sampling for embroiderers' guild course

These are my samples for straight stitch, fly stitch and detached chain stitch for Module 1 of the Embroiderers' Guild hand embroidery certificate course I'm doing.

design sketch

This is a sketch for development into a hand embroidered piece - probably for a cushion cover. I may use a mixture of appliqué and stitch or just stitch. Or both. Much experimenting and sampling to be done plus design development.

Pity about the shadow in the photograph but it covers most of an A2 sheet so was too large to scan.

burgundy and gold

I did this whilst on holiday in December last year. Silk and felt fabrics with various threads. The photo makes it look a little brighter than it actually is.

Burgundy and Gold

It seems so long since I've posted anything at all but I've been working on my stitching experiments and have also started to weave a tapestry for an exhibition in March (unjuried or I wouldn't have tried for it!). Plus the usual butterflying around between dozens of different projects!

Retirement is coming up in a few months and there's another puppy to think about finding so Rosie has a companion. She's curled up alongside my chair here in my workroom as always.

stitching finished for first page

This is the first page with all the stitching finished. I scanned it this time rather than photographing it and the colours look much better. Can't seem to get the hang of photographing this sort of thing - the light always seems wrong and the colours don't look good. I'm not going to finish making this into the properly backed page yet because I want to do a few more before I decide on the backing colour.

Stitch Sampler

This will be the first page of my stitch sampler book. It's two thirds finished and the stitches used are wave stitch, raised chain band and bullion. It will eventually be cut out around the silk rectangles and mounted on another piece of silk to form a page. When all the pages are finished I'm going to make them into a book, maybe making a cover of needle weaving on canvas, an idea I found in Jan Messent's wonderful book 'Celtic, Viking & Anglo-Saxon Embroidery'.

Stitching again!

Whatever I start doing, I always seem to return to a desire to stitch, or hand embroider. So, with the help of a great book by Effie Mitrofanis, I've decided to start a little fabric book of stitch samples. These three pieces of silk are to be the basis of the first page. Boring, I know, but hopefully the start of something OK. And I'm aware that I haven't posted on my blog for too long, so I'll try to record this project as it goes along. Interspersed maybe with other stuff now and then.

My beautiful old Irish Wolfhound lady, Misty, who is just over nine years old, has been diagnosed with bone cancer. She has a huge tumour on her upper jaw which at the moment gives her no pain thankfully although the time will come. She's still able (and very enthusiastic) to eat which is good but I'm beginning to think of soft things rather than hard now. The forecast from the vet is 10 weeks, possibly extendable to 12 months if we resort to hugely aggressive surgery followed by ongoing chemotherapy. How lucky we are that we can make a considered choice on her behalf, and give her 10 weeks of happiness rather than 12 months of misery. We'll know when she's ready to go and can offer her the mercy that we are unable to offer our fellow humans!

NEW YEAR'S JITTERS

After seeing pictures of several of my blog friends' studios I decided the time had come to 'fess up to the mess I work in and post some photos. Here is my desk/work table:

It shows my tapestry sampler in progress which restricts the amount of space I have left to work on as it attaches to the table on clamps for comfortable working. The monitor belongs to my old PC which I rarely use now as I have a Mac notebook which I love. But I still need it for a few things so I keep it.

This view is the wall behind my worktable:

I've been careful not to include the floor area in the photograph because there's a lot of stuff down there that REALLY needs to be tidied up! The two collages are by a favourite artist of mine, Nagib.

This wall has my project/inspiration board and containers below for art materials and yarns.  My studio also houses our wine rack which can be seen bottom right! How's that for good planning :-)

This was a great opportunity to use my 20mm wide angle lens which I don't use that often. It also reminded me that I need to tidy my camera equipment away somewhere in this room.

I found taking these photos and writing about them quite emotional. It confirmed my worries about the fact that I'm such a butterfly, moving so rapidly from painting to embroidering to drawing to photography to weaving and on and on without really settling on one thing, making it my own and developing it properly. This actually worries me a lot - it seems to me that it's a big flaw in my character and something that I need to do something about. With another New Year nearly upon us I find myself thinking a lot about these things and wondering what I can do to change. I'm not a fan of new year's resolutions, but I do certainly get that feeling at this time of year that if I need to make changes now's the time.

But how to make them is the problem...

CHRISTMAS GIFT TAGS

I made some Christmas gift tags from strips of fabric, beads, machine and hand stitching. I only made five for my favourite people! They make me think of stained glass windows.

QUILTING EXPERIMENT

Playing around at quilting. I printed my finger painting exercise onto silk fabric, backed it with batting and got stitching. And a little beading. I didn't plan on it being a 'proper piece' so hadn't figured how to finish it off. So I just stitched all around the edge with blanket stitch in different coloured threads.

Magic Feather 1 finished

And here's the finished Feather and Spiral. I'm going to do another one before I send it to Jude - I think it may include a quotation.

FIRST ATTEMPT!

This is my first attempt at making a heart. The fabric is calico painted with acrylic paints. The pieces of silk were sewn onto it with the machine and then embroidery was added over the top. The little charm at the bottom says "made with love". And it was!!

As you can see, I have a LOT to learn. The shape is dreadful, the stuffing doesn't quite reach the bottom of the heart, the ribbon at the top is a disaster and should have looked much prettier than it does.

But I absolutely loved doing it and it has taught me a lot... and the only way to go from here is up!

PLAYING!

This is a bit of a departure for me. I've been rediscovering my love of stitch - hand embroidery mostly that I must have inherited from my mother who was a keen stitcher. But I've decided that I want to learn about other things - mixed media pieces, free machine embroidery and everything else that can be done with textiles and stitches. I got myself a reasonably inexpensive sewing machine that has the stuff necessary to do free stitching and am now on a huge learning curve. I'll never abandon hand stitching but want to be able to combine the two.

One of the first experiments I've played around with is using Tyvek. I painted a few small shapes in different colours and attached them using buttonhole stitch. I then added a few french knots, fly stitches and crosses and finally bound the edges of the whole thing with more buttonhole stitch. None of these were very good - the sample was tiny and therefore difficult to sew and the Tyvek was pretty flimsy. Once I'd done this I used a heat gun to shrivel and melt some of the Tyvek, pulling it slightly to create a few holes. This is the result ...

I know it's a bit messy but I'm already thinking of the possibilities (leaves, petals, etc) and I can think of ways I could have done it better (painted both sides of the Tyvek so the white back didn't show when it curled, done some of the embroidery stitches after shrinking, etc.) but I love the way the material has shrunk away from the stitches which are heat resistant.

If any true stitching/textile artists happen to read this I apologise in advance!! I'm just a learner :-)