Tag Archives: Needlework

aboard the M/V sonofagun, embroidery and textiles, life

All in green my love went riding…

icelandic horse

…All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

—from All in green went my love riding by e.e.cummings

 

Finally settled on a design for the journal I am making my friend Miri.

It’s based on the Icelandic horse (Miri has one of these chunky Nordic horses, herself, and loves to ride) and her favorite color. In keeping with the Nordic theme, the horse is a simple, solid silhouette of greens, overstitched in a counted-thread geometric pattern, worked on a rough linen-like fabric…I just love this stuff! Crazily, this is synthetic upholstery fabric, left over from a curtain job I did nearly a year ago. I took a closer look at it and saw that it’s an even-weave fabric (about 18-ct., which I love to work with, as it makes for fine stitching); sure wish I had more of it! It’s lined with a dense cotton on the back, making it thick and very stable to stitch. I love serendipitous craft discoveries like this.

green horse

First, I cut a paper stencil of the horse and attached it to the fabric with re-positionable spray adhesive. Then I brushed undiluted acrylic paints on with a stencil brush. I outlined the shape in dark brown embroidery floss, using backstitch.

Now I’ve filled in the horse shape using two strands of DMC floss and an allover blackwork pattern, with little cross-stitched squares in iridescent thread. I tried to farm some of the work out to cheap labor, but that didn’t work out—he kept trying to eat the thread spool.

I hope to finish the book covering today. I’ll be adding a mane and tail in fine running stitch lines. Haven’t decided what to do on the spine or back of the book, yet, but I’ll be keeping it spare and simple…clean lines, trying to emulate Scandinavian fabric designs, and using a palette of only neutral colors from hereon.

Miri’s last journal, which I also made, is nearly full, she tells me—she needs her new tagebuch, stat! Hope she likes this new one; it’s very different from “Postcards from The Archipelago”.

So back to work, despite the disgruntled worker’s labor strike and disruptive tactics.

Untitled

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embroidery and textiles, stuff i've made, TAST 2012

TAST Week 32 ✂ Cast-on Stitch

cookie, doily, flower...

It’s been 23 weeks since I last posted something for the Take A Stitch Tuesday Challenge; I didn’t just fall off the wagon…it’s like I then rolled off the side of that steep mountain pass and fell a thousand feet into somebody’s backyard garden in another county, where I took up turnip farming.

I’m only posting this now because I happen to have some old projects that show the week’s stitch to good effect…and not because I have managed to organize myself enough to work a new sample for the challenge.

But an old entry is better than no entry. If I hadn’t vainly insisted on making a special sample for each stitch, I wouldn’t have missed so many of the weekly TAST posts…I probably have examples of most embroidery stitches, forgotten and unappreciated on small pieces buried at the bottom of various drawers  in my home.

Week 32 features Cast-On Stitch, a highly dimensional stitch that reminds me of crocheted loops and picots. I often use it to imitate doilies.

These cookie-sized thread confections were worked on circles of felt bonded to the ground fabric. I made a varied bunch of them, and then forgot about them. I know they’re in a box of craft junk somewhere on this boat…I came across them a week ago, winced a bit in guilt, and carried on looking for a bottle of white acrylic ink…
cookie, doily, flower...
Untitled

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This small embroidery sample is for the Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge, of which I am a very sporadic and hopelessly disorganized participant.

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embroidery and textiles, life, philosophy

today

Moulin D'Or WIP

Lost this piece amongst my other projects for half a year…maybe more. But I found it last night, and added some stitching in rayon threads.

Enjoying the angled bars as they catch the sunlight like a mandarin’s silk robe, or the dull, furred fire of rough red gold.

Moulin D'Or WIP

No work for me today, so I’m curled up in an armchair on the boat with an orange cat for a cushion, pots of coffee, strains of music, and this embroidery.

Tomorrow it will be back to work…but Tomorrow—mangy grey wolf outside the door of the Present—can wait; this is the glorious Today.

Moulin D'Or WIP

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amazing people, art + design, Inspirations, uber embroiderers

über embroiderers: Lorena Marañon

I’m trying to keep up a sort of regular ‘feature’ on über embroiderers on The Smallest Forest: These are the big kids, the crème de la crème, the leet of needle and thread…that runts like me long to play with, but will never even exist in the same universe with. *stabs herself with a #24 chenille* Oh, crewel world!

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Check out these jewel-brilliant embroideries by the artist Lorena Marañon! Her embroidery work is perfection, and I am in love with her embroidered art pieces—Kaleidoscope Studies (above) and Kinderatom (below)—only slightly more than with her embroidered jewelry pieces.

I’m really amazed by how well-finished the jewelry pieces are, too…everything is so well-planned and minimalist, it really reveals a beautiful mind behind it all. Does she not totally rock the vogue for geometric shapes (triangles, especially) and bold, contrasting colors?

She’s absolutely stunning, to boot…on her website, Lorena models the Embroidered Jewelry collection for 2010, herself. I am smitten with craft crush.

My personal favorite is this irregularly shaped mass of tumbling blocks in the necklace just below…

Lorena Marañón, born 1988 in Holguin, Cuba. Emigrated 1997 to Miami, FL. Miami International University of Art & Design for Fashion Merchandising. Currently living and working in Denver, CO. (source: website)

Mmmm-mmm, YUMMEH! Sunbursts and kaleidoscopes and pyramids of tropical color…there is so much amazing art, design, and crafting talent coming out of Central and South America, I could probably limit all my Google searches to en Español and never run out of über embroiderers!

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Lorena’s website is here, and she keeps a blog here.

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uber embroiderers: Jazmin Berakha

uber embroiderers: Jazmin Berakha

über embroiderers: Tilleke Schwarz

über embroiderers: Tilleke Schwarz

über embroiderers: Maricor/Maricar

über embroiderers: Maricor/Maricar

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amazing people, art + design, Inspirations, uber embroiderers

über embroiderers: Jose Romussi

dance8 35x30

I’m trying to keep up a sort of regular ‘feature’ on über embroiderers on The Smallest Forest: These are the big kids, the crème de la crème, the leet of needle and thread…that runts like me long to play with, but will never even exist in the same universe with. *stabs herself with a #24 chenille* Oh, crewel world!

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Not only is Chilean-based artist Jose Romussi doing some gorgeous embroidery on vintage photographs of ballet dancers, as you may have seen making the rounds of blogs recently…

work by Jose Ignacio Romussi Murphy, via Lost at E Minor

dance12
DANCE6

Dance13 40X35cm

He also creates these hybrid works using acrylic paints and stitching…

and works the same mixed-media magic on vintage papers like maps:

I love the fun and colors of his animal paintings on maps, particularly this fat panda:

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Besides loving Jose Romussi’s work, you simply must admit that men who stitch are HOT (at least in my book they are!)
Hmm, another “item” to add to my list of Things I Want To Do When I Go To Chile.
Don’t nobody tell Kris. ;)

Pay a visit to Jose Romussi’s Flickr and his online portfolio

uber embroiderers: Jazmin Berakha

uber embroiderers: Jazmin Berakha

über embroiderers: Tilleke Schwarz

über embroiderers: Tilleke Schwarz

über embroiderers: Maricor/Maricar

über embroiderers: Maricor/Maricar

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embroidery and textiles, TAST 2012

Kantha see I’m busy? Week 10 ✂ Running Stitch (TAST)

Tast Week 10: Running Stitch

Week 10′s stitch on Take A Stitch Tuesday is Running Stitch…

Possibly the simplest stitch of them all, and yet…who, among embroiderers, is not indebted to this stitch? From basting, easing, and smocking to outlining, gathering, filling, quilting, and pattern darning, running stitch can do it all.

And does it quickly! Please *ahem* note that for once I am not posting my TAST2012 sample at the last possible moment. This piece took the good part of a day to do (it was the pattern darning that slowed me down, and I was plenty distracted) but that’s not too bad,when you count how long some of the others took me.

 This first bit of my sample shows some pattern darning. A simple line of stitches worked over counted threads, (evenweave fabric, using a single thread and a tapestry needle) was built up into a band so even that it almost looks woven. There was going to be a whole field of this darning, but after four repeats of the pattern I got bored (heh heh) so I tore the strip from its mother fabric, and mixed it with other torn pieces of fabric for a patchwork, instead.

Tast Week 10: Running Stitch

My favorite use of running stitch is in the Indian and West Bengal embroidery called kantha. In the best examples of this technique, the entire cloth is covered with running stitches, often used to fill in shapes of animals, plants, and people. The effect of so many running stitches is a subtle, delightful crinkling or rippling in the fabric, and a contrast between puffed-up and stitched down areas that resemble quilting. Kantha embroidery is both decorative, and serves to hold all the pieces of a patchwork down, and if several layers are used, is also a quilting stitch to hold all the layers of a blanket (or somesuch) together, at the same time.

I work this dense running stitch quite a lot. Here it is on a patchwork-covered journal…
book 913 with hand-embroidered kantha quilting

and on a simple felt journal
puff (no. 908)

BUT I am digressing…this here is a detail of my running stitches for the TAST sample. The shimmery pink organza is particularly effective when it is puckered up by the running stitches, letting the light play on its crinkled surface.

I didn’t do anything special to hold the pieces of fabric down—like bond them to the ground fabric, or spray them with adhesive—except some very large basting stitches (removed afterwards) running both vertically and horizontally across all the loose pieces. The edges were left torn or cut. As I worked the running stitches—first vertically then horizontally, forming crosses—I tried to catch and hold down the raw edges of the pieces. Don’t know if I would dare to launder such a thing, but for a static embroidery sample, the kantha seems to do the job of securing everything well enough.

Tast Week 10: Running Stitch

The text is very crude on this one, I didn’t think it would turn out so ordinary. I’ve used running stitch for the letters, which I then whipped with the same color. Kinda ‘meh’. I tried to set the word off better by running a few lines of tiny white running stitches around it. Maybe I should have filled the entire word-shape with white running stitches. But it’s colorful, and pretty, has a rich texture, and I like it a lot, anyway!
Tast Week 10: Running Stitch

I love running stitch…it’s so simple, and versatile, and it instantly gives a design that earthy, “made by hand” feeling.

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This small embroidery sample is for the Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge. The idea was to combine my love of embroidery with my love of typography.

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Week 9 ✂ Couched and laid threads (TAST)

I have missed about 5 weeks of the TAST challenge…at this rate I may never catch up! But I’m pushing, this late Sunday afternoon, to upload my stitch sample for the current week. Week 9′s stitch on Take A Stitch Tuesday is Couching.

It’s not completely done, but I’ll be damned if I am going to miss yet another week’s stitch! Not after I nearly lost my mind today, working this diabolical Turkish basket-weave couching with Japanese gold thread. Five tries, and I really thought it would do my head in! It’s harder than I thought it would be…I’d never tried couching metal thread before.

couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

(Incidentally, the pink-couched black cord is a prime example of Baluchi work…sort of on the opposite end to the skill of the Turkish emboroiderers, Baluchi women do a very coarse couching, using big, visible stitches in contrasting colors.)

Jacobean couching, below, along with satin couching, long and short couching, and thorn stitch couching…
couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

Bayeux Stitch (a.k.a. Algerian, or Italian couching)

couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

and, to the right of it, a spiral of single metal thread couching, worked in Japanese gold #4, and again in Kreinik metallic pale pink.
couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

This started out as zig-zag or to-and-fro couching of a length of mohair yarn…but the resulting puffball was such an unruly little thing that I tried to pull it in with a trellis reminiscent of jacobean couching.
couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

Bokhara couching…
couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

And a very exciting (to me, at least) couching technique employed by Japanese embroiderers: a foundation of laid threads are couched down securely using the same color thread ( I have used a dark purple, to show the stitches) and further embroidery is worked over this foundation. Embroidery over embroidery is probably the one thing that really sets Japanese embroidery (nuido) apart from the rest of the world’s.
couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

Okay, the more experienced among you will call my bluff right away…no couching involved here, not really. I ran out of ideas and steam…laid the threads one way, and then started to fool around with needle-weaving in the other direction. Pretty textured effect and pattern, yes, but not couching. ;)
couching stitches— for TAST 2012 (detail)

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UPDATE 10 March 2012:

Okay, it’s done! I just filled in the remaining circle, and continued the laid and couched line that spirals around the design.

In the circle below, I tried my hand at making patterns with the couching thread…this reminds me of friendship bracelet patterns. Bordering the circle is a black cotton yarn couched using blanket stitch, then I snuck in a couple of bullion stitches, and when that didn’t thrill me I shifted to a wrapped couching technique (three wraps, one couching stitch, three wraps, and so on).

I also turned the tables on goldwork by couching the cotton yarn down using Jap gold…

couched and laid3

Over on the other side, just a length of bead couching, to round the bunch of techniques off.

couched and laid1

If you know of a couching technique that I missed, please let me know! I found this sample a great learning and discovery process, as I’ve never really given couching much thought before. Definitely a family of techniques that I will enjoy adding to my repertoire of working stitches. I’ve replaced the bottom photo with one of the finished sample:

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This small embroidery sample is for the Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge. The idea was to combine my love of embroidery with my love of typography.

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Week 3 ✂ Feather stitch (TAST)

Feather TAST - 04

Week 3′s theme was the Feather stitch.

I started by painting the fabric with a thin wash of acrylics,

feather underpainting

I was genuinely curious about this stitch…I don’t use it often, as I associate its open, sort of mesh-like appearance with crazy patchwork seam decoration.

I like dense stitches, and I wanted to see if I could get some solid meat out of this stitch…use it as a filling for shapes, and how well it would depict those shapes. Of course it worked fine…that’ll teach me to judge a stitch by the way it looks in stitch dictionaries—which are, of course, open and simple for instruction’s sake.

It’s quite a versatile stitch, when you work it close and play with its rays. I’ve actually managed to cram 9 different stitches into this sample…

the regular Feather stitch, followed by wide and dense Cretan stitch…

…Slanted Feather stitch, and 2-needle Feather stitch (I made this one up for myself, which is not to say it hasn’t been done before, I’ve just never seen it),

…long-and-short feather stitch…

I attempted (and bungled) a kind of French knot+Feather stitch…forget this one…not all experiments work!

…Spanish Knotted Feather stitch, and Ribbed-For-Her-Pleasure feather stitch… :D I was getting well and truly sick of the feather stitch at this point, hah!

Then, under the name, I worked Chained feather stitch,

and Türkmen stitch.

Feather Map TAST - 02

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This small embroidery sample is for the Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge. The idea was to combine my love of embroidery with my love of typography.

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