Opus Anglicanum finish: Mary

This is where I left Mary at the end of the Opus Anglicanum class in January.  Since then I have managed to work my way through a piece of canvas work, preparatory to the March Retreat in the English Lakes District, finish the Australian Bush piece . and the acorn and horse from Opus Anglicanum.

So now for Mary. It seems appropriate to be posting this from Windermere, on my embroidery retreat. Details of how that is going can be found on my travel blog.



    Regretfully, I did not take photos of the face in progress. It looked more like a skull for much of the time. My granddaughters had many questions about the veil - why did she have white hair? why would Mary wear a veil? why would you wear a veil under a crown?










I have surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying working with one strand of silk. That, however, came to an end and there was no way out of completing the goldwork!

I'm very pleased that I had finished the crown at home during the course. This meant I only had the cloak/shawl to finish. It took a few hours and I tried hard to improve the stitch as I went along.


In deference to my granddaughters, I also added rather more hair than the original had - in order to make it clear that the white bit was a veil.






Again, I had been giving thought to how I might use this piece. I still had one box with a magnetic base for storing needles and the embroidery space on the lid was perfect.


So here she is, guarding (blessing?) the needles. She will make a nice gift for someone.

Thanks again to Alison Cole and my fellow students!