🌿 Just quietly stitching 🐬🌿

I am taking a little break , due to getting a teeny tiny thorn in my finger . It is not serious .....just a flipping nuisance !

 Hoping to be back to doing my embroidery again very soon  .

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🐬Flower of the Fal - Top sail Two masted Fruit Schooner ⚓🌿

 

So no flag for the time being . I need to buy some fabric to sash around it and then think about having it framed under glass .  

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⚓The Red Ensign - finished 🐬

 

Finished the embroidery of the Red Ensign sitting in the car waiting while husband was in the hair dressers .

Going to put it aside . I am mulling over a couple of ideas of what to do with it .

I think, looking at this photo , that I need to slightly widen one of the white bands at the top ...but hmm...it might  just be the angle of the camera . The white bands are slightly wider on the right side of each diagonal arm , giving the appearance as if of windmill sails turning in the wind . Probably not the heraldically correct way of describing it , but that is how I always think of it .  

It is a beautiful flag !

Yep , anyway , that was pretty intense fast stitching !  

So next I have started this fearsome fish .  From an 17th century map .

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⚓Red Ensign - more late night embroidery 🐬

 

                        The end is in sight now . Hope I can complete it today . ⚓

⚓The Red Ensign continued 🐬

 

               I stayed up late again last night to finish the Union Jack part of it .

Took it with us and began the large area of red ....now thinking I may not have enough of the red crewel wool .....I will think positive and keep plodding on with it . 

              On and on and on with it .....

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The Red Ensign

 

           Just having a little practice at embroidering the Union Jack ( It's a tricky flag to do ! )

So in 1889 there was an Act Of Parliament which states that all merchant ships now had to fly the Red Ensign in British Waters . 

🌿⚓The Red Ensign is now solely the ensign of ships of the British Merchant Navy and of all civilian vessels that have not been granted a special ensign. The British Merchant Navy connotes British merchant ships and their crews, transporting cargo and people during time of peace and war. Interestingly, the Red Ensign was the first flag to be recognized officially as the national flag of England. It was referred to as "a national flag" in an Act of Parliament in 1854. The Red Ensign is now officially the national flag of the UK when afloat.

Then in 1889, an Act of Parliament was passed making it compulsory for British ships to fly the Red Ensign on certain occasions. This was fiercely opposed by the owners of coastal shipping, on the grounds that there was no need for a British ship to fly a flag in British waters. The Red Ensign is the only flag that has even been the subject of legislation.
Text from: Historical Flags of Our Ancestors
Pete Loeser  ⚓🌿

We think that Great Grandfather would have been one of those who would not have been happy about it , because before that it was only ships of war or battleships that would have flown this flag .

Grumpy old Cornish sea Captain ! 

So while I was embroidering the old schooner , I had the a spooky feeling that I should not to do a flag . As if he was looking over my shoulder !

 There is just one old black and white photo of The Flower of the Fal moored up....not sure where ...she has a flag right up on the top...we can't make out what it is , but it does not look like the Red Ensign , nor the Union Jack . 

No idea what that flag is , but my husband says it was always his grandfather that would climb up there , he was the lithe one .

The boys had to grow up fast back then , working on the schooner .Play time was climbing up onto the Cutty Sark which was in Falmouth harbour back then . 

 They'd play "climbing the greasy pole" which would involve scrambling along the bowsprit , hanging upside down and dropping into the water below !

Anyway , I'm embroidering the Red Ensign , I'll make it into a pin cushion and Great Grandfather will like that ! 

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A Flag Maybe ?

 

🐬The Flower Of the Fal Schooner Embroidery Restoring - continued ⚓

 

So I have been really busy stitching away , filling in gaps and fixing down snaggy bits .

I corrected the fly away sail .

So now it looks to be behind the top mast sails and makes sense to the eye .

It was nice to stroke my old dogs fur again , so soft .He was such a soft and gentle old golden retriever . In case you haven't been following ...I had mixed his beautiful brushed out moulted fur with some long sheep fleece and spun it into the woolen thread on my spinning wheel and used it to do the sails of the schooner .

Some of the wool that I spun was thin for the sails and the thick chunky wool I dyed with leaves and flowers from our old cottage garden and used to embroider foliage and simple flowers to frame it .

I took off the old shredded and torn gold thread and replaced it with this lovely vintage twisted gold beauty .

It took me ages to couch down , lasso to the back with the aid of a stiletto and fasten off , but well worth the time spent on it . It looks so much better .

                    Hoping I can find some time to do a bit more of this tomorrow .

p.s . We in the U.K say lassoo .....but ....my American son-in -law says that in America they say - lasso . I think they actually use them more than we do, so on this occasion , he wins !  Yee-haw ! 

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The Flower of the Fal Fruit Schooner Embroidery - Restoration- the icky bit ⚓

 

 I'm afraid this is the "icky" bit ...and today's pictures are not pretty !

I have taken the cushion apart , which took me ages snipping away , stitch by stitch , thread by thread .

Revealing the hessian sack cloth !  I still can't believe I must have used an old potato sack !

I then went over the whole embroidery cutting off all the bobbles with my really sharp scissors . It looks so much better now that I've done that .

I then had to match up some of my Appleton's crewel wool , to repair some of the snagged areas . Obviously I no longer have any of my hand made woolen thread .

I need to find some gold thread .......I need to find the box that has the gold thread in  .......

                                         So that will be all for today ! 

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The Flower Of the Fal Schooner Embroidery - Restoring

 

The Flower of the Fal -Fast Top Sail Fruit Schooner .

I made this years ago . I think it was the first crewel embroidery that I have ever done . 

I drew the picture bt eye from a photo of her , with a pencil , onto a piece of old sack cloth .It is not very accurate .

 My mum had taught me how to spin and I had got myself a spinning wheel . I gathered , dyed and spun all my fleece from local sheep and acquired some fleece from the little brown Soay Sheep that used to roam the land above the cliffs at Predannack  .

 I dyed the fleece with flowers and leaves growing in my garden .Some have faded a little bit, but not by much .

For the sails I used a mixture of sheep and Golden Retriever fur brushed from my beautiful old dog .

As I have already said , it is not terribly accurate and I have been meaning to re-do one of the sails which looks as if it is flying loose and doesn't make sense .

My oh my how the years have flown and now I have found a hole in the woolen tweed fabric that I'd stitched around the edge to make it into a cushion . And over the years it has been hugged , bashed , sat on , plumped up , the wool snagged on bags and paws .

And now to add insult to injury ...... moth holes !

I have decided to take the cushion apart and try and restore it as best I can .

 This holds many memories in the making of this embroidery and she was our family ship .

                                                     to be continued  ⚓🐬🌿

🌿Mermaid - hands 🐬💚⚓

 It's hot ....uncomfortably hot .

I am lazing on my bed with a nice cooling fan blowing over me . My visitors  have gone to the beach and I have a little time to myself to do some embroidery .

In the original woodcut she only has three fingers which my Grand-daughter and I did not like !

So I spent a little time perfecting the mermaid's hands .  

            I needed to fill out the wrists a bit more .....but I think I'm happy with her hands now .

 Nope ..... a few more stitches .....

                                      Aah ..that's much better .

                                            That's enough for today 🐬💚⚓