Karen Ruane

sampling cloth

Pinned, ready for basting then hand embroidery.

This piece of cloth is put together in the same way as my ruffles.

This one is bigger though, I have a plan for it, a plan for a new sheet.

two ruffles

There are lots of images today as I couldn't decide which ones to leave out so please indulge me.

The piece from yesterday is now finished.......or is it?

I'm still mulling that over, it's the white space....decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile, I'm inspired to take this further using mostly fabric.

progressing

I'm really happy with the progress I making with this one. If you compare it to the last time you saw it there are a few additions.

The outer frame of the smaller square is now embellished with torn papers and hand stitch and the embroidered fabric strip is now attached.

The tiny scraps of patterned fabric are prep for another embroidered cloth strip I am making for this piece.

This sheet is almost finished and today I have measured and cut some cloth for an embroidered panel to use in my next piece.

 

embroidered strips

I mentioned last time how I was thinking about creating an embroidered strip of cloth to run along the lower half of this sheet......well here it is.

I have also added a horizontal strip of pin pricking, cloth snippets and French knots across the lower edge.

There are a couple more things I'd like to do with this one before it's finished so I best crack on.

embellished, design sheet

Embellishment is continuing on this sheet.

There are cloth snippets, pin pricking and French knots along with more collage.

I'm now planning on creating a strip, maybe ruffled, of embroidered fabric to run horizontally about a third of the way up from the lower edge.

yesterday

The very early stages of my next sheet.

I'm hoping to progress this quite a lot over the next day or so.

The measuring and marking out gives me a headache, is it embroidery or maths?

pages, soft papers and collage

The collaged areas of these pages measure approximately four and a half by four and a half inches.

I wanted to keep them small as it's the sampling I will mount onto them which is important, I didn't want those samples to be overwhelmed by the background.

In the last image I have laid a few samples down just to get an idea of how that might look.

When the stitched cloth pieces are permanently mounted I will just tie them on, leaving the lower edge loose so they can be easily lifted to look at the background.

collage on soft papers

Bottom right hand corner......my first samples of collage on softer papers, fine lightwieght papers.

(thank you to my 10am Zoom group yesterday for their encouragement with this)

Mostly the torn paper strips will be attached to the finer papers with hand stitch as will the little snippets of cloth which are also present.

(if you click on the image it should enlarge and the cloth pieces will be more visible)

I'm hoping to use these pieces as a base for my small stitched samples.

patchwork squares and embroidered gingham pages

Preparation for patchwork, Liberty triangles joined with hand stitch ready to be used on another design sheet, patchworked squares.

and loose embroidered pages joined back to back, one stage in the creation of cloth books.

sampling and gingham

There are a few things going on here....gingham, the newest piece the one which is just web stitches, 16 0f them to be precise.

Also, several small four by four inch samples of embroidery, you saw three of them here, there are now five patterned ones and three white ones.

At the top of the first image are two as yet unworked pieces on paper waiting for hand stitch.

I don't think my brain is working though. Take away the gingham for which I have a purpose in mind and the other work.....well I wish I knew.

These are pieces of the collection of surface design I have been building but I'm no clearer on where that is heading.

Does that matter or am I just being impatient?