Karen Ruane

a little hand made sketchbook with an embroidered cover....not finished yet

A little hand made sketchbook created with acrylic paper and a couple of pretty spotty and striped pages. I made this yesterday, I was only playing but I love it. The embroidered cover was compulsory, you know I can't help myself. It's not finished yet, more embroidery is needed on the cover which then has to be lined before being stitched to the spine of the book. I'm also thinking of little 'bits' I might be able to put in here. Little thread cards perhaps? Some tiny buttons on a card? I don't know yet...I'm thinking.

binding an edge with ribbon

I got home from London late afternoon yesterday and was desperate to use some of the beautiful ribbon I had bought whilst I was away. All the loose ribbon you see here was bought in London. It's perfect for the edge of this little 'book wrap' my only regret is I didn't buy more. (the green didn't make it past this audition but not to worry, I have plans for that and the rest of my new stash which you can't see here.) I will show you my other things as and when they pop up in my work.

Part of the reason for my London trip was to visit the Dior and Mary Quant exhibitions at the V&A both of which were inspirational, incredible, mind blowing. I can't recommned you visit strongly enough. Dior is sold out I think but there is a way round that, become a  member of the V&A. Membership allows you unlimited access to all exhibitions without extra cost and no booking of time slots, just turn up!

If you want to see images from the exhibitions there are lots on my Instagram here.

 

 

a table full of stitch

The most important pieces here, for today at least are the two panels with pink gingham at the bottom. They are laid alongside my embroidered cloth sample books. I'm thinking, considering, hoping to get a spark of an idea of how the two gingham pieces can be mounted, placed in a book of sorts. They both need edges, fancy edges or simple bound edges...I haven't decided yet. Also, do I make more samples with pink gingham and have a pink sample book? or do I create a book with contrasting samples?

Well....I haven't decided yet, sorry.

a little page in a sketchbook

Three minutes 55 seconds.....that's all. The video....very short. A celebration of a doodle! Or a celebration of me picking up a pencil maybe.

Anyway, a little bit of page titivation in a very small sketchbook inspired by embroidery in progress. It was an itch I had to scratch.

a page and patching my wrap

The backing was added to my wrap yesterday and it needed 'patching' in a couple of places. On this area I have laid a small strip of blue floral ribbon. Patching doesn't mean it's wrong, badly made, not considered. Patching is what I like to do when finishing any piece like this, a piece which evolves without precision planning, a piece which just evolves. I thought a lot about my early wrapping cloths whilst putting this one together and if you have ever taken that class you will know exactly what I mean. The next stage for this is the edges, hand embroidery, a little beading, maybe some tassels or similar. That's also something I also like to just 'happen'.

The page here is my latest offering for Ledger class. That is in it's early stages, there is a long, long way to go.

I was delayed posting this today. There's a birthday going on. A huge happy birthday to James. We love you so, so much and are thankful every single minute for your good health. You make us proud in so many ways. I am honoured to be your mum.

(you get your cuteness from me)

 

(that's my mum centre left...not me!! I'm bottom left, the much younger one)

two embroidered books, two embroidered wraps

I'm not showing you the same thing as yesterday honest, not in detail anyway. The details are from the large wrap, the final edges, the final embellishments. The first image shows both of these wraps for books side by side. They could almost be the same piece of work if not for the size difference. The surface of the large wrap is now finished. Every edge embroidered, beaded, ribboned, bound. As we speak I have cloth on my ironing board which I am going to use to line this. Lining will lead to more edges, more beading. I'm almost sad that this one is nearly finished.

You're probably going to see it again tomorrow, lining in place, partially edged....

pieces, an embroidered book in progress

More work on my little book, my embroidered cloth book. There is a new page with cutwork and lots of beads and crystals. I'm probably going to embroider at least another two pages for this before I put it together, they will be backed with embroidered cloth too so there's still a way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Karen Ruane (@karenruane) on Apr 7, 2019 at 4:51am PDT

 

I'm loving the colour contrasts with this one. It was inspired by the piece below...which I guess is obvious. There'll be more work on that one later today as I'm almost there, almost at the backing stage and I'm off to London on Friday where I shall be seeking out more of these colours in cloth and ribbon....can't wait.

 

 

 

design sheets

I was going to show you some embroidery today, it was all damp stretched ready to be photographed but I got distracted by these.

These are design sheets from my Uni days....mostly. There's also a couple of more recent ones here. I was making a video for my 'ledgers' class about design, design sheets, pattern and colour. It occured to me to make a video for you too, leaving out the information my group will get. (their video is much longer and much more informative) they haven't seen it yet either so it's a glimpse into class for them. (don't be scared lol....I'm not painting!)

I am so inspired by these today, really fired up.

 

beading

My absence yesterday was house related.....there hasn't been much going on in the way of stitching unfortunately but I did manage to work a little on this. We started this in embroidery school.......there's short bead related video here and at the end a glimpse of my plans for the little stitched piece from here.

embroidering a small wrap

The little wrap for an artist book has moved on considerably since you saw it here. The surface embroidery is complete and this now needs to be lined before I attach it to a little book I have in progress. The blue and orange sequins which came from a deconstructed necklace finish those seams off perfectly, they were just what I needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sequins on a seam. #embroidery #wrappingcloth #sequins #embroideryteacher

A post shared by Karen Ruane (@karenruane) on Apr 2, 2019 at 4:36am PDT