Karen Ruane

binding raw edges

I've got four finished pieces now, four pieces ready to be sewn into my cloth book cover. If you don't know what I am talking about there is a post here which explains....

I do love these little scraps except........they crease as soon as you look at them, they don't look damp stretched even though they have been, I'm training myself to ''get over it''. The first three images are a new piece you haven't seen before, the others didn't have the edges bound last time you saw them. It's progress. There will definitely be more samples for this book. Most likely I will sew these in first before I start another one and I will then work a little more on my ''hankie bag'' idea. 

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design sheet

This piece was started over a year ago, yesterday I added to it, extended the design. It's mounted on an A3 sheet (11.69 x 16.53 inches) with the design area measuring 10.5 inches by 14 inches. What's it for? That's one of the most frequently asked questions I get. If I was pushed I would say the most important reason for creating this is purely for the enjoyment. I like playing with all things creative be it cloth, paper or artist books.

People also say..........regularly..........I can't wait to see how this develops. That's probably the most important thing to address today...any of these pieces may not actually ever develop into anything even closely resembling them. What they do though is inform. Every single sample I ever make be it in cloth or on paper informs at some point in the future. Sampling on a big scale which is what I think I do in my creative practice feeds finished pieces, feeds design ideas, allows for creative thought to develop and prompts ideas. Normally I am only working on something for a short time before it sparks another idea. So....that's what this is for and when it does eventually ''become'' something be prepared for it not to resemble this piece in any way at all.

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coming together, a little cloth sample book

Another two samples, (not yet finished) to go into the hand made cover from a few days ago. I am now trying to work out how many I will be able to fit into this little cloth book. I do have a plan for attaching them and another plan if I need to add more to the spine for more samples but as I haven't yet quite finished these two I'm not going to work on that yet. It isn't a question of how many to make, putting a number or a limit on that....I could quite happily stitch and doodle these little things forever. 

I'm jumping the gun anyway. There are three so far. One is finished, two aren't. Three will be nowhere near enough and I'm itching to put the next one together. I want this to have a ''weight'' to it if you know what I mean.  You will definitely know what I mean if you are a stitcher.

 

paper, in and out of class.

Just when you were beginning to think I spend every waking moment stitching hankies with flowers and hexagons....evidence that I do other stuff too. Some of this work is from artist book class, (which you can still sign up for here) and the large sheet is a plaything for outside of class, for me, to touch base with paper, to freshen my ''paper knowledge''. It's a mini design sheet, a sheet of ideas and mixing and matching to see what lives with what, what works best with what, like I said.....a plaything.

I made you a wordless video, a silent movie....

 

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a completed artist book - Karen Ruane

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newly finished edges

There are quite a few samples piling up here with unfinished edges, headers, lower seams. I'm gradually working my way through those adding lace, pom poms, beads, sequins and patterned bias strips. Once they are completed I can gather them all into sample swatch books similar to this one. I could also mount them in an embroidered hankie cover similar to the one I showed you the other day, more decisions to make.

Meanwhile I continue to make more samples....lol.....I fear finishing samples will be one of those tasks which will never be over. That's a  good thing. I can't think of a better way, a more pleasurable way to fill a ''to do'' list.

adding layers

 More layers, this time for the lower edge of yesterdays piece. It's not trimmed yet, that will come later when I have more of these to put together. For now it's held together with pins and the piece from yesterday isn't finished yet either. There is embroidery outstanding on that one, a few stems and flower heads. You can see the doodles for those in the third image, pen marks which will be enhanced with hand stitch.

The last image shows this piece from earlier this week alongside the piece from today. Once I have four of these I am hoping to combine them and work on an idea I have for a bag, a titivated bag, a sequined, beaded, frilly bag with layers of lace and vintage cloth.

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a pocket, gimp and buttons

labels and a scrap of lace

I'm enjoying this hankie work so much. Playing with the layout of cut up handkerchiefs with pretty edges, adding doodles...hexagons, flowers, petals, stems before adding hand embroidery stitches using bright, fresh colours. This one is the second piece of a plan I have, it will live with this one. There will be two more of these but not before I play a little with the lower edges of this one and fill the empty space you can see here.

My favourite area on this one is the hexagon flower which is shown in isolation in the second image. Ideally I would have preferred the applique piece to be elsewhere on that one, not centred but it is covering a stain. Despite laundering vintage cloth it is sometimes impossible to remove every mark. Some marks are worth keeping, worth showing but some definitely need a little disguising.

 

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a covering

I am hoping this piece which is now finished can be fashioned into some kind of covering for embroidered samples. I have a few small embroidered hankie samples and others worked on silk which are quite a lot bigger. (you can see one of those in the last two images)  If you take a look at the little video you will see the bigger ones are a little too big. No worries there though, I will just have to make another, bigger covering for those. 

I am going to continue with this hankie play so you will be seeing similar pieces to these for a while with artist book related work here and there but I have other hankie ideas I want to explore and there may be a ''mini'' class resulting from that. First of all though I need to play with a few ideas.

 

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in progress

This one isn't finished, it needs more colour. I am currently having a debate with the half of me that is scared to death of paint............ the half of me who says ''stitch it'' is winning. It will be tricky but it's doable. In fact, if it gets too tricky, fiddly in the extreme I could always thread wrap a card but that would be a cop out, the easy option. You will have to wait for the final instalment I'm afraid. I could take some time making a decision on this one.

layering cloth

The latest hankie pieces I have been working on will be layered with other vintage cloth in a similar manner to what's happening here. This hankie piece is laid over two layers of vintage fabric which each have a pretty edge. They have been joined with cross stitch before having sequins added to the seam. There are plans for another three pieces like this but using different hankies, different cloth for layers, different stitches, beads alongside sequins. There's a lot of stitching to do basically. Alongside this and the next three pieces for this little adventure I want to create more pieces like this one and work a few more pages in this little book before taking inspiration from that and transferring, adapting ideas for use in the artist book class.

That's my timetable full for a week or so....how about you?

 

 

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