Samples 2015: Week 52, Train in China

Background of layered blue chiffon and hand dyed green muslin bonded to pale blue polycotton using MistyFuse. The train is a strip of Evolon. Then tacked to white felt for easy hand stitching. My favourite French knots, plus a little blanket and straight stitch. (About 7 x 9cm.)

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 26/12/15:
“China's 'train hunter' on a quest to chronicle its fast-expanding railways. Wang Wei has spent 10 years travelling all over China to photograph trains and new lines, but can he keep up with the incredible pace of the country’s rail boom?”

A train on the Xianggui railway in southern China. Wang Wei’s photographs show off China’s natural beauty as well as its trains. Photograph: Wang Wei​

Sample design

Loved the brilliant flowers against the subtle blue shades of the mountains. And that would’ve been it, if I hadn’t had a time to kill over the holidays – in the end a bit of train came in too!

Samples 2015: Week 51, Christmas Cactus

Pink felt and loose wool fibres embellished onto black felt. Hand embroidery – stem stitch, straight stitch and French knots using stranded cotton. About 5.5cm.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 19/12/15:

“Cactuses are for life, not just for Christmas. The cactus is not the pinnacle of environmental friendliness, but at least it will flower again for the next festive season.”

‘Christmas cactuses are very easy to please.’ Photograph: Getty Images

Sample design
Cropped section to include stamens and the dramatic contrast of bright pink petals against black.

Samples 2015: Week 50, Climate conference

Free machine embroidery worked from the design on the back with gold metallic thread on the bobbin (not on the spool as that never works for me). Numbers cut from Evolon and applied with Bondaweb. Background fabric black cotton drill.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 12/12/15:
“COP 21: UN climate change conference. Eiffel Tower lights up with 'no plan B' warning for Paris climate talks.”

Sample design
I took the general idea of the bright metal criss-cross tower structure, and improvised a section centred on the significant numbers.   

Samples 2015: Week 49, Lips

Blanket stitch in stranded cotton on hand dyed cotton over felt

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 05/12/15:
 “How Jane Austen’s Emma changed the face of fiction. The story of a self-deluded heroine in a small village, Jane Austen’s Emma hardly seems revolutionary. But, 200 years after it was first published, John Mullan argues that it belongs alongside the works of Flaubert, Joyce and Woolf as one of the great experimental novels.”

Illustration by Susie Hogarth.

Sample design
Not my kind of subject (I was desperate!) – but the lips looked very blanket stitch.

Samples 2015: Week 48, DNA

Scribbly free machine embroidery on soluble fabric. I used silver metallic thread on the bobbin and two shades of blue/mauve on top (not at once!). I like the way the silver just peeps through on the front.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 28/11/15:
“Future of human gene editing to be decided at landmark summit. Now that the ability to selectively insert or remove genes from DNA is widespread, a ‘global discussion’ is being convened to agree fresh safeguards.”

Should humans take control of their genetic fate, and rewrite the DNA of future generations? Photograph: nobeastsofierce Science/Alamy Stock Photo

Sample design
I simplified the lovely DNA helix to a flat pattern, but kept the bluey shades and twinkle of the photo. Funny how I ended up with kissing fishes!

Samples 2015: Week 47, Dogwood

Hand embroidery - long straight stitches in single strands of stranded cotton. The base is black cotton over black felt.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 21/11/15:
“Gardens: Winning ways for winter. Gardens can bring delights in colder months. Here’s how.”

Photograph: National Trust Images/Mark Bolton

Sample design
This time I thought I could get away with simple straight stitches, no need for curves like last week’s fireworks. I didn’t try and copy the photo, I couldn’t do stitches that long for one thing! So I just layered three colours in random but vaguely upwards directions.   

Samples 2015: Week 46, Fireworks

Spontaneous free machining in bright rayon threads. The fabric is white cotton backed with heavyweight iron on stabiliser (so I didn’t have to use a hoop).

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 14/11/15:
“Bridget Christie: Want to avoid other people’s music? May the force be with you. I’m made to listen to other people’s music choices, against my will, on public transport, in restaurants and lifts, in shops, when I’m on hold, even when giving birth.”

Illustration: Nishant Choksi for the Guardian

Sample design

The image called for a quick, sketchy response, and hand stitching didn’t suit the long curving lines, so it had to be FME. I thought about using a black, night sky, background, but decided the white and bright was what drew me to this image so I stuck with that.

Samples 2015: Week 45, Poppy seed heads

Layered fabrics (felt, hand dyed cottons) free machine stitched with circles then cut back to reveal the mauve layer. Circles of handmade paper then hand stitched on. Shouldn't have used such a fraying top layer!

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 07/10/15:
“Alys Fowler: restrain your urge to tidy the garden. Don’t clear away those tired and broken brown stems – they’re essential to the health of your patch next year.”

‘During the coming month the poppy seedheads will tumble.’ Photograph: Gap Photos

Sample design
So much potential here, so many possible techniques! But I had to choose and work fast so I used what I had to hand and lost the subtle colours. I simplified the tops too, using plain hand cut circles not frilly shapes.

Samples 2015: Week 44, Wires

There’s no background fabric here, just threads! White and shaded blue pearl cotton, hand stitched on soluble fabric.

 

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 31/10/15:
“New law to tell internet service providers to retain browsing data. Lobbying by police ahead of investigatory powers bill suggests ISPs will be required to keep data for 12 months.”

 

GCHQ says it carries out bulk interception of online data only if a search warrant has been served. Photograph: MatthiolaC/Alamy

Sample design
Oh I do like embroidery without fabric, and that’s exactly what those tangled wires looked like to me! Though I did consider other techniques, the wires are actually striped. Common sense, and the usual need to catch up, prevailed and I allowed myself to do separate white and blue wires.

Samples 2015: Week 43, Hurricane

Green felt and white bamboo fibres embellished onto blue wool fabric.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 24/10/15:
“Hurricane Patricia makes landfall as Mexico braces for devastating storm. Hundreds of thousands of people are in the path of one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded."

 

Hurricane Patricia in the eastern north Pacific. Photograph: Handout/Getty Images

Sample design

Fluffy clouds just had to be an embellisher sample! With a vague resemblance to the photo.

Samples 2015: Week 42, Tyre dump

Thousands of tiny circles (not just scribble, honest), free machined on two layers of black Lutradur. Burned out using soldering iron, and applied to rough textured creamy fabric.

 

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 17/10/15:

“Shredder sought for five million tyres dumped in Spain. The 90,000 tonnes of rubber, 400 metres from a housing development south of Madrid, pose a fire and environmental risk.”

Photograph: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty

Sample design
I wanted to capture the contrast between the mountains of tyres and the sandy “valley”. There was only one way to do so many little circles in a reasonable time – free machining. And using a synthetic fabric meant I could burn out the edges, a more suitable effect than cutting. The image suggests grey circles on black, but I had to reverse that because the Lutradur wasn’t dark enough. 

Samples 2015: Week 41, Button Snakeroot

Blue-brown shaded fine cotton (from Oliver Twists), hand stitched on Somerset paper.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 10/10/15:
“Great plains: my prairie garden. Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith raised his own prairie garden from seed and was delighted to find it requires a fraction of the maintenance of a conventional border.”

Photograph: Marianne Majerus/Garden Images

Sample design

Those spiky plants were irresistible, especially when I found they were called “Button Snakeroot”! I thought stitching on paper rather than fabric would give a good clean spiky effect.     

Samples 2015: Week 40, VW

Aluminium, embossed and machine stitched onto black Kunin felt over craft Vilene.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 03/10/15:
“VW drivers in UK to escape higher emissions tax, government vows. Transport secretary calms fears that owners of cars caught cheating emissions tests might be forced to pay higher vehicle excise duty linked to pollution.”

 

Photograph: AFP/Getty

Sample design
That badge, shiny silver, but not a complete copy… At first  I thought I’d use metallic fabric, then remembered all the real metal leftover from when I made stitched copper and aluminium jewellery and clocks. Aluminium seemed perfect, and just this little bit was enough to remind me of all the snags in stitching metal! Can be quite effective though, maybe I’ll play a little more.    

Samples 2015: Week 39, Data Centre Emissions

Machined satin stitch framework on black cotton. Hand stitched loops of bright perle cotton.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 26/09/15:
“How viral cat videos are warming the planet. Datacentre web servers, such as those used by Google and Facebook, to blame for 2% of greenhouse gas emissions – about the same as air travel.”

Inside Google’s data centre in Mayes County, Oklahoma. The firm’s carbon footprint was equivalent to more than 1.7m tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2013. Photograph: Google/Rex

Sample design

Not the most obvious subject for embroidery! But the contrast of bright loopy wires against a rigid grid structure seemed ideal for combining auto machine stitching with free hand stitch.   

Samples 2015: Week 38, Tridoku

 

Coloured felt squares applied to white felt using the embellisher. Each colour then hand stitched with a slightly darker shade of stranded cotton.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 19/09/15:
“Nested fish and golden triangles: adult colouring and the beauty of maths. These mathematical patterns, by Alex Bellos and illustrator Edmund Harriss, are intended to engage the brain as well as provide a moment of stress-free satisfaction.”

Alex Bellos and Edmund Harriss

Sample design
This week I really fancied some simple colourful hand stitching so I pinched a small section of this image. Felt is so lovely to stitch on! 

Samples 2015: Week 37, Ai Weiwei

 

Machine embroidery using a Flower Stitcher attachment. Black and grey threads on hand dyed cotton bonded to heavy weight stabiliser.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 12/09/15:
“Ai Weiwei – from criminal to art-world superstar. The Chinese artist talks about how his incarceration helped his career, and why he’s embarrassed about his early work – ahead of his first major UK exhibition.”

Ai Weiwei: ‘I don’t go to church. I work seven days a week, I’m always the first one in the office.’ Photograph: Andy Wong/AP Photo

Sample design

I was drawn to the offset circles, so I decided to just doodle with those.

Samples 2015: Week 36, Stalactites

Free machine embroidery on dissolvable fabric, using a subtly shaded green-cream-pink rayon thread. Two strips of stalactites overlaid. No background fabric, I photographed it against black but the camera (sorry, I – I shouldn’t blame my tools) struggled to bring out the colours.

 

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 05/09/15:

“Going underground: the Jeita Grotto, Qornet El Hamra, Lebanon. Artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige lose all sense of time and space, marvelling at the shapes and formations in this cavernous underground world.”

The Jeita Grotto, Lebanon, is a a huge concentration of extraordinary shapes. Photograph: Tim Barker/Getty Images/Lonely Planet Image

Sample design

What appealed here was the idea of fringes of stalactites, I didn’t copy any actual section of the photo. I enjoyed this, and it might have some potential.   

Samples 2015: Week 35, Harebells

Quick hand stitch, on pale green bandage scrim over felt. The flowers are teased tufts of crewel wool.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 29/08/15:
"Harebells at Bosley Cloud, Cheshire. As folklore has it, witches used juices squeezed from the flowers to turn themselves into hares; the Victorians believed fairies slept in the bells.”

Hare bells (Campanula rotundifolia): frail flowers flickering on wire-thin stems. Photograph: Gareth McCormack

Sample design
Flowers are an easy option, so I felt obliged not to be too realistic. And I wanted a bit of hand stitch to take on holiday, which cut down the options (though unexpectedly summery weather meant I didn’t actually touch it while away!).

So I chose to ignore the delicacy of the bells and went for quick and messy splashes of blue wool.

Samples 2015: Week 34, Cacti

Automatic embroidery pattern, chosen to look spiky. Plus French knots in stranded cotton. The fabric is calico over pelmet Vilene.

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 22/08/15:
“Lanzarote’s beautiful cactus garden. At the Jardín de Cactus, designed by César Manrique, over 1,100 species of cacti fill a disused quarry amid the island’s otherworldly, volcanic landscape.”

 

Jardín de Cactus, Lanzarote. Photograph: Frank Lukasseck/Corbis

Sample design
As always, my first thought is how to make it look just like the real thing! Colour, texture, everything.
Then, if I’m being good, I catch myself and consider how to make it different.
So I took a section with parts of four cacti and focused on the spiny ribs, with a ring of (dead?) flowers on one of them for contrast.

Samples 2015: Week 33, Treeconomics

Wool yarns embellished onto brown felt. Hand stitched sequins.

 

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From this article in the Saturday Guardian 15/08/15:

"Introducing 'treeconomics': how street trees can save our cities. As a fight over 11 lime trees in Sheffield escalates, activists in cities all over the world are making the case for urban trees – to cut pollution, increase land value and even make you feel younger.”

Plane trees might be London’s most famous tree, but the city’s most common species is the apple tree, mainly hidden in gardens. Photograph: Robert Hardi/REX Shutterstock/Robert Hardi/REX Shutterstock

Sample design

A section to bring out the contrast between the tree foliage and the straight trunks interspersed with round lights.