Beading and couching go on

I've started adding in couching to this green and purple section. I love green in my surroundings, just look at my house,but in art I find it a difficult color to work with, tends to go all heavy and sort of sad (did you know that sad actually means heavy??? as in sad-iron, etc., where was I, my inner etymologist took over there for a minute). 

Anyway,I'm lightening up the green with couching in gold braid, using a medium green floss, two plies, to secure the gold. And there will be more couching,maybe more beads, I'll see how the couching looks before arriving at that decision.

The Big Stitch starts to take shape

Showing you a couple of details from different parts of the current big stitchwork, which will frame out to 16 x 20, I think, once it's stretched on artist's stretchers.  Currently it's stretched and mounted on a heavy backing, 17 x 30

from its first iteration on exhibit, and I've left it on there to keep it stretched while I work.  This makes beading and stitching a bit more difficult, because you can't do a stabbing motion -- it all has to be surface movement, which is a bit hard on the fingers, but it's working out okay.

It's starting to get to the stage where I think I know what I'm doing.  The major shapes are shaping up as I go, with beading and couching, some gold work, some floss, but the painted original I think I'll leave alone, and just make my adaptations with beads and thread. 

This one is too big to take in to stitch in meetings, though, so it has to be a homebound item.  For stitch-in purposes, I am about to stretch cheesecloth over a frame as one layer of another piece, this one a bit smaller and more portable, as a support for the sea wrack pale green crochet I showed you earlier.  There will be pearls and amber in this one, I think, as well as various other ideas.

And since this current big work is a piece destined for my April exhibit, where the same concept will be rendered in different media,it will probably be paired with a great big watercolor I painted years ago, and need to find a big enough frame for.  Similar concept-- large yellow marsh flower and a lot of green foliage. 

I painted this without any particular flower in mind, just the impressions I retained from walks around the marsh, and was surprised when it was exhibited and a naturalist friend identified the flowers and foliage! I was nearer to nature than I realized.

Beading mojo gets going

I've been mulling over what beading to do next, and have rescued a stitched piece which I now realize would do very well with beads and sequins to give it more presence.  When I stitched this I wasn't doing beading, so it never got in there, but now I realize it's a natural.  Here's a detail of the beginning of the new piece. Beads and dyeing and stitching and painting are all happening together.

Oh, and I made a handy discovery after I finished up the candle display for my birthday dinner -- tea light containers make great bead bins! right size, easy to use without tipping beads out.  No lids, but no matter because I sit the containers in a plastic inch deep tray (was a box frame, now repurposed) in a shallow drawer and so far it's working fine, easy to find what I want without pawing through tiny plastic bags.

Voices and Faces of Plainsboro exhibit

For a great exhibit, with the Dollivers thrown in as a bonus, do go here

Seasonal stitching, ahoy!

With my ficus tree obligingly playing the part of Christmas tree, here's an ornament soon to be on its way to a nice family who always does a tree.  

Here you see two sides, with white on black stitching on black aida cloth, and gold thread whipped round the edge, and the other side is good old red felt with a beaded and goldworked simple star.  Something vaguely scientific about this star to my eye.  Anyway, I hope they'll like it.

And NOW I can get to my artwork which has been hanging fire.

Positively my final purse on this or any other stage

The pursorama is winding down, and my weary old digits need a rest cure before picking up fine stitching, otherwise I'll be snagging it at every turn.  This one I really like, and the recipient is local, so no trip to the PO this time.
 

This incorporates a goldwork and beaded butterfly you might have seen before, appliqued onto the front pocket,  Indian metallic peacock blue beads, yellow and gold whipstitch, and a knitted handle. 

Three pockets, and, right before I stop making purses I've finally managed to stitch an entire one without having to rip back when I realize there's a stitch right in the middle welding the pocket shut!  even though I had a little card slid inside to prevent this, oh well.

One of my correspondents suggested I sell these purses online...well, maybe not!  special requests, perhaps, but not an etsy shop.  I do have one more seasonal project to whip out, but then art will resume. At least that's my plan.  

But the Season of Purses has been a lot of fun.  And a lot of readers have suddenly decided that using old pockets this way is good for them to do, too, always a happy point.
 

My tribe

I offered a little challenge the other day to blogistas at Field and Fen, to share who was their tribe, the people ,in history or still living, with whom they felt most in tune, or who had influenced them, and suggested five was a good number.

In the course of doing my own today, I realized my offering belonged as much in here as there!  heavy emphasis on art.  So if you want to pursue this, go here 

And join in on your own account, if you'd like to!

When Art Books are Artworks

Sometimes you've just got to have print books, and these two are my birthday and Christmas gifts to me!  one is the catalog raisonne of the current Metropolitan Museum's Interwoven Globe, a massive show of textile art.  

I couldn't make it into the city with my friends, a long planned trip, not yet up to a full day in the city, in crowds, so this is my consolation prize.  The cover is itself fabric backed, a lovely artwork in itself, and a wonderful representation of the exhibit.  If you want to know more about that, go here

And the other is a much more modest but equally lovely buy, a book on Japanese Folk Art, published in the early 50s, a collaborative work  of the two main proponents of the Japanese folk art revival, Soetsu Yanagi and Hugo Munsterberg. Yanagi founded and directed the Japanese Folk Art Museum, and really liked how Munsterberg presented this material.

The jacket and end papers are Japanese paper, and the illustrations are about as good as they got at that period.  Not the amazing resolution of pictures we're used to but still a great book  to handle as well as read.  This one, too, has a fabric hard cover.

So I thought you'd like to see, and maybe browse the Met exhibit, too.

The purse curse strikes again

I'm beginning to feel like the Lady of Shalott.  The Curse Has Come Upon Me!  everything I start turns into a purse with a friend's name on it...here's what may or may not be the final purse for the time being until my fingers recover, hand sewing on denim being heavy lifting.

The handle is a repurposed, but brand new, curtain tieback, courtesy of Judy's care package, the purse is of course three denim pockets, sourced from Freecycle, the blue wooden beads are from Judy, the back shows a lovely gold stretch cord from a long ago box of candy, which has been waiting patiently for a home for the longest time. 

I got that last idea from Erica Wilson, in a youtube video, where she was demonstrating goldwork and needed something big enough to see on camera.  And the blue overstitching which is subtle in real life and practically invisible on camera, is from a trove of embroidery flosses donated via the local library, knowing I'd use them.  I did buy my own needles.

So here's today's output, before I get on with all the other ideas I'm trying to get to.  One of them being a wool dress I'm in the middle of altering to make a duster coat, halfway there.  Except I just noticed I'd already cut out a couple of sets of pockets ready to make up into, oh no, purses.  Oh.  I do like the designing and beading and doing very incongruous stuff with denim.

I remember in one of Peg Bracken's great cookbooks, she talks disparagingly about some ingredient or other, saying it's too high flown, "like sewing diamond buttons on denim pants."  I remember also thinking, well, she might be a very good comic writer, and a good cook, too, but she doesn't know anything at all about design and cutting edge.

The friend this is destined for knows all about irony and I think she'll get it.  And enjoy it.

Denim and mohair and pearls and bling

Another purse came to pass this evening, shortly to be on its way to an undisclosed destination.  This one has four parts: two big pockets, and the small one on the front is in fact two pockets, one behind the other.  This is that small pocket you find inside the front cargo pocket of your jeans.

The strap is knitted mohair, very nice to hold and stretchy enough to sling on your shoulder if you like to do it that way.  Or you could pretend you're the Queen of England and sling it on your arm for your official royal portraits.  I'm using these knitted ties as purse straps and they work very well.  I knew there was a reason I got on a tie knitting tear a while back there.

And there are pearls, and tiny blue glass beads and Indian metallic thread couched on.  Great fun to do.  I must find my thimble if I'm doing any more denim hand sewing, though.  My fingers are pretty peppered with needle backups.

Anyway, here's a front view and a back view, or you might say a frontispiece and a backispiece.

You know you're getting better when...

When, that is, you feel like actually creating a new artwork, complete with trials, and adventuring with the materials, taking sightings and range finding, all the mental and emotional preliminaries to an actual design, which is quite different from the nice little things I've made lately. 

I like them a lot, was pleased with how they came out, but they were not creative in the sense of emerging from one of those mental places that are neither picture nor words.  Anyway, I find I've embarked on what might be a very interesting mixed media piece.

It's about sea-wrack, and it's started off with freeform crochet.  Again, it's all recycled:  Helen H. donated the thread from a project she gave me unfinished, it's DMC cotton perle, in color number 644, a light dusty sage,which doesn't show up in the pic.  The hook is size 5 or F, depending on how you count, part of a care package from Judy T.  The hook gives you a sense of the current size of the crochet.

These techy details are for the fiber and textile artists, and recyclers, who like to dip in here now and then to read, and whose participation is valuable to this bloglady. Speaking of recycling, the crochet is displayed on top of an oak Mission style coffee table, with two drawers, each with ceramic pull handle, which I rescued from the dumpster many years ago. 

The picture here is the initial stage.  If you note the little end sticking out, that tells you where I started. It will be secured invisibly later.  If you're a crocheter, you will see that it's a combo of floating single chain and double crochet in  shell shapes, great fun to do,and appropriate to the meaning of the piece.  

This is being designed in mid air, as I go, and once this first part is complete, I'll stretch it on probably linen, in a frame or hoop, and go on with beads and goldwork (this is no surprise, I guess).  I feel so much better physically, now that I've started on this.  Or that it's started on me, it works both ways. 

One of the difficulties I've been dealing with since I got sick is that it also hit my hands, which have been feeling very gnarly.  I can't crochet for very long, but I think that's okay, since it forces me to stop and look rather than blaze away.

Creating art, as opposed to preplanned stitching, takes a lot of mental and emotional energy,and that stamina has not been available for a while.  I trod water, doing nice small stuff, and doing a bit of framing of completed pieces, but wasn't able to really create anything new.  So this is great.  We'll see how it goes. When you're up for it, art both spends and replaces your energy, but that balance is not always there if you're under the weather.

A while ago I did a little piece, which a viewer suggested I name Tidepool,and I think SeaWrack might be a companion piece in some way.  I think pearls might get into it, and beads simulating sea glass in greens and blues, and gold thread and, well, who knows where it will go after that.

It will probably be in my 2014 exhibit, if it goes as well as it feels right now.  I now have one more thing to be thankful for when Handsome Son comes over on Thursday to cook and assemble along with me, for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Tday, US blogistas, and Happy Thursday readers in many other places!

Final appearance of the needlecase, and first appearance of the felt scraps at work

So a couple of the felt scraps became pages in my beaded needlecase, because they matched the original cover pretty well, and I was able to retire the counted cross stitch fabric I'd put in temporarily, and which can now become practice stuff.


Of course, I had to put in a bit more gold thread...and a couple more beads. And here's the case, front, inside and back. I have to stop now before I need to hire an assistant to lift the needlecase and open it for me, pounds of beads involved.  Funny how I've never liked red, but find myself working with it anyway.

The other reason to have a nice glass of wine with dinner

After I finished the Tyvek bag, I thought hm, I could do some fun stamping on that.  Any amount of it.  

I was opening the evening wine (Yellowtail Shiraz, if you wondered!) and noticed the plastic cork.  And in no time at all, I was pawing through my linocutting tools two floors up for a good knife for carving, and I'd found my good handle inserted a new blade, after fumbling through my blade collection, and was at work on a couple of corks.

I recommend these plastic corks for great carving.  The "real" corks, made of cork, are a lot harder to manage.  But these cut sweetly, and I found two corks, resolved never to chuck them out again.

And you can carve both ends, which you see I did, happily.  Then I did stamping with all of them on the Tyvek bag, using my archival ink pads.  And felt so much better in every way, after doing that bit of carving.

Then I went on with dinner -- croquettes of squash, rolled in redhot Indian crumbs, and a glass of the aforementioned Shiraz.

Nice in every way.

In the bag

So here's my version of the Tyvek envelope bag.  A lot of fun, especially making the square bottom corners.  I learned quite a bit from making this.  Tyvek, as I expected, is tough to stitch by hand, but I managed it, using a number 5 white Perle cotton. 

I used ribbon from stash for the handles, just plunging it through and knotting inside.  This avoided more stitching, which the original design used to turn down the hem inside.  The handles hold it fine.

and I can continue painting it as the spirit moves me, if I think it needs more. This might be a good bag for roving and spindles, to encourage myself to get back into spinning.  Lightweight stuff, that is.

One thing leads to another

As in:  offer on Freecycle of a bag of red felt scraps, from a person who offers exactly what she promises, and who promised it to me. 

So I went off there today, finding that half the roads are being rebuilt between here and there before the winter, this being an area containing an entrance to the NJ Turnpike (main artery north south in the region, for people in other hemispheres) in the state which has more cars per square mile than any other state in the union.  Which makes us number one in one thing, anyway, aside from highest property taxes, where was I, so it was a mad scramble of police officers confusing everyone, and those orange barrel things that you can't tell which side of them to drive, and flashing blue lights,and totally lost out of state drivers thinking they've landed in some horror movie, and come to think of it, I didn't see any actual road work being done.

Anyway, home again, and I love the felt, instantly decide I must make something right away

 so I consulted my Sewing Green book, a nice work by Betz White, and on the way to thinking about trivets and placemats and coasters, I noticed a Tyvek bag.. Oh,oh. 

Calling for Tyvek envelopes which,you will remember, I happen to have, since I used some for stitching adventures a while back and have some left.

The work of a moment, the felt set aside, I banged some circles in metallic acrylic on four envelopes, inside out.  All have one copper side, one turquoise side, and I have to wait impatiently for the paint to dry before I can get onto the stitching part.

See her result:
 

Mine will be different (smaller envelopes, different approach to painting) but will basically be like this.  For containing stitching projects maybe. We'll see. Tyvek is pretty much indestructible, so strength won't be an issue.

And after THAT, I will use that felt.  Oh.  Maybe a felt bag...painted, stitched..we'll see.

This Green  book is fun to read, though some of the ideas are, well, perhaps I'm past the age when I could make a skirt out of a pillowcase and wear it with a straight face.  

But I did make an apron from a nice freecycled shirt, from her instructions, and that was fun, useful, too. I even embroidered ironic flowers on the pocket.

The trouble with irony is that you have to have a black arrow with "look, irony" pointing to it, at least in my world you do.  Not unlike a joke alert, I guess.  Irony alert. Maybe I should have stitched Ironic Flowers on the pocket, too.

Irony aside, this is a really nice book to own and browse through and get ideas from and get ideas that seem totally unrelated to what you were looking for originally, but that's how these books work.

Word of the Year -- Selfie

The Oxford Dictionary has declared the Word of the Year to be, drumrollllllll:  selfie!

This is the taking of a self pic via phone or digital camera, and is now a fairly contentious issue, public radio fueled, as to whether it's narcissism or art.  Whereupon people who actually know anything about art point out that it's an ancient art form. And that nobody turned round and called Rembrandt a narcissist!  a lot of other things perhaps, but narcissist, no.

So I thought I may as well be in the swim on this selfie tide, and did a few.  I had to delete the ones that almost completely missed my face on account of my inexperience of looking into the camera backwards. 

Then I kept on cracking up saying cheese and fromage and other such words, hence the slightly demented image you get here. One I more or less took accidentally while I was trying to push the right button. The cats firmly declined to be a part of this nonsense, and got on with their naps after pushing their paws into my face a few times.

In fact tomorrow I'm submitting a self portrait for an exhibit of local artists (we were ASKED to do the portrait, we're not narcissists, we're not.  We're just not.) so this fits in fine.  In fact  gallery director Donna might make capital out of promoting the selfie before  the Ox. validated it.

So here's me. 

 And, well, Rembrandt was no oil painting, either!

 This exercise reminds me of those booths you used to go into to shoot a silly series of self pix, or with as many friends could fit into the booth, the picture series would emerge on a long strip, and we thought it was the greatest fun.  It also makes me wonder why people think selfies are new.

Purse, done, both sides

The two denim pockets, upcycled from old jeans, are now a purse, complete with beading, goldwork, gold drawing and a crocheted strap. And ready to go off in the mail, to an undisclosed destination. But I think she'll like it.  And might embellish it a bit more, too!

Seen here, sides A and B,  on a rustic background!  namely, the old deck, with autumn leaves artistically put there by the wind.

Upcycled denim pockets

Upcyclers and stitchers and beaders will like this one:  I was given a bundle of old jeans via Freecycle, ages ago, and have finally done something with one of them.  

Aside from trying out my newly donated cutting wheel to make strips (and learning not to guide the blade from the back, see my bandaid) which I used to make a very shabby if not chic potholder, on my little loom, well, aside from that, I reused the pockets.

I cut them so that the back of the pocket is still there, and stitched both pockets together at the top. 

            Here you see it closed, as it will be when finished.

 
                              Here you see it opened flat.

This will create a two sided purse, one side for phone, one for Ipod, at least for me it would. I may not be the recipient, though.

The stitching was nice already, so I beaded along, and will probably bead more before I'm done. Using my Indian beads, I should add. Then to stitch front and back pockets around the edges. Then I need to use the cutter to make a strip I'll stitch for a handle, trying not to run over my thumb this time.  

This is a gauge of feeling well enough to try stuff out, bead along, and enjoy it, too.  I think I should call these Hot Pockets, except that I believe that name's taken.   Joke alert, food mfrs, joke alert.

All good stuff.

Sometimes art happens in the kitchen with found foodstuffs!

Go here:

http://fieldfen.blogspot.com/2013/11/creative-energys-returning-and-showing.html 

and see what I mean!

Beaded and goldwork needlecase done

This was a great learning piece.  I used my Indian gold thread for the stitching, some gold cord for the outlining, and Indian and other beads for the flowers and shading.

I tried out stringing a number of beads at once, then draping them on the shape, and anchoring between each bead.  This worked nicely to get a flow going on the soft felt background, and was good experience in gauging how many beads was enough for the space. 

I liked doing the shading -- several different colors of bead, from greenish gold to amber -- very much like shading with thread.  Because I used gold thread throughout, there was no problem in hiding the thread.  It either sank into the felt or just blended with the beads.

Felt is both difficult and forgiving to work with. Difficult because it tends to shift and change shape as you work, moving the beads unexpectedly, so you have to allow for that.  Forgiving because the needle slides through so sweetly, and you can pass thread at the back under the top layer, to hide it and avoid snagging it in use.

Anyway, this was a good project, small enough not to intimidate me at this point.  And now it's done and I have a handy needle case instead of scrabbling through a cigar box of needles and a pill container which let you see but not retrieve needles, gah.

When I get up for it, I may replace the inner pages with something more like felt, which I didn't have at the time.  Perhaps I'll cut more red felt and use that for pages.  I'm getting over my dislike of red, I see.  Speaking of which, the upper pic is closer to the true red of the felt.  No idea why it turned pink on the second one.

Click to see better.

The Beading Edge

I've been looking on getting back into beading as a marker of feeling better, just not up to bothering up to today.  

But now, with the added impetus of a wonderful gift from India of beads and other cool things, I've started beading that little needlecase I made as displacement activity when I was starting to get sick, though I didn't know it at the time.  I knew I made the needlecase, just didn't realize I was heading into not being well for a whole month, dangit.

Anyway, here's my beaded start, and I'm learning as I go. Very much a beginner on this, as you see.  I've started teaching myself to string consecutively, then anchor the beads on the thread, rather than stitching each one.  Mainly this design does lend itself, more than other beading I've been doing.  And beading on felt is very cool.  I'm using what I think is a size 8 needle, which I used to use in miniature needlepoint.  Nice small eye, fine needle, which can pick up almost all seed beads.

So here's Girija's sister's gold thread and several bead colors in action. Great fun, feeling as if I'm getting back. I'm going to ask G. to send the pix to her sister, who did the shopping in India specially and sent it to me via husband-mail.

There's going to be stitching around the beaded areas, for a nice finish, but I couldn't wait to show off my beaded start!

Art meets culture and international travel

Today's art adventure and planning, complete with international friendship and art, executed and planned, is here:  

http://fieldfen.blogspot.com/2013/10/diwali-comes-home-to-dollivers.html

The chalk drawing might be a future beaded design.  Just sayin'. Good sign that I'm reviving in energy to the point of being able to plan art.

Blog on hiatus recently

Why I haven't been in here for the longest time since I started blogging, years ago, go here:

 http://fieldfen.blogspot.com/2013/10/been-on-hiatus.html

Needlework for the Feeble

I've been struggling with fatigue and what seems to be a combination of bronchitis, bubonic plague and a touch of footrot.  I am Not Well.  I'm making soup, coughing, forcing fluids, sleeping, coughing, doing very simple stitching, not too demanding for my tired brain, canceling events I was supposed to attend, over the next few days, coughing, sneezing and reading the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, obligingly offered via my Kindle, no traveling required.  


I'm getting a bit tired of this, not used to being unable to do everything I have in mind without collapsing the whole time.  My voice is shot, too, but the cats don't mind.   I wonder if this sort of collapse is Nature's way of telling me I'm doing too much.  One of my friends made this point last week and I said airily, oh no.  Ha. I think I might have to rethink my speed and number of  operations.

Okay, end of organ recital, but here's the nice little piece I made, pattern from one of the mags I was given.  This is worked in no 3 perle, on black aida.  Supposed to be done in cross stitch, but I found I liked it like this, no need to cross all the ts.

It's an ornament, not my usual  thing, but why not have a little detour now and then from the serious stuff.  Finishing it will take its turn with the various other stitched items I have to frame, stretch, and generally fiddle with.  But not today. Off to lie down now. Dangit.

Stitching days

Yesterday was the monthly general meeting of the embroiderers' guild, and to see the adventures, go here:

http://princetonega.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-general-meeting-of-our-guild.html 

That butterfly project, here's my WIP on that subject.  

As you probably guessed, goldwork got into it.  And There Will Be Beading.

Red Flower Finished.

I learned a lot in the course of this piece, which I can apply to future work.  Which I now have to decide on...so many choices, so little time.  

The thing I like about this one is the shaggy, wild sort of effect.  I didn't want a solid block of stitching, because it seems to me that movement is important in this sort of otherwise-traditional concept, and I wanted the effect of a wild flower flying about in the wind, your wilder rose as opposed to the tame garden one.

 

Well that was the idea, anyway.

The Intersection of Freecycling and Art Opportunities

For a lovely freecycle that happened this morning, and what will happen next, go here:

http://fieldfen.blogspot.com/2013/10/freecycle-meets-embroidery.html 


My stitched red flower is waiting impatiently to get her stem and leaves -- and I just got a couple of great ideas for them -- while I play with these new toys!
 

The red flower is developing

Here's the current state of the flower.  I'm using a single ply of embroidery floss in dark red, medium red, light orange and a variegated thread running from pink to dark red, also a fine gold thread.  Beads and french knots in the center for the heart of the flower.

This is really engrossing to stitch, exactly like drawing, and trying to follow the natural contours of the petals, and observing their rounded and curving shapes.  I will use different stitches on the leaves and stem, though.  The flower is long and short stitch, split stitch and some stem here and there.

Festival of the Arts 2013 Plainsboro

Yesterday was the annual Festival of the Arts of Plainsboro, complete with visual arts displayed on clotheslines, waving in the wind!  weaving indoors on the giant Earthloom, Chinese knotting, stitching -- the Embroiderers' Guild put up a display and works in progress, and several members took care of the stitching requirements of visitors -- music of all kinds, including symphonic, chalked mandala, indoor gallery exhibit of found object art, outdoor musical instruments from found objects, food, jewelry, fingerpainting, Chinese painting and calligraphy, Indian henna handpainting,you name it, it probably was there!  all ages and species -- a couple of nice dogs being petted endlessly --  taking part happily, great atmosphere.

I got a nice Community Award, which involved flowers, pix, highly flattering descriptions, and I felt quite famous for a bit there.

Great props to library Director Carol Q, event coordinator and gallery curator Donna S, and cow-toting country girl Julie D, who in real life is the children's librarian.  They are the kind of professionals who make a huge event look like a spontaneous eruption of art and joy, while staying totally calm and on top of it all.  While paddling furiously under the water!

I'll just give you a rapid tour, and you'll see the loom in various stages. The small helpers organizing the red thread were there before opening time, and helped me cut and count the leashes you see traveling up the sides of the weaving as it progresses. Then everyone, including the Deputy Mayor, tried their hands.  I was very happy when I observed several times one youngster teaching another, and bringing their friends to join in.

The loom was mobbed all afternoon, with people working on several different areas at once, ending with the final weaver beside the almost completed weaving, at closing time.  

I need only add the top few rows of stabilizing stitches before the saori weaving, which consists of plarn -- plastic yarn created from shopping bags -- and scraps of fabric and regular yarns,  is a complete artwork ready for mounting permanently in the children's department.  It's about art and recycling!

More adventures for me in the next few months with this loom, about which more later...