Purl and Seam

Fabric : Fibre : Family

Ehrman Tapestry Cushions and selective crafting!

November 26, 2019

What seems like a million Christmas’s ago, both Ma and my in-laws bought me an Ehrman tapestry kit. The first cushion is Three Tulips Blue. The second is Beautiful Sheep.

Inspired by my second cousin, I really wanted to make some beautiful tapestry cushions for our home. She has made it her life’s work to furnish her church with beautiful tapestry kneelers for each pew.

Her work is stunning. Sadly I don’t have pictures I can share with you. But needless to say, I wanted a little piece of the action.

So the kits were unwrapped and a beautiful stitching frame ordered. Off I went with wool and needle in hand to create my own mini masterpieces.

Only I faltered and dawdled. Shilly shallied and procrastinated.

Time passed and very little was done.

I started with the sheep cushion and felt a huge sense of achievement if I completed one section. But each section took an age.

I set goals to try to motivate myself to get them done, but nothing worked.

And then it dawned on me.

Whilst I love the finished pieces, I don’t actually enjoy the doing of tapestry.

It’s fiddly. And faffy. And the multitude of different yarns required are more difficult to manage than a basket of kittens.

You have to have really good clear lighting to be able to differentiate between the colours whilst stitching. In my corner of the world that is daytime only (mood lighting, dontcha know) and possibly every 3rd Wednesday if rain stops and the clouds lift.

And so tapestry is going the way cross stitch did before it. Into the Room of Abandoned Hobbies, probably never to be brought out again.

I love to embroider and hand sew treats such as Luna Lapin. I don’t like managing 10 colours of wool or embroidery floss at a time. And whilst I love a good slow project, which is why I knit, the time it takes me to complete a tapestry or cross stitch project is ridiculous.

Mainly because I don’t find them fun!

I’m cool with that. Because I only have so much time in the day and when I do have time to be creative, I want to be working on something that makes me relaxed and happy.

Selective crafting is a thing. And I’m narrowing the field every time I try something and find it’s not the thing for me (lino printing and pottery on the wheel are also in the Room of Abandoned Hobbies).

So I suppose that the only unanswered question is….if I find the stitching so uninspiring, who did complete these lovely Ehrman tapestries.

Ma came to the rescue. She kindly relieved me of the wools and canvases, and returned two beautifully stitched cushion fronts that I quickly turned into cushions that add a gentle pop of colour and warmth to our sitting room

Thanks Ma!

Related

LABELS ~ Needlework

SHARE >>
« Flamingo Geranium Tunic Hack and leggings
Pendle Stitches – a new chapter »

RELATED POSTS

  • Gramps – Made by Ma!
  • 2019 Goals – How did I do
  • Yarndale 2019
  • Stash stories – not stashing!

Comments

  1. Sue Taylor says

    November 26, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    Hooray for Ma! They look beautiful xx

    • Evie says

      November 26, 2019 at 4:39 pm

      I’m so pleased with them.
      And so pleased I didn’t have to stitch them. Definitely not my thing!

  2. Kim says

    November 27, 2019 at 9:24 am

    Magnificently completed by ma! They look wonderful, but I totally understand what you mean about not wanting to spend so much time on them. They take FOREVER!!!!

    • Evie says

      November 27, 2019 at 12:48 pm

      They take forever when you’re motivated to complete them. I wasn’t and I think hell might have frozen over before I got even the first one done!

  3. Deb says

    November 27, 2019 at 12:30 pm

    They are very beautiful.

    • Evie says

      November 27, 2019 at 12:46 pm

      Thank you so much. I think so too 😀

  4. K.Line says

    November 28, 2019 at 9:21 pm

    Your mother is fantastically talented and I LOVE those pillows. But I’m with you on not wanting to do the stitch work. Not every hobby is for every person. As it is, back at work and with the reno still underfoot, I have not had a chance to spin in months. I know I will get back to it – because it’s a very cool hobby that requires a lot of trial and error that appeals to me – but if I don’t even have time to learn the crafts that really appeal, how can I get into all the others?

    • Evie says

      December 9, 2019 at 3:54 pm

      This is the thing. I don’t work out in the world and I still don’t have time. So I’m focussing on doing the stuff that really appeals and working on getting better at them.

Welcome

Image of a woman in her fifties taken from the shoulders up. She has grey shoulder length hair, brown eyes and a soft smile.

Hi there,
I'm Evie and I knit, stitch, spin and sew.
With varying degrees of success!
But always with my family around me in our little town in the North of England.
Grab a brew and stay a while.

LET’S GET SOCIAL

  • Instagram

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING

JOIN THE LIST

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts in your inbox.

ARCHIVES

POPULAR POSTS

Aislinn – the finished garment and a giveaway!

Simplicity 1886 – FO 18/2013 – review and a splendid Simplicity pattern giveaway

The skirt is nearly done!

BurdaStyle 130 – blue silk prom gown

Pavlova out-of-the-envelope – FO 14/2013

DISCLOSURE POLICY

Occasionally I’ll include affiliate links in my posts.   If you click through and make a  purchase, I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you!  As you’d expect, I only recommend goods or services that I think are awesome and worth sharing.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

© COPYRIGHT PURLANDSEAM

THEME BY ECLAIR DESIGNS