Uncategorised – Page 48 – The Accidental Embroiderer

Sunflowers and a bird

23 November 2011MiaUncategorised1 Comment

Life has been busy recently and I’ve been spending most of my time making cards and embroideries for the upcoming Christmas fairs in the neighbourhood. But I haven’t done many new designs, so there hasn’t been much to post here. However Cherri has come to the rescue with a design that I did at her request some time ago. She wanted something cheerful to frame and put in her bathroom, and because sunflowers are about the most cheerful flowers I can think of, I drew and digitised a large, complex bunch of sunflowers done in applique and embroidery. But Cherri loves birds as much as I do and said that the flowers needed something in the way of a bird to liven up the picture. So, as I never object to adding birds to anything, I put in a bird. I really love the way she’s stitched out the flowers with the bird extending out of the frame to make it look like an accidental spectator that just flew in

Cherri's bird with sunflowers

More of Rory’s animals

22 October 2011MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

The same man that asked me to digitise a giraffe also wanted a stag and a wild boar (He also wanted a mackerel, but that one will have to wait) Here are the first versions.

Appliqueed stag

Appliqueed wild boar

These are a lot simpler than most things I do, and I'm itching to put more details and embellishments in, but if they're going to be stitched on a man's T-shirt I suppose they shouldn‘t be too fussy. For the final versions I can always use patterned fabric for the appliqué to give a bit more texture to the designs. Cherri suggested using hand-painted fabric, which would really be fun as you could get in a lot of texture and detail, but in my experience painted fabric just doesn't wash well (in spite of what the paint manufacturers say) so I don't think I dare try it

There will be a short break in transmission…

13 October 2011MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

My PC has died, the PC with all my digitising and graphics programmes on it. This means that I can't digitise, can't stitch out, can't work with photos, in fact there isn't much I can do about the designs at all except sketch, and I can't even put the sketches up on the blog, because the scanner is on the dead PC. Just as well my Internet connection is on the Mac

Anyway, I don't know how long it will be before things are back to normal, so I'll just have to work on a big pile of drawings and look forward to a lot of digitising when I have the software back again

You never can tell

25 September 2011MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

At last week’s exhibition, the embroideries sold so well that I was forced to rummage through bags of old samples just so that I would have something to put out on the table. In one box I found a few samples of insect designs that I’d done a long time ago, but although I liked them myself I didn’t think that many people would share my enthusiasm for creepie-crawlies. However in the end I put a few samples of the insect designs out on display, and to my amazement they were wildly popular. One piece of old felt on which I’d just tested some of the designs sold immediately and I had to agree to do another similar piece for someone else

The old scrap of felt with test stitchouts of the insects

Close-ups of the test stitchouts

At least I’ve learned now not to try and second-guess people’s tastes in designs!

No time for embroidery

16 September 2011MiaUncategorised1 Comment

It’s been a very busy week – our local art exhibition opened last weekend and I was astounded at how many people came, and the interest they showed. We were part of NEOS, which is the North-East Open Studio event. This takes place every year in Aberdeenshire and consists of artists all over the area opening their studios to the public, and galleries mounting special exhibitions. Our small exhibition was limited to artists from the Strathdon and Glenbuchat areas, and I wasn’t the only one who was amazed at how many first-class artists live in this small rural community. In fact the whole county of Aberdeenshire is rich in creative talent

I’m spending a lot of time at the show demonstrating the embroidery machine and people are fascinated by the way that technology can be used to translate design into a new kind of art form

Here is a picture of my stand at the show. I’m afraid the quilts in the background aren’t mine, but were made by two very talented local quilt-makers

The Accidental Embroiderer at the Glenbuchat NEOS exhibition

If that wasn’t enough to make life busy this week, I’ve also been attending a workshop by textile artists Alison King and Rose Campbell, held at a nearby arts centre, The Woodend Barn, in Banchory. I’ve been to Alison’s workshops before and they are always very challenging. As a result I never do very good work there, but the ideas and techniques that she teaches have a huge influence on my work, once I have the chance to sit down and think about it

The Charley Harper bellpull in progress

20 August 2011MiaUncategorised1 Comment

(although I really must stop calling these Charley Harper designs, as by now they bear very little resemblance to his style). A few weeks ago I did a collection of 8 applique birds in (roughly) a Charley Harper style. But then I thought that as he would never draw a bird or an animal without a background, I shouldn’t either. The simplest way to add a background would be to set each bird against a leafy background, and then stack them on top of each other to make a long, thin “bell-pull” panel

It took me some time to decide how to treat the leaves. Usually in a design like this I’d use at least two or three different colours in each leaf, but these were going to be such large designs that that would have taken a huge amount of time to digitise, and the “stems” of the leaves would have to be made very thick to accommodate all the lines of running threads going through them. So I settled for dividing up the foliage into patches, doing each patch of leaves in a different shade of green, and using 4 greens in each design.

Here is one, done on a background of roughly-painted fabric, just to give it a bit of texture and added interest. I like the way the patches of green have turned out – the leaves are interesting without being too intrusive.

One of the "Charley Harper" birds on a background of embroidered leaves

8 large, complicated panels like this took a LONG time to design and digitise, and as each panel is somewhere between 40 and 50 thousand stitches each, they took a long time to stitch out as well. But I’m beginning to get them done: one down, seven to go

Mille Fleurs

4 August 2011MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

Here’s an idea that never really went very far – or it hasn’t yet, at any rate. I’ve always loved those medieval tapestries with all the hundreds of little flowers in the background, which is known as a “mille fleurs” pattern. The flowers are so beautifully observed that you can usually identify them down to species, and I’ve always loved the idea that the medieval artists were familiar with so many of the same flowers that we have in our modern gardens

The backgrounds of many medieval tapestries are full of delicate little "mille fleurs"

The little flowers also seemed ideal subjects for embroidery, so I drew and digitised about 30 small flowers in a simple mille fleurs style

Four flowers in a Mille Fleurs style

However then I was stuck. There didn’t seem to be much I could do with them. I drew out a panel in which all the Mille Fleurs embroideries were tiled together to make a big “tapestry”, but it didn’t seem to have much interest. Maybe it needed a unicorn in the middle of it or something like that. But by themselves the mille fleurs didn’t really say much

One of the Mille Fleurs embroideries framed in an old window frame

Cherri had a brilliant idea, though – she used an old wooden window frame to mount the embroideries, so that each little window frames a small flower embroidery. I think this is a great way to display them and adds a lot of interest. However I’m still trying to think of a way to combine them so that they’ll recall the old medieval tapestries

More Charley Harper birds

17 June 2011MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

Actually it's becoming pretty obvious that I can’t call these "Charley Harper birds" any more. The more of them that I do, the less they look like his work and the more they look like mine. Which is right and natural, I suppose, and although it may not be obvious, I’ve learned a lot from him.

The latest four birds inspired by Charley Harper's style

These birds are definitely only first versions, and there are a lot of changes I want to make to them, but they’re encouraging enough to carry on with. I’ve started work on backgrounds of leaves and branches against which the birds can be posed, although it will be a very long time before the final panel is finished, as it will consist of 8 separate large embroideries stitched together, and all that digitising and stitching will take some time

Roses

13 November 2010MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

This design had its origin in a piece of wrapping paper that came with a gift. It reminded me of those ubiquitous Charles Rennie MacIntosh Art Deco roses (a style which I have to admit I rather admire, at least when done by MacIntosh) It’s a simple style to imitate, so this was an easy design to draw, and for such a complicated design, surprisingly straightforward to digitise

Roses v. 1

The first major problem was the terrible “pull” around the edges., where the embroidery distorts the fabric.This is a large design (7 x 11 inches), so it needs the largest hoop my machine has, and this hoop sometimes doesn’t hold the fabric firmly enough

Also the colours were all wrong. I don’t have many red fabrics in my collection so I can see I’ll have to paint my own for this. Finally, I thought the overall effect was a little bit simple. Simplicity was of course one of the hallmarks of Charles Rennie’s brilliant style, but as I’m not really an Art Deco artist, I felt like adding a little more detail

Roses v.2

The result was definitely an improvement, although the changes I made to the border were a mistake. Still, the detailing works pretty well, and adds a little extra dimension to what is quite a flat design. The hand-painted fabrics add an interesting variation in shades and are a (slight) improvement. The pull problem is better, although still not solved. If this design didn’t take so long to stitch out I’d make a v. 3 – however as it is, I think I’ll leave it for the moment

Tapa fish

29 October 2010MiaUncategorised1 Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about fish recently, and been sketching and digitising fish decorated with motifs taken from tapa barkcloths of the Pacific islands. These designs, mostly geometric in nature, are similar to some seen in batiks, but they’re generally rougher and a lot simpler. Even so they make surprisingly effective embellishments to organic shapes

Tapa designs from Pacific bark cloth

Here are some applique fish inspired by tapa designs. The stitchouts are by me and by Cherri Kincaid. I used appliqué fabric painted in tones that reflected the warm browns and golds of tapa cloth, but Cherri adopted a more original and colourful approach