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The Owl and the Pussycat Embroidery Kit

£285.00
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I have always loved Edward Lear’s poem of the Owl and the Pussycat going to sea in their beautiful pea-green boat; it conjures up fabulous scenes and characters, and has the soothing rhythm of a bedtime story. In this design, the Owl sings to his small guitar while the Pussycat closes her eyes as they drift through the Bong-trees by the light of the moon.

  Their money is safely wrapped up in their £5 note, and their jar of honey is stored in the bow of the boat in the form of a pea pod, with petit pois buoys. The border, of Bong-trees and fruits, was inspired jointly by a vintage London Underground poster depicting paddle boats drifting under the silhouetted boughs of willows at dusk, and by the amazing tree ferns and other plants of New Zealand, which I saw on a teaching trip there.

I love the idea of embroidery being used to embellish usable items, rather than just being placed in a frame, and taking my lead from Elizabethan embroidered book covers, decided to create my Owl and the Pussycat as the design for the front cover of a book.  The piece therefore includes a border of ‘bookcloth’, a traditional material for covering books, which gives both crispness and a vintage feel.

On a ground of duchess satin, the background is created using layered silk organzas and stretched metallic mesh ribbons, embellished with delicate stitches and featuring a twinkling mica moon.  This design includes over 100 materials, many made and sourced specially for this project.

  The cat and owl are worked using delicate needlelace and silk shading, with specially-made spangles for the owl’s eyes.  The sails and boats are made as detached slips using silk shading and digitally printed organza with wired edges.

  Also included are a tiny mica-covered honey pot, a miniature five pound note and a tiny hand-made (by me and my father) guitar, complete with strings. Once the embroidery is completed, you may wish to purchase a hand-bound book created by the skilled bookbinders of York Bookbinding in the UK.

These are bound in matching bookcloth, with gold leaf edges, decorative end papers, and “The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear” in foiled lettering on the spine.  The poem is shown on a card to be mounted inside the front cover.

The book includes an acid-free board on to which your embroidery can be mounted as the front cover. Alternatively, you may order a picture frame to fit the design, or display the design in your own way.

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Karen Appel

Just finished! What an adventure to go on with the owl and the pussy cat! Beautiful and I’d highly recommend this project. It sits beside Lakeland Odyssey. Both mounted onto Jenny’s books. True treasures and future family heirlooms!

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Nicola Cordingley

WOW !
I ordered this kit a while ago as my birthday present so had to wait a good couple of months before seeing it. What a gift to open, beautifully presented with loads of little packets all perfectly identified as to what they are. The instructions are superb, I've had a little read through and they are easily understandable with lots of pictures to assist. This is going to be a wonderful project to immerse myself in and I know will be thoroughly enjoyable to do.

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Taetia McEwen

I have just received my Owl & the Pussy-cat kit and l am simply blown away at the detail and finesse of every tiny piece of this kit. So obviously put together with love and care and utmost attention to detail.
Truly a work of art, I look forward to working on the charming and delightful whimsy.
Yours
Taetia McEwen

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Deborah Conklin

Received my Owl and Pussycat kit in record time -all the way from the UK to California in about a week.
I'm so glad I decided to treat myself to this kit. The materials are topnotch and everything is in wonderfully labelled in little bags so you can follow along with the instructions part by part. The instructions are thorough and are so good I believe an overly confident beginner/intermediate stitcher would be able to work their way through with patience and care. A special shoutout to Jenny's Mum who packaged the kit herself. She did a brilliant job and I'm sure it took quite a while as there are loads of threads and little parts and pieces! --and a thank you to Jenny who made her masterpiece available to all of us. (And it truly is a masterpiece!)

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Caroline Dresden

I endorse everything Penny said above. This is, as usual, a fantastic quality kit with beautiful contents and clear instructions. Jennyland is wonderful, calming place to visit. I love how all the different components for the individual areas are separately bagged. You really cant go wrong. Even where the technique was new to me, the finished article looks lovely as Jenny’s explanation is so clear. I hugely enjoyed the whole experience. The cat’s head was fiddly - and I actually re-did it, as it wasn’t quite good enough first time. There was enough thread to do so and version 2 worked beautifully, so it was worth the effort. Thank you, Jenny!

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Penny Widdison

I started this beautiful kit at an Embroiderers' Guild course, taught by Jenny in Durham 2019. The contents of the kit were meticulously labelled so I could find exactly which bags were used for which part of the design. The instruction book was as meticulously presented as the kit. The order of work is very well thought out, to make good progress with each of the different elements of the design. An excellent mix of text instructions with drawings and full colour photographs. Although the scale of some of the stitching techniques were quite difficult e.g. the needle-lace petit-pois & the pussy cat head, they enabled a real sense of achievement when I completed them. The quality of the threads and fabric were stunning, such a joy to work with high quality materials, and some that I had not used before. There was more than enough of each thread type to complete the design. I absolutely loved stitching this design and my whole family are stunned by the finished work. Thank so much Jenny for producing yet another exquisite design & kit to stitch.