Work in progress

I haven’t blogged for ages as I’ve been zooming around the country – Ammerdown Centre near Bath for my masterclass weekend, Harrogate Knit and Stitch and Penzance for my baby brother's 60th birthday.

In between, there hasn’t been a lot of time to make progress with my own work but thought I’d record these images just to remind myself of what I was doing so I can take some time over Christmas to make real progress.

Firstly, an image of my ‘studio table’ at Art Van Go’s “Artists in Action” area at the Knitting and Stitching Show as Harrogate in November. It was great to see so many of you who came to say hello. I did manage to get some work done and you can see some of my preparatory ideas on the table and large sheets hanging on the washing line behind. I drew large flying bird shapes with a feather and ink onto large sheets of tissue paper and tissutex . I then cut them vertically into strips and re-arranged them in over-lapping flaps. This was to see if I could create a feeling of movement. The lighting wasn’t good in this area so it doesn’t show the translucency of the papers well and therefore the overlapping of the bird shapes. But its given me food for thought.

This photo is one I took myself – hence the empty void in the middle. Viv from Art Van Go will be sending one which shows me to replace it soon – so come back in a few days.

I painted similar shapes with ink on a long strip of linen scrim (see right in the photo above) and then pulled the threads sideways slightly to displace the ink colouring. I think this might have some value to develop later. I found that you can control the direction of the pull to suggest movement  differently.

I haven’t added more stitching to this piece below as am warming to the feeling of understated completion it has at this stage. The edges are curling beautifully as a result of the slight dampness because of the metallic paints I smeared on.

I have several drawings  and more ‘pulled’ bird shapes that Id love to show you so please keep looking. I hope to blog more often over Christmas.

I leave you with this piece of loopy hand stitching into perforated vellum – again - done as a Christmas pic for you with a little help from PaintShopPro.

 

Japanese kimono for Catherine

This is probably my most favourite textile book. I bought it in Kyoto and can’t tell what its title is but here it is incase you can get it translated.

Hope this gives you some inspiration for your own kimono design Catherine.

Paint and stitch

A side-step to using warmer colours. Decided to try to show the strong waves of movement with paint and inks, then adding stitch in bronze threads.

Adding bronze thread to the wax surface above and then placing it onto a painted surface below.

Digitising the stitch

Having a play with this scanned section of my stitching.

Sunday sunshine stitching .

After doing some early morning stitching with my little assistant, thought I’d take another look at it against the window. The shadow of the creeping clematis adds tonal qualities to it that have given me food for thought.

Yesterday I waxed a small piece of tissutex and attached some scrim and fragments of map to the reverse in the ironing process. More perforated lines of machine zigzag ‘stitching’, intending to take heed of Meg’s suggestion to use fly stitch instead of straight stitch. This stitch formation still didn’t work but I then tried stitching across the parallel lines of perforations in simple loose stitches. They are a bit pale in this photo below but I hope you can see them. The darker thread I’m using in the vellum piece above is quickly running out – its a dark grey stranded cotton. I took the skein with me to town yesterday to match it up. The shop was closed and when I got home, found I’d lost the skein I’d taken with me! Perhaps this is telling me something? Colour perhaps?

Just got back from the village war memorial – a huge crowd, a wonderful trumpet solo and brilliant sunshine. Left with a feeling of its good to be alive and back to some more stitching and a lovely stint in the garden.

Stitch progress

A walk towards the River Parrett to the bird hide to do some bird watching and drawing.

 

A lovely peaceful place with benches to sit on as you view through the opened wooden ‘windows’.

I think I would have seen more birds in my garden but I did see a few, but enjoyed drawing the long grasses that bordered the pond more. Must take graphite stick with me next time as the thin drawing pen was too – thin.

I’ve started stitching into the perforated vellum – adding a few stitches per day, but enjoying the lack of a rush to finish something for an exhibition deadline.

I added a piece of ‘map’ to the back and machined more lines of perforations. Might rip this off again … or not.

autumn colour

Most people seemed to be taking photographs pointing upwards at the beautiful trees, at Stourhead yesterday, but couldn’t resist taking this one, looking downwards.

Just look at those stitches between the leaves!