Mermaid

on holiday stitching!

final piece

 

I did this hand embroidered mermaid around this time last year. (Hence the photo of me sewing in front of the caravan on a summer holiday.) It was for my Bronze Art Award, which is an equivalent to the Duke of Edinburgh, D of E,  in the art world, consisting of four clauses I had to do with one of them being a new skill (mine: hand embroidery).
 

The way I got the idea of sewing a mermaid was, after doing some thumbnails, looking at my old picture books including my particular favourite “Can you catch a mermaid”. And so by using the front cover of the book I got inspiration for the position of the mermaid and the style of hair.

This mermaid is the first major hand embroidered piece I have done and ever since I have felt that I have improved in hand embroidery. In fact now I even sometimes choose hand embroidery over machine embroidery! I guess I love hand embroidery so much because it is a lot more relaxing. I often stitch in front of the TV, happy and content; but don't get me wrong I love machine embroidery after all it was my first "textiles love".

Now you may be questioning who Maggie is and why I was inspired by her so I will try and sum her up as best as I can in a paragraph, instead of a 8 page essay, which is easy to do bearing in mind just how incredible she was...

Maggie was my wonderful friend who sadly passed away. She introduced me to this wonderful world of textiles and without her I wouldn't be the person I am today let alone be writing this blog. She was my teacher as well as my best friend. So I dedicated my mermaid to her because not only do I owe everything I know about textiles to her but hand embroidery was her very favourite type of textiles.