The title is misleading because there's a little bit of lace thrown in here too, sorry. The cloth piece from yesterday has been cut and layered with a little lace ready to be hand embroidered. Separately, lace, silk and paper have been layered and stitched together to create the other scraps you can see here. All of these pieces will be hand embroidered, enhanced and whilst that is happening (hopefully).....I will get ideas, be inspired for more work, more embroidery, more pages for ''artist books''.
A large silk and gingham pin pillow, festooned with sequins, the first finished piece from the collection I showed youhere.
This one is a keeper. I know what you're thinking. How many pin pillows does that woman need. What can I say....it's something else to fondle and you can never have too many things to fondle. There is another, smaller one almost finished too and work has started on the drawstring pouch. The buttons were the second thing to be finished. I have used one of those to titivate the back of the pin pillow.
It's all coming together....I am excited about the drawstring pouch, about it being finished and being able to use it although the ''putting together'' stage is quite scary. (for me) so if you could all cross fingers and toes that would be appreciated.
Just before I go....my purchases from the quilt show.
Silk, Broderie Anglaise, sequins, needles, thread cards, pre cut hexagon templates, vintage lace and a little silk ribbon.
Do you know how hard it is to think of a title for a blog post every day? No? Just me then? ''two more'' was the best I could come up with today. It could have been ''embroidered scraps'', ''more samples for artist books'' and on and on but we've been there, done that, got several t shirts. Anyway I just had to get that off my chest, the daily angst which is ''thinking up a title for the blog post''.
More samples for artist books then......I'm hoping to have a better idea later today of how much more I need to fill the next one. In truth I could make and make, join little scraps with a little titivation here, a little titivation there for the rest of my days. I'm never in a rush with these.
Last week someone commented on Facebook about the amount of small things I make, samples, scraps etc. so I explained how because I teach a lot samples are essential to my classes but I do also make finished pieces. That comment though, that conversation got me thinking about my artist books and how I would respond if someone asked me why I make them.
To be honest I make them because I love them. That alone, as pieces purely to look at, to turn pages, to appreciate as a decorative object is reason enough for me. But......they also have value for inspiration for future embroidered pieces, for texture, pattern and stitch reference. That aspect is a bonus however. In no way is it their 'raison d'etre'.
A collection in progress. All the embroidered pieces needed to create a drawstring pouch, a large pin pillow, a small pin pillow and six buttons. There will be toggles too but I haven't started those yet. This is work from ''studies in stitch''. Since these images were taken I have finished one pin pillow, the large one, and all six buttons are made. The next step is to back, stuff and titivate the small pin pillow before embarking on the scary bit....putting the pouch together.
I have a plan for that and I have done it before but it's still daunting.
Now I am wishing I had counted the bullion loops and sequins in this work....I guess I can still do that. If I get round to it I will let you know.
Last time you saw this there were two pieces, now there are three. Each piece consists of strips of silk, various silk cloth, silk muslin, silk scrim , silk net, silk habotai and crinkled silk. They are all randomly stitched together in strips before I begin the hand embroidery. I'm planning on taking this on holiday with me to embroider whilst I relax.....not on a beach, on a balcony so don't worry there won't be any sand. Before I go I would like another two pieces to join on here making five in total. I love the weight of the joined pieces, the drape of them and I'm thinking if I don't have much time to stitch I can at least fondle this regularly to get my fix.
Gingham, pink, cross stitch, silk, sequins and bullion knots......sampling for a drawstring bag, a pillow, some toggles and perhaps a few buttons too. This is work which has been completed in the first week of ''studies in stitch''. I am trying very hard to restrain myself and not begin my drawstring bag before I finish sampling....it's hard, I am excited at the prospect of a gingham and silk drawstring bag more than you could imagine, especially one which has such pretty sequins.
By the end of this week two weeks of class will have passed. We are then having a two week break so I can go on holiday before continuing for another ten weeks when I get back. If you want to join us then just take a look here. I will be closing my shop on Tuesday of next week whilst I am away.
Tomorrow I will show you my finished ''artist book''. There will be a very short video and lots of images.
When you saw thistwo days agothese were separate pieces.....I couldn't help myself, I had to join them. Piping cord, patterned cloth and hey presto. Joining these has made me anxious to make faster progress with this. It was my intention to create one more surface to take away with me when I go on holiday and embellish as and when I was relaxing as opposed to doing ''touristy'' holiday stuff. Now I want to make another surface and concentrate on that seam before I go away by joining it to these two and then embellish the surface when I am away. That will mean taking a much larger piece away with me as opposed to one small section. I like that idea. I like the thought of having a more substantial piece of this to handle and even if I do minimal embroidery on the surface it will be a pleasure just to look at it every day as opposed to suffering embroidery, cloth and sewing withdrawals which is what usually happens when I am away from home.
Last time I spoke about this piece on here I only had one surface created on which to hand embroider....I now have two and they are both shown here. Neither piece is finished in terms of surface embroidery but I was compelled to lay them together this morning to get a sense of how this might all come together, how it might look when I have these and more ready to be decoratively stitched together in order to create my ''veil'' piece. (I speak bout the veil piece here if you aren't familiar with it)
Most likely I will need at least ten of these small pieces before I am anywhere near having enough for my veil so it's double the pleasure.....stitching the surfaces and then embroidering those pieces.
A reminder.....''studies in stitch'' is only in its first week. It's not too late to join us. Read more here.
If you look back at this post, an earlier post about this piece you will be able to see how this surface has developed and evolved since then. There is more embroidery, more gathered cloth embellishments and a row of sequins has been completed. Since I took these images yesterday more embroidery has been added and it's almost there, almost complete. If you read the earlier post you will see how I want to develop this, to take this forward. First of all I will need to create several of these surfaces which will all be embellished before being joined decoratively in order to hopefully create a '' veil'' like piece of cloth.
I am going on holiday in three weeks, a relaxing break. I hope to take this project with me for leisurely stitching in the evening. Because of that I will stick to white in terms of thread and continue with the printed cloth used here for surface adornments, the same applies to the sequins.......stick to the ones already used. That way I won't need to take three extra suitcases lol as I'm also hoping to create some little flowers on holiday using something I received on my birthday.
If you have signed up for my new class ''studies in stitch'' you should have received an email from me this morning. If you haven't received that please let me know.
This surface was put together around a fortnight ago. I think you have seen it before when it was minimally embellished. Last night I worked on it some more although there's still a long way to go. I pieced this with strips of silk, silk muslin, silk scrim, crinkled silk and metallic silk tissue. As I was working on it last night I thought how good it would be to plan a project around it, to have a bigger plan. It's such a pleasure to embroider this kind of surface, there are lots of areas ripe for stitch and other embellishments. I then got to thinking about this,
Made mostly with lace and lace cloth this piece is my ''veil'' piece which hangs in the room where I spend most of my days. It occurred to me that the piece I worked on last night could evolve beautifully into something similar if I continue to create the surfaces, add embroidery then join them together.
There is a post here from 2012 explaining the veil piece in more detail. There is a short video too.....
The embroidered pink gingham is new here, this one is 306 squares as opposed to the 567 squares from this post. I actually messed up with the blue one. I...
