One Stitch Forward, Two Stitches Back....

I've always admired beautiful hand embroidery -- which to me, is one of the most beautiful arts. I have several hand embroidered family linen pieces that are well over one hundred years old and they are among my most treasured possessions.

A while back I bought myself the Embroidery Stitch Bible and have been working on some basic stitches by putting together a stitch journal, and translating those same stitches into this Van Gogh piece.

I'm using a combination of seed and straight stitching in the sky, straight and back stitching for the houses, spires, and mountains and tiny little french knots to form the illusion of treetops which I have just started layering in different shades of green. Jude a while back had suggested using some little bits of shimmery fabric in the sky. I think I might undue the moon (or add to it) and see about putting some bits of lame' in there.

Inasmuch as this is a learning process for me, I began to wonder "what if" -- instead of working on one section at a time -- I pick up a certain color of thread and work that color all "around" the entire piece - even if I only take a stitch or two in an area with a particular color. Will this result in greater depth and texture? I think so.

I'm enjoying working in this way as it really creates a bit of mystery. I love watercolor painting -- and stitching in this fashion reminds me of painting because I'm layering, blending, highlighting -- with thread! It's all about experimentation.

There's definitely a learning curve for me here. I'm still trying to figure out the best needles to use, how many strands of floss to use, do I like cotton, rayon or silk thread for clouds, etc., etc. My first conclusion: rayon thread is NOT fun!

Needless to say I've done plenty of "unstitching." And I can see in these photographs, I still have some "unstitching" to do.

Hence the title for this post:
One Stitch Forward....... Two Stitches Back!

Updates.....

It's been a hot and stormy few days off and on. I love stormy weather -- the thunder, the lightning, the wind -- very inspiring. When it's not raining, it's too hot to be outside, so I've been inside working on two projects this week: 1) some hand stitching on Starry Night... (note to self: do NOT use medium when painting on needlepoint canvas which will later be stitched. It makes for a very painful %(%)$(#**! experience for my fingers -- pushing the needle through the stiffened canvas); and 2) I also began working on a new art slice quilt last week.

This is my "slice" of the still life picture that one of our cyberbee members selected as her art quilt:

I apologize for not knowing the artists name who painted this still life.

Step 1 - I selected a nice textural piece of burlap for the foundation. With a wash of medium, it takes acrylic paint well. I laid on the first round of color on the burlap, as well as painted some detail on the hand dyed orange circles I cut out.

I satin stitched (with orange rayon thread) 3/4 of each orange down (after careful positioning), and then stuffed the oranges with batting for dimension. I didn't like how the batting looked (too lumpy) so I got out some of my loose wool and used that. The wool is able to be pulled into fine tufts so it contoured very nicely. I then finished stitching the oranges. This was harder than it sounds. I did think to cut the oranges a little larger to make up for the mounding, however I had a few distortion problems because the fabric was painted -- but I think I worked those out.

The nature of this still life is a bowl of oranges with some loose oranges setting on a white tablecloth - with LOTS of shadows. I painted the tablecloth and shadows on the right side, but wanted to add a bit more texture and dimension by actually adding some fabric that I dipped in uva and water with a little starch, shaped it into the folds, gently stuck pins straight down to maintain it's shape while it air dried. Now I'm going to go back in and paint in the shadows, add more detail to the oranges and background and I'll be done. (click on this one to enlarge)

This slice quilt is particularly challenging for me I think in part because of it's simplicity, and in part because I'm just not crazy about working "still life" art. I feel I need to be too precise - and there really isn't much room for error, or to fudge with embellishment or thread-painting. In my opinion, in order for this particularly slice quilt to be successful -- the colors will needed to be matched right on to do it justice.

I should finish this today or tomorrow and will post a side by side comparison when done. We will be presenting Jean with her slices this Saturday at our quarterly meeting. After that -- there's one left to go - a poster of a "woody" car and surfboard which should be a fun challenge, as well.

As I mentioned, I've also been doing some stitching on my Van Gogh, Starry Night.

I haven't really experimented much with embroidery or hand stitching -- so I didn't really have many supplies. Sabrina has a nice collection of embroidery floss -- and I sorted through that and then stopped up at a local shop The Lazy Daisy which has an incredible selection of cotton, silk, rayon, organic, hand dyed, and every color you can imagine of flosses and threads -- and picked up a few additional colors and needles. So far so good with this and I can see where this project can take on a life of its own! I'll keep you posted.

I've been around the last week to visit a few of you and will continue to make my rounds as I have a lot of catching up to do. I am enjoying all the eye candy out there and reading about what's been going on. I've been trying to post my vacation "slide show" but the third party that "hosts" this engine is not working properly -- so hopefully it will be up later in the week.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Art Quilt "Slice" Done!!

As promised, here is the little tutorial I have put together on my journal with this little art quilt slice. To recap -- the owner of an art poster cut her poster up into five pieces. Each member of our five member group selected a "slice" of the original poster to recreate using whatever techniques she desired. The slices had to be done in fabric and fiber as they are all going to be reassembled, quilted and bound in the end. My slice is outlined in pencil in the middle left area of the picture (you can see it if you look really close.)

Here are the details of the construction of my slice:

Step 1 -- I laid a piece of tracing paper over my "slice" of the poster and traced it with sharpie. I then traced over the tracing paper with "freezer" paper to make my little applique templates.

Step 2: I ironed the freezer paper templates on to the fabric I selected for each section. In most cases, I used hand dyed fabric or batik.

Step 3: After ironing templates down, I cut them out, peeled the freezer paper off.

Step 4: Then I ironed them down on to a piece of tea dyed muslin using a light table with my original picture on top of the light table for placement.

Step 5: After ironing all of the pieces down to the background I painted in highlights and detail with acrylic paint -- which can be heatset with an iron once dry.

After the paint was dry came the fun part. I laid out all of my silk and rayon threads in every shade of pink and green I have. Looking at the original poster slice that I had, I free motion embroidered the rest of the detail in on the flower petals, pestals and leaves.

The picture above is the original poster print of my slice, and the picture below is my appliqued, painted and free motion embroidered interpretation....

All in all this was a good experience. I learned an incredible amount along the way and am fairly pleased with the end result. It is amazing what you can do with thread to bring out the detail and suggest images. Threadpainting is something I am going to experiment with much more!