Wednesday 28 January 2009
Inauguration french knots
When generations to come ask where were you during President Obama's inauguration... I can say I was watching it on the TV whilst doing hundreds of pastel coloured french knots! Here the idea is to let the colours slowly blend into each other. In hindsight a stars & stripes piece may have been more appropriate!
French Knot island
Hello, back to my old favourite - the french knot. There is something very pleasing about this little stitch. Though I admit when I was first introduced to its ways I struggled (kept pulling the stitch back through, such that it disappeared - drat!). Anyways, I digress, now me & the french knot are good friends! Here I have used french knots in various threads (sewing thread, embroidery floss, wools and cut up ribbon) in similar colours close together to create a piece. For a piece of material with so many needle holes through, it is surprisingly sturdy. I think it looks like a little island, with woolen french knot mountains in the distance... but that might just be me :)
Monday 26 January 2009
Couching
Here is an extension of the coloured stitches work... using couching. Here I used embroidery floss, sewing thread, wool and roving. I particularly like the blue 'mess' in the top right, here layers of blue sewing thread have been couched using red thread. I think it creates an atomic cloud type effect! The red roving looks great couched, so wispy and delicate. Please excuse my camera phone pictures / poor photography skills!
Coloured Stitches
Hello, here is an exercise that I did using primary colours against a black background. The aim was that by using relatively straight forward stitches to explore the dynamics of the colours against one another. I used embroidery floss and some felt squares for background. The stitches used are running stitch, chain stitch, detached chain stitch, cross stitch, seed stitch, satin stitch and whipped running stitch.