Well, I have been away a lot again, but when I have been at home I have worked hard to finish this piece.
As ever the finishing bits take ages and are hard on the fingers. Embellishing the shields was hard - there are lots of layers of leather, padding and silk. The manes are just roughly finished at the moment. I have used turkey stitch - again through leather etc - and will eventually trim the threads so that the manes are actually fre flowing. The horsemans' spears are made out of Bonsai wire - always useful stuff to have around. Oh yes, the door handles are smooth purl.
I am going to put this away for a few days, at present all I can see is the faults. Then it needs mounting before I hand it in for assessment.
Yes. I have been away for a long time, but I did at least collect some detailed pictures for my next assessed piece. That's my excuse for my absence anyway.
Really the work that is left is hard to do, fiddly and through many layers of fabric, but doesn't look like much.
It is all about sorting out spears, finishing shields, highlighting hooves, applying cording. The list is much longer than that!
At present I am stitching the manes. It's a kind of version of turkey stitch. I will cut and trim each mane to give the finished effect. I have already done the tails in matching thread. I am using a gorgeous 30 wt silk thread (thank you Barbara!) for the manes and tails. It has a wonderful sheen - which doesn't show in the picture unfortunately.
I have a target finish date of mid-July. That's my next visit to Tracy in Durham. I would like to be able to take the piece off the frame and mount it in July. That would give me a straight start for the next piece in September.
