September samples

18/36 Purple flowers

 

Three purple-shaded flowers together caught my eye recently – devil’s bit scabious with knapweed and ling heather. Shying away from precision and detail (for once!) I got out the Embellisher and needled hand dyed green and lilac scrims through green felt.  Tiny clumps and tufts of wool fibres were added with a hand held felting needle. Without even injuring myself!

18/37 Seaweed

Have you ever really looked at seaweeds? They're fascinating, the range of shapes and colours! So I did a few little seaweed experiments using free machine stitching on Solufleece. 

The feathery ones are easy enough... bladder wrack, not so much. For the air sacs I stitched round and round (and round), distorting the fabric to make little raised bubbles. These aren’t solid, they’re hollow. You can get more height working without a hoop, but I only wanted tiny ones. The end results are a little messy, but they look alright as a group; I might take these further.

18/38 Hedgerow berries

This little piece started with a mix of yarns arranged on sticky soluble film (AquaBond). I free machined all over this base with green to link everything and fill it in a bit, and added a few blocks of satin stitch in shaded green for a leafy effect.

For the berries, I had in mind rowan, rose hips and blackberries. I machined clusters and individual dots using straight stitch in those colours. Then to make the berries stand out more I added a little hand stitching, mostly French knots (there always has to be French knots!).

I was quite pleased with this one after dissolving, maybe I’ll do more!

18/39 Seed heads

On holiday (Harris, since you ask - very nice thank you!) without my trusty Bernina, I had to resort to hand stitching. But nothing as normal as fabric – I used Somerset paper.

For each seed head I embroidered “long tailed detached chain stitch” (phew!) into and around a small punched hole. The thread was a lovely space dyed fine cotton from Oliver Twists. And yes, I did take my Japanese screw punch and a cutting mat on holiday… wouldn't you?! Well, you have to have some rainy day entertainments in the Outer Hebrides!

 

I love the crisp effect of stitch on paper, the embroidery really stands out.

July Samples

18/27 Cyanotype
Typically, the long sunny spell was almost over when I remembered my cyanotype fabric. Well it's been put aside for along time, as I never seemed to get the right conditions for sun printing at my last house.

So on a still, sunny day with just an hour to spare I got to work (or rather, play!). First snag - the fabric was one large, very creased piece. Have you tried ironing and cutting up fabric in the dark?! I didn't want to risk activating the chemicals until I was ready to print.     

I rushed around the garden grabbing plants to act as resists. Then I arranged them on the fabric, covered with a piece of glass, and let the sun loose on it. This is what happened:

Magic! I couldn't wait to try again.

As well as more plants, I made some negative transparencies from digital photos. My photos mostly didn't have enough contrast, but I liked this one of Talisker Bay:

What do you mean, you can do this in Photoshop - where's the fun in that?!
But what to do with these prints? So far I've made a couple of pocket mirrors and a tiny accordion book.

   

18/28 Simmer Dim
This far north it never gets totally dark around midsummer. It’s very confusing, we keep losing track of the time and going to bed far too late! In Shetland this long summer twilight is called the Simmer Dim. This is what midnight looks like from our window onto the bay on a cloudless night:

Those colours! I decided to knit them, maybe it was the Shetland association suggesting that? For little bits of lots of colours I chose tapestry wools – my stash is HUGE from bargain lots snapped up over the years. I still didn't have the right shades, buy hey it's only meant to be "inspired by", not a faithful copy. I knitted a strip in garter stitch with colour changes on the “wrong” side to help the colours shift more gradually.

But knitting alone’s not enough for me, I needed a twist… so I used the embellisher to attach the knitting to felt, flattening and stabilising it too. Then a bit of hand stitching to soften some colour shifts and highlight others.

 

Not one of my favourite samples, but knitting needled onto felt certainly has potential? It makes a lovely firm fabric, ready lined for a little purse, cuff, or… all sorts of possibilities!  

18/29 Cotton Grass
Drifts of cotton grass or bog cotton on damp areas always make me smile - it's a weird but lovely plant, unlike anything else.

I backed a little scrap of Harris tweed with pelmet Vilene to allow free machining, then stitched lots of stalks in Gutermann variegated green/brown cotton. The “cotton” heads were then created by needle felting tiny clumps of bamboo fibres on. I did this by hand with a single needle. Of all the fibres in my stash the bamboo seemed the best match, though really it should be whiter.

18/30 Rosebay Willowherb
In July and August the drifts of this wildflower, aka fireweed make a spectacular splash of colour.

I didn't mind whether my rosebay sample was machine or hand embroidered, so I had a look at all kinds of threads.



Nothing seemed quite the right colour - even on my massive Madeira shade card! Ah well, may as well use the machine then.

Back to my favourite technique - doodling with the Bernina on dissolvable fabric. I used different colours on the bobbin and spool to get closer to the actual pink/mauve. And added some bright yellow ragwort for contrast, as the two plants are often together round here.   

May Samples

18/18 Pizza

Every week I think, what’s caught my eye? What have I seen recently that’s a bit different? It doesn’t (quite!) always have to be nature…

A trip to the city, a rare meal out – pizza! Pizza Express Vegan Giardiniera to be precise. Artichokes, olives, mushrooms, red onion, vegan “mozzarella”.

So here’s a little piece inspired by (not meant to look too much like!) a pizza. It could possibly be a brooch?

18/19 Primrose lace

OK, so I’ve done several versions of primroses before… but they’re everywhere right now, I just have to play with them again!

For something a bit different, I tried an open, lacy piece – entirely in free machining on soluble fabric.

     

18/20 Whelk shell

This spiral design came from an unusually colourful whelk shell I found on the beach – looking down the whorls from the apex.

I used the Embellisher to make a background, first meshing together loose weave cotton and scrim then adding a rough spiral of white and purple wool fibres.

Then I just had fun with hand embroidery in various purple, yellow and cream threads – running, stem and chain stitches and some French knots.

18/21 Bluebells

I think bluebells are my favourite wildflowers... though I might waver when foxgloves and primroses are about. It’s not the individual plants but the effect of hundreds, thousands of them - that fabulous blue-purple carpet. One of the special treats of a UK spring!

So it was the density of flowers I wanted to capture with this little sample, and I decided the only way to get that was to overlay several layers of embroidery. 

I free machined three strips of stems/leaves and flowers on Aquasol, using Madeira Rayon 40, ranging from 3cm to 4.cm tall. After dissolving and drying I overcast the layers together at the base.

18/22 Cape Daisy

I love to photograph flowers really close up, the centres are often fascinating. This one is a Cape Daisy.

It led to a little sample combining machine and hand embroidery. I pencilled the outline on white cotton fabric, and coloured the centre yellow with fabric crayons. Then I free machined the petals using grey-purple for their outlines and variegated lilac filling.

In the centre I stitched French knots in dark purple perle 8 and golden yellow stranded cotton, with a few purple straight stitches added to fill gaps.

March samples part 3

18/12 Tête-à-tête
Flower of the month - a real favourite, the miniature daffodils that make a wonderful splash before much else is out.
Trying not to be too precise for a change, I used the embellisher to needle felt bits of green tapestry wools onto a Harris tweed scrap. Then I used thin strips of a very fray-ey (that's what I wanted!) yellow satin fabric to work free cross stitches for the flowers.

18/13 Orts
Have you heard of orts? They're leftovers. For textile people, the short lengths of yarn or thread leftover from any needlecraft or fibre art. I can't throw them out... but what to do with them?

Last year I bought yarn for two cushion covers for the sofa in our window, and crocheted them in a wavy pattern to reflect the sea view.

There was lots of spare yarn, so I started crocheting hexagons. Still ongoing, but I like them so much I've now bought more yarn and am heading for a double bed throw! So much for using it up, ha.

Each motif has six colours, so that's 12 ends to darn in and snip off...

And so, at last, we get to this week's textile play time. Using the embellisher again, I covered wool-viscose felt with a layer of yarn snippets. From that I made myself a book cover, a pin cushion and a mini travel needle book.

        

January stitch bits

In between my "work" stitching, I have to have a play too... just quick stitch sketches or samples that may or may not lead anywhere. For ten years I made weekly samples to strict themes and formats; this year I'm keeping it loose. Anything goes! So here are the first four.

 

18/01 One for sorrow – magpie feather. Inspired by an article in the Skye and Lochalsh Echo about the only magpie on Skye, resident in north Skye since May 2012. Poor bird - five years on Skye and still looking for a mate. I used free machine embroidery on dissolvable fabric. (13cm long)

18/02 Winter birch trees. I love how winter birch trees, bare of leaves, seem to have a purple haze (!) around them which must be the waiting buds. So I wanted a little textile sketch to remind me. Starting with a scrap of black wool from an ancient skirt, I machine embroidered some simple lines for trunks and branches. Then I used the embellisher to add a fuzz of purple wool fibres and a strip of green along the bottom. (about 9cm square)

18/03 Icicles. Thrilled to see sparkling fringes of icicles last week, where water seeping out of peat edges has frozen. Not an easy thing to capture realistically in embroidery, being transparent and glassy smooth. But who needs realism? After a couple of false starts, I went with free satin stitch on hastily coloured Lutradur. With a slightly tight tension, aluminium coloured metallic thread on top pulled the white rayon bobbin thread up a bit, so the icicles aren’t solidly silver or white – an effect I liked. They all ended up leaning towards the left though… usually a good thing IMO but not for icicles! (The sample is only 5.5cm across and looks best no bigger than that.)

 

18/04 Flower of the month: gorse. Is there a month when gorse isn’t in flower?! But it’s got no competition in January. I free machined zigzags randomly on hand dyed grey calico (one day I’ll run out of my C&G stash). Then I backed it with felt and hand embroidered detached chain stitches for gorse flowers, using a horribly bright yellow tapestry wool. Just wanted an impression of the shouty yellow and the spikiness.  (About 9cm square)   

Limpets part 4: two dimensions

I’m looking at limpet shells as flat shapes now – from above or from the side, simple and stylised. NOT realistic portraits!

From the side, they’re rounded triangles. From above, you see round-ish shapes sometimes patterned with spokes that don’t quite go to the centre. Strongly ribbed shells appear to stick out beyond the “circle” and make it seem more polygonal.

So it’s circles, triangles and spokes/ribs as starting points– and no need to make anything resembling actual shells!

Straight stitch on Somerset paper – punched a few holes as centres, Oliver Twists space dyed fine cotton.

Buttonhole wheels – space dyed linen thread on a scrap of Harris tweed.

Ribbed spiders web – pearl cotton 8 on denim. Love the effect of gently shaded thread here; note to self – worth drawing a circle on the back to get spokes evenly sized, or else odd ones will be left sticking out of the weaving.  

Straight stitch on hand dyed muslin (backed with felt). Seemed to need French knot centres; never mind whether they look more like flowers than limpets, the shells are just a starting point. Space dyed machine embroidery cotton from Oliver Twists.

Machine embroidery with Flower Stitch attachment.

Using a built-in pattern like a blanket stitch effect (720 on my Artista), with width reduced to 1. Photo shows the stitch worked straight, and then one round with the Flower Stitcher. Then I did lots of rounds reducing the diameter slightly each time, ending up by moving the needle across 2 or 3 steps to get as closer to the centre as possible. The first sample used purple top and bottom. Then I went for a subtler effect using yellow bobbin thread to match fabric – the top tension is a little high so it gets pulled up and makes the purple stitching appear less solid.

That inspired me to try metallic thread on the bobbin… with turquoise thread on navy felt, I got just a hint of sparkle coming through. Sorry, these are only 2cm across and I haven't managed to photograph them very well.    

Free machine embroidery cone patterns.

This is me doodling freehand on hand dyed cotton backed with pelmet Vilene. I tried using ribbed cone shapes to make patterns, always aiming to cut the thread as little as possible - which with these shapes means stitching forward and back along the same lines, so it’s not as delicate as you could be with hand embroidery.

My favourites above were the open, base-less ones, so I did a few more with shaded blue thread on navy felt. OK, they look more like floating seeds than shells, but they’re stylised, right?!

The “plan view”, limpets seen from above, still has more potential for 2D patterns I think.  This next one’s machine stitched freehand (no guidelines, eek!) on hand dyed cotton. 

With no backing (I used a hoop), the bobbin thread comes through and shows as tiny dots. What makes it interesting is using a shaded thread on both spool and bobbin, so the colour comes and goes giving a less solid effect.

A bit of Embellisher play next. 

Not much resemblance to limpet shells perhaps, but they’re still the inspiration. I embellished rings of wool yarn onto the back of hand dyed linen, then free machined on top with light grey and a darker bobbin thread to break up the stitched lines a bit.

And at last, my real fave – soluble fabric. Overlapping limpet circles in three colours to start with. A bit of zigzag round the edge, plus careful pinning out to dry, helps them stay vaguely circular.

And these just touch rather than overlapping. I worked the outlines and ribs in very pale gold coloured (not metallic) thread first, then filled in and edged with off-white. Might’ve been better left more open and lacy? 

And that’s where I’m going to leave the limpet theme for now. There’s a few things I haven’t tried, like burning synthetics, layering, scaling up… but I’ve got other things I want to do now.  

Samples 2016: Week 48, Chaos/Heather

A chance to go wild! I had a good rummage and gathered all sorts of purpley bits and pieces. Using the embellisher I covered a piece of wool fabric with scraps of scrim, sari silk and lace. Textured yarns went on too.

No machine stitch on this one - just random hand embroidery including detached chain, fly, cross, French knot and running stitches, in purple, green and white.

Not my usual kind of thing but I do quite like it... might work cut up for brooches?

Samples 2016: Week 35, Cobbles/True Blue



All the toys are out again! Great fun to play with the embellisher and the Bernina - it's been too long.

So I flung everything on this - starting with blue commercial felt I added dyed nepps, assorted yarns and merino tops. Those were all attached by whizzing the embellisher all over. Then I meandered around with free zigzag and straight stitch.

I really liked the fabric I ended up with, so I took its picture to remind me to come back to this for jewellery or art. But then I cut it up into "cobbles" and embellished them onto navy felt.  

Samples 2016: Week 29, Spotty/Biscuits

Sometimes my random sample suggester makes life easy! Spotty design, biscuit colours - Jammy Dodger anyone? 

I dug out felt in biscuit, jam, cream and pink icing colours, and cut circles. These were embellished onto a creamy felt base, then freely hand embroidered with stranded cottons. Layered felt like this makes a lovely base for embroidery, a real treat to stitch into and thick enough to hide the thread ends easily.  

Samples 2016: Week 18, Streaky/Jewels

A very quick response to this week's random theme and colours. "Streaks" of bright sari silk scraps embellished onto gold metallic fabric.

Samples 2016: Week 2, Wavy/Black and White

I like the boldness of this one. Starting with black felt, I used the embellisher to apply strips of felt and thick yarns, then added simple machine and hand stitching to get a variety of lines.

It's the felt strips that give it impact, I think - pleased with that effect.