Dianne Ayres's beautiful textiles

Last week a WMFC follower sent me a link to Dianne Ayres website Arts and Craft Period Textiles that sells gorgeous hand-embroidered pillows in Arts and Craft designs.  Even more enjoyable, you can buy the designs and materials as a full kit and make these pieces yourself.  Really beautiful.  I wondered who stitches the finished pillows?  If I find out, I'll update post.  Kits run about $45 and finished pillows around $150-250.

 

Some Lovely Linen, V & A Collection I

An embroidered hanging made in 1896 at the Haslemere Peasant Industries workshop in Surrey, an artisans collaborative started by Godfrey Blount in 1894.  Haslemere Peasant Industries served as a marketing organization for local craftspeople and supported a London shop for the sale of work. This panel, one of the "Peasant Tapestries", is made using applique of linen on linen with the edging in linen thread.  It was designed by Godfrey Blount.

 A stenciled linen panel, characterized by soft colors and stylized motifs, designed and executed by George Walton in 1898.  Panels such as this were used as wall decorations.  This one, measuring about 2.5 by 6 feet was up over a door in the V&A.

 The central courtyard of the Victoria & Albert Museum, William Morris's home away from home.....

Klimt's Golden Kiss and Needlepoint

 The Kiss (1907-08, Oil and gold leaf on canvas)

Is there a romantic anywhere that isn't moved by this painting?  From wikipedia, "The Kiss falls in line with (Gustav) Klimt’s exploration of fulfillment and the redeeming, transformative power of love and art."  Click on it and be dazzled.

You can view the painting at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in Vienna, Austria.  If you'd like to make your own little piece of Klimtian beauty, Candace Bahouth's gorgeous needlepoint pillows are now on sale at Ehrman Tapestry.  They are in a pleasant 10-holes-to-an-inch size.