The white piece you saw here. It only had bells and sequins then, now it has pearl like beads too. The other piece is from ''embroidery school'', a finished piece. The white piece may well find it's way into my school work too, that will be a surprise for the girls....keep them on their toes.
I am taking a few days....I will be back early next week. My shop will close on Friday until Monday so if you want to get in on the exciting finale of ''embroidery school'' or sign up for the new class, ''artist books'' before I disappear completely just go here.
The next page of the A3 sketchbook, ledger, journal is taking shape. This one has an edge of bullion knots with royal blue sequins. All I can say is it's a good thing I like ''fiddly''. Personally, I think ''fiddly'' is always worth the effort.
I tried to get a couple of images of the sketchbook, leaf through the book images, they're not too bad but there are two other pages you can't see here. perhaps I will need to turn these pages on camera in the near future.
I'm still working with all things book related, samples, little stitched bits although these ''bits'' are a lot bigger than the pieces in my ''artist book'' which you saw yesterday. These samples are being mounted in an A3 ledger, these are my working samples, my reference pieces for all things ''design''. This book will be added to until it's full...which may take quite some time but I am in no hurry. Having said that, there are three or four more pieces I would like to place in here before London next weekend.
If I make any progress with those later today I will show you tomorrow.....
As promised, the third ''artist book'', a show and tell, a video. I won't say too much here, the video is quite descriptive, gives a good overview of this piece. You can also see short videos of the first two ''artist books'' here and here.
Three little stitched scraps, silk, lace, paper, embroidered knots, beads, running stitch, gimp, a safety pin and a paperclip. Variety is the spice of life they say.....the safety pin is staying, the paper clip isn't. (that was used purely for photographic purposes). These are the final three pieces which will be mounted on the remaining three empty pages of my third ''artist book''. There is also some collaged, fine white paper I will use too, a little extra titivation but I forgot to take a photo of that. I hope you can see (more evident in the top image).....I hope you can see the little stacks of tiny white seed beads on the piece on the right hand side, I particularly like those.
Tomorrow if all goes to plan I will show you the finished artist book....
(Artist Book class begins April 17. Read more here)
I don't have any end product in mind with this, I just wanted to create something using all things pretty with a little bit of shiny thrown in. Sequins, (on the bullion knots over piping cord) , silver bells and tiny hand made tassels. Call it escapism, happy titivating, embroidery which required no great brain work, no taxing creative thoughts.....just lose yourself while you stitch. Try it. I can recommend it.
There's paper everywhere at the moment. Stitched paper, torn paper, collaged paper. Yesterday I stitched the pages into my latest Artist book. They aren't finished but stitching them in gives me a clearer sense of what I still need to do. I can figure out which sample lives best where, which scrap of collage works as an overlay on which page.
Then there are my larger stitched pieces which you can see in the last two images. Those pieces are being mounted into A3 sketchbooks, hopefully before London but I'm not so sure I will meet that particular deadline.
(we will be creating pieces similar to these in my Artist Book class which begins in April. You can read more here)
Playing with toggles, cutting strips of cloth before joining them and rolling them. I have stitched three of these, one only partially, the one with the ''dogs dinner'' seam. I'm not going to say which one that is. I will let you search for it, a little challenge for you. I'm undecided, the jury is out. These are very fat and squishy, a lot bigger than I visualised. That is most likely down to the velvet. At the moment they remind me of overgrown slugs, not that I am averse to slugs I just never envisaged incorporating them into my embroidery. These will hopefully find their way onto a seam or an edge at some point, providing I grow to love them.
I succumbed.....the piece from yesterday.....I cut it, or ripped it to be more precise. It wasn't as painful as I had expected. I think it works, I think it depends on what you put next to it, how you place it on the page and which other stitched piece you lay alongside it.
The first four images are how my table looked this morning. The other two images are papers I have been combining, (to tear up). There will be more of that later today and pages may also get stitched together bringing the third Artist Book nearer to completion.
You may have noticed I changed my blog layout back again. You get bigger pictures this way.
This piece is quite small, you can see it here in a 7 inch hoop. My intention was to create a cloth and paper collage which I could then stitch into, tear up and add to my latest Artist Book. Thing is, I don't know if I can bring myself to do that now or whether I will be tempted to keep it purely as a collaged sheet of embroidery stitches for future reference, for future inspiration. Having said that....If I feel that way about any more of these pieces I will never fill my little book in time for London. I will give myself a good talking to and see what comes from that.
This one has a base of tissue papers, (several layers) and cloth strips were added before I began to stitch. A few beads managed to sneak their way into the French knots and I was going to say there's not a sequin in sight but there is...a solitary sequin on the lace overlay. What can I say, I have no self control. The images today are a good illustration of things we will be working with in my new class which begins on April 17. You can read more about that here.
Finally, I am so far behind on answering comments, saying thank you, responding in general. I am so, so sorry. I know we all have many demands on our time, I'm just useless at time management that's all. Please bear with me, I am more grateful than you will ever know for every single comment, note, visit......
I'm making good progress with this work, with these 7 inch embroidered squares for a new cloth book of embroidery. The paper piece featured in my last post and I...
