Category: Assembled panels

One of my artist friends used to be an interior designer and some time ago I asked her what sort of designs would be most popular as "wall art" for someone decorating their home in a modern style. After some thought she said that simple, bold works in neutral colours would probably work well. Well, that hardly describes most of the things that I do! But I thought I might give "simple and neutral" a try, and dug out some old shell designs that I'd done some time ago. I arranged these into a simple panel shape and started stitching. Before I started, I thought that it would be a quick and easy job, because the shell shapes are very simple and they don't have a lot of stitched detailing. But I soon realised that the colours of each background and each patch of applique fabric would have to be carefully thought out and then painted, so although the stitching went quickly, the fabric took a LONG time to prepare

The unfinished shell panel

Here is the panel at the moment. It's about 2 feet long and 18 inches wide, and as you can see it needs finishing off, and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next. Maybe stitch on a fabric backing and make it into a tapestry-like hanging? Or maybe frame or mount it as an ordinary painting? I'm not sure yet, but I'm going to put it aside for a while before I decide, because to be honest I'm fed up with looking at it! I need to move on to something new, at least for a while

I've finally finished the Memory Panel, and it’s been a technically demanding project. The squares aren’t stitched directly to each other (as a pieced quilt might be made) but rather each one is stitched separately onto the large piece of backing fabric

Work in progress. The top row of squares has the edges frayed, the second row is stitched but not frayed, and the third row isn't quite complete yet

My first thought was to make all the “squares” exactly the same size and shape. This would have made it very easy to arrange them into a nice symmetrical frame, but it would also make the final arrangement very boring. So I made all the “squares” different widths, which then condemned me to spending a lot of time juggling them all into some arrangement which would make them all fit smoothly into a large rectangle. I also decided to finish off the edges of the “squares” by fraying the fabric they were embroidered on. I’ve used this approach before with good results, but I also thought that in this case the soft, wavy edges of the frayed fabric might disguise any places where the squares didn’t quite line up.

The finished Memory Panel

Well, it’s not bad, and I will enjoy looking at the images and mulling over the memories they inspire. All the same I wish it didn’t remind me quite so much of a lot of little table mats. But as a first version of an idea that I might expand later, it does its job

A while back I was chatting to Ian Riach, a local sculptor and woodcarver, and I admired his T-shirt, which I took to be printed with a line of fishes. He pointed out that they weren’t fish but surfboards.

Ian and his T-shirt

But I thought fish were a lot more interesting than surfboards, so I drew and digitised 14 or 15 fish to be stitched in a long line, like Ian’s surfboards. It turned out to be a long job. I didn’t like the first versions so I re-did them all, and then I realised that the plain fish were actually a bit boring. So I digitised a lot of wave-like curlicues to be stitched between the fish, and the result was better. I stitched it all out on a densely painted strip of fabric and although it’s a very “busy” composition, it works pretty well.

Ian's fish panel

It's a large panel – 24 x 9 inches, and had to be stitched in 9 separate hoopings. However because it was just a question of stitching the fish in a straight line, it was easy enough to do. The colours tone gradually from light at the top to dark at the bottom, to give some structure to the panel, and it works well enough as a decorative object

A while back I posted a version of a furry hare, appliqueed with fabric felted with various colours of wool, and said that it was intended as part of a large panel. Well, here’s the panel and it just hasn’t worked out. It was part of the animals-with-text series, where an image of an animal is combined with a short phrase, and as I was fascinated by the legend of the hare staring at the moon, I wanted to include that text with the animal. But it just isn’t right. I think the main problem is the colours. If the hare is staring at the moon it has to be night-time, and the appropriate colours are blues and whites. But the hare has warm brown fur, and the browns and blues just don’t go together. There are other problems with the panel (for one thing, it's too dark) but that’s the main one. Oh well, you can’t get everything right first time. I’ll have to re-do this, and while I’m at it I think I’ll also re-digitise the script. That doesn’t look right either

Blues and browns don't go

Oh, and by the way – I’ll get the next free design up on the blog early next week, so check in then so see what’s on offer

 This is a large panel that’s destined for an upcoming gallery exhibition. It’s part of a series where I combine designs of local wildlife with a short line of text or poetry about the animal. I haven’t a clue where I heard the line ‘The Happiness of Fishes’ but according to Google it may come from a Taoist text. Anyway I thought it was charming and went well with an idea that I’d had for a school of fish. It looks a bit distorted in shape, but that’s because I had to photograph it at an angle. Actually it’s a true rectangle

The Happy Fish

The panel is digitised and stitched in two parts, top and bottom. The top section is stitched, then the fabric is moved up and re-hooped, and the two parts of the design are aligned with the video facility on the Innovis-i before the bottom section is stitched. This was technically quite demanding. The alignment of the two sections had to be accurate to a single stitch, and also the silver lame and watered silks that I used for the applique were tricky to work with. But it turned out better than it might have done. The text is deliberately quite subtle in colour, so that it doesn’t compete with the fish, and the shiny fabric works well. There are things that I would change if I stitch this again but overall it’s not bad for a first attempt

Goodness knows where the idea for this first came from – perhaps from the old German folk tale of the Musicians of Bremen, where a troupe of animals stand on each others backs? I did a different version of the idea some time ago but it wasn’t really a success, so I went on to other things. But recently Cherri sent me a few ideas along the same line, so I returned to the idea, and this was the result. It’s sort of weird but all the same I like it. It’s another large design that was digitised in several parts and then assembled on the fabric with the aid of the machine’s video facility

The bird stack 

As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, one of the things I find most frustrating about computerised machine embroidery is the fact that you’re limited to quite a small area for your work. My largest hoop will only give me a maximum size of 8 x 12 inches (20 x 30 cm) and that’s just not large enough for some ideas. Of course you can piece things together (that is, stitch small pieces and sew them together) which is OK for some things, but not everything

But it was only after I’d had my new Innovis-i for some time that I realised its potential for making really big embroideries. It’s all because of the video facility on the machine. This is a small video camera built into the machine that gives you a clear, detailed view of the stitching field, and lets you adjust the position of the design to within a single stitch. At first I’m embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t see the point of this, but eventually I began to realise what a fantastic tool the little camera could be

To test the facility, I drew a really big design of a leaping goat. I divided the figure into ten sections and digitised each one separately. I also digitised a grid over the design to make it easier to adjust the position of the design on the machine. Then I prepared a single piece of backing fabric, and basted the grid markings onto the fabric

Now I just hooped the fabric as usual, moving the hoop around the fabric as necessary to stitch all the different parts, and used the video camera to adjust the placement of the design so that the sections lined up with the grid and with parts that had been digitised earlier. I think the result was a real success and did exactly what I was hoping it would. There were one or two minor glitches, but nothing serious, and considering that this was the first time I’d tried the technique I’m surprised that there weren’t more

The goat just off the machine, with the basted grid still in place, and a foot rule and a bottle of wine to show how big it is

The final embroidery measures about 20 x 14 inches, (51 x 35 cm) stitched on to a single piece of fabric, something which would normally be impossible to do on my machine.

The Leaping Goat finished

As far as the design is concerned, I’m not sure if it’s a zentangle animal or a tapa animal, but it works pretty well (apart from the head, which I will change next time I try this). This design incorporates a lot of applique. I think doing the design all in embroidery might be a problem, because the pull problems would be considerable. It would also use a LOT of thread!
But I am very pleased with this approach, and now I don’t feel limited to work in any particular size. Of course this method imposes some technical constraints on designs, but that’s true of any craft