What a wonderful time we had celebrating 25 years of Distant Stitch with Sian - including cake and late night sparklers in the wildflower meadow - and under the expert tutelage of Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn, Double Trouble. If it hadn't been for Jan Beaney's book Art of the Needle I probably wouldn't have been there at all...or getting so much pleasure from textiles. I used to spend many hours on my visits to the Isle of Man pouring over my Mum's copy and thinking 'I'd like to be able to do that'. So this was a double treat for me.
These are the worked samples. They are based on my diploma work on gulls - Image 12, a gull monoprint and Image 167, part of the development work based on Japanese Boro textiles.
Handstitched on double layer of Solufleece, embellished on Babylock Embellisher 12 and then further handstitched.
5cmWx13cmH.
Design exercises in black and white using 'gloop', firstly with threads and scrim and then with tissue.
Free machine stitched structure on Solufleece, over stitched with hand stitching. Free machine embroidery and hand needlefelting on 'eggs'. Free cross stitch in brown paper yarn from George Weil.
13cmWx11.5cmH.
Notes:
- when laying the structure consider what will be placed on top and match colours. I painted these afterwards to conceal.
- as you work, keep the edges clean and free from ends. After dissolving, in places I did a narrow zigzag line to tidy up. Where this wasn't possible I used PVA (all my secrets!).
- I was unsure if the structure under the initial hand stitching would hold the piece together so I free machined over the hand stitching to be sure. In hindsight, I should have placed fine net behind before I started hand stitching.
Recycled fabrics including denim and plasterers' cotton scrim, placed on Aquabond and covered with Julietta. Fine black net placed behind and hand stitched, darned and needledarned.
19.5cmWx25cmH.
and dissolved...
and the back!
Design transfer onto Solufleece using Lesley Riley's Transfer Artist Paper and Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.
Design transferred onto Whaley's A1447 coarse openweave cotton, as above, and hand stitched. After hand stitching 'pebbles', hand needlefelted and then Wingham Wool Work Grade A Mulberry Silk Noil added, again with single needlefelting needle.
14cmWx10cmH.
On my return this developed into my first small twined structure, the twined section representing the egg and the gulls flying from it on a cut and manipulated warp.
and leaving you with a panoramic view of the Vale of Evesham,
and a big thank you again Sian!
