Canvaswork has been packed off to Hampton Court Palace, and have received conformation that it has arrived there safely. So now what? Well, as I wait for the assessment to come back, I will be working on the next module – the last one needed to complete the Certificate: silk shading. Slightly disappointingly this isn’t actually worked in silk but in stranded cotton, and perhaps should more accurately be called needle painting. But whether in cotton or silk, it is a beautiful technique, and I look forward to learning more about it. Before my last Canvaswork class I’d got some ideas together, and also dressed my second slate frame with the calico backing fabric, ready to have the silk dupion applied to it once I’d decided on the colour; after which I will also attach the protective flaps to the rollers.

The brief specifies the subject has to be a flower, fruit or vegetable, and the image must include a stem, a leaf, and a “turnover” on at least one leaf or petal. As though I haven’t seen enough tulips, I’ve gone for another one, a flame-coloured beauty which once again is probably making things difficult for myself, but let’s be optimistic.

It turned out to be very difficult to get an accurate print of my chosen photograph; whatever I did to the digital file, the prints came out either a lot darker or rather washed out. I showed the collection of prints to Angela, the tutor, and she said one of the darker ones would probably be the best choice as they were more vibrant. This meant a very dark stem with little shading, but as there is lots of shading elsewhere she said that wouldn’t be a problem. My original preference for the background fabric was an ice blue silk, but when Angela and I picked the thread colours to go with the darker print, we found it would look better on the Wedgewood blue that I had brought to class as an alternative. Here is the palette we chose (from the complete range of DMC that is kept at each of the RSN branches) against that darker blue, and my thread box of shades from my own stash – I added another green and a dark burgundy, and there is one shade I need to buy as I didn’t have it, but once I have that I can get on to my homework.

And what is that homework? Attaching the blue silk to the calico; creating a line drawing of my tulip with all the separate bits (stem, leaf, petals) delineated; and using copies of that line drawing to create a tonal study, a colour study, an order of work and a stitch direction plan. Oh, and even some actual stitching : on my sample cloth, a cascade of all the colours blending into each other – last chance to decide whether I’d prefer a different background colour after all. Which means I’d better do that before sewing the silk onto the slate frame…