Uncategorised – Page 46 – The Accidental Embroiderer

The goldfish bellpull

17 October 2012MiaUncategorised1 Comment

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending all my time stitching commissions that I took at the show. However most of the designs were things that I’ve posted here in the past so I didn’t feel justified in putting them up again. But here’s something I think is new, based on some goldfish designs that I did when I was selling designs on the internet. At the show I had some goldfish stitched out roughly in a “bellpull” arrangement and these were so popular I had to promise several people to do some more for them. Here’s the first one I’ve finished.

Twelve goldfish in a bellpull arrangement

There were a few practical problems with it, but in the end it didn’t turn out too badly
As I was stitching them, I realised that recently I’ve become so preoccupied with applique that I’ve tended to forget what subtle effects you can get when you overlay several thin layers of embroidery. The body of these fish consist of four or five separate layers, each contributing to the contouring of the body, and the effect can be really interesting. Of course there are times when applique is the only way to do something, but on the same principle there are times when embroidery on its own is the way to go. Maybe I’ll have to get back to thinking about what layers of embroidery can do

The wonders of modern technology

5 October 2012MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

I’m beginning to appreciate what a wonderful machine the Innovis-I is. It has features which I didn’t think I’d ever need – that is, until I started to use them. For example, I didn’t think I’d ever use the camera facility – the little video camera which shows you exactly where on the hooped fabric your design will stitch. It seemed an unnecessary feature – until a couple of weeks ago.

I was stitching a long, thin panel – the “Jacobean Bellpull” which I designed in my old days selling designs on the Internet. This is a big design in six separate parts and I was trying to stitch it on a single piece of fabric, re-hooping between sections. Now, I am really awful at this kind of thing and I usually try to avoid multiple hooping at all costs. However for some reason I was getting along fine, and the separate parts of the design were aligning perfectly on the fabric – that is, until the last one. I did it exactly the same as I’d done all the other parts, but all the same there was at least an inch’s gap between the two sections
Here’s a picture of the problem: the two sections of brown stem are supposed to meet exactly, but there’s a big gap between them.

Hooping mistake – the bottom section doesn't align with the top

After some thought, I decided to try and repair the gap. First I ripped out enough stitching to make it possible to “re-draw” the missing part of the stem between the two ends of the stem.

A section of stitching is removed

Then I scanned the part of the embroidery with the gap, and digitised a piece of stem to fit in the gap between the two pieces

The missing piece is digitised

Now comes the part played by the machine. I re-hooped the embroidery and with the camera’s help, adjusted the placing of the repair so it exactly filled the gap between the two ends of the stem.

With the help of the camera, the digitised piece is stitched in the right place

The results aren’t perfect but they’re pretty good, considering how much out of alignment the two pieces were.
And here’s the finished embroidery

The repaired Jacobean Bellpull

The repaired section is just below the top bird. OK, there’s a bit of a wobble in the stem and a small gap between various bits of foliage, but you probably wouldn’t notice it unless it was pointed out, and it’s a lot better than throwing the whole thing away. And as I sold this at the exhibition, I’m very pleased that the camera was there to help with the repair

After the exhibition

30 September 2012MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

Well! I thought that things would calm down a bit after the
exhibition last week, but in fact life has become even more hectic since it closed. As last
year, the embroideries were wildly popular. Not only did I sell a lot during
the show, but I’ve collected several commissions which I need to get finished
as soon as possible

The Accidental Embroiderer at the North East Open Studios exhibition

The show was very well attended and as usual people were
fascinated with the machine and what it could do. Not many people in this part
of the world have seen these machines and they were amazed at the variety of
work that it produced. A note for all embroiderers who want to sell at shows –
people really love to handle the embroideries, and to rummage through piles of
samples. They make selections of their favourites and as often as not end up
buying them. Most of the things I sold were small, unmounted “sample”
embroideries, and although I didn’t charge much for them, I sold so many that I
ended up with a respectable profit.

After a while I began to get a feel for what people liked,
and tried to replace as many as possible of the ones that sold well. The owls
were madly popular and I calculate that I stitched and sold seven eagle owls during the
week. (I'm not sure if this is really an eagle owl, but it's what he's come to be called)

The Eagle Owl – top seller at the exhibition

Also popular was a large fish which I’d stitched over Mylar. People were
fascinated with the effect and I sold several of these for people to use as
bathroom decor

Mylar fish: now featured in several Scottish bathrooms

The Mexican Birds

3 September 2012MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

I’ve missed my usual posting this week – this is because I‘ve
been so busy preparing for our upcoming exhibition that I haven’t had time to
do any new work to put up. The show is in two weeks time and there is still a huge amount
of preparation to do. In the past week I’ve added borders to a couple of large
panels (very difficult for me as a non-sewer) and also mounted a couple of
dozen embroidered pieces – and there is still a lot left to do

However I don’t think I‘ve put this piece up before, so it
will do to keep things going. It’s based on Mexican designs and colours that I
remember from summers spent in Mexico when I was a child. I’ve always loved the
intense colours that feature so much in Mexican folk art and although I don’t
think I’ve captured the feeling exactly, the birds still remind me of time
spent in that exciting country

Memories of Mexican folk art

The Songbird and the Crow – a conversation

26 July 2012MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

Here’s an idea I got from a design website that featured birds with decorative “speech bubbles” coming out of their beaks. As a bird enthusiast, however, I realised that different kinds of birds would have different kinds of speech bubbles, and I started thinking about how best to express this in design. This is the result:

The crow

The songbird

The “speech” of both birds involves metallic foil (silver for the crow, gold and variegated red-gold for the songbird) and also metallic thread. As usual, the gleam of the metallic thread doesn't show up well on the scan, but it looks pretty good when you look at the actual embroidery. Both birds are based on a couple of my old bird designs as it was easier to adapt them than to start from the beginning, but both seem well-suited to their new use. I'm not entirely happy with the crow's speech – it really should involve complete shapes (like the songbird) rather than being abruptly cut off at the edge of the frame. However I'm pleased enough with it to post it here

My original idea was to position the two birds face to face, as if they were conversing

The conversation

but for some reason this doesn't seem to work very well, probably because the crow's speech is so sharply cut off. It would look better if what the crow is saying was a complete shape. So for the time being maybe I'll just keep them separate

The Alaskan Raven

20 July 2012MiaUncategorised1 Comment

This is something I drew and digitised a long time ago, when my machine was off being repaired, and I’ve only recently got round to stitching it out. I always think of it as Alaskan, but I can't remember where the inspiration came from. Perhaps it was from an Inuit soapstone carving – it feels similar to those simplified, smooth carvings of animals and birds. The handpainted applique fabric adds a bit of interest to a subject that otherwise would be entirely black

The Alaskan (or Inuit) Raven

The gilded salmon

7 July 2012MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

And while we’re on the subject of using metallic foil in different kinds of ancient and ethnic designs, here’s a salmon done in the style of the native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Before I decided to stitch it with the gilt foil, I had problems getting the colours right, but once I added the mottled green-gold metal foil on the back, the design started to work, and then all I had to do was to echo the colours in the rest of the stitching. As usual, the colour of the foil hasn't scanned very accurately but you can still get the general idea

The gilded salmon in the style of the Pacific Northwest

Disaster…

7 May 2012MiaUncategorised1 Comment

Well, the embroidery machine has conked out. I think that part of the needle or the bobbin assembly has become misaligned, but whatever the reason it's definitely not working. At the moment it's all boxed up and waiting for the carrier to take it down to Edinburgh and the kind attentions of David Drummond, but it will probably be several weeks before it's back

So the blog is currently on hold because I don't have any new stitchouts to post. I'm spending the time drawing and digitising so that when the machine is home again I'll have lots of new material to show, but meanwhile I'm afraid that there won't be any new posts

Hope to see you in a few weeks time

Yet another owl

9 March 2012MiaUncategorised1 Comment

Right, back to the owls for a week so so. Here’s the next one in the series. This is just a v.1 stitchout so there are still things to correct – such as the feathers on the right side of the head, which need adjustment. Also the colours aren’t quite right, which is always a problem with first versions – you never really know how colours are going to work together until you actually see them on the stitchout, and in these complex designs it’s particularly important to get the colours absolutely right. However he doesn’t need a lot of work and will soon be ready to go

The latest owl v. 1

It’s lucky that I have a backlog of owls to put up here, because I’ve just started on a long and demanding project involving a lot of different designs and a lot of metallic foil. It’s going to take a long time to finish and until it’s done I won’t have much new to post here. The new project is a panel made up of 21 different designs and although the designs themselves are pretty simple, the stitchouts are taking a long time to do, and the foil is proving very difficult to handle. However I’m hoping that it will get easier with time

The raven

2 March 2012MiaUncategorised2 Comments

OK, I’ll give owls a rest for this week. Here’s another bird, a raven, that I originally did as part of a large and complicated panel involving several different birds. Unfortunately the panel didn’t really turn out all that well. The individual birds are fine but they need a bit more thought before they work well together. Anyway here’s the first bird in the assembly, which I particularly like. Unfortunately it’s difficult to see detail in amongst all that black on the scanned image, but there is a lot of complexity which adds to the effect of the bird when you see the stitched-out version

The raven