Nicola Jarvis & May Morris @ William Morris Gallery, London

A few weeks ago I received an email from Nicola Jarvis asking if I would participate in an embroidery collaboration project for her solo art & embroidery exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in London.  My answer was Yes! before I'd finished the 2nd sentence in her email.  A chance to embroider something to be shown in the William Morris Gallery in London?  Given William Morris's influence on embroidery - elevating it back to its rightful place as an art form - does one really need to pose that question to a stitcher?  I feel very honored to have been asked to participate in the project and hope I can justify Nicola's faith in my abilities.


For those of you unfamiliar with Nicola, she's an artist & embroiderer, graduated from the RSN.  Her bio listed on the link will give you an idea of her many talents.  I met Nicola when I took her crewel embroidery class a couple years ago at Winterthur's Who's Your Daddy needlework seminar.  We emailed once or twice after the class and then fell out of touch, so it was a real surprise to hear from her.  If you ever have a chance to take a class from Nicola I'd highly recommend you do.  She's a wonderful teacher - extremely knowledgable, but kind and totally approachable so that you wouldn't feel uncomfortable asking her even the most basic of questions.

Nicola was awarded Overall Winner of the WM Gallery's Inspired by Morris competition in 2010.  Looking through her work I was especially drawn to her birds (scroll down on the link to see the Robin and Blackbird).  When I mentioned that I thought her birds magical she decided to send me a Bluebird as my project. I couldn't wait for my package to arrive so I could see him.  I wasn't disappointed - he's delightful.  

Upon opening the package I was both delighted and intimidated to discover that my Bluebird is painted on Dupioni Silk!  It's pale olive or sage green in color - the beauty of the color just doesn't come through on my photos, unfortunately.  The color of the silk is   such a perfect foil for the bird's colors that I can't imagine him on anything else.  I've never stitched on silk before so this will be a new experience.  

  Included in the package are silk and metal threads and sparkly filament threads.  The filament threads are also new for me, but so beautiful that I can't wait to use them.  I can select from the threads provided or use something of my own and how I embellish my Bluebird is entirely up to me.  

I have about 6 weeks to complete this project and return it to England.  I'll be blogging about my progress so stop back to see how I'm doing.  When I'm finished embellishing my Bluebird he will be made into an evening bag for the exhibition. 



Best of all, after the exhibit closes my Bluebird will fly back to me!