My Dad, my great-great Grandfather, & Blackworked Harper Finials

This project is for my Dad, so I he's banned from looking at my blog until it's finished! Dad has, over the last few years, been researching my great-great and great grandfather's inventions and designs, starting from wire tensioning systems and ending in fantastic suspension bridges, which are scattered over the UK and former colonies. The first example below is the Monymusk bridge in Aberdeenshire, unfortunately no longer there.
Here's another example still standing: the Newquay bridge (1900)


Dad's dedication to researching their history and locations, together with unfailing support and enthusiasm of my stepmother, has led them into battles with undergrowth, and journeys to far corners of the earth, to trace where the bridges were and the stories of the communities they served. In fact, bridges aren't unlike embroidery projects in that way, there are numerous stories of characters, communities and exotic locations to produce a book on the subject, which eventually my Dad hopes to do.
He's well on the way to producing a book on the actual engineering, a tad
complex for my artsy heid, but I'm getting there.
I decided long ago to try and turn the suspension bridge into a project, their flowing beautiful shapes are very inviting, but attempts to reproduce the actual shape of the bridge on counted thread fabric was a bit too challenging for me.
So I decided that a better idea would be to take a detail of the bridge, the thing (to the untrained eye) which defines them as 'Harper Bridges' and turn that into the project instead.
Luckily, my Dad (with the help of a dedicated local friend) gave me a helping hand by retrieving an original finial from the Monymusk bridge and putting it his garden.
The issue that was occupying most of my thinking time on this project was The Sphere Problem. I wasn't convinced of my skills to be able to create a round 3D image. I concentrated on playing with patterns that would make this easier, consulted my favourite blackwork books for guidance, and this was my first failed attempt:

Then a trip home saved the day. I realised that another distinctive, but less obvious feature of the bridges is the tensioning box, used to tension the cables. An example of which Dad had managed to perloin.
I thought that as far as patterns and shapes went, there would surely be enough to work with, and set about trying to see how I could create a pattern from the box, to use in and around the finial as a fill or border pattern. The


This became quite tricky, recreating the actual circle inside the tension box was becoming a bit complex, and although I still think it could work as a one off feature, the bottom right pattern of the image above, which layers a pattern of the basic outline of the tension box works better. Particularly, as it would be easy (I thought anyway!) to increase and decrease the density of the pattern to help with The Sphere Problem.

Next challenge, getting the image onto the fabric, and with a lot of patient scanning and cropping by Jamie, I had a card-board cut out of the finial:
This is cheating I know, but I used a sewing pencil to trace the outline of the finial, and then started to fill with what turned out to be an unbelievably complex pattern which has made me totally cross eyed.

Unfortunately, I got a bit carried away and wasn't confident enough to reduce the pattern before I started, and the bottom quadrant of the sphere is filled to the max, it should be fading out towards the centre. That was quite annoying. However, the stem works a bit better:
Excuse the see-through scan! This piece works better if you half close your eyes, then you can't see the mess, but you can see that it's starting to look a bit more 3d.
Watch this space for the next installment - this has been so far a very challenging project, but I've never questioned it, as I hope in some small way it will reflect and pay tribute to the dedication and effort my Dad has put into generating for his - children and future generations, our family history.

Here is a close up of the stupidly complex pattern (note to self) made from interlocking shapes which echo the tension box.

Crikey. This might break all records for the longest time taken to complete a project!! A few more traumas before I got to this stage. I have moved countries since the picture above - from New Zealand back to Scotland, and there's been a bit of wear and tear on the fabric in the process.

I was concentrating so much on getting the shape and shading right, that I neglected to think about the overall design. I played around with possible border patterns etc., but as usual ended up going back to the horses mouth - i.e. what this would actually look like in all its glory, perched atop its Victorian gothic pillar.

























I've attempted to get the perspective of being at eye level with the "decorative cap piece" as my Dad has described it, with clouds floating by and the odd wee bird. Then it was floating, so I gave it a base to give the impression of being grounded on the structure. It looks better from a distance I think, and whatever you do Dad......don't look at the back!!