Buxton & Craft

Since I have been away, my blog readership has dwindled away to nothing. Never mind, this will soon be remedied.

I have been away on a suitably Victoriana-themed trip – singing at the 17th International Gilbert & Sullivan festival in a production of Princess Ida with the Oxford University Gilbert and Sullivan Society. This was my third performance at the festival, but my first with the Oxford Society, and my first in their beautiful opera house and Buxton’s delights did not disappoint. The only difficulty for me was the lack of electricity (I was camping), internet, and readily available food. Ah well.

The rest of this short entry is to show a little bit of craft that I have been working on for a while. I have been making cross-stitches for as long as I can remember, predominantly from kits, but also a few of my own designing. My favourite one to date currently hangs framed on my wall:

Japanese Cross Stitch

Another favourite craft project is the following cushion cover:

Terry Pratchett Cushion Cover

The cross stitch was from a kit, and features members of the Unseen University from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. From left to right they are the Dean, the Librarian, the Archchancellor and the Bursar. The cushion cover part of it I made myself from first principles, which was very challenging!

Which brings us to the present day. At the moment I am working on a beautiful skyline of Oxford, where I go to university, again from a kit. I’m about half way through. I hope to keep running photos of it as I go along, so you and I can see how it progresses. Here it is at the moment:

Oxford Cross Stitch

It will eventually reach about double that width, though no taller. You can see other things I’ve made over the years at my deviantArt page.

Happy Blogging!