Beautiful Bricks

I live in an area full of picturesque stone-built cottages, and not far from the old cloth factories of Stroud, with their industrial red brick vistas.

This weekend we went to visit some friends who live not that far from us really, but in an architecturally different world. A world where beautiful, picturesque buildings are built of brick.

Often with timber framing, but sometimes without.

It was lovely to wander around their area, and to enjoy being surrounded by a different style of building - no more or less beautiful than what I'm used to, but distinct enough that I noticed it constantly. I'm always amazed by how much difference these little things can make to the 'feel' of a place.

Sketching With Stitches

I've always been a doodler. I can't draw in any meaningful way, but if you give me a sheet of paper and a pencil, it won't stay blank for long (a fact which has frustrated me over the years, but this isn't about that). My doodling is just another form of fiddling - something I'm naturally inclined towards. If you ever saw me and my inability to sit still for two minutes, you'd understand.

Anyway. I was just starting out with this embroidery idea, and I was trying to think of things I could do to practise. And one of the obvious things seemed to be to try and doodle, but with thread.

So I started out by 'sketching' a flower:

That was partly inspired by my very first attempt, but also because this basic motif is something I draw all over the place, and also something I'd be very happy using to prettify my clothes in future.

Next, another one of my regular scribbles - holly leaves (because it's not that far past Christmas... umm...).

In case the magic of the internet makes this all look too easy, I should assure you that it wasn't. These little images, which would have been five-second sketches, took more like half an hour when I was using a needle instead of a pencil. And you don't want to know how many stitches I had to unpick and re-do (sometimes several times).

Still, I'm making progress, even if only in baby steps.

Sugarcraft Sofa

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I was asked the other day whether I knew anyone who did cake decorating. Well, I had a few hours to spare over the weekend, so I volunteered the fact that I do a little myself.

The lady in question was making a birthday cake, and whilst she was happy baking the cake and doing the basic icing, she wasn't confident about making a person and sofa.

Well, that sounded achievable, and it's always good to keep in practise, so I agreed to help her out.

I started off by colouring the icing, then built up the sofa one piece at a time. Note the cocktail sticks for structure.

I then built the figure straight onto the sofa:

I could probably write several posts full of sugarcrafting tips, but for the moment, here are some points to keep in mind when colouring your own sugarpaste:

• Colouring a large block of sugarpaste takes quite some time if you want an even finish. It's impossible to rush. (It is, however, possible to cheat by purchasing pre-coloured icing.)
• Mixing deep colours is particularly hard. If you want black, you should almost certainly just go and buy some which has been professionally coloured by machine.
  
• Never use liquid colours with sugarpaste, or you'll ruin the consistency. You can buy special gel colours - a small pot is expensive, but will last for years.
• Start with a small amount of colouring and add more gradually until you reach the shade you're after. On the other hand, if you do go too dark, you can rescue almost anything by adding more white. With gel colours, dipping the end of a cocktail stick into the dye is an easy way to pick up a starting quantity.
  
• Always make up more than you think you'll need of any given colour. Similarly to when you're buying yarn for knitting or paint for your bedroom, you need to work with a single 'lot', because you'll never get the exact same colour twice.
• The marbled effect of half-mixed colours can be beautiful. Particularly if you're in a hurry.