Karen Ruane

more....

Happy Wednesday everyone! More pictures for you today of my time spent on holiday with my new hoover. I'm beginning to think that my new hoover was a good  investment, I feel positively inspired.

I worked some more with my new cloth....this is only a sample and I don't really have an idea yet of where I will go with this. Truth be told it probably won't get anymore attention for some time as other things are gaining momentum. School is back on Friday and I MUST do more work on my veil thingy. Then there is the new colouring book come ledger that I have to make progress with. Busy is good though, no thumb twiddling going on here, just embroidery and hoovering.

I will be abandoning you again tomorrow. Sorry about that but I am going ''up North'' to eat cake.

 

footnote

(most of you can ignore this)

If you are signed up to embroider, embellish create you should have received two mails from me this morning. One concerning flickr, the other containing our weekly plan. Please mail me if you didn't get these.

progress

Another piece that received a lot of attention whilst I was away playing with my new hoover. If you have no idea what I am talking about then yesterday's post explains the hoover reference. Remember I made a video? Last week? I cut up some embroidered cloth? The plan was to attach it to my veil thing? You do......then here it is attached. I think I said in the video that I wasn't going to put lace in the seam. Well I changed my mind, there is lace in the seam, a very delicate piece of vintage lace, thank you Barbara.

The big news though.....I haven't hooverd today. 

smidgen

smid·gen

  [smij-uhn]  Show IPA

noun

a very small amount: a smidgen of jam for your toast.

Phew that went quick. Three days that passed like three minutes. I did achieve A LOT though and am happy. I missed you, should perhaps have stayed away until tomorrow and worked a little more but truth be told this place (and you) is like an addiction.

This is just a tiny amount of my work since last Thursday. A word about the book......I bought this book in Anthropologie last time I was in the U.S. It's title, '' doodle doo'' yes doo, not a typo. Each page is decorated in a similar manner to this and I suppose it is a children's book for colouring and such. Me? I just look at it and drool a little. Then I thought why not use it as a ledger, a record keeping place to put ideas, work in progress, swatches, little drawings, scribblings. So that's what I have done. I would quite like to show it to you in more detail so watch out for a video journey through my colouring book very soon. I am so easily pleased, a colouring book gives me such joy. Embroidery has also been happening and I have great photos to keep me going for a few days. Class work has progressed enormously and those already registered now have access to the classroom so if you want to come and join us not only will you receive a nice e mail from me with a video you will get access to the new blog and another video. If you are pondering, cogitating, wondering then just go here and read all about it.

Whilst I was away I bought a new hoover (vacuum cleaner)....hard to part with money for that one being as I view anything domestic and electrical as an instrument of torture. However......I actually love it, haven't stopped hoovering for days, happy whilst I'm hoovering. Now that was worth spending money on. Never fear though I am sure the novelty will wear off but in the meantime I have the cleanest carpets in the whole of Lancashire.

A final word because I really do still have things to do that are pressing and quite important...hoovering for one! No seriously....I cannot take my eyes off the news...Sandy....I am thinking about all of you. Stay safe.

Busmans Holiday

images shown here are of ''Helen's Cloth'' created for my daughter  in 2011 during the first class of embroider embellish create.

busmans holiday
	A holiday in which you spend most of your time doing the same or something very similar to your normal work.  Comes from the late 1800's, where a man who drives a bus for a living goes on a long bus journey on their holiday.

I'm going away for a few days. Well when I say going away I mean leaving cyber space, taking some time to prepare for the start of embroider embellish create next week. There are still a FEW places open if you want to join us. You can do that here. I am also going to be working up a new plan...more of that later.

For those of you who are already signed up to next weeks adventure I am hoping to let you in  to the classroom sometime at the weekend. If there are no glitches our dedicated blog will go live so watch out for that e mail. To my ledger girls.....I will have a few pictures for you sometime very soon.

Miss you already.

windows......

Not sure about these pictures? They are all I have though...it's  a combination of the off white/cream nature of the cloth and a lack of sunshine. I am sure I must be vitamin D deficient....anyway we have a window, only a small window but a window all the same. Two overlapping sections of withdrawn threads, one of which has been wrapped and the other left as is. It's a sample, a view of a technique, a process which will definitely inform what comes next. I am not happy that it's a square. I'm not an ''angular' person, more of a curve lover but I'm definitely learning from this and inspired by the process. 

One thing I have noticed.......there are stray threads here that need to be tended, removed, what a shambles.

continuing

Yesterday late, today early, bet you can't keep up. It's OK I can't either. I am expecting people later. People who allegedly are going to sort out my wonderful (NOT) internet connection. Least said the better. Get it sorted Richard Branson.

Embroidery, my veil, my festooned thingy. I planned this video last week. Two videos in a row you are so spoilt. Work on this continues, joining more pieces, adding sections and generally titivating. More work was added to my new piece last night too.  Do you think my 'distraction' phase is being awakened again? I do.....

scrim? muslin?

Boy I'm late today. Trust me you don't want to know about my morning. The sooner that one is forgotten the better. Positivity reigns....it's onwards and upwards. There is a video today....to clarify the scrim muslin thing. I have opened up a can of worms with that one....think I should have kept my scrim to myself.

Back to the purpose of this little rambling forum however and embroidery. I put together a patchwork of sorts last night using all my new cloth. The idea is to sample them together, overlaid, cut through, withdrawing threads and revealing things. That's the plan....fingers crossed it happens. Thirty seconds of the video is devoted to that so you can watch it if you want to get a different perspective. I was taking my pictures this morning and I thought.........hmmmmm...bullion knots. They are always there aren't they. Is that bad? Does it show a lack of imagination? Are you sick of them? Sometimes I wonder. Anyway I have pieces to pick up from earlier so I can't linger.

silk scrim....

Last night I played with the silk scrim. Nothing very imaginative, just laid it over the piece I showed you yesterday, secured it with bullion knots, withdrew some threads and manipulated it a bit tying it down here and there....

What did I learn? Well it is easy to withdraw the threads and you are left with a veil of thread that 'shimmers'. I still want to wash some of this to see if that changes it in any way and I plan to apply a little free machine embroidery to some and compare that with the effect produced with normal scrim.

The second image here shows the weave of this cloth quite clearly although the surface is much more 'shiny' than it appears in this picture. I had a few mails again saying that this cloth doesn't look like the silk scrim others have bought. I am not an expert in any way as this is a relatively new discovery for me but Elizabeth sent me an image of what she was sent when she bought silk scrim and to me it more closely resembles silk muslin. It's a mystery.......

just playing....

I know, I know, you would think I had nothing important to do. No ironing, no cleaning, no washing, no domestic goddessing. Nope, none of that for me my life is one long round of cloth and play, embroidery and play. Well it is when I can get away with it. Last nights game was called ''let's play with metallic silk tissue''. Two tiny samples trying to figure out the possibilities for withdrawing threads and then adding knots to this amazingly gorgeous cloth. Let me tell you...withdrawing threads from this is neither easy nor quick. That has never stopped me in the past though so it's onwards.

I have had a few mails about the video from the other day. Basically asking more about the silk scrim and saying some close up images of that would be good. Well yes I agree, they would be amazing if I could get good ones. I tried and failed. Not one to give up easily though I have made a short video with my piece of silk scrim and hope that you can see the structure more clearly. I really hope it helps and as I love the sound of my own voice I also chat a little about these pieces from today. Can't shut me up!

 

white lace and cross stitch hearts

I have been playing, sampling, applying lace to silk and then embellishing the surface with cross stitch hearts. I'm not sure really???? What I mean by that is I am not sure the embroidery is visible enough for me, too much happening on the lace that distracts from this particular stitch. It may need heavier stitching, web stitch maybe or a mass of bullion's, clusters of French knots. I will sample some more....here I have laid the piece next to wrapped threads and billion clusters. This is all in honour of my new silk scrim, silk muslin, silk net and metallic silk tissue. The plan is to feed my brain with this and hope that in turn feeds my imagination and leads to a brilliant revelation regarding a magnificent piece of work. You will get a sense from that statement of the amount of delusional behaviour and dreaming that's happening in my house.