I'm back with my stitching, the doorway motif which was the polaroid transfer print, and with trapunto going on. Here you can see some couching and beading in progress, and the small purple weaving in the background might possibly go with this stitching.
Not sure yet, but I'll know more when I remove the stitching from the hoop and cut around it. The ragged edges of the transfer image won't be part of the finished work. I might be able to mount the stitched piece onto the weaving, then frame them together that way. The weaving will fit into an 8 x 8 box frame. Just a thought at this point.
I decided it didn't fit with the bigger work I originally had it in mind for, not right in spirit, so it will be a freestanding small work, possibly one of a series. The bigger work has suggested doorways, but the overall feeling of it is different.
You'll see my latest toy there, too, my LED portable worklight. It folds right down to the size of a fat wallet, easy to carry about and work in places where the light isn't quite good enough for stitching. It has three light levels, and I use it at the brightest setting. I'm an LED fan now!
And the dear little loom is another favorite tool, made in the US, yay, all metal, beautifully finished. Designed largely for potholders, but I use it for all kinds of artworks.
In the course of planning the paper jewelry workshop I'm teaching at the next general meeting of the EGA, the embroiderers, I thought it would be nice to find the bag of jewelry I made years ago and which was the reason I was asked to do the workshop. People saw them, liked them, wanted to learn.
And found it has completely vanished. This is a bag of about 30 necklaces and little bags of beads. Gone. An exhaustive search has not yielded anything. This was a blow, since it was the samples I was going to use for the workshop. Sooooooo, rather than waste even more time searching in the same places over and over, I figured I'd better make new ones.
This turns out to be a good idea, since I brushed up my skills, and I'll make a few new items to show and enjoy. Not such a deprivation, to be forced to play at jewelry making, after all.
Since my printer is being a bit miserly in how many good copies it will give at one time, I have to figure out if I can get a single good copy to xerox from, to show the bead template, a simple one once you've seen it. But I think I'll send out the workshop instructions as an email attachment. Art thrives on restrictions. At least I hope it will.
Here's the current state of the studio in mid workshop prep. where I'm making sample beads, assembling
papers to share, noting what to buy, what should go in the kits, who's
signed up already, who gets kits by mail. And on and on. You have to
do all this at once, really, since one thing suggests another, and you
might as well note it right away.
And here are the beads I made this morning. More to come.
After the excitement of the Grow Your Blog party yesterday, with new people greeting us in here, and visiting their blogs in turn and others too who had entered, today I'm back to the present! lovely to have new readers, too, joining the people who've been here before.
This is an artwork I found when I organized the studio, from when I did some Polaroid transfers before they "improved" the film so that you couldn't lift the image off. This I transferred onto sheer nylon.
To create a small artwork, I backed it with gauze, stitched a snailtrail of silk thread around, piercing both layers, then did trapunto work. If you're not familiar with trapunto, it's a kind of stuffing. You pierce the backing then stuff batting, in this case a nice roving, into the selected areas from the back. Deciding how to organize trapunto is an interesting phase of work.
It's a form of fabric sculpture, a bas relief in a way.
Then I started using goldwork, couched down with gold silk thread, and running round the contours of the raised sections. This is very engrossing work, figuring out how to get around the stitched lines interestingly.
I think I will probably put a curved doorway shape around three sides of this image, and I'll applique it to a larger work I have under way, if it works there. There's a larger curved doorway in that work that might be compatible. If not, it may be a freestanding artwork, one of a couple, since I have other transferred images similar to this one, to work on.
And there may be beading. Watch this space!
Today's the Annual Grow Your Blog day, organized and created by Vicki at Two Bags Full, much applause to her, and see the button on the right indicating this.
Welcome to new readers, and welcome back to current readers and followers. My screen name is Boud, by which I'm often referred to, but my real life name is Liz. This is my art blog (I also have a general purpose blog, Field and Fen here )
Art the Beautiful Metaphor, a joke relating to soccer, the beautiful game, is the blog where I show my current and past art in a range of media, monotypes
drawings
tapestry weaving
ink and wash watercolors
Portrait of the Artist
embroidery
knitting
sewing
artist's books
handmade paper
here with reverse drawing on glass
stick weaving
beadweaving
my exhibits
what's up in the studio
where I also review other people's exhibits
Homefront, a wonderful local organization helping with homeless emergencies and with people's need to restart their lives and whose artists show great work
Ellarslie, Museum of the City of Trenton
Mercer County College
and generally give an artist's eye view of the world and gladly welcome input from readers and observers, artists or not.
Sometimes I'm accompanied by my character dolls, the Dollivers, seen above modeling a handknit scarf I designed and made for a friend, five knitted creations with a large wardrobe each, to exhibits and to hindrance in the studio...they mainly live at Field and Fen, though, and if you like them, you can wander over there to see more of their exploits.
There will be a small giveaway to a random commenter on this blogpost, and to see it, scroll back a little way for a picture and description. No need to have a blog in order to enter, no need to do more than comment in here and you're in. I'll do the drawing on February 15 and announce the winner in here and get an address from him or her to ship the item to.
Meanwhile, browse enjoy, ask, comment, and thank you for being here.
Here's what the lucky random winner will receive, to be announced February 15th.
Image is titled Tidepool, in pearl and other beads, goldwork and other metallic threads, stitched on Belgian linen. Stitched area is 4 inches by 3 inches, and there's a margin of linen around to enable you to mat or to miter and hem.
Please note that all you need to do enter is comment on this blog on January 25th. No need to have a blog of your own, no need to sign up as a follower, unless you're dying to do that, just comment and you're in. If you're one of the followers who comment via email rather than onsite, I'll count you in anyway.
Mark your calendar, tell your friends! Some readers don't know how to comment, but do respond in email, via my mailing list, so I will include you.
So glad to report that my wrist is recovered enough to start thinking about stitching again! and that one reward of organizing the studio was that I found a couple of polaroid image transfers on nylon that I'd made years ago, set aside until I knew what to do next, then sort of forgot.
Here they are.
These are image transfers before they improved polaroid film to where you couldn't do this any more, where I used to soak the developed picture I'd taken, then remove the actual image from the paper! great excitement moving an image through the air to settle on whatever surface I wanted it on, here nylon, because I wanted the transparency of the picture and the fabric working together.
But now I realize these are stitched works waiting to happen. So today I'm hoping to set up and get to work on this.
They may be freestanding, or they may be part of a much bigger work I have under way. We'll see if they're compatible.
The other fabric you see is a piece of Thai silk, given to us all at the holiday party courtesy of Carol P., who visits Thai relatives and gave us the benefit of one of their gifts.
So this is good! new stitching adventures ahead. And I have a Jill Paton Walsh Peter Wimsey on CDs to listen to while I work. Spoken words keep the left brain occupied and the right brain can get on with its job.
The Grow Your Blog 2015 button up there is about an international blog party next week I'm taking part in. For more explanation about it, go here and meanwhile I will be thinking up a giveaway, for anyone who comes in here to comment. If you click on that link, you need to scroll down past the food, to the GYB explanation.
I have two blogs entered, Field and Fen and this one, so there will be two chances of a giveaway aren't you lucky. I have to look through my completed artworks and decide what will be nice to receive.
My other blog, Field and Fen, lurched into art territory today, in the midst of studio cleanup and gardening, but since there's art chat, too, you might want to check on it here
After a long hiatus, injured wrist put stitching out of the realm of the possible, I've tried a little simple knitting, partly to appease my Need to Make Stuff, partly to be a gentle exercise to improve my wrist. Both of which it has done.
Can't work for long, but anyway, one Dolliver will be getting a new dress as soon as it's seamed up, and there's another on the needles. Blondie Firstborn has one of these dresses and it's been a bone of contention among the other four that they don't have one, too.
These are from the Knitted Babes book by Claire Garland, from which the Dollivers came, though adapted from the originals in the book. I hugely recommend this book as fun as well as very simply presented. Makes you want to knit all the things.
And it's using yarn from friend Karen's stash, another cool point.
So, just to prove I do, too, work in the studio still, I dyed those goldwork applique pieces and here's the results. A kind of soft green, and as hoped the gold threads shine right through.
Not sure whether to do other parts of this work first then the applique, or whether the appliques in place will help determine the rest of the piece. I'm leaning toward the second.
About that plan to take a bit of time to let new ideas in...as soon as I made that decision, I had a great urge to search through my very small stash of threads and fabrics, and suddenly found a new idea demanding to be heard. I just can't take orders, even from myself.
I found a remnant of what I think is handblocked Japanese fabric, black design on grey background. I used another piece of this in an earlier exhibit piece, using the front of the fabric, but looking back at that, now found it okay, but much more timid than what I propose here.
I've stretched this, and plan to use the back of the fabric, and work on the top of the frame, artist style, not the back of the frame, stitcher style, so that the piece will be ready to hang as is, once completed.
You see the chalked-on design, nice curved shapes, and this reminded me of some goldwork samples I made when I was first learning goldwork, teaching myself, and here would be a place to applique them and they'll work.
I backed them with stick-on plastic, to preserve the edges from fraying, then cut them from their original fabric, and here you see them placed temporarily in what might not be their eventual home. The white edges will support additional stitching. I might still dye the pieces, too, because the gold threads will shine through well. It would have been good to think of dyeing it before I cut it out, but oh well.
And I've put out a selection of gold and silver threads, including some real gold threads, finally using them, the ones you see on the cardboard tubes, already rolled and ready for action.
So this is what happens when you don't plan to make art. This piece is currently known as No Name, until it develops to where I know what it's about.
I also finally did some moving of lights, so that the table can be useful as a workplace, and the sofa as a nonwork spot.
I just moved the dining table lamp and switched it with the tasklight I had set up over the sofa. I think I'll have less competition from cats if I work at a table.
Last part of the wilderness series is now complete. In my title I say I think it's complete. Can't tell exactly, but it's framed and I'll get some input before I decide whether to leave it where it is. I like many things about it, but I'm a bit too close to know.
At this point I plan to take a little thinking break about next works to come. Don't know yet what they are, but that's why I need the bit of time.
Or, as wise friend Stefi has been known to say, if you want the pleasure of framing, first you have to go through the boredom and misery of making art...
Anyway, today after framing three pieces, I ran out of strength and patience and all that framing entails, and have not quite finished framing up the rest of my work. One more wilderness piece and a couple of goldwork pieces to go.
Working in 3D i.e. stumpwork and other similar techniques, creates a particularly shall we say challenging situation for framing, since you can't put the work face down in order to mount the fabric on to the backing, the usual procedure.
You have to preserve the surface and work sight unseen at the back pulling and adjusting the tapes and getting the artwork properly centered and taut without crushing the fragile embroidery or shoving it out of place. My nerves were not centered, but definitely taut. Remembering how many hours go into making this work in the first place, you really don't want things to go all pear shaped in the framing.
And I can only keep up this level of tension, meaning the physical kind, for so long before my hands start to whine and complain. So I made the pix, for once remembering, I'm very proud to say, to leave the glass off for the pix, insert it after them, so that only had to be done once. Then I decided that the night wilderness scene and a couple of goldwork pieces had to wait till tomorrow. And now I'm having a cup of tea and gloating over my progress to date.
Here's that wheat design I did, rayon thread, gah, with beads and other things on white linen, 8 x 8 inches -- it's a dark and stormy day, so the white doesn't show well here.
And here's the daytime wilderness pieces, with the glasswing insect now in place, along with the or nue sun and the blue and purple stumpwork butterfly. The second picture is to indicate the frame a bit for you to see the boundaries of the piece. It's 12 x 12.
The reason I want this framing done is that Sunday is the annual holiday bash of the Embroiderers' Guild, with a show and tell of this year's work, so I wanted to put my best stitch forward.
You may remember that I had planned to add all kinds of stuff into the wilderness pieces, but having made the small one, which was quite busy, decided I'd rather be spare with the other two, plenty of air around the insects is better than a crowd. I still promise myself a goldwork bee in stumpwork, though, but he'll have another context.
The silver (it's silver, take my word for it) frame with the schwalm whitework in it amused me hugely because the design on the frame reflects in an updated sort of way the general design of the whitework. Just a little sight gag there. I starched the whitework, too, figuring why not, the original stitchers probably did, too.
