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.  

Limpets part 3 - more 3D forms

As promised, I’ve gone on to make limpet-inspired 3D… objects… made in the round instead of flat then seamed.

 

So it’s straight into free machining. If you machine stitch madly, round and round in a not-quite circular pattern, a flexible fabric should distort into a 3D cone.  

Yes! Well, not too bad… this first one’s rust felt, just free machined round and round from the centre in shaded rayon 30 Alcazar thread, then cut out.

And here’s a colony of them, domed FME on creamy felt. I like the extra colour-mixing of the coloured bobbin thread coming through, the bands would be too solid otherwise. Hmm, this is one to come back to…

So, how about the same method on dissolvable fabric? I give you – limpets made entirely of thread! It’s domed FME (as above) worked on Solufleece. I tried it first in a hoop, but couldn’t get a steep cone – that’s the big shallow one. Holding the fabric without a hoop worked better, but ouch, it’s tough on the fingers holding so tight. I used shiny off-white rayon 30 threads.

I really like these limpets, but they’re quite hard work - the stitching needs to be dense, to get the doming effect and to link the stitches without any structural support, so they turn out very stiff and difficult to decorate.

I also had a quick go at hand stitching 3D limpet cones – by partially gathering circles as you would for shibori. Trickier than it looks, and not a lot of fun.

Finally, I thought I’d try a couple of techniques from Jean Draper’s book, “Stitch and Structure”.

Coiling. Here I tried wrapping and coiling a cord to form  a shell shape. It’s sort of like making a coiled clay pot – only slower and trickier, IMHO. I used thick nylon cord and Coats Anchor multicolour pearl cotton thread. Quite tough on the fingers, and difficult to deal with the cord ends at the start and finish even after I melted/sealed them with a soldering iron. But the result’s quite cute… as long as you don’t look inside 😉

Buttonhole stitch - worked round and round a real limpet shell, starting at the top and increasing to match its shape (so why did it end up so steep?), in Crofter DK knitting yarn. A stiffer yarn might give a better result, but would be harder to stitch.

What else could I do? Well it’d be easy to crochet a cone, but not very interesting… knitting likewise. Felting might work, especially at a large scale… bigger forms generally might be worth exploring, as vessels perhaps.

But for now I’m moving on. Next time – surface designs or patterns inspired by multiple limpet shells.

Limpets part 2

 

Now, I’ve had a good play with broken limpets but what can I do with whole shells?

I thought about adding decorative bands or toppings, but… well, they wouldn’t be integrated in any way, just superficial. And there’s so little space, not much scope anyway. So, no. Even I draw the line at making limpet party hats!

 

Starting by exploring the surface texture, I covered a shell with aluminium foil, smoothing it well into the ridged pattern. Black acrylic paint was worked into all the texture and then rubbed off so it just remained in the crevices. Not textile, but quite effective.

Next, to investigate the shape, I covered a limpet with soluble paper, wetting it to make a pulp I could press into the texture. When dry I cut and peeled it off, and turned it inside out to see the textured side. A rubbing of Goldfinger paste brought out the pattern.   

Limpet shells aren’t round – they’re wonky cones. Now I’ve got a useful template, so let’s move on from using actual shells to recreating them. Well, not necessarily ones that’d blend in on the sea shore – I want to have fun with the basic cone shape in different colours and patterns.

Sticking with paper for a while… simple hand embroidery plus needle perforations on Somerset paper.

… and then I liked the perforation effect so much I did some more on dyed and waxed paper (the things you hoard from City & Guild days!). I ran the unthreaded Bernina around it, scratched lines with a needle, and used a Japanese screw punch. The waxing emphasises the marks, going pale around holes. 

 On to fabric, still worked flat then joined to form a cone, some gentle hand embroidery on felt (stabilised with Vilene) The purple one is detached chain, French knots and straight stitches in stranded cotton. The blue one is free cross stitch in a fine, shaded pearl cotton.

 

OK, bring on the Bernina! At last… back to free machining. Fine Lutradur (30) in a hoop, embroidered with subtle bands of off-white straight and zigzag/satin stitch. I used a soldering iron to burn out the shapes and seal the edges before hand stitching the seams to make them 3D. I love that the fabric is almost invisible, and the shells are so delicate.            

 

A couple of jazzier ones next, hard to believe there’s still white Lutradur under the colourful free machine embroidery. I could zap it away with a heat gun, but then I’d have to make sure the stitching interlinked; this way it can be more delicate and free.

But now I’ve thought of the heat gun… A quick one with random green and orange FME on green Kunin felt, zapped to make it lacy then seamed to make a cone.

Right, enough construction – for my next trick, it’s 3D limpet (-ish things!) without seams. Hopefully…

Limpets

 

Right in front of my studio there’s a ready supply of limpet shells, and I’m always wondering what I could do with them.

 

I’d seen Alice Fox’s stitched limpets  – she takes ones with the top of the cone broken off, drills holes around the aperture, and “patches” the gap with flat needle weaving in off-white thread.

 

Intriguing… so I drilled one of my own and had a go. To make it different I added colour and texture - shaded indigo linen thread (from Stef Francis) and ribbed spider’s web stitch. If you’re going to try it, remember you’ll need an odd number of spokes for simple weaving, but an even number for ribbed spider’s web.

 

I wasn’t all that keen on drilling though… it seems, I don’t know, unnatural? A strange thing to say when I’m adding stitch to limpet shells, but that’s how it feels to me. Also it’s not a technique you could just play with spontaneously on holiday, say. So what could I do with these holey shells without the need to damage them further?

They could be completely wrapped with thread, ribbon or fabric. But I’d rather see some of the original shell. So let’s try just enough to make a base to decorate.

 

I used red shaded cotton from Oliver Twists, wrapped at intervals through the hole then woven over that “warp”  a few times. A bit clumsy perhaps, maybe a finer thread would look better, but I didn’t doing enjoy it so I’ll leave it there.

 

 

This next one was wrapped through the hole as before, but with a natural pearl cotton to tone in with the shell. Then I stitched raised chain band on these bars, using no. 8 pearl cotton (Hellebore, House of Embroidery). There’s nowhere to get rid of the ends on this one so I made a “feature” of them – i.e. just tied them in a knot on the front! I suppose if this was going to hang as a pendant or something these ends could form the loop. I just love raised chain band, any excuse. I might try this again with more bars, more rows of stitching – if I can find just the right shell.

 

These could make hanging ornaments, maybe a few strung together vertically or along a string as a garland? I can imagine trying that on a wet day by the seaside…

The tricky bit is fastening the thread on and off. I knotted the ends inside and threaded the ends through a few of the “stitches”, but tacky glue or masking tape would do – I won’t tell if you don’t. 😉  Best to allow plenty of thread to minimise the problem, no extra fastening on and off and hiding thread ends. Or make a feature of knots/tails on the front, or use as a loop for hanging.

Another approach is to fill the hole, with texture or protrusions.   

French knots embroidered on felt with variegated pearl cotton, made to fill the shell’s hole.

Loops of pearl cotton 8 (Hellebore again), on purple hand dyed felt, glued inside the holey shell with Tacky Glue. I left them uncut but a denser cut pile is another option.

 

 

A fringe free machined on soluble fabric with variegated pastel thread. I worked it round a small circle of white felt and after dissolving I stuffed it in the limpet ring and held it in place with glue inside.

Beaded tentacles or stalks made entirely by free machine embroidery on soluble fabric with a deep red velvet centre.

 

Finally I moved on to stitching limpet rings onto fabric.

It was soon apparent that I needed a firm base or it would distort. So I used thick wool (an old blanket I felted and indigo dyed) backed with pelmet Vilene. I stitched three rings down, just big “spokes” all round from the outside to the inside. Then I covered them by weaving round and round in ribbed spiders web (as A) using subtly variegated linen threads (from a long defunct supplier). To integrate these into the background I added a couple of lines of running stitch with light indigo pearl cotton.

 

I’m pleased with these, the embroidery seems to suit them, it’s quite natural and shell-like.

 

So, that was fun, and maybe some of the ideas can be taken forward… but it’s all broken shells, surely I can do something with intact ones? Without resorting to drilling holes, or gluing things to the surface. Watch this space…