Stitch samples

Continuing on the theme of line, but relaxing the rules slightly to include 'flat stuff' I've been playing with couching.  I very rarely work with black fabric, but the colours on this piece needed it.

As I stitched I became aware that I was taking inspiration from my old life as a plant biochemist.  A world I left many years ago.  Looking back through my archived pieces I was struck by how often my subconscious 'design- guru' takes ideas from that part of my experience.

The couched sample could quite easily be an abstract representation of membrane structures inside plant cells.  The painted lines that I initially roller-printed on to the fabric probably enhances that idea.

A piece I did some time ago, using string, a lot of gold paint and some beads, has the same inspiration, although I'm not sure I realised it at the time.


My tutor's parting advice when I finished my West Dean course was to make work in sets, or series, so I'm going to tackle a set of small embroideries.  Microscope-slide sized pieces on a theme of cell membranes.  Quantum Biology is the in thing at the moment - perhaps a little textile art is what it needs!

Daily Practice Update

Day 10 in my self-imposed 3D line challenge and it's going well so I thought I'd share a few with you.

This could be my favourite so far, buttonhole stitch on florists wire, coiled round a knitting needle.

Developing the knitted idea from last week, this time over art straws.

Kebab sticks wrapped in a variety of perle and gold threads.

Daily Practice

Something of a cross-roads has been reached.  I've completed all the courses needed for my Visual Arts Diploma and I've come to the end of all the modules I want to do with the Open University.

Where now?


'Finding your own style' seems to be the recommended next step.  However one of the points in my tutor's report was that she found my work "refreshingly original", so maybe I'm part way along the style-finding route already.

Having been nominated for the Art Challenge on Twitter, I found I quite liked the discipline of having to post some work everyday, so I'm going to try a sort of 'daily practice' idea. 
Around this time last year I was working on a theme of 3D lines which I very much enjoyed so I'm resurrecting and extending that.

Today is Day 3, and these are what I've done so far.  We'll see how long I manage to keep it up!

Re-boot

Silk Sculpture 

I need to start blogging again!

I could bore you with a detailed account of how my work has changed over the past months or I could just jump in with a couple of images which show more-or-less where I am now.

I chose the easiest option.

Landscape

Sunday Sunshine

My little patch of Rudbekia has been flowering for weeks now, giving sunshine even on the wettest days.  In fact quite a lot of yellow has crept into my garden this year, including the Argyranthemum that I've been using to practice colour mixing, for my sketch-book.

It's a plant I know as Jamaica Primrose and from new flower to faded bloom its petals pass through almost every shade of pale yellow and cream.  Quite a challenge to find the exact tone.  For me, acrylics are easier than watercolours.

I've decided that, in my newly acquired sketch book, 'drawings' should not be limited to pencil and paint.  (If I did that I'd never fill the beastly thing.) So I've been adding some 'fabric sketches' to the pages.  Continuing the theme of leaves and using odd scraps of organza, I've been playing with a different style of colour mixing.

 

  It's surprising how much the colours change when the fabrics are layered over each other.  I'm having fun with this and have not yet exhausted all the possibilities, so I'll probably be making a few more before I move on.

The 'paint and stitch on paper' that I mentioned last week is coming along quite well, but not yet ready to post.  I chose a lichen encrusted branch on my old quince tree as a suitable subject.

Sunbonnet Sue

A little bit of applique fun!

As some of you already know, on Monday I was given a place on a Foundation Diploma, which if all goes well, could be the gateway to a Visual Arts Degree in Textiles.  The Diploma could take as much as two years and the degree a further year on top of that so it's something I've had to consider very carefully.
The Diploma is essentially a part time course, so should fit fairly easily around my Open University studies, although there are bound to be clashes along the way when assignments are due.
There will be those who say I should sit back and enjoy my retirement - grow old gracefully, but the chance has come my way and I think I'd be wrong to waste it, although at the end of a long day at college I may feel differently!

Transfer Paints

I realised, when I saw the picture I'd taken of my workbench, that I hadn't told you about this sample. 
It was made by randomly applying transfer paints to paper, letting it dry, cutting the paper into strips, arranging the strips paint side down on some fabric and ironing the whole lot under baking parchment in the usual way.
What I hadn't realised until I peeled the strips back was that somewhere in the process some threads had come loose and taken up some of the paint, resulting in this 'happy accident'.  If I'd actually set out to achieve those delicate meandering lines I'd never have managed it.

Wednesday's Workbench

One or two of the blogs I regularly visit post photos of 'what's on their workbench' every Wednesday.  The work always looks so tidy and organized!  Mine, by contrast, is usually in a bit of a muddle, with samples and half-finished projects competing for space.  This is just part of my workspace, but it is the area I use most often.  To the left are small display shelves for recently finished work, to the right storage areas for stuff I might use in my next embroideries. Further down the room, on the opposite wall, under a window and next to the garden door, is a second workbench set aside for heat tools, paints etc.
Now that the rain has returned and my garden is too soggy to work on I may get round to sorting things out, but I seriously doubt I'll ever achieve anything close to tidy and organized!

Sunny Sunday



Grevillia



Globularia



Soldanella



Sitting in my garden, soaking up the sun and recovering from another week at West Dean.

This time it was a really intense, full week course of Creative Development.  A Textile Workshop with two tutors, one a tapestry weaver and one an experimental embroiderer. The idea was to integrate aspects of the work of both tutors.  I've never tried any sort of weaving before so the learning curve was steep.

We had four days of uninterupted studio time - incredibly concentrated work, but hugely enjoyable.  An opportunity to experiment and debate.  I came away with two 'works in progress' which I'm keen to continue with as they are both looking at ways of adding my hand stitching to an assemblage of warps and wefts. 

Another Sample.



Still on the theme of fields, but going a little more abstract this time.  It's a two layer piece.  Organza loosely embroidered with a single blackwork thread is laid over a charcoal sketch on textured paper.  It's difficult to see from the photo but the threads which lie above the organza make interesting shadows on the paper layer.  I'm pleased with the sample, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to scale it up to a larger piece.

In other news, my end of module assignment for the open university is now completed and ready to send.
There were times when I felt I'd never get this far, but A215 is now done and I've registered for my next module, starting in October.  This time I've chosen EA300, Children's Literature.

More Samples

Sticking with the fields theme, but focusing in on a specific ploughed area I came up with this sample and the smaller one below.  Firstly I dyed some scrim and some rafia with strong black coffee, then couched strips of each onto a scrim base.  Some of the couching is done with a gold thread to give a bit of glitter and maybe a hint of frost on the field.
I like the way the stitching distorts the fabric and I think it does achieve the look of furrows across a field.

This is a tiny interpretation of the same ploughed field, worked on quite a stiff canvas.  I just cut some lengths of a thick, soft string, frayed the ends and laid the lengths on a scrap piece of canvas.  Next I painted the canvas and the string, but not the frayed ends.  Then I couched the string down with a gold thread and added beads.  If the couched string represents the furrows the beads would be the bits of chalk and flint thrown up by the plough.

Summer Stitching

With all the sunshine we've had over the past few days I've been tempted to take a frame out into the garden for some counted thread work.  I've completed the design but it'll probably have to wait until the autumn to be made into something.  A cushion perhaps.



Magnolia



Lysichiton



I enjoy making embroideries in three dimensions and a stroll round my garden has given me inspiration for two new vessels.  I have a lot of work ahead!

A Sample Piece

Part of my work in progress for the previously mentioned exhibition.  To me there are two outstanding aspects of our part of the new National Park.  One is the rolling fields, the other is the distinctive range of plants that flower on the chalky soils.  At this point in the year the fields are beginning to be green as crops start to show, but they have only recently lost their winter clothing when the earth is bare and the shapes of individual fields stand out.
This sample is made using ordinary brown wrapping paper, scrunched and flattened out, re-scrunched and re-flattened, over and over until it becomes almost like a soft fabric.  I've machine stitched a fairly haphazard grid over the paper to represent the fields, then gently wetted the paper and carefully torn away small areas between lines of stitching.
I'm pleased with this sample.  It has the abstract touch that I was hoping for.  The next sample I plan to work on is, again, an interpretation of winter fields, but this time using scrim.

Something Different.

Something I 'm not normally drawn to do is paint instead of stitch.  In this piece I've covered the canvas with scrunched up scrim, added some teased out fibres of Mulberry bark and applied gesso, thickly in some places, thinly in others.  I had expected to stitch into it, but found myself using acrylic paints instead.  It is an aberration, but I rather like it.  At present I have it on the wall above my work-bench.  Some days I rotate it, which gives it a different feel.  I quite like that it hasn't yet decided which way up it wants to be!
In other news, my TMA has come back, with the highest mark I've yet had on this module.  This is good, obviously, but it's also bad as I had more or less decided not to bother with the rest of the assignments.  So much to write in so little time means other parts of life are neglected.  I don't need to complete the course, I don't need the qualification, I only started it for fun.

My New Home!

Three days of sun have given me a chance to catch up with my spring seed sowing.  Previously this would have ment camping out in a corner of the greenhouse, but last autumn I aquired a purpose built potting shed!  My little palace is fully equiped with a bench under the sloping window and shelves on the back wall.  Three transparent bins, under the bench, hold compost and a large potting tray keeps everything tidy.  I've even brought in an old wooden chair for coffee breaks!
The greenhouse is now bursting with freshly sown trays of flowering annuals and early veggies.  All my autumn sown seedlings have been moved out into cold frames until they are ready to be planted in beds and borders.
Last year our tiny village found itself included in a new National Park and I've been invited, by a local stitching group, to produce a few small pieces for an exhibition to mark our new found status.  The idea is to interpret aspects of the Park in stitch, in as abstract a manner as we wish.
In other news my latest A215 Creative Writing Assignment for the Open University has been sent off and I await the result.  This one called for 1,500 words of Life Writing and I was quite pleased with it, but I can never be sure how my tutor will respond.

Teeny Tiny Pincushion

Recycling, or upcycling, as I believe it is now known, has a perennial appeal for sewers and crafters.  An accumulation of empty cotton reels was staring at me this morning, begging to be used, so I've turned a few of them into pincushions.
I've wrapped felt around them to hold needles and attached tiny sussex puffs, stuffed with cotton wool, to hold the pins.  The finished article, pins and all, is less than three inches tall, so they are very portable.  Good for sewing on the move.
    Like all bloggers I enjoy sharing my ideas and am happy for readers to adapt them for their own needs, but please don't pinch them for your Etsy and Folksy shops!

Doll Time

Today being Palm Sunday, I thought I'd show you my palm dolls - so called because they fit neatly into the palm of your hand.  They are very small!
Both are made from calico.  For the sitting one I stamped the calico with a script stamp before cutting out the pieces.  For the standing one I lightly spray painted the calico after sewing up the pieces but before stuffing.
The sitting doll has a skirt and scarf made from scraps of fabric left over after cutting out the stamped calico.
The standing doll has a hat and bag which I knitted on 2mm needles.  They are worked in bramble stitch.  Her bag holds a few tiny balls of wool and cocktail stick knitting needles.

More Notebooks

As promised a couple of weeks ago, some more of my books.  They are all made from scratch with paper and card as before, but I've used different techniques for each of the covers.
The largest one is hand embroidered on silk paper.  The one with the bookmark is painted on cotton, using a wax resist and the third one is made with scraps of fabric from other projects machined on to scrunched up brown paper.
One has been made traditionally with a spine, as before.  The other two have softer covers.

A Need for Notes

Notebooks are a lot of fun to make.  I mean the ones you make from scratch, with paper and card.  Once you've sewn paper pages together and cut your bits of heavy card for the base of your cover it's just a case of choosing which technique you want to play with for the top of the cover.  I made these two by bondaweb-ing fibres from mulberry bark and small pieces of torn scrim onto calico, adding some machine stitching and painting over the whole lot with metallic acrylic paints.  The finishing touches are a few hand stitches and some beading.

Why do I need more notebooks?  Because the dreaded Poetry section of A215 is finally ended and its TMA submitted so now I can move on to the Life Writing section, which should be a lot more fun and will undoubtedly call for the use of shiny new notebooks!

More Snow.

It seems that winter hasn't quite finished with us yet.  For the second time this week snow is falling outside my window.  So I've put my spring embroidery on hold for a while and given in to the fun of making a pure white bowl from silk fibres and embroidered with heavily textured threads.  It will join my other 'balloon' bowls. Here's my embroidered calico one from an earlier post