I’ve added some real shells and bits of shell on the right-hand side since I last posted about this piece. They catch the light and echo the thread colours, and I’ve put in a few more knots too.
There’s a “slice” of limpet shell under the Yorkshire button sea urchin, and wafts of feather stitch in a lighter, thinner crochet thread.
The more I look, the more little gaps I keep seeing that need a bit more stitching! So there are some fly stitches tucked in behind the sea urchin……
…….. and on the left of the real shells.
I think it’s done! Quick, take it off the frame before I see another gap and overwork it! I’ve really enjoyed working on this piece with its variety of stitches, threads and subtle colours, giving it lots of interesting textures. I couldn’t find a suitable piece of drift wood to suspend it from, but I think this piece of very dry branch works. I now need to decide how and with what to back it, maybe a piece of handmade felt, but it always seems a shame to hide that.
I worked steadily on this project week by week at “In the stitch zone” until the end of the term in July. Alex gave us instructions and guidance with different stitches each week, some new and some with different approaches, her intention being to push us all a little, from beginners to more experienced stitchers.
I’d last blogged about it at the end of June when it hadn’t got very far.
I didn’t take many photos, I’d got so engrossed in the stitching, with Padded Satin Stitch, Couching over String Padding (which was left like this until yesterday), Bullion, French and Colonial Knots, Cup Stitch new to most of us (bottom left, certainly one to remember), Needlewoven Bars and Woven Feathered Chain Stitch.
Woven Picots….
….. Buttonhole Rings on the cream “stone”, Stem Stitch Band over beads bottom right…….
….. Woven / Backstitched Wheels and Fans…..
……..Yorkshire Buttons. I wasn’t sure about the variegated thread for this….
…… but once it was in place it looked just right, picking up colours from other areas.
It still needs more stitching in places, mainly more knots, Woven Bars, Drizzle Stitch, but I also want to add some real shells, etc.; I had fun sorting through my shells for ones with holes in, so that I can stitch them down. They’re not stitched down yet, I’m just getting the feel of how it might develop.
Then I finally did the short rows of the Couching over String Padding. I admit I’d not been looking forward to doing this, but as is often the case it was easier than I’d anticipated! I did a few rows of Feather Stitch. Also I found this strange variegated rayon metallic thread, which as you can see is separating all over the space, and I’ve started to couch it down along the bottom. It echoes the lines of the printing and catches the light. It’s moving on, and has been good to work on over the summer while the weather has been so hot, making me think of the sea and beaches even though we’ve not been. It needs a final push before the weather and the colours change.
This is the title of the summer term project at “In the stitch zone” with Alex Hall at Scunthorpe library on Monday afternoons. I got off to a slow start as I was trying to finish off various other projects, and have hardly worked on it between sessions.
Alex had a working sketch that we could use or not. It’s a raised embroidery project. The idea was that we would work on a different stitch or two each week, some new to all or nearly all of us, some familiar with the hope of changing something, thread or extending it in some way.
The first thing was to find a background fabric. I was looking at the last minute as usual and found this very fine synthetic(?) that I think had a paper bag ironed on to the plain white fabric several years ago. The zig-zag on the left side is a give away. Several Seata members have said they have a piece, we think it was a printing workshop of some sort, and this was just one of the techniques we were shown. Nobody was sure who we did it with. Any suggestions?
I’ve put a very fine pale blue cotton or poly/cotton underneath, and stapled it to a rectangular frame now. In the first few weeks, I either worked it in my hand or in a hoop.
The first week we did padded Satin stitch, a rough sketch to get them to fit together……
…….before cutting them out in felt. They each have three layers, each layer getting bigger.
The smallest layer is stab stitched down first, then covered with the middle sized piece and the biggest last. I worked the middle rock first, so that I could ease the side ones to fit up close. I didn’t get as far as the satin stitch.
But I wanted to keep up to date with each stitch in class, so did the couching over the string padding the second week, couching the string down first.
The couching over it was completely new to all of us, and the instructions in the books didn’t mention the need for short rows as you go round the curves. I used 6 strands of stranded cotton, couched down close on each side of the string, going down over it, and coming back up next to it (i.e., working from one side to the other). It takes a bit of getting used to, as you have two needles on the go at the same time. The thicker thread only goes through the fabric at each end, and the couching thread on either side of the string.
By the end of the session I’d done three sections. I’ll come back to the curves later!
debbidipity 