craven lane

My latest home portrait is ready to be shared! I shared it on Monday with my newsletter subscribers and as promised sharing more close ups on the blog today.

As you all know, I love the new challenges that come with each home portrait. The challenge with this one? Card stock was an adventure to stitch through! And this portrait was comprised mostly of wedding cards... I was delighted to stitch through the lace from the wedding dress and enjoyed figuring out the stitch shorthand for the stucco texture of the house.




Here are a few detail shots followed by the full image...

the diamond windowpanes

frosting like edge by the window

stucco stitching

roof shingles and the maid of honors words

wedding day blessings sky

top of the front door

Craven Lane © Natalya Aikens 2015

Hope you have enjoyed following along! Whose home will be the next portrait? Hmmmm....we'll see....
And now back to costumes!

a bit more progress..

Hand stitching takes a long time. It can be slow meditative time, engrossed in a conversation time, or listening to music/book time. All of the above were in this stitching time.

I have come to resting point now. Let the piece rest, gaze upon it and decide if it needs more stitching, how much more stitching and what kind of more stitching.

I thought I'd share a few close up of of the current stitching on this home portrait so far.

the tower

a window

texture on texture

roof tiles

front door

I'll get back with more pictures after I mull it over...

a bit of progress

I am slowly plugging away on the latest home portrait. I had a very hard time making the collage decisions on this one, so much precious ephemera, I didn't want to make a wrong choice! But I persevered and have something to show for it.

the sketch overlay is helping me decide on placement

lace from the dress claimed the left bottom corner

the bride wanted to include the maid of honors speech...but what font shall I use?

I settled on two fonts..

I adhered everything and stitched my outlines

diamond windowpanes were the first to be hand stitched

 few more windowpanes

I am looking forward to diving into the hand stitching. There is a lovely roof line to show off, great stucco texture on the walls, and more windowpanes!

a wedding present

I am starting work on a new home portrait this week. The best part of each and every home portrait to me is just how different each one is from the previous one. Not only are the homes different, the materials different, but even the reasons for the portrait are different. This one happens to be a wedding present. Newly married, newly home owners, embarking on a wonderful new life together... What could be better!

Here is the ephemera that I have been given to work with:

I printed out the scale version of the newlywed's castle

made a sketch. And I'm loving diamond grid window....

the pineapple wrapping paper references the diamond window grid nicely

I have some beautiful cards to work with also

and perhaps even the lace from the wedding gown...hhhmmmm....

Lot's of options. Now how to put them into a cohesive whole? Hopefully I'll have that figured out by the end of the week. Stay tuned!