Flora, the Herdwick Sheep

This was originally a very short post begun in 2017. While visiting Ruskin Cottage in the Lakes District that year, I bought a single ball of Herdwick wool. It was a natural coloured boucle and I thought it would make a good shawl.

I found a pattern I liked that I thought might do justice to the wool. It was knitted as a rectangle, folded and joined to form a kind of poncho. There was a patterned border along the front edge.

After knitting about 4 inches I decided it was a bad idea. The pattern did not show amongst the boucle and the wool merely looked grubby. I was hoping it might come in useful for one of the projects in the March 2019 Lady Anne's Needlework Retreat in the Lakes District, which focused on the life and work of Beatrix Potter.  This didn't work out either, so the boucle wool is down to experience.

I mention this by way of introduction to Nicola Jarvis's 

Herdwick sheep project from the retreat.                                                                                                                                                                    This is the project as it began. The beginning of the work, conducted in Bowness-on-Windermere last month is outlined in my travel blog.                             

By the end of my travels I had finished the sheep and a little of the dog roses. At the suggestion of one of my daughters, she is now called Flora.

As soon as I arrived home I got to work on the remainder.


I finished embroidering the dog roses

then moved on to foxgloves.






I found these quite tricky.  While I felt confident on light-shade balance on individual flower heads in front and behind each other , I was less convinced I managed the colour change up and down the stem.
The harebells and foxglove leaves were the last to go in.




Finally, I returned to the centres of the dog roses. I varied the stitch a little.


I'm very pleased with this result. I have enjoyed working on this. The texture of the finished piece is marvellous.

I am waiting for my Shaker Box to arrive to mount this piece in the lid. Wendy, from Australian Needle Arts has it ready to mail as soon as she recovers from the flu.



I will post again when the box arrives and I have the embroidery it mounted.