Playing Catch Up

It's been a couple of months I know, and although I've found time to get some work done on the tapestry - once the day was done and I was in bed, hot water bottle, cuddly toy and whiskey mac/Lemsip (circumstances dependent) by my side and audiobook playing, time in front of the screen to edit photos and upload has been slight. December and January have been busy months. Plus I had issues downloading to the PC from iCloud in January (Waves angry fist in the air, "Bloody Apple")

Continuing with Trial of a Time Lord characters, since the last update I've added...

Lord Kiv from Mindwarp - here is the original sketch made on the canvas for use as a guide and the final stitched character.

A Mogarian from Terror of the Vervoids

Gltiz, guide sketch

Sabalom Glitz (apparently he died falling over a whiskey bottle, according to Mel in the anniversary specials) from The Mysterious Planet & Dragonfire

Next up is Queen Katryca.

See the updates first on my Instagram page

Doctor Who Tapestry - November Update

It feels as though I've had a lot less time to spend on the stitch work this month. Continuing to work backwards through the classic era, I've now reached Delta and the Bannermen. I've also reached the top of this canvas so the top of Gavrock's head will be stitched in across the join with the next panel that will be started some time next year.

After I finish Delta there will be just enough room for one more character to be added before I have to start joining this panel onto the main tapestry. With the size and weight of the main work that is going to be some task.

Doctor Who Tapestry - Off the hoop

So today I had to take the hoop that holds the aida taught whilst working in order to make another repair to the hoop, which has been seen better days. It's more designed for cross-stitch rather than tapestry, I found the tapestry frame somewhat impractical as you have to stitch the whole canvas onto it, not something I could do when joining panels to the main body either. This hoop is a much thicker hoop, I've not seen any like it recently so it is a case of make-do-and-mend.

It gave me the opportunity to take a photo of the current panel, and also finish the back edging along the right hand side that will eventually become the outside edge of the main body when this is attached.

The Story of the Doctor Who Tapestry (Part Three)

I often get asked the same questions regarding the tapestry: When did you start it? How long have you been doing it? It’s not actually that easy to answer because it has not been a continuous activity. But let me wind the clock back and try to provide some answers. (Parts One & Two here)

I Thought it was about time I continued the story, so where was I? 

Oh yes, seven Doctors and the idea to join them.  Joining them together wouldn’t be that easy, they certainly did not merge well. Plus, there were seven, not an easy number to arrange. At this point Paul McGann had not been announced, we were in those wilderness years when nothing was happening with the programme.

The only way I was going to be able to join them was to put something between them, but what? 

The obvious choice were the Daleks and the Cybermen.  So the first join, linking the 4th Doctor to the 5th Doctor with a montage of Daleks and Cybermen history. The Emperor from Evil of the Daleks, Davros and various Dalek forces. Various Cybermen, the cyber-motif from Tomb of the Cybermen and Cybermats. 

The old Doctor Who Technical Manual was the main source of design for the Cybermen and the three pieces of aida were initially joined by extending the Doctor’s backgrounds across onto them. The problem was the lack of colour references available back then.

This seemed to work, although I never did quite finish the details on this panel, must finish these off.

This extended the width of the tapestry and defined the initial size that it was going to be. 

Doctors 1 to 3 were going to form a strip along the top, joined by smaller inserts and 6 & 7 would go below, joined by a piece the same size as the Daleks and Cybermen section. 

This would give me three strips of the design, but how would they join together, there would have to be additional inserts to join the three lengths together. I think this was the first point where I began to wonder what I was really creating. With all this extra space to fill what was I going to fill it with?

Part Four

March Update

Stitching, Crafting & Writing - a busy March

Tapestry

The last few updates have concentrated on the Doctor Who Tapestry. I've been keeping a record of how long the work on the ancient one and the background area for him has taken based upon the playing time of the audio books I have been listening to whilst stitching. 

The previous post had the time at 43 hours 20 minutes. Additional work undertaken since then.

I completed most of the work on the Ancient One whilst listening to the first of the two new Target Novelisation Audio books: The TV Movie & Dalek a total of 9 ¾ hours. Then I moved on to the background. Backgrounds need to be simple, so I’m going for the green gas cloud that was used to kill the Ancient One at the end. This also includes binding the edge of the material. This takes some time. This was started listening to the other new novelisation audio books:  The Crimson Horror and the Witchfinders.

Doctor Who – The TV Movie by Gary Russell

Read by Dan Starkey, BBC Studios (5 hours)

 

Doctor Who – Dalek by Robert Shearman

Read by Nicholas Briggs, BBC Studios (4 ¾ hours)

 

Doctor Who – The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss

Read by Catrin Stewart & Dan Starkey, 

BBC Studios (4 ½ Hours)

 

Doctor Who - The Witchfinders by Jay Wilkinson

Read by Sophie Aldred, BBC Studios (4 hours, 10 mins)

 

So here I am, working with 20 shades of green to try and blend the smoke swirling up around the Ancient One. 

After another 8 ½ hours of the latest Big Finish Doctor Who releases.

Doctor Who – Stranded 2 

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories 6.1 Return of the Cybermen

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories 6.2 The Doomsday Contract

Bringing the time spent on this one character to over 61½ hours so far.

 

Next Tapestry Update

Building the Gateway

This has taken a backseat over the last couple of months again, but I have managed to make a little progress as the below photos will show. The left side now has basic wood and Daz clay coverage. I will get the basic coverage done before trying to clean up and add any details.

 Previous update

Writing.

As you will know, I seldom reveal too much about writing projects whilst they are still in development.

All I will say is that work on the new werewolf trilogy is going well, we are proofreading book two and I’m making final edits to the text for book three.

Book three has had some additional writing added to it, so I returned to the original notebooks, pulled out the pencils and got scribbling.

First draft is always handwritten in pencil. This filled the second skull book that was used for book three so I had to take up a new notebook, not having another of the skull books I found this nice little denim covered book in my collection of notebooks to use for the next 20K or so words.

Hopefully, I’ll be revealing more details of this project soon.

 

Patrick Troughton

To honor the fact that Patrick Troughton would have been 99 today, here is his second appearance on my Doctor Who tapestry, as the villain Salamander in the story Enemy of the World. This is one of four times the actor playing the Doctor appeared as another character in the same story, a special section of the tapestry will feature these appearances.

The Key To Time - Unlocked

The Key to Time Gallery page has now been unlocked on the blog site, featuring characters from all six of the adventures.

Doctor Who Tapestry - Coming Soon

Just a little teaser of a post for the next page that I will be loading soon for the Doctor Who Tapestry collection.

Season 16 - The Key To Time was a series of six adventures that had the Doctor, Romana and K9 hunting for the six segments of the Key To Time to restore balance in the universe.

May be we need to reassemble the Key To Time today.

Sent on the mission by the White Guardian and...

...pursued by the Black Guardian, there were quite a number of colourful creatures and characters along the way.

There will be some one or some thing from each of the six adventures coming in this gallery soon.

Black & White Gallery Open

Celebrating the black & white era of the programme, a section of the tapestry was worked in shades of black, grey and white.

Click here for the Black & White Gallery Page where there are close up images of each of the following:

 Menoptra from The Web Planet, 1965

Koquillion from The Rescue, 1965

Kal from The Tribe of Gum, 1963

Macra from The Macra Terror, 1967

War Machine from The War Machines, 1966

Voord from The Keys of Marinus, 1964

Chameleon from The Faceless Ones, 1967

Space Pirate from The Space Pirates, 1969

Opening the Gallery

I've started to open the gallery pages for the Doctor Who tapestry.

The first two pages to launch are:
Doctors 
Daleks, Davros & Cybermen

For the moment there are only four of the classic series Doctors shown, but I will be loading more photos soon, along with more Doctors, Daleks & Cybemen there will be companions and other creatures that featured in the classic series and some of the spin-off productions based on that era.






It is my intention in the future, once this one is finished, to start work on the 2005+ adventures, but that will be a whole new canvas.

Excavating The Past

As things have it, I am in the process of moving a lot of things into storage at the moment, hence the lack of actual model making going on. In doing so I have been digging into the backs of cupboards, wardrobes and places that have probably been more secure than a tape locked away in Davros' office.

Two things that have emerged recently are these: 

The 1980s Doctor Who logo jumper mum knitted for me back in 1987 following a pattern from the Doctor Who Knitting Book. 

1987 vs 2019 same me, same jumper

I have posted photos before of some of the things mum and dad made which probably inspired some of my creativity, so I think I'm going to set up a gallery page for them and another gallery page for...

The Doctor Who tapestry, that I've also posted about several times before. This is one of the two projects I am continuing with during this current upheaval. 




The other thing I found was this huge role of 14 count aida, that is the cloth used for the tapestry work. 

I bought it many many years ago when a local haberdashery closed down. The current project is Classic Doctor Who, this role of aida will be the start of the next great work, a tapestry dedicated to the new world that was born back in 2005.

Varnished At Last

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the haunted house has been varnished. Last weekend, after blowing up the mower, I decided that Sunday would be dedicated to the models, weather permitting. 

Fortunately the weather was, quite breezy but warm, so with the shade up I finally got the mother of all varnish jobs finished. After a few hours with the tin of varnish and the brush the haunted house is now all but complete. 

The only thing left is to reattach the stone ‘support’ pillar which keeps coming off. I also got four of the larger ghost town models that had been recently painted up varnished as well in the mammoth session. 

The painting of these had not gone as well as I would have liked. The Wilko paint I had been using for ‘Burnt Umber’ has been changed since I originally discovered it. 

Although the tube are much larger, so more paint yay! this new version of Burnt Umber has come out more redder than before and I was forced to add a lot of additional black and white into the mix to tone it back to the darker wood effect I had previously taken to.

With Hobbycraft having had a special offer running this month on their acrylic paints I have taken the opportunity to pick up a selection of black, grey, white, umbers and others from their range and will be trying those out soon. 

Meanwhile, whilst the mower was blowing up, I’ve also suffered a hard drive failure, some data was recoverable from backups but other data wasn’t. Hence the blog silence for a bit. I have however made good progress on the tapestry and will be posting some new photos soon. 

(Oh and I not mention the boiler... They say things come in threes so I hope that’s me off the hook for several years now please!!!)

A Stitch In Time

The B&W section, how many can you name?

In the last post I mentioned that other things have taken my attention above building the ghost town.

So what have I been up to? Well the heating hasn’t been behaving too well, so I have been retiring earlier than normal and taking up the work on the Doctor Who Tapestry with more gusto.

Some evenings I have been spending a good two to three hours stitching away whilst listening to the BBC Audio releases of the Target novelizations, taken in story order.

This means that I have managed to progress the tapestry quite well since my last post upon it, back in July. Then I was working on the black and white section.

Joining the panels together

That is now attached and due to an error in measurement, I worked the piece larger than initially marked out on the material, I have had to add an additional strip along the top of the canvas to level the top up again.

This is what I am working on at the moment, having to join it to the main body as well as joining some strips together because of the size of the original work.

WIP

This means I have been extending backgrounds upwards, some additional camouflage for the UNIT section and blue and green time tunnel above the section for the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee.

At the moment I am listening to the three stories that have been released in the Key to Time series, a section I completed a few years back on the tapestry. 

It does feel more engaging when the area I am working on matches the material being played, but that cannot always be the case.

Some areas have come out more satisfactorily than others, and there are sections I intend to go back, unpick and rework. There can be various reasons for this, and the first thing to do is to identify what has exactly gone wrong. Not always easy, it is easy to see that something is wrong but not so clear as to what remedial action is needed to rectify it.

The Key to Time, elements from all 6 adventures.

Spearhead from Space & Terror of the Autons

I’ll cherry pick some of my favorite Target based audio books in my next post.

In Glorious Black & White

Doctor Who started back in 1963 in black and white, it was one of the last BBC shows to switch to colour production in 1970 when Jon Pertwee took over as the Doctor. Until then the Daleks, Cybermen and all the other beasties were never seen in their full glory (Except of course in the two Peter Cushing films).

Then it happened, the TARDIS arrived on Earth, the Doctor was put into exile, along came UNIT in force and so did colour and the Autons.

Although I have used colour throughout the tapestry until now, even on the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton panels themselves I decided some time back to try a panel in just the shades of black, white and various greys. (Maybe not quite 50 shades).

At first, I was concerned it might not come out too well, but after a short period working on the first selected characters that were pertinent to the era and to be honest where it was hard to find colour reference photographs to work from, I soon found that it created quite an effective piece. Then for various reasons that got put on hold, and not so long ago that panel resurfaced as I was sorting through the tapestry materials and I knew now (or back then) was the time to finish it.

This photo shows what it was like when I rediscovered the panel back in March of this year, and above is the finished panel before I started to fit it into the main body of the piece.

The black and white panel is going to go in the space between Hartnell and Troughton but although having originally measured the gap, and used a frame to maintain tension in the material there is a slight sizing issue to contend with.  For one thing it’s too tall so the rest of the tapestry is going to have to be extended upwards by a good few centimetres as well. I’ll worry about that once this is firmly fitted in place – less of an issue. The slight extra width on the other hand might need some gentle persuasion.

There is one other slight issue, you might notice from the picture below, the different material that has been used for this section means the stich size is also inconsistent. Think of it that one section is in higher definition than the other!

Basically to join the panels together I’m using extra wool to stitch across the two panels, pulling them together, in some cases over sewing what was there to ensure that enough stitches cross over from one side to the other to form a strong join. I start by putting in a few tacking stitches with cotton, just to hold everything in place, I really could do with Alpha Centaui’s extra arms to make sure everything stays in place as I work.  These will be taken out as I go.  I’ve just started that piece of work, and I expect it will be a good couple of months before I have another update about the tapestry on here. Also with it being the summer months, it is very heavy, hot work, holding the huge thing hanging over my lap.

Other posts on this subject

A Quick Update

A quick update on what I've been up to in case you thought I've been kidnapped by aliens.

I confess I have still not gone anywhere near the old haunted house model I was building last year, but during a frantic search for something a few weeks ago I came upon the missing plans for the building.  

I have however been giving some love and attention to the Doctor Who Tapestry which has also been suffering from the time I spent last year working on the final part of Karl’s adventures.

I’ve gone back to listening to Big Finish albums and sticking the needle in and out of the canvas in the evenings to create a Draconian and a few Jelly Babies on the picture. I’m working on a Voc Class Robot at the moment. 

That’s not to say that Karl is finished 100%. 

The countdown to the official launch is underway. The Kindle edition goes live on the 23rd February, and pre-orders are already open. The final manuscript has been sent over, so why not pre-order and have them load it onto your machine on the day of release? Click here for more details.

I am now in the process of reformatting all three books ready for launch onto the other eBook platforms, so watch this space and Karl’s Facebook page for further announcements. 

We have now added ‘Buy Now’ buttons to the pages on this blog dedicated to each book. You can order a copy direct from me, whilst my stock lasts, and I will sign and dedicate the book for you. Just follow the links on the right hand side of the blog for more details.

And finally congratulations to the two winners of the Goodreads Giveaway promotion for book one of the trilogy. Your books are in the post to you.

That’s my quick update for now, hopefully I will be back with some model work soon.

All the best

Derek

A Stich in Shelka

Quite some time ago, before the re-launch of Doctor Who, there was another Ninth Doctor, played by Richard E. Grant – this was an online animation on the BBC Website. Now for the first time that has been released on DVD. 

Writer Paul Cornell has a blog covering many details regarding this release and the Shelka panel from my tapestry gets a feature. 

At the time we all thought this was the new Ninth Doctor little did we know what plans were already afoot for the 2005 series. For me then, here was the new Doctor and he had to be added to the tapestry. Fortunately there was a panel that had not been allocated which allowed me to work in the new Doctor, the two young companions and Shelka itself.