces now do hang on the wall. All that intensive needle threading was worth it. And I know I’ll revisit the artform one day as in my opinion it’s the apogee of all that embroidery offers.

So… music for today? It was a hard one but I finally turned to ballet music. This was our waltz/galop music this week…