misty sunrise

Early to work means not missing the beautiful. Actually you don't have to be out that early at this time of year, the solstice approaches

Oh! Did I show you this?

From April this year - bit if a theme going there ...

Planning

.

This may come to something, but is just a pile of thoughts and learning at the moment. 

We have to do a three dimensional, hand embroidered piece of work for C&G. One option might be a box, though I'm not sure I have the skill, let alone the time to make one. The idea is for the box to have bee wing patterns on the outside on three panels, a bee on top and inside, a lining that evokes honey somehow perhaps with light gold satin .... excuse the i-Pad image quality and sketchy sketching

I'm also thinking about a bag, which needs to be functional, based on dragonfly wing patterns, no thought out design as yet. Probably not something frou frou though! One of our group is making a wedding reticule (don't some of those look delicious?), which sounds delightful but way beyond my capacities!

Or perhaps a beaded pendant/brooch based on a little box in the V&A. The link is to a view of the top of the box, a little sportsmanlike dog; this view shows the bottom of the box, a lovely butterfly in the finest imaginable mosaic pieces of cut stone

and here's the thinking with a pencil about how to make - I'd try to create upstanding wings using a stumpwork technique - again, if I have the time and skill

In fact, it all depends on time and skill really - I have to consult with our tutor on which to choose ..... but now to examine dragonfly wing with a pencil and paper ......

Late late late!!

Hello all, if anyone is still paying me the compliment of keeping an eye on this neglected blog! Thank you those of you who've commented over the past couple of months - I'd not been here at all, then came today and found four comments that encouraged me back to the study chair to say "hi - I am still here - honest!"

The getting lots done in September got waylaid by the demands of work - my normal 27 hour weeks have ballooned to full time and more, in fact a couple even reached the exhausting heights (depths?) of 43 hours. We're installing anew library management system ....... then there's the Saturday classes, textile and embroidery, and the homework for the Saturday classes. All in all I'm rather exhausted. But still having fun.

My City and Guilds has got very behind as I've been struggling to keep up with both stitch and design. The most recent smocking was tremendous fun, and prompted me to get books out from work on old time smocking, two published in the sixties and one in the early eighties - you can imagine the startling designs that accompanied chapters called "the modern approach" and "modern adaptation of stitch and design", all written by a woman with the wonderful name of "Oenone Cave". A quick search of Google images brings up the most amazing selection of smocking in a whole variety of techniques. These range from  traditional farmer's smocks and some great vintage patterns to the most amazing dresses. I particularly liked this lovely Arts and Crafts dress on the V&A website and some fascinating Pinterest content.

My two small efforts have given me much pleasure to do, though I have to say the tiny little movements in and out, in and out, when doing the gathers in preparation for the pretty bits gave me some trouble and some sharp pains in the hands and arms. Unlike general running stitch which has a flow about it, and which I used for Uffington, the gathering stitch for smocking has to be done with the utmost regularity, yet is irregular in character. You mark the fabric with a grid of regular dots, then take the tiniest stitch on each dot at the back to draw the fabric into pleats. These are then stitched across on the front. Here's how they turned out - both on upcycled fabric from charity shop finds.

The piece worked on some checked shirting fabric was easiest as the regular pattern was a great help in placing the stitching. The other, on a bit of linen tray cloth was harder as while one stitches, the close gathers have a tendency to wriggle about in a most unruly fashion. I was pleased with the one row of soft green stitching, made by using both yellow and blue in the needle, but a LOT of unpicking was done!!

Still, a lot of fun was had as well .....

Oh, and I will scan in and post the pages from my summer insect project. I'm now trying to catch up with producing three designs for a "something", bag, box, scarf, based on the design work done during the summer - for which read scrabbled together at the last moment a month late to be presented to my tutor the weekend before last!!

Phew

Appliqué

Finally finished my decorative appliqué homework, which always feels as though its not what I'm supposed to have done, but I've really enjoyed this.

I love having a muslin backing cloth, as it lets threads bury themselves, and gives you a place to work a couple of small stitches before starting to stitch - no knots, I hate knots!

Stitching it all down

The leafy light green block is reverse applique, the green fabric mounted on the back, with tacking stitches outlining the negative space that needs to be cut through from the front. I cut the red silt form the front, then blanket stitched it down. I chose the motif carefully to make sure I could align warp and weft of both fabrics and still have the stem at a sensible angle to extend downwards.

I used very sparse, stretched fly stitch to attach the orange "sunflower" stem; breaking this at the centre with a little sliver of blue organza to echo the sky above. I chose a stitch that echos the running stitch used in the sky, as well as the triad of the fly stitch.

For the grass at the bottom I wanted to make sure the stitches helped in holding down this very loosely woven fabric. I used a toning soft green silk, to blend into the sheen of the fibre, rather than fighting with it. Then I couched on some of the loose threads from the sunflower fabric to the left, using the same green as is in the sky, shiny and vivid.

So here we are! I think it needs to be backed by something dark, but for now, it's just a sampler.

Anny, you're right, it is rather Autumnal isn't it!

Now to the functional applique ....

Confession

I went to Stitchfest 2013 and confess to coming home with "stuff". The best bit is this

I also bought some dye from Christine, and had bought some little clip on lid pots for the dyes, but she has her own, much better pots as part of the deal, so those little tubs? Perfect for sorting and storing the silk scraps I got from the Art Van Go stall! 

Happening!

Developments

Thinking

About City and Guilds actually, my appliqué homework, which has been languishing through lack of inspiration. Finally getting somewhere

The thought and the fabric work together, along with a cup of tea of course, and some Rokia Traore in the background

Time to press and tack and stitch!

Some things from the dye pot

The same measure of fabric, dye, salt and mordant (soda ash). I also tried to get an equal level of tied and open fabric in the preparation. I used two types of silk, small bits cut to the same size, one small bit of cotton to be wrapped in the same bundle as the silk, the rest tied or clamped as appropriate. There must be some colour variation from the different types of resist applied, but I think the most marked difference in colour is dictated by the timing of the introduction of soda ash,

Clamped and tied, one two and three

Windows on the moon. Soda introduced with dye

Moon river. Soda introduced after an hour

Moons and Junes Soda introduced after an hour and a half

Taken out after about four hours

The next dye lot will be soda after

Ten minutes

One hour

Three hours

Remove after five hours

Feathers

I've been very carefully hand stitching these bits together, somehow this bit of silk seemed too tender to subject to the machine. Although it is quite robust fabric, the colours are so gentle, I felt hand work was more appropriate. The effect of this is that you have time to look closely at the fabric, time to feel for what will be the best next step. Also there is the simple pleasure of the feel of the fabric in the hand, and the sounds of the needle and thread as they join piece to piece.

There are two of these feather shapes in the orange fabric, serendipity from the folding and tying process. This bit of silk was wrapped around a narrow piece of plastic tube, then squished together so that it wrinkled around the tube. It's a technique called arashi and was, I believe, an area of special expertise in Arimatsu, Japan, where shibori became an industry from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries.

In the blue silk I used stitch resist on folded cloth, hence the variety of blues and regular spacing of areas of block colour with rippling lines.

I want to take this feather theme and expand on it a bit. Not too much, because I love the delicate colouring of the silks, so I plant to use minimal stitching to bring out what is there already; stitching that will, I hope, draw the eye to what is in the cloth already, not overwhelm it.

This or that

Not, I think, this

which  has a very strong vertical In the upper middle which draws the eye away from the top orange stripe and into the blue above

whereas with this, the orange strip is slightly higher, the central stripe gets broken and the eye stops on orange, rather than blue. It's strip has a delicate feather pattern which I want to accentuate with very, very delicate embroidery

I'm hand stitching them rather than machine. I Should really be doing appliqué for my city and guilds, but this home experiment has caught my eye,

And yes, Istanbul was wonderful, I will share some pictures soon, but at the moment I'm more comfortable working with this, which I can use in a soft chair, with comfy cushions.

Something brewing

Colours

Something to play with when I get back. Were i more organised, I'd take it with me ...

Do you remember the giraffe?

It was this, piece of dyeing, done back in September last year, a strip of sheet, folded in half, then bound hand and foot with elastic bands

it came out like this, see how the fold down the centre allows the tied elements to mirror

Well, on Sunday, I did a session with Christine at Studio 11, using soy wax and a variety of tools. I bravely tore the fabric in half, and treated each half differently.
One half I did as a swirled tray dye, squirting the dye on to run into different parts of the swirls. I'd be very tempted now to tie lots of little shibori knots into the colours, in a swirling pattern, then drop the cloth into a bucket of really dark dye. I think it might sparkle

The other half was laid out on a plastic sheet while I applied soy wax using a brush and swishing it out from the center of each pattern, so that it looked like slender petals. I brushed little bits of texture into the space between the flower shapes. Then I swirled the dye on, using a pipette, watching it bleed and soak into the fabric along the lines of the wax, sweeps of spiraling colour that ran into each other, then dropping dye into the spaces in between to add a sense of background. Because the fabric was dry, the colour moves about quite differently. That's why with shibori you soak the fabric first, so it doesn't wick into the tied bits.

So, two bits of fabric with the same start and the same colours, but a totally different effect.

Then there's my moon garden, which has evolved from this

to this - click for a bigger version






For the rest of the bits of fabric I dyed there on Sunday, here's a little slideshow, with one screen print as well, the background from my session last Saturday when we did breakdown printing

I really am having extraordinary fun!

I'm also going to Istanbul on Sunday. What inspiration!

spring green

On Sunday afternoon, the garden was like this

one cat keeping watch at the top of the walk

the fattening hydrangea leaves, swollen with rain and freshly visible after their spring haircut

  the sun shone through daffodils and violets

  

Wol was happy in his world

  the hazel was in blossom - I'm not sure I've ever managed to notice the flowers before, they are so tiny, yet the catkin sheds its pollen to fertilize them with a caress of breeze

 another cat guards the pagoda

 while the old dears chat to each other in the sunshine 

and up in the rooftops (now there's another grid!)

the starling suns his iridescent chest 

the sun shone in his blue blue sky 

and it was very very warm and peaceful 

then in the evening I stitched, then stitched some more yesterday and a final few today

Counterchange

I deliberately played with the regular counterchange of the squares, by allowing the beads and French knots to expand away from the centre, floating out towards the edges and challenging all that serious stability.

Today I also had an exhausting trip to London for work. 

Still not feeling quite up to scratch