Jo's stitching 2021

[Roland]

Love this picture.

[Sandz27]

Thanks

My Wren is finished and ready for framing:



Jo

Oh your wren is lovely great finish x

[Steam.Jo]

thank you all for your kind comments about my Wren, I am now thinking I should have started the Robin next rather than the Orchid:


I should admit to being an enthusiastic gardener both indoors and out, amongst my indoor plants are Slipper Orchids. Twenty years ago growing Orchids was very rare but with Supermarkets making them available for very little cost they are now common. I have a collection of 6 Slipper Orchids that I purchased for the princely sum of £1 for the six at our village summer fayre. They had been discarded by their owner because their flowers had fallen off. The plant remains were not very pretty nothing more than a pot with some big tough leaves sitting in some gravel with a naked flower stem pointing skyward, much like the one in my current piece:



But Slipper Orchids are more than hardy (even my Mother can't kill them) with a bit of light watering once a week with very very dilute plant feed and bit of misting in a short time traces of new growth appears on the flower steams which rapidly form new buds and then the wonderful flowers which last for months.

Next time hopefully I after a bit more TLC I will have some flowers to show you.

Jo

[Mabel Figworthy]

This is looking beautiful!

[wendywombat]

I love Orchids!

We has about 7 different varieties of wild orchids growing in our garden in SW France.


This was one of them. It grew about 6-8" tall

[Steam.Jo]

What a lovely "Lady Orchid" you had growing in your garden Wendy

Back in the days before Covid, when we were not in lockdown as a village group we used to go walking on Monday mornings. One of the members who had a dog used to go out everyday looking for when certain nature events were due and would route us at the appropriate time of the year so we got to see it just when it happened. Consequently we would be there just as the Wild Orchids bloomed, as the wild garlic flowered, the lambs were being born etc.

The sooner we roll out these vaccines and we can get back to normality the better but I will be doing less stitching when that happens

Jo

[rcperryls]

Love the orchid. I also have an orchid that was gifted to me by a neighbor several years ago. Sounds like your Slipper Orchid and I have not killed it yet.
My brown thumb doesn't effect it. A little bit of water once a week and it has bloomed beautifully periodically. Looking forward to seeing your progress on the Orchid.

Carole

[Squirrel]

First of all WELL DONE on the finish of the WREN

I love orchids and your stitched plant is growing well and I am sure the natural ones are too.

[Sandz27]

Orchids are so pretty great stitching...

[Steam.Jo]

Thank you all for following along with my Orchid stitching

I always like to check if what is written in Chinese is the same as the claimed in the piece's title and on this one it is not. The title of this piece is Harmony and Tranquillity. I showed my stitching to my Tai Chi instructor, who speaks/reads some Chinese:



She provided the following interpretation/translation:

The characters are Fu and An, happiness and peace. The lower character is a pictogram, it suggests a woman (the character nu 奴 kneeling inside a house (the line at the top is the roof radical, so peace is a subservient women in the home, haha!

The first character fu, consists of the components on the right side yi one 一, kou, mouth 口, and tian field 田. On the left the character represents a person looking at his field with his hand to his forehead to shield the sun from his eyes (another pictogram) . He is happy fu (福）because all the produce from his FIELD is for his ONE MOUTH, altogether a picture that says happiness is having enough food

At that time I had not done the flowers:



My instructor went on to explain:

An orchid: when there are two flowers growing on the plant represents harmony in a relationship. If three or more flowers, it means harmony in the family, but there is no character for harmony, which is 'he' pronounced 'her' 和。 The characters are Fu 福 good fortune / happiness at the top and An, 安 peace / tranquillity at the bottom.

Good principles to live by

This is another of those cross stitch pictures that only comes into its own once you add the outlining which I have just started before going on. that leaves the outer decorated area to go. I have purchased a commercial frame for this kit but the mount is a little too big in the vertical direction so I will need to expand the decoration around the outside of the picture to suit the hole in the mount.

Jo

[Mabel Figworthy]

Lovely work on the flowers, and so interesting to get the background information!

[wendywombat]

Excellent progress and the translation of the symbols is interesting.

My friend's daughter spent some time in Japan teaching and her 'hostess' came over to stay with another Japanese lady who was about to get married.
I found a 'good luck' symbol used for a marriage and cross stitched for her.
I was quite overwhelmed by her response! She couldn't thank me enough and gave me a small gift in return.
I also learned not to say that I liked something that they owned.
We had a Tea ceremony at my friend's house and I said how pretty the tea bowl that I used was. It was taken from the table afterwards, washed very carefully and wrapped in a small silk scarf and 'presented' to me.

[Serinde]

You were being treated like a queen. At least in the past, English monarchs often went on progressions around the country, staying with nobles (there being no B&Bs, at least not for 100s of courtiers at a time). A time of opportunity and dread... many fortunes were squandered in order to make their castles worthy of such a visit, but success meant favour and that meant power and wealth. AND if the monarch admired something -- silver, say -- the host was honour bound to present them with it.

[Steam.Jo]

I have completed the stitching on my Orchid Piece including modifying the outside so that it better fits the Photoframe I have brought for it:



As I seem to have been mounting a fair few pieces of late I have decided to fork out an arm and leg for a tab driver. If I go the whole hog and buy the framer's corner set is still to be seen. My attempt at making my own picture frames last year ended up in me suffering with an allergic reaction to the wood saw dust and the nasty itchy rash took six weeks to go away and what it did to my eyes was even worse

In tribute to my gardener's friend and his heroic actions the other day when the big mean pussy cat sneaked up behind me, I have decided to start on the Robin picture to go with my Wren:



In the top right side of the photo you can see what it will look like. (On the top left is the bottom of a silver plated pot/vase thingy that I use as my ends bin it is small enough to sit on the table and looks pretty enough that I feel I can get away with leaving it there.)

The stitching frame I am using is a bit small for this piece which is wider than in it tall: It is just tall enough to mount on a 12" wide frame but it is actually fractionally wider than the horizontal gap in the frame but as it is too big to roll I am hoping to get away with it. I normally like to roll the work so that I can work on it without having to stretch up or down where I may get back ache

We are off on the picture of my little friend

Jo

[Serinde]

The orchid looks perfect in its frame. Well done! And another start underway -- very impressive.

[Podolyanka]

A beautiful finish and a fantastic new project.

[rcperryls]

I agree completely with both ladies! And am impressed with how beautifully you do the mounting!

Carole

[Squirrel]

Like the others I am in awe of your mounting of your beautiful stitching - a HUGE WELL DONE.

The new design of the Wren looks interesting.

[fccs]

Stunning finish and framing!

[Steam.Jo]

Thank you for you nice comments about my Chinese Orchids I should admit I only put the mount over the work to check it looks ok so far. The top of the piece needs a bit more squaring up for me to be happy with it.

What I (we all) need is a warm sunny day then I can go out into my conservatory and sort out the framing and mounting arrangements for both the Orchids and the Dolphin Ying/Yang piece. But I find doing the stitching more enjoyable than the mounting bit.

Jo