Wessex Stitchery 2

I’d put my Wessex Stitchery away in a plastic wallet with another project and couldn’t find it, which did prompt me to do a little tidying up as I looked. I found a few other things I couldn’t find either. However, it meant that I finished my crazy patchwork and attached it to my jacket, together with the sacred geometry heart which I worked directly on to the jacket. This of course meant that I couldn’t wear it until the hoop was removed.

I’d really enjoyed the Seata workshop with Ruth a few weeks ago, and was keen to continue with the piece. I’d already done three more rows before I thought to take a photo. The first two were vertical straight stitches, again starting with regular stitches following the pattern from below on the left hand side, and then going off piste from more or less the middle out to the right side. I’ve kept the stitches the same size along each row, the dark green ones are slightly longer. Then there are individual fly stitches ……

……. and a forest of them on the right, some touching each other.

I’ve done pistal stitches in a brighter green thicker perlé. It’s growing slowly, and I’m enjoying working on it. The overall effect is very much like a landscape, which is what I was aiming for once I’d ‘seen’ mountains in the first row. The problem is that in a landscape the mountains would be distant, not in the foreground, but I do like the pattern. I’m now choosing my thread for colour, so it’s a mixture of perlé and stranded.

Crazy patchwork for embellished jacket (7)

At last I’ve finished stitching the colour play crazy patchwork piece to go on my jacket. I’ve done some more french knots on a flower middle and a few straight stitches that had been overlooked on a petal or two. It has certainly been slow stitching. I’m really pleased with the textures and colours.

I’ve laid it more or less in position, having decided that it looked better right at the bottom, not up an inch or so in line with the hem stitching. I considered feather stitching it in place, but concluded that blanket stitch would give a firmer attachment and be less likely to fray. I also decided to use a perlé thread with small stitches in a colour to match the jacket. It doesn’t need anything else to distract the eye from this piece.

I’ve gone across the bottom and up the left hand side, and it’s sitting ok so far.

It’s attached all the way round and ready to continue wearing now. It will be good to work on some different pieces.

Colour play crazy patchwork

Looking at this with Alex the other day, when we were trying to remember what she had suggested for this plain beige patch, I noticed that the batik shape is almost a half butterfly. I was looking at it from a different angle, and it just jumped out at me. I’ve used the same variegated thread, and used stem stitch for the outline, then running stitches, straight stitches and a few french knots to fill in the shape, and random direction straight stitches to cover the rest of the patch.

It’s not symetrical, but it won’t be seen very much anyway. It’s now a case of spotting where I still need to stitch: finish the lines of feather stitch, the petals and centres of the flowers, french knots on the tiny piece bottom left, and bits on the brown background around the flowers.

Most of those are now done, but I’d not taken the lime green perlé with me; it was in a box with another project, so the flowers are still not finished. The lime green on the right is standing out too much, so needs knocking back a little.

There are more random direction straight stitches in a slightly darker green, which balances it better. It was tempting to finish the last bits quickly, and attach it to my jacket before writing this blog post, but each time I look at it I see something else to do. Patience and assessing it more is a much better idea, rather than rushing just to get it done.

Embellished jacket 6

I’m still working on the colour-play crazy patchwork piece to go on my jacket, in between working on other things. It’s made a little more progress. First, I did some cross stitches in a turquoise perlé to echo the print, leaving the plainer part of the pattern unstitched, followed by some straight stitches and a few knots in a variegated perlé on the grey / turquiose-y areas of the batik style print.

The circles in the plain brown in the middle didn’t seem quite complete, the gold coloured spiral in reverse chain stitch didn’t look quite finished…..

……so I did a bit more reverse chain stitch, and then some random lazy daisy to fill in the gap.

Then some more fly stitches…….

…….. to cover the brown print.

It’s nearly finished, just a few more areas to work on before I can stitch it on to my jacket.

I’ve also finished off the corded Brussels stitch on the first stumpwork acorn, and started the second one, using the cap colour for the satin stitch.

Wessex Stitchery

Today at Seata we have had an in-house talk and workshop on Wessex Stitchery from Ruth Neller, including loads of samples for ideas. I’ve only shown two of the samples.

Ruth had broken down some of the samples, so that we could see how the different stitches build up to form the patterns.

The square motifs need more counting and accuracy to make sure they join up properly at the corners .

Many of us had not heard of Wessex Stichery before, but a few ladies had found the book by Gay Eaton on their bookshelves. Unfortunately, it is out of print now and tends to command a high price on the second-hand market when it turns up. Not much had been published on Wessex Stitchery previously.

Ruth gave us an interesting and informative talk before we started stitching. One Mrs M Foster of Bath, born in 1843, was the originator of the technique which uses simple stitches, often text, and done in rich colours. The stitches are combined to make patterns which vary in size and complexity. She was still stitching at 90, and had a well-received exhibition of 30 years of her work. She died at 92 .

Ruth had provided us all with a kit, containing some Aida, quite a high count, (certainly smaller than I tend to work on) and a selection of stranded cotton. I picked this one with the antique colour Aida, with the intention of it maybe ending up on my embellished jacket once it is finished!

I’m not using the stranded cotton as I prefer working in perlé, and so far have only used the browns from my stumpwork acorns from last week.

As any long term readers of this blog will know, I’m not good at counted work. I started with blanket stitch in a zigzag pattern, not counting but just repeating my pattern…….

…….. and it was not long before I made my first mistake and went up instead of down; rather than unpicking I decided to go with it……

…. and ended up with this for my first row.

It made me think of mountains and a landscape, so I stuck with it. The second row in the darker brown (above the rusty perlé), I went off piste sooner, more mountainous. Then I went back and filled in at the bottom with straight stitches, still not counting, just making the pattern by eye.

More of the rusty colour to fill in at the bottom right.

I worked this top row from right to left until I ran out of thread, then started on the left and stitched until it joined up.

I think I’m ready to introduce some different colours and stitches when I carry on….. maybe I’ll even do some counting!

Around the room the work was very varied, both in colour, stitches and patterns used, and once again we were still stitching late in the afternoon. Thank you, Ruth, for all your hard work (fun stitching), research, preparation and kits. It was obvious that we all had a good day!

Embellished jacket 4

I’ve been working on the “Colour play photo palette: crazy patchwork” at “In the Stitch Zone” over the last few weeks. It really is a slow stitch piece!

I started with the feather stitch to work over the raw edges, but my stitches were too big, and not enough contrast of colour to be seen in a couple of places.

Rather than taking them out, I used another colour and put in a second row of feather stitch.

On the pinking sheared edge, I did tiny straight stitches so that the zigzag edge is still visible, and started putting in some running stitches on the petals.

Some following the shape of the petals…..

……and some working horizontally across (or vertically, depending which way you look at it!). I was ready for a change of stitch by then, and did a reverse chain spiral, very slow stitching!

Then I did varied size straight stitches in concentric circles and a running stitch spiral.

It’s coming along slowly. We should have finished last week, but we’ll have a catch-up week in Monday’s “In the Stitch Zone”. I think that I’ll continue with this as it’s easier to carry than the “Colour play canvas work” I’ve also been working on this, mainly at home now, as it’s a bit big and unwieldy. It’s almost there, maybe by next week’s blog.

Windows to the soul

The theme for travelling book (pages) this month was ‘Windows’, so plenty of scope there. My second travelling book’s whole theme was ‘Stained glass windows’, and some wonderful work went into it, with lots of ideas for further development.

But no, what popped straight into my head were eyes, the windows to the soul. On several occasions I’ve tried to take some really close-up photos of eyes, without much success; particulary bad were the first selfies, trying to take my own eye.

I’ve tried the phone and the iPad, tried my own eyes, Colin’s, Miles’ and Lera’s, got Colin to try mine, all to no avail. Alex tried last week for me (better), but too many reflections – next door’s house and garage and the window frame.

Then I tried with the macro setting on the bridge camera, me taking Colin’s eye.

And Colin took mine, but far too many wrinkles. I’m not used to seeing myself so close-up.

However, once they were cropped I’d got something to work with.

So far, I’ve done my own eye, because there’s more variation in colours to play with.

I’d originally thought about doing silk shading, and doing several. Then I decided that one bigger iris would be better on the A5-size page. It’s 7cm (3 1/4 inches) in diameter, so it meant a lot of stitching and not a huge amount of time.

I thought it was a good idea to put some background colour in first. I started working with the soft cotton, really tight in a small frame, and dampened Derwent Inktense pencils, making radiating lines between the inner and outer circles, adding more and more colours.

I used a charcoal grey for the pupil, leaving a tiny bit of the white fabric showing.

Then I strengthened the colour around the outer edge of the iris.

I was really pleased with the finished result, but thought I’d better put some stitches in, from a selection of possible threads (but not the reds and corals, of course!).

I did straight stitches of varying lengths, echoing the pencil marks radiating outwards in three or four different shades of green and greeny blue.

Then I did varying length stitches around the outer and inner edge of the iris. The yellow is a subtly variegating slightly thicker thread with a few green stitches mingled.

I now need to stretch it over some mount-board, do some print-outs of photos of work in progress and a colour-chart of the pencils….. and today, so I’m not last minute again tomorrow morning!