I got the silver disk or nue done, and here you see it on the original fabric
and cut out and sitting in place ready to be appliqued there, with rays of silver probably shining out from it before I'm done.
This was difficult because with the cold weather and despite major hand care, my fingertips and thumbs are rough and dry and they snag the silk thread sumfink awful, which snags my temper, too. But we survived.
Then since I needed to be making something, I created a little notebook from the giveaway postcard I picked up at the Morven sampler show I blogged about a while back.
Simple saddle stitching, and my corner punch rounds off the corners nicely. I still like little notebooks, have made and given away a ton of them, despite keeping a lot of notes on my Ipod.
By the way, this is a great way to spiff up a greeting card -- just insert pages you've cut to match, stitch in place, and you have a nice little notebook with a great cover.
I've done this to send to people who warranted more than just a card but who aren't big on gifts, figuring this was half way between.
Incidentally, there are several good books on book making, but for me the most appealing and useful is this one:
Great step by step and photos, and you see the pages containing some of the steps I used in the stitching
A lot depends on how the light falls on this kind of silverwork, where the shadows move. It looks different from different directions. I'm hoping to get the disk finished at this evening's stitch-in.
I'll decide which way up is best to applique it to the night time wilderness piece once it's ready. My couching skills are improving, the edges of this disk better than the gold one. The silver is a bit easier to pinch and redirect from the side, too.
After this is done and appliqued, I'll finish up the glasswing insect whose wings are done, and whose body will be beads stitched directly onto the wilderness piece, probably the night one.
The wilderness pieces continue, with the hope of finishing the three in the next few days, well, we'll see.
Here you see the or nue gold disk in place as a "sun" figure in the daytime wilderness piece.
Still to come is one more critter to complete the piece.
And there's a "moon" in silver and blue upcoming to go into the night
time piece.
At this point it's felt pieces stitched in place, waiting for the or
nue, which I supposed, since it's silver, would be argent nue, but I
don't think that's what they say.
And again, that piece needs another critter to complete it. I think both might benefit from a couple of random butterfly wing shapes, too, but we'll see how they work with the last critters in place.
After all my big talk about workshop work, and wilderness work, I thought I should at least show you a little something.
As you may know, if you've done these forms of goldwork, the or nue aka shaded goldwork, seen here just started, see the dragonfly motif recurring (!)
and the stitching over string seen here, a fleur de lis motif, string mostly in place, goldwork couching just started,
are very slow methodical processes.
The wilderness is a bit more sudden. And after two days of workshop and one day at home on the goldwork, I urgently needed to switch to the wilderness.
I stitched down the lizard into his new home, and after a bit more stitching of grasses and plants, some of which is already done, after I made the pic, the dragonfly will take up residence, too. And after that another bunch of ideas I have in mind but not on needle yet. I must say I'm glad he's in place, really tired of whipping him in and out of his little baggie.
On the subject of design, you'll see that the lizard touches on three plants. The dragonfly will probably do likewise, and may touch on the last plant the lizard touches, so as to lock the design together.
But I will be very particular about the angle at which the dfly goes in, to activate the space between her and the lizard. You note that the lizard draws your eye left to right and up a bit, because that's how he's looking, ready to notice the dfly, which will, in a way, cut that off, so you don't slide right off the side. Your eye needs places where it will be stopped. These diagonals provided by the stumpwork animals, will provide the relief from all the verticals of the grasses and flowers.
Later this afternoon, I'm off to see an art exhibit, someone else's work, yay, change from doing it myself, and will duly report.
