Karen Ruane

watercolour doodles and cross stitch

Watercolour doodles, doodles within hexagons. The hexagons had a light wash of colour before the floral doodles were added and painted. They were then finished off with a few tiny stitches. The cloth swatches are Liberty....sigh......got to love a bit of Liberty. There's another row of cross stitch too and unseen here, worked after I took these images, a narrow panel of watercolour paint waiting to be titivated with stitch.

Last night I worked some more on my happy cloth. I think we will be alternating between that and these paper pieces for the foreseeable future. Focus is needed here for a few weeks. Pay attention  Karen and keep checking your list.

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working on my happy cloth

I am so pleased with myself today. I am progressing my ''happy cloth'' outside of class, working on areas which still need embroidery. My girls have seen all the process I have used here so what I am doing is filling space with things they have seen, process which has been demonstrated in class in order that I can move my cloth on, (maybe even catch up a little because they are speeding ahead of me!!) I see lots of progress here, more than I had thought. I love it when a plan comes together. (you may notice a little gimp obsession taking hold)

This will be my focus embroidery wise for the foreseeable future. Alongside this I will be continuing my colour, pattern, stitch sheets. The one from yesterday has been added to and I will share that soon. Last night I wondered... should I have started that collection in a ledger but realised it doesn't matter because they can be mounted into a ledger, a journal at a later date. 

(If you are registered for ''an embroiderers ledger, extra'', you should have received sign in details for our private blog this morning along with an invitation to our private Flickr group. If you haven't received either of those can you please let me know)

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hexagons, colour, stitch

When I look at thesee, the new one and the one laid alongside it here, (the one I put together first, the one which started this exploration, this new direction)  I am thinking the other two, this one and this one need more work. My ideas for these are evolving as I play. The little padded beads here, the puffs, are made form Liberty fabric so this one may be extended with patterning taken from that cloth, a few stitches scattered across the colour perhaps, more hexagon shapes and definitely more squares. I like the orderly nature of the squares, the uniformity.

The use of the watercolour paint is also growing on me. I'm less precise with that, less neat I suppose but somehow it doesn't seem to matter to me, I can live with the less than perfect painting because I can add another focus with embroidery and swatches of cloth making the less than perfect painting less noticeable. 

As with the previous compositions my colour matching is not precise....that is deliberate. I don't want to be too hard on myself, to give myself goals which I am liable to fall short of because I will get disheartened and I'm having too much fun to let that happen.

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with added hexagons and three more flowers

three hexagons and three tabs....

a finished sheet

It's finished, my ''kind of'' colour study. I say ''kind of'' because anyone with a discerning eye will see the lack of meticulous colour matching. That wasn't what I wanted, colour was what I wanted, loosely matched colour not exactly matched colour. This was a play exercise, an exercise in creating a little sheet of colour, stitch and cloth. I did wonder if the block of rectangular and square shapes was too heavy as I was working on that area but the addition of a few scattered French knots adds a little bit of ''daintiness'' and if you look closely a few of the shapes are actually cloth inserts.

That's two finished ones I have now. I still have this one to finish and last night I started another one. You will almost certainly see that tomorrow. 

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two applique flowers....

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Wrapped and bound in stitch, a happy cloth.

Today, more embroidery, more cloth, another diversion from the paper and colour which you have seen a lot of recently but which I am still working on, having fun, beavering away......paintbrush in hand, yikes!

These are the latest images from wrapped and bound in stitch, progress on my happy cloth, creating texture, adding dangly, stringy things, placing a huge, oversized pocket on a panel front. Already this has a beautiful weight to it even though I am barely half way there. There are several panels in progress, a few have been joined in order that we could think about seams but aside from that most panels remain separate from the main piece. We've also started to think about titivation's and embellishments making these buttons as a means of adorning a panel.

Who knows what will happen next. I'm the teacher and even I don't know. It's evolving, it's telling me what it needs, it's suggesting pattern and cloth and stitches as I work on it, as it progresses.

(if you are registered for an embroiders ledger ''extra'' you should have received a mail from me today. If you didn't receive that can you please let me know)

just buttons and puffs

I promised you yesterday that you would see embroidery today and last night I had a hankering to make buttons , it was the arrival of the rich, red cloth (courtesy of the postman)  laid next to some silk velvet which fed that . Four buttons were finished and damp stretched late yesterday before being put together this morning. The padded puffs, the funky puffs are from my stash. I think they compliment, give you a sense of how my titivation jar will look when all these little things are put in there for safe keeping.

I should have said titivation ''jars'', plural. I have several. It's almost a shame I ever have to dip into them to adorn an edge or a seam so for that reason I like to keep on top of filling them up, keep them well stocked.

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colour and pattern

The third colour/pattern study. This one is much less involved than the sheet from yesterday. This one was an exercise in what could be achieved quickly. The sheet from yesterday is a slower process. Now I'm thinking about combinations of the three sheets I have begun over the past week or so and wondering how that might look, how  that might work. I am also thinking there's an overload of circles. I need a few angular shapes in my life....

Tomorrow I might show you some embroidery, cloth, embellished cloth, embroidered knots....remember those?

developing a colour study

More colour, more pattern, more stitch, more cloth. You will be seeing a lot of this kind of thing from now. I want to devote my embroidery hours to my ''happy cloth'', to my girls in ''wrapped and bound in stitch''. I can't always show you straight away what's happening over there so this is what you will mostly get, or variations of this. 

This work is good for me, it's making me think, making me investigate and discover possibilities for ledger work, for design work.  If I continue with this enthusiasm for long enough I will have a new portfolio, a pattern and colour portfolio. That's got to be a good thing. 

I started this as a means of refreshing my work for the re run of ''an embroiderers ledger.'' What you are seeing here, all the recent design based work on this, my public blog is happening in addition to unseen and very different work which comprises new video for ''an embroiderers ledger''. I can't show you that unfortunately but alongside this public work an equal amount of private, different stuff is being created too. Occasionally I am getting the two confused, I need to keep stopping to think which piece I am actually working on.....I even thought I had steam coming out of my ears yesterday I was so confused! A quiet five minutes contemplation put that right though.....

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My table this morning was fascinating, two very different classes, three pieces of work in progress yet a seamless flow from one busy pile to the next. ''An embroiderers ledger'', still thinking about that and playing quietly, ''wrapped and bound in stitch'', making buttons and adding those to an embellished seam. That leads me to plans for later, taking inspiration from all three pieces and working more on a new piece for the first day of ''an embroiderers ledger'' before being re inspired in order to develop ideas for ''wrapped and bound in stitch''. 

Now I am going to make anyone who has ever done a class with me either laugh out loud or choke but........have you ever heard of the word cohesion? 

Cohesion

the action or fact of forming a united whole.

"the work at present lacks cohesion"

synonyms:

unity, togetherness, solidarity, bond, sticking together, continuity, coherence,connection, linkage, interrelatedness

pattern

 

Following on from yesterday....a look at pattern more than colour, at least up to now. There will be a mini colour study happening here at some point I just haven't got round to it yet. My head is full of colour study ideas and pattern study possibilities. That's in addition to the excitement I am getting from my happy cloth class.....is there such a thing as too much excitement?? If there is I don't think it's a bad thing. This paper, colour and pattern play is feeding my wrapping cloth class too, giving me ideas for that, adding more things to the list I have for creating over there. 

I was once told I was frightened of colour. Not any more.......

 

 

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stitching on doodled cloth

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