Sumptuous Surfaces Week New Concept

The brief this week was to think in colour. When I think of colour at this time of the year it has to be my garden. The lime green of 'Ladies Mantle' aka Alchemilla Mollis is so prevalent and with the pinks/purples of the fushia, geraniums and pertunias the complementary colours on the colour wheel come to life.
Thinking beyond that India and the richness of life in colour has to be a second best. I've never been but after googling India I couldn't help but be impressed by the saris and dyes. The use of primary colours and the matching of complementaries in saris and textiles generally is so breath taking.
Finally I thought of the work of Kaffe Fassett. I am a great admirer of his use of colour in patchwork, tapestries and knitwear. I have three of his books and they never fail to inspire me.

So I put all this together and came up with an idea of using a basic patchwork design to show off the use of colour. The first colour scheme was blue and yellow, but this was disregarded and one that reflected my garden at present was chosen. Below are the colours I found in my stash.

I played with this range both in paint and thread.
Above are my expts with altering the value of the colours as I want to change the tints and shades throughout the piece. Tints at the top and increasing in value towards the base. The sketch below shows my first attempt at a design based on patchwork squares.
Too basic I thought so moved on to playing with the grid and the sketches below show some of the more acceptable results. The top line shows the grid altered to produce a more pleasing silhouette. In the second line I have introduced triangle shapes to break up the right angles and introduce an additional geometrical shape. I introduced negative shapes in the final line and the final design is an combination of all of these ideas.

Final design incorporating patchwork squares, triangles and negative shapes as well as the colour value increasing towards the base. The stitch plan is to have the green areas in low relief stitching and minimal embellishment. The fushia coloured squares will be in high relief stitching and increasing embellishment towards the base. They will also overlap the green to soften and minimise these areas. Haven't decided how to outline the shape yet or in fact whether to at all.
Off now to transfer the design and get stitching!!!!!!!!! Looking forward this this.

Sumptuous Surfaces Sea Urchins Finished

Spent all my free time over the past few days completing my sea urchin embroidery as part of the Sharon Boggon Sumptuous Surfaces class. Took longer than I anticipated but I think well worth it. I am particularly pleased with the recession and the way I managed to use a range of different stitches to capture the texture and surface of the urchins. I had never used drawn thread stitch in this random way before and will definately use it again.

Week four is about a new concept and design process so I'd better get started.

Seaside Postcard

Latest 6x4 lives postcard has painted pelment vilene and muslin stuck together with acrylic paint then FME to create the impression of that part of the beach that isn't too enticing, the part where seaweed and debris meet at the tideline there might even be some oil there! The little jewels are the 3 shells bottom left and the shiny tiny broken shells in the corner. Does damp and cold English holidays sound familiar, but beachcombing always came up trumps didn't it!
The idea came as a by product of the Sumptuous Surfaces design process.

sumptuous surfaces stitch plan and week two

Week two of the Sumptuous Surfaces class meant quite alot of thought regarding stitch plans and then alot of stitching. I have been amazed at the range of designs being worked on and the support being given out by people all over the globe. More pictures of work being completed by other claass members on flickr - sumptuous surfaces

Stitch Plan 1.
The background is in random pulled thread and small amount of low relief surface stitches. The sea urchins to be in high density/relief stitches. The colours are strong at the front and fade away towards the top.

Stitch Plan 2.
The background is in high relief stitches/embellishment and the sea urchins in a simpler geometric manner.

I chose stitch plan 1 as I wanted to explore ways of high density stitching in a more controlled manner than a random way as the markings of sea urchins require .

The random pulled thread has worked well I feel yet the portugese stitch took so long! I watched nearly all of the Open Golf over the weekend doing it!

This close up shows how well the pulled thread has worked. I had not done this before and I will definately use it again.

Now for week 3 reading!!!!! I suspect there is a lot of stitching again this week.

Sumptuous Surfaces

This week I have been busy with lesson one of the latest Sharon Boggon class 'Sumptuous Surfaces' . Sharon has had us consider our concept for the class. After nearly a week of deliberation I think I am there. My brainstorm centred around BEACHCOMBING.

I then spent some time looking through my collection of shells and beach debris from over the years and photocopied them for my sketch book and to act as an aide memoire in developing my designs.

I started to develop certain aspects in more detail. The first was based around some sea urchins. I realised that they could be simplied into five sections and noted the different textures of the surface. I played around with design manipulation as can be seen here.



These sketches were based around shell skeletons as I realised that I had picked up just as many eroded shells as perfect ones. The skeletal form had obviously intrigued and attracted me. Ideal for positive and negative shapes and as Sharon had shown us how to develop such shapes I played around with isolating and superimposing them on to other shapes. It was then I realised that there was a difference between the smoothness of these shell skeletons and the roughness of the sea urchins.

A concept was emerging 'The response to my memories of beachcombing and collection of shells over many years. Especially that of the opposing form and texture of the perfect and the eroded structure of shells.'

I then got carried away and wanted to see whether I could incorporate beach vegetation. So these sketches utilise the solidness of the sea urchins and the flowing lines of a stylised sea holly and lichen hybrid.

So another concept evolved 'The response to my memories of beachcombing and collection of shells and beach debris over many years. Especially that of the opposing form and texure of shells and the sinuous, fibrous nature of beach vegetation.'

To finalise my design for embroidering I chose sketch A5 as I thought that the overlapping and recession achieved leant itself to an interesting well balanced result. It was necessary to add the second element though and this proved to be anything but easy.

C2 was my preferred result as it has recession, scale, overlapping, movement and balance. I'm hoping that Sharon agrees with me!!!!!

COLLAGE on CANVAS & in a T BAG!

Last Wednesday I went on a day workshop entitled Collage on Canvas and in a T Bag. I just had to go on it!

The first stage was to complete a collage on A4 paper. Mine was based around some of the photos that I have of my parents that I had been meaning to do something with for so long now. A scrap book seems the obvious but not a paper version. So this workshop gave me the impetus to get going.
My mother was a seamtress so there are references to this as well as images that mean alot to me, their wedding, a holiday snap just after the war and childhood pictures of them both.

My completed collage was them photocopied on to transfer paper and them ironed on to calico. This was them embellished/embroidered. This is as far as I have got to date. I intend to add more. I did two as I have two daughters and I wanted them to have a permanent momento of their grandparents who meant so much to them.

The collage was them reduced and photocopied so it could be cut into small pieces and slotted into an empty square T bag. We waxed the Tbag by melting white candle wax with an iron (not the best one) and ironing between paper so it stiffened. I embellished this example below with thread and it will be an ideal wedding anniversary card for a member of my family.

Catch up complete

At last I have caught up with my TAST samplers. Enjoyed the satin stitch and long & short stitches as I used variegated thread and they came to life very quickly.Long and Short stitch. Ideal for blocking but also good isolated in small groups.

I enhanced these blocks with back stitch

This random design just evolved on the fabric and is made more effective I feelin the variegated thread. Second sample of satin stitch again done in a variegated thread and edged with stem stitch.


POSTCARD

After the wedding it was good to get back to playing and therefore my embellisher has been busy. I particularly liked this one as everything has been coming up sunshine hence the yellow. Not the weather at present in the UK, I hasten to add, but the beginning of the month with the family wedding and all the family getting together which doesn't happen too often.

After creating the base fabric with yellow wool rovings I added the maroon and green circles. I like the way you can't control the finished shape as the wool shrinks immediately it goes under the needles. To join the circles and add more movement I FME randomly over the top. This was completed for 6x4 lives ring June entry.

And finally one I completed earlier! This embroidery entitled 'Allium' has a centre encrusted with french knots and beads so ideal as my TAST sample for french knots.