Karen Ruane

front and back covers

We are coming to the end of 'embroidery school' and my little stitch ledger is almost complete. These are the embroidered front and back covers. All that remains is for the whole thing to be put together and that will happen early next week. 

The piece with the tiny labels is the inside front cover. There is a more detailed image of that below. On this piece I am recording the thread choices, the sequin choices and referencing the bindings used to mount each little sample. The panel with strips of patterned cloth is the back cover which references the cloth used to frame each little sample. I'm record keeping and I love it. This little book will be an invaluable reference for years. 

I will show you the finished thing next week just as soon as the girls in class have seen it.

If you need a little reminder of how the individual pages look you can see those here. 

If you are registered for my new class, create and embellish, you should have received an email from me this morning. If you didn't receive that can you please let me know.

And again....my podcast with stitchery stories just in case you missed it.

 

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lace and silk velvet with sequins

Strips of vintage lace, silk velvet, metallic silk tissue with added sequin cloth.....embroidery. This is another book cover from artist books, it's a wraparound or at least it will be when it's finished. It's 27 inches long and around 7 inches wide. I think it will be narrower when it's finished, I'm leaning towards narrower. At the moment I am embellishing seams with French knots....I haven't counted them but suffice to say there are quite a lot and I don't think I am half way there yet. 

There is something very appealing about French knots sinking into silk velvet, I hope you get a sense of that from these images. 

Did you listen to my podcast yesterday from 'stitchery stories'? It's here again in case you missed it.  (just press the red button!) I will continue to share it for the next seven days until it's someone else's turn over there.

And....my new class begins on Monday. I made our first videos this morning and am so excited about the possibilities of lace, scrim, paper, silk net and all things floaty. I hope I can contain myself for a few more days.

You can register here.

 

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Podcast

It's me....on Stitchery Stories.

 

 

Karen Ruane: Contemporary Hand Embroidery & Connections With Cloth

 

Karen Ruane: Contemporary Hand Embroidery & Connections With Cloth

Karen Ruane is our guest today on the Stitchery Stories embroidery podcast. Karen shares her life as a contemporary hand embroidery artist who specialises in teaching and building supportive communities via online embroidery courses.

Continue reading to discover the highlights of our chat and to see examples of  Karen’s work …

Listen as Karen shares her embroidery journey from Cross Stitch, through leisure classes and onto a degree when her children had flown the nest. Karen’s main focus is teaching through her online embroidery courses, as well as some limited workshops in London. A key element of her online embroidery classes is the duration and levels of personal interaction, which helps build a very engaged and supportive online community with her students.

Susan Weeks chats with Karen about:

• Artists Books created to store, display and protect small embroidery samples
• The challenge of keeping up with your students when running longer term workshops
• The logistics of running online embroidery workshops
• Building strong community support in an online group
• Making friends for life online AND meeting up In Real Life
• From one Cross Stitch kit… Look at what’s happened!
• In-depth research into the role of the family and motherhood and the relationship with cloth
• Using her embroidery as a way of staying connected with her grandmas and kids
• Being inspired by her students and feeling connected to them through embroidery
• Loving hand embroidery and embellishments
• How many wraps of the needle to make a bullion knot???
• The temptation to hide mistakes and the pressure to be perfect on social media
• The value of showing mistakes as part of the online embroidery courses so students gain valuable learning
• Allowing your personality to shine through video and students having the feeling of being in the room too, in that moment.
• The massive elephant in the room….
• The self imposed pressure of feeding your blog on a daily basis

Follow the Stitchery Stories Instagram channel at: https://www.instagram.com/stitcherystories_podcast/

 

 

 

adornments part two

Cast your mind back to Sunday and those little partially stitched, titivated thingies. These are those....finished. There are two hand embroidered buttons and six cloth beads or puffs. For  now these sit on a glass shelf in a cabinet and I gaze at them every time I walk past. I have been known to pick them up and fondle them occasionally too.

I think tomorrow is 'podcast' day.  I recorded the podcast a couple of weeks ago with 'stitchery stories' and am hoping I have the day right. There will be links on here for you and on my Instagram and Facebook so you can listen to my ramblings.

My new class begins in less than a week. Later today I will be playing with a few ideas for our first set of videos. If you would like to read more about 'create and embellish' just go here.

design

This piece from 'embroidery school' is developing beautifully.......what comes next I'm not so sure but as a paper based design exploration it fits the criteria up to now. It's the left hand side which needs attention next. I'm thinking 'fabric', 'pleats' and I'm thinking get your brain in gear Karen, four days of celebrating has left me floundering a little. (for the record I only had one piece of cake) 

Technically 'embroidery school' finished last week. Ha, ha , ha....that'll be the day when I finish anything on time. We are going to keep going...as long as it takes....there's nothing wrong with prolonging the good times, the happy work, the creativity.

So what were we celebrating these past few days? This guys birthday.....he's not here, he's away with work, I won't get to see him on his actual special day. I'm hoping he has a wonderful day. 

We love you to the moon and back.

 

adornments

There's a family celebration going on here. It started on Wednesday and finishes on Monday.....boy do we know how to celebrate!! I've got a cold....sneeze, blow, sneeze, you get my drift but in the quiet moments I've been feeding my stitching addiction and have created these little things. They will most likely end up as buttons, you can never have too may little pretty things to adorn your embroidery.

Normal service will be resumed on Monday at some point. My new class starts on April 16 if you would like to join me to create lots of embroidered white lace and frothy stuff. Who knows, we may even replicate these little things in white and sparkles.

You can read more about the new class here.

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sequins on an embroidered stem

There's a ten minute video today, chat, demonstration...thoughts about this piece. It's by way of an apology as I'm going to be missing for a few days.

The shop will stay open for you to register for my new class.

I'm starting to think this piece is almost finished in terms of the surface embroidery. I mention in the video how I am trying to decide how to finish this....forget about the bag idea, the pocket, the pouch which I speak about in the video. I've gone off that idea already. This will almost certainly be backed, have the edges titivated and live it's life as a simple cloth, to gaze at but more importantly to pick up and feed more work. The surface embroidery on here in addition to being decorative is a record, a record of every stitch and a reference to composition, what lives well with what, what compliments and what perhaps doesn't.

I will be back at the weekend.

 

 

bling on bling

Do you remember these hankies I was embellishing with sequins, bling and heavily embellished silk recently? Well yesterday I made an executive decision to join two of them to this paper and lace cloth piece (which still has me in raptures). As you can see in the next image for this to work I need more paper and lace cloth, another panel. That will be a chore.....not...that will actually now be the first thing we do in the new class. 

One of the seams where hankie meets lace and paper is embellished with bead droplets, white and gold seed beads. The other has 'floaty' dangly sequins. I do hope you can make those out in these images.

Before I go...the date for 'live' access to my recently recorded podcast has been changed. It will now be April 11 not April 4. I will have a link on here when it happens so don't worry there's no chance of you missing it.

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Details

A bit off this and that today. 'This' being the paper based idea we are working on in 'embroidery school' and 'that' being my large embroidered silk panel which you have been seeing a lot of lately. 

The paper based piece has a little more work since you last saw it, specifically it has outlines....I think they make such a difference aesthetically whilst at the same time clarifying,  indicating boundaries, shape, outer edges. 

The embroidered panel has more embellishment, more areas of interest. I think it's safe to say I now know what is needed to finish this. Each motif and stitch area required is now decided it's just a case of me cracking on.

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