Embroidered Rooms A><B

I saw these pieces by Manuela Caniato at the 2021 Knitting & Stitching Show held at Alexandra Palace, and was keen to get a closer look.

They are cotton canvas worked with stranded cotton, each just 27.5 by 20 cm. Manuela took pictures of her rooms on the iPad and drew them digitally before printing on canvas and embroidering.

She also says that she likes this as it is “the making of a new fabric” and is a combination of digital and manual skills, and that she likes to imagine that she’s “throwing a thread that unites past and present”.

Looking more closely, I was drawn to the herringbone effect and texture that the rows of stitches brought while also clearly showing the scene, and the plant in the image above is also effective agains the straight lines of the background. Though while it’s good to see the detail, I actually think standing back and taking them in from a short distance shows so much more.

What do you think?

Post Comment Love 18-20 March

Welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’re here.

This week we’ve had some of that Saharan dust and reddy brown rain, which as you can imagine wasn’t so welcome, and soon after my white car looked like I’d spent some time rallying. I hadn’t. The saving grace was that its scheduled clean was postponed until after the sandy-rain, and boy did he earn his money cleaning it.

I’m hoping the weather for the weekend remains favourable as our plan is to sort out our shed - spring cleaning at it’s very worst, or best depending on your viewpoint - but definitely not something for inclement weather. I’d love to claim the photo is from my garden, but it’s another from our visit last summer to Barnsdale Gardens, but isn’t it glorious?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Be careful of the hidden pond

That’s not a sign you expect to see in a garden is it, but it’s one that greets you as you enter the Summer Wildlife Garden at Barnsdale Gardens. That’s garden 14 out of the 38 there, and is what I can only describe as the equivalent of a gardener’s theme park. It’s also the Gardeners’ World home of former presenter Geoff Hamilton, and where the programme was filmed at the time.

The way the gardens are laid out make them easy to take inspiration for domestic gardens, it’s so easy to imagine how they might work and that you’ve just stepped out of a house and into the garden. I think this photo shows exactly what I mean.

The hidden pond is in a corner of the grass and the paved stepping stones aim to lead you on a safe route, though I imagine with the planting the pond is easy to miss, so wouldn’t work for everyone. But it’s a great spot.

The garden was created using principles outlined in the BBC’s Living Garden series and includes features to attract wildlife and safe places for them to live and hibernate. The plants too have been chosen to encourage wildlife and give them reasons to stay. The honeysuckle, hebe, rose and foxgloves, as well as the hostas all have their part to play, as does a spot to sit and enjoy the space and its inhabitants.

The other endearing feature in the garden is the bird bath - as well as providing a space for birds it gives a focus point for the lawn. I love its column and could imagine sitting in the garden, enjoying the space and letting my eyes wander and wander through every spot. A totally relaxing space, don’t you think?