Stumpwork Sheep

After trying out lots of different techniques, it was now time to design my own piece. So I chose a stumpwork embroidery sheep picture!

This was my first assessment piece for my City and Guilds course, so I really wanted to make sure I did something I could be proud of. I've always loved stumpwork, I just love the 3D nature of it and all the texture, so a stumpwork piece seemed like the obvious choice. We had also recently stayed at a holiday cottage in Warwickshire, which had this amazing view of a field of sheep from the living room window. It seemed like the ideal combination. So I set about designing by piece that included stumpwork sheep and then did some sampling.

With my new found love for hand dyed fabric, I decided to make this piece in all hand dyed fabric. It also had the advantage that the greenery in the scene could also be hand dyed threads that blended beautifully with the background.

Once I had my fabrics dyed, I was ready to start stitching. I laid my fabrics on my backing and started stitching running stitches on the background to add texture, before moving on to stitching the trees in the background.

During the sampling stage I'd worked out a way of stitching the tree. I used brown chenille yarn, couched it down into a tree shape, then wrapped each branch in stranded embroidery thread.

Once the tree was finished, I started the lengthy process of the sheep's fleece. In my sampling I'd tried out different stitches that could be used for sheep. But I settled on this time consuming process of wrapping thread around a needle, then gluing it. Once it was dry, it was stitched to some fabric to be used as the sheep's bodies.

Once the sheep's fleece was done it was now time to attach them to the background.

There were also geese at the farm, and I wanted to include them into the piece somehow. So I stitched them onto some organza, so that they could be cut out.

The geese found their way onto the fabric covered mount that I made to go around the picture.

And here it is: the finished piece, mounted in a hand painted frame to complement the fabrics.

An enjoyable piece to stitch and a lovely reminder of our holiday.

My next assessment piece needed to be a wallhanging, so I wanted to try something a little bit different. You can read about it here: Embroidered Floral Wreath (claireharveyembroidery.com)