Embroidered flowers Part 2

Here's a couple of easy ways to finish your small stitched art pieces.

First, I used some watercolor paper that's heavy but flexible, I'm not sure of the content because my sister sent it to me, but its a nice, heavy paper that may have linen in it.  I cut an opening in the paper, then placed it over my stitched piece, ran a light line of glue to adhere the fabric and paper together, and stitched a zigzag stitch along the paper edge.

I found that it's helpful to use the same color thread in the bobbin and on top, which I didn't do here, because the bobbin thread was darker and got pulled to the top in a few places, but still looks okay.

Here is the whole piece, I'll still need to trim the ragged edges of the paper to even it up for framing.

Next, on this piece, I took some yarn and laid it down parallel to the edge of it (after I trimmed it up evenly) and I just stitched a medium width zigzag along the edge. 

After the first round, I went around the entire piece one more time with the same zigzag, just for stability.

 I suggest starting with your finished size in mind, not just make a random sized piece like I did.  It's easier to find frames if your finished piece is somewhat standard! And if anyone reading this has done embroidered pictures, please comment with any helpful hints or suggestions you may have learned in the process. 

To Art Quilting and Beyond - Week 2/Part 5

Now back to our regularly scheduled challenge!

Bring out the bling!...and buttons and other bits.

My granddaughters were told they could pick out paint as well if they wanted to. Next time perhaps I'll be more specific. They picked out 3 colors in DynaFlow! My first thoughts were trying to figure out a way to put it on fabric and yet control it. Nothing really grabbed me down that road. Then I saw that the butterfly had enameled impressions on its wings! So....I painted them. Just what it needed!

Then there was the case of the HUGE earring! Made my ear lobes hurt just to look at it. But I loved the colors especially for this piece. So I took off the big "button" for the pierced post and then it was just what

I needed.  Added one of the metal frames with the animal print added and that took care of the top right corner!  Needless to say...circles abound in this addition.

One of the bracelets had bronze leaves on it...a lot of them. Just took off three and put them under the other metal frame with animal print. Fits in with the Autumn part quite well.

The direction of the pocket watch, washers and buttons is the arc indicating the butterfly taking off on its migration. And yes...LOTS of circles here!

And here is the finished piece! 

Autumn Migration

Next week another season. Here is the pile of stuff my little darlings picked out for me this week! This one might prove to be a real challenge

Oh and another surprise addition next week. It's kind of spacey!

To Art Quilting and Beyond - Week 2/Part 3

Today I'm so excited. I've really been looking forward to adding the next layer on this one.

Doing the background felt like putting gesso or a color wash on my canvas. Creating a fun place for all the other bits to play! Now we're going to start to see the life come to the piece....the beginning of the message.

Here is the layout I finally decided on for the next layer.

And here are the stitches I chose to add texture and give each one it's own identity.

The zebra print went down first with black embroidery floss going counter to the zebra stripe pattern.

Not sure if you can see this one very well. I just put random small x's 

I really had fun with this one

And this one with bigger asymmetrical X's

And just a very simple stitch for this one. It was quite busy already.

It is starting to take shape and tell the story it is supposed to be telling. Tomorrow - the really fun part and the final layer!  Or maybe not.......perhaps tomorrow will bring on other things.......

To Art Quilting and Beyond - Week 2/Part 2

After finding a layout I wanted and the general direction of the piece, I set out to refine the smaller details.

First the background, of course. Here's the first half - the left side. I used the subtle pattern in the neutral to  keep the circle concept going in this piece. And on the far left I just did a slight stitch around the leaves to create the texture.

Then I laid out the right half of the piece. I continued the circle concept in the same neutral and tried (and woefully failed) at doing straight lines again. I WILL conquer these silly straight lines! Now the really sad confession!! I even laid out straight lines with a ruler and chalk marker. One would think I could follow that right? Well....I obviously have straight line issues. LOL! I'm hoping by the time I get it all done they won't

be TOO visible.

So the background is finished and I'm so looking forward to building the next layer.

(by the way...there is no blue on the far right fabric...must be a lighting thing with my iPhone)

I posted on a comment from a previous day that I find that I am responding to this challenge far differently

than I thought I would. I thought it would be fun but never realized just how enjoyable it would be to do the stitching without my sewing machine. Do you find yourself kind of getting "in the zone" or something? Sufficient words aren't coming to me just now. Needs more processing to make sense of it all. Your wisdom and insights are greatly appreciated! Please jump in and comment.

See you tomorrow!

To Art Quilting and Beyond - Week 2/Part 1

Wow what a great weekend! Fall has seriously begun here in the upper mid-west and a long drive on Saturday was absolutely gorgeous. Very inspiring!

After doing a bit of editing of the "bling" chosen for me by my granddaughters (bless their little hearts) I got down to laying out and auditioning layout and bits. Here is the photo of where I ended up after much moving around and adjusting and taking bits off of jewelry so I could use them.

As stated earlier, the title of the first piece is "Summer Garden". With these colors I was obviously drawn to autumn and after this weekend I am even more inspired than ever by the beauty of the changing landscape!

The kind of orange on the far left background is the back side of a leafy fabric. I LOVED the front side but it was way too saturated and overpowered everything else. The connecting neutral fabric with the writing on it

I placed on the far right. I put another neutral in the center background because I don't have a lot of the original one and I also wanted a piece with some subtle pattern in it.

I had the two metal "frame" thingies and they looked very plain and boring all alone so I put some of the animal prints behind each one.

So, here we go! Now to start stitching!

OH and this one already has a title:  "Autumn Migration"  Are you sensing a theme here? I'll get into more of the details this week.

And don't forget! Later this week I'll be adding to this week's information and heading off on a whole other pathway to taking art quilting beyond the box....or....over the box you might say.  Got your interest?  I'll explain all later this week!

To Art Quilting and Beyond - Week 1/Part 5

I can hardly believe it is here...the end of week 1.

So, as promised, here again is the photo of my stuff before starting and a photo of the finished piece.

Here is a larger photo just so you can see it better. This is the 14" X 14" part. I cropped off the extra around the edges just for a better idea of the finished piece.

So that's it! Week 1 of this experiment in Making Do. Thankfully so far there has been no zombie apocalypse!

For the next week, I had my two granddaughters, 7 and 8, pick out the "stuff" for the following weeks.

Let's just say they DO love their bling!!  Here is what they chose for this next week along with the neutral continuity fabric with the writing on it.

Can you SEE all those jewelry bits!!! I'm afraid if I use them all this piece will weigh around 40 pounds! So we'll have to wait and see just how much of this I can actually use and where it will take me!

I would so love to see YOUR stuff and finished pieces. If you can, post them directly to FIRE. If you can't post directly, e-mail them to me and I will post them for you!  My e-mail is    kellyart@charter.net

Remember...be brave! We are all learning and experimenting together, right?

Have a great weekend picking out more stuff and taking this exploration with us!

OH and next week I have a SURPRISE bonus project.....again...by hand and no electricity. Just another possibility to explore. See you then!

Expanding the repertoire: loops, lumps and loose threads

Helen Parrott was a tutor at CQ Summer School when I did a workshop with Jo Budd  and I could readily  have done her course,  enjoying conversations over dinner.  My copy of 'Mark-making in textile art'  is well thumbed now, it's an absorbing and stimulating read covering not just techniques but thoughtful insights into artists practice and taking things further. I've nearly completed a piece using some red Japanese shibori .  Besides extending the original stitch marks of the shibori, I've been having great fun experimenting with loops and knots  following suggestions in the  book. I love the graphic quality, like quirky calligraphy,  and the shadows cast add to the effect.

It's been good to experiment again, having  got into a bit of a rhythmic rut with  my lines of parallel stitches.
 Reading other hand stitchers blogs has also given me some ideas on expanding my repertoire. Among my favourites are Jude Hill, Judy Martin ,  Christine Mauersberger,  Dijanne Cevaal,  Olga Norris,  Heather Cameron,  Tiggy Rawling,  Alice Fox   and recent discovery Helen Terry.

 Although not an embroiderer like my mum , I can, with a bit of practice do French Knots and cross stitch and like the textures they provide. But perhaps I have to think about it too much, it's hard to be random and irregular.

 Taking part in the 'Take It Further' challenge  a few years ago, I embraced the opportunities to be a bit more adventurous, like using  huge tacks to represent  how I was barely  holding myself together at the time.

 Most recently, having seen Dorothy Caldwells'  pieces from  her time in Australia with their pigments rubbed over heavy large stitches, I've been  exploring stitches of doubled stranded cotton with acrylic paints. I'm learning to love stranded cotton for all the reasons I've hated stitching with it in the past: the way it separates out into the individual threads. I've even added to the stash of threads, sitting unloved for years, that I  inherited from my mum.  

This post completes my journey  in hand stitch from heirloom quilting  for function through to experimental mark-making. Hope you've enjoyed reading about it as much as I've enjoyed putting these posts together. I'll be back in September with some posts  and tutorials on combining stitch and acrylic paints - I do hope you'll join me.

The Unconscious Side

 

 

Mags Ramsay here again.  



 Last Sunday I was acting as  steward at the Knit and Stitch  show at Olympia for a display  of 70  contemporary quilts. So many people could not resist the temptation to touch the quilts and in particular to look at the backs. That's where I came in with my white gloves, and when it was quiet, I took the opportunity to look on my own account! Some were disappointing -especially when they'd put another layer on the back to cover things up  but there were some delightful surprises!
Ever since reading Roberta Horton's book 'The Fabric Makes the Quilt'  ( still one of my favourites),  I've tried to 'up-the ante' for backs.  When I made  my quilt ' Creation Myth'  following a lot of her principles, I used the  black and white  fabrics and prints that didn't quite make the front in the backing cloth  ( above). I love the excitement of the random placement of stitches when seen from the back.  
Likewise in my most recent piece 'Red Remnants' (below) I like the sculptural quality of the red 'darning' marks on the rough twill backing fabric,  looking almost like a roadmap.

 The  'marks' I most use are  lines of parallel vertical stitches  (as seen in detail of 'Indigo Mine'  above) - made by coming up close to where the needle is pushed in rather than by taking a long stitch at the back.   It uses far less thread and creates a different texture ( less obvious ridges).  I find it easier  to vary the length  and spacing of the stitch . It probably a  proper name that the embroiderers among you will know!

When I  was attempting daily art projects last year using  used colour catchers,  stitching into them then taking rubbings of them,  you can see clearly how the stitch is made as the rubbings show front and back at the same time.

 As several  people have already said, the 'blind stitching' exercise carried out in Dorothy Caldwell's 'Human Marks'  was a very valuable  experience, the marks made while blindfolded exciting and energetic. In itself the product was pretty ugly so I didn't want to put it in the book I made in the class but wanted to have some record of it included. So again I did rubbings with crayons  on colour catchers and cotton organza and capturing  the stitches on the back as well , a different picture again.  

 The trouble is , the  more you stitch, the more even and accomplished your stitching is.  It becomes increasingly difficult to make a random unconscious stitch even on the back.  I don't notice that much difference between the front and back of the kantha stitching I did in that class

 

 So I'm continuing to  try different methods and threads to see if I can increase the variety of my stitching . Like sewing on paper, analysing the marks made with a pen ,then trying to copy that  in stitch. Or working with very thick threads and seeing what they do. More on expanding the repertoire in my last post.

Fragments

Hello everyone! It's Erica Spinks here again with my final post for this month's celebration of hand stitching.. If you missed my other two posts, you can read them here and here.

This time I am sharing a couple of my small layered pieces from my Fragments series.

Last year, I started a Traveller's Blanket online course with Dijanne Cevaal. We were required to hand-dye three layers of fabric - light muslin for the top, cotton flannel for the centre and cotton for the backing. These pieces were then sandwiched and hand stitched.

Although I still haven't finished my blanket, I have taken some smaller pieces of my hand-dyed fabrics and created these two works. The three layers are so soft that my needle slips through easily.

For Fragments 1, I layered the cloth and cut a rough heart-shaped piece from the top layer. I tucked a small piece of a checked fabric into one side of the heart and secured it with cross stitches (kisses!) along the centre edge.

Using various threads, I used running stitch to sew through all layers. After fraying the edges of the muslin, I used a Derwent Inktense block with water to add some pink colour. (Have you tried these Inktense blocks? They are brilliant - it's just like using watercolours!)

Here's a closer photo of part of the piece. You can see the shadow that the tucked-under piece of checked fabric makes - it provides another subtle colour change.

I'm very comfortable with frayed edges - I love the extra texture they add to a textile work. Do you feel differently?

For Fragments 2, I added some freehand-cut, vertical strips of organza that I have screen printed with black and gold paint. Across the top, there's a strip of the plain organza.

There are a lot of subtle shadows on this piece. You can see through the organza, so the colours of the muslin come through. Sections of the muslin are only partially dyed, so more of the centre flannel layer (the green) shows through, too.

In this detail photo, you can see the effect of the variegated thread - stronger colour in some places but fading away in others. This is stitched with my favourite WonderFil Tutti 50wt variegated thread. 

Thank you for reading my guest posts. Hand stitching is an important part of my creative life. If you don't already hand stitch, I hope you might give it a go. You may become just as addicted to it as I am!

  
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Making it your own

 

In 2011 I was lucky enough to get a place on the Contemporary Quilt Summer School workshop with Jo Budd  She was a very generous and thoughtful teacher and a learnt a lot about the techniques she uses  to  construct her fabrics but more importantly  how she goes about  composing  her abstract pieces from these. The final session on stitching was a bit rushed but she demonstrated how she uses long stitches at the back and tiny, almost invisible, stitches on the front to make subtle alterations to the texture of the fabric.

'Summer Rain' by Jo Budd

 





With some of the fabrics I produced on the workshop ( I produced loads!)  I put together some of my favourites in purples that spoke of the sea , placing them on a canvas backing as Jo often does. I did start to attempt to stitch using her methods ( I own  a small piece of hers  ‘Summer Rain’ which I could refer to ) and canvas is certainly easy to stitch through even if it does fray too easily  but I like my stitching visible! I took it as a sewing project while I was on holiday in Weymouth overlooking Portland and I feel I stitched memories of the big skies into it.

My  main focus of the workshop ‘Microcosm to Macrocosm ‘ was producing different fabrics using as inspiration  a stick I found on the towpath of the Thames going into work, attempting to capture its colours and textures. Jo helped me with the composition, moving different components around to create the start of a more balanced piece. But I wasn’t happy with the idea of using canvas as the backing , that was her method not mine,  and I wanted to use something  coloured where I could layer and integrate the fabrics to suggest the layers of peeling paint.  

I  like to ‘repurpose’ old quilts  so I  used an old red and sprigged floral strippy coverlet and  painted sections with acrylic paints (partly to stick down some the fraying fabric). It had already been quilted with chevrons and I added further hand stitching both to attach the layers of printed fabrics and to integrate them with the background cloth.  It was so therapeutic, not thinking too much but responding to the fabrics, it was difficult to know when to stop!

 

I’ve since made 3 further pieces from that 1 quilt, using almost every last scrap. ‘Nautical Dawn’ is about to go to Prague as part of CQ Horizons exhibition  and the  2 ‘Connection’ pieces will at Minerva Arts from  July to September ( meet the artist On  20 July).

The rough back of homespun twill with its unconscious marks contrasts with the bright colours of the front with carefully blended threads - the currents and eddies swirling beneath the surface. I’ll be talking more about backs and the ‘unconscious side’ in my next post.

Silk Threads ,Patterns, Travels and Memories

 Some of my earliest hand stitching experiments,  moving on from heirloom hand quilting,  came out of the pleasure of using the Gutterman silk buttonhole threads that my Mum bought in the 70's. Threads are so important: the colours, the sheen , the way it slipped through the fabric. And even now the pieces I made using them are among my favourites, perhaps because of the time spent and the memories built into them. Dijanne Cervaal, whose work I admire hugely refers to such work as 'slow cloth'.  I made 2 blue and green based on algae and diatoms from old botany books ( above) and one based on the colours of Australia and the spiral rock paintings  I drew  at Maggie Springs, Ayers Rock .This was the first piece I sold for what seemed like a lot of money at an exhibition at Pitzhanger  and I must admit I have  a slight regret I no longer have it, especially as I don't have decent photos of , but I still have my sketchbooks from that wonderful trip.  Simply pieced, it was the stitching that  made these pieces.

 Also  based on my travels, 'Erg Chebbi' (below)   depicts the sand ripples on the dunes in Morocco - this  one  I see first thing in the morning as it's in our bedroom and again brings back memories od camping in the desert with stars as the ceiling!

I no longer use this thread very much - as I've moved to painting over my stitching with paint it seems a waste to cover it up ! But it's still the main  ingredient of my portable travel project, a patchwork stole that is indeed well travelled.