Happy Bobbin

Goldwork started

2009-09-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

Goldwork

I have powered on through a few distractions and am nearing completion. The goldwork couching is a time consuming process and manipulating the jap gold takes a lot of concentration.

There is only a little more to go and this flower will be finished. Click the photo for a larger view.

Chain Stitch Petals

2009-08-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Goldwork Flower

Work on my goldwork project has been progressing slowly, however I have neglected to keep you updated.

The chain stitch is coming along. I need to fill in the rest of the petals and then complete the padded stitches on the ends of the flower before finally getting to the goldwork part.

Electronic Embroidery

2009-03-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

LilyPad Arduino

At US$50 for this setup it is not something you would want to incorporate in every embroidery you undertake, however I do see potential for this system, especially in terms of costuming projects. It incorporates a conductive thread with a battery pack and a programmable circuit board. Using a computer you can write a custom program for the circuit which can turn on LEDs and potentially do other simple electronic transitions.

The link below incorporates a small video showing how to put together a basic circuit to turn a LED on and off. Imagine this sewn into a steam punk outfit, or what about LED accents that sense a physical change in light and turn themselves on as you move into a dimly lit room. What about a stump work butterfly that actually flaps its wings triggered by a nearby noise? The possibilities are quite numerous.

LilyPad Arduino 101

Klosterstich and Refilsaum

2009-02-27T03:13:00.000-08:00

Racaire's Embroidery

I recently stumbled upon an absolutely inspiring set of work by an SCA embroiderer based in Austria. Racaire's story is much like my own, turning to costuming and embroidery via the path of medieval re-enactment. Her embroidery work is stunning with her use of historical Klosterstitch (used in 13-16th century wall hangings) and Refilsaum (noteably used in the Bayeux Tapestry).

I highly recommend having a look through her blog or flickr gallery at this inspiring artist. She has a couple of detailed pdf downloads explaining how to complete these stitches which I have linked above.

Goldwork Progress

2009-02-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

Flower Petals

It has been over 40 degrees for a week so in order to stave off boredom I sat under the air conditioning duct and progressed with my flower embroidery. I had stagnated after trying to blend a different type of thread into the Rajmahal art silk, so armed with a different colour to the original pattern I have now completed the three coloured satin stitch inner flower.

You can also see the felt padding which will support the inner goldwork later on, however that will not be done until after all the silk filling stitches are complete.

Needlepoint Progress

2009-01-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

Needlepoint

I haven't forgotten my other projects, however despite hours of work some are not showing too much progress. I am currently working on the first page of the pattern for the Unicorn Tapestry replica and am at the point where each colour is between 5-10 stitches on average, then it is time for a change so it is slow going and I am looking forward to having some larger areas to stitch again.

Christmas ATC's

2008-12-09T18:42:00.000-08:00

Artist Trading Card

These little guys are simple projects that are 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size. They are designed to be swapped and traded with other crafty people. For the most part you will find these among the scrap booking and paper art communities, however they have been growing in popularity amongst most crafts. I have been trying out small projects and different techniques with these little guys and enjoying creating something quickly.

I was going to swap these, but for now I have changed my mind and want to hold on to them a little longer. I put quite a few hours into these. The red one took about 4 hours total as the stitching, while easy, took longer than I expected. The star looks like a pin wheel which I quite like.

Another Star Design ATC

Blue/Yellow - Blue flannel base, yellow felt star applied with blanket stitch and filled with a small amount of toy stuffing. Eyes are detached chain in black and cheecks are pink bullion knots. Small star buttons are sewn around it.

Red/Pink: Cotton base in red with star design hand embroidered in light pink DMC cotton (as I didn’t have any white). Embellished with clear beads.

These are my first attempts at embroidered ATCs and I think the theme ideas helped a lot. It was nice having some very small quick projects. Should I do more and create quick step by step patterns for them?

Stitching Progress

2008-11-21T18:41:00.000-08:00

Starting the Flower

Just a quick progress update as I have had a chance to do a lot more sewing in the last day or two while getting over a virus. It is nice to see it start to come together and to get a lot of progress done in a short time. The leaves are complete and I am on to the flower.

So far I have used Portuguese stem stitch, brick stitch, lazy daisy, blanket stitch, stem stitch, couching and I am starting on long and short stitch to fill in the flower petals.

Working with Rayon Thread

2008-11-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Stem and Leaves

For a current project that is described as “silk and goldwork” I am using a selection of art silk, or rayon, threads. These threads tend to be shiny and so match better with the imitation gold threads. Rajmahal have a delightful selection of stranded rayon threads, as does Madeira and some of the other popular embroidery thread brands.

I began working these threads using all 6 strands for the Portugese stem stitch, however this almost drove me to frustration. I tried several of the suggestions on the Rajmahal website such as drawing the threads lightly through bees wax, but I was not happy with the behaviour of the threads, or the residue the wax left behind. I turned again to the Country Bumpkin forums for some advice.

The most highly recommended technique is to “strip” the threads. This means you divide your stranded threads up into the individual strands, then thread the amount you need onto your needle. I thought that this may prevent them from clumping together nicely when you sew, but I have found that it gives you a much nicer finish and the threads do not tend to want to stick together so much - they work individually towards the same goal instead and are much easier to control.

Thus far I have not begun any goldwork as yet as I am working the art silk parts first, however here is the stem and leaves of my design thus far. The outline was transferred onto my black silk dupion with the Clover Chacopy transfer paper which I mentioned earlier.

Clover Chacopy Paper

2008-11-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

Clover Chacopy Paper

I visited the lovely ladies at Christina’s Crafts in Prospect, South Australia to try and track down a few products, including a white graphite paper for transferring a design onto a dark fabric. They ended up recommending a product which I cannot rate highly enough after my own experiments!

Clover Chacopy is a transfer paper. A pack cost me $7.50 and in it you get 5 30×25cm sheets of different colours - blue, red, green, white and yellow - to suit any colour fabric you can imagine. You lay your fabric with the transfer paper shiny side down, then trace your design. You end up with a nice sharp line which does not rub off like chalk, and according to the ladies at Christina’s it does not fade like some other transfer methods can. This means you can work on your project for as long as necessary as long as you do not iron the fabric. The line washes off in water, but you must leave it to dry thoroughly naturally otherwise the line may reappear.

Goldwork Design

I have not used any method of transfer which was this simple and effective. I have had to use lead pencil and ball point pen in the past as I have had transfer pens disappear in warmer weather and have found it difficult to transfer except onto white fabric. This product is well worth keeping in the cupboard.

You can also use the sheets over and over. I was shown the store tracing paper and the white had been thoroughly used hundreds of times and was still going strong. The only downfall is that it doesn’t work onto springy fabrics like felt or wool.

Unicorn Tapestry Progress

2008-10-25T03:20:00.000-07:00

10.5x 34cm worth of progress!

Finally another update. I have gone back and done most of the first page of my pattern as I needed a break from greys and blues. You can see the first details coming out now in the strange signature initials that adorn all four corners of the tapestry. The finished piece will be twice as wide as it is currently and you can see from the defined lines how much work completing a single pattern page is. I am fairly pleased with the progress so far though.

Ambitious? Just call me crazy!

2008-05-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

Cluny Tapestry

I have recently been looking on ebay for a reasonably priced large needlepoint canvas with the aim of having it adorn my lounge room wall, but this search is turning into an idea for one of my most ambitious projects yet.

It began when I found the spectacular canvas for "Chasse Au Cerf" from a seller in the US with the grand size of 116cm x 81cm when complete which while it would work out about half the price of retail at a mere AU$250 + shipping, is really too grand for my current budget.

Secondly I discovered a rather lovely Cluny Unicorn design featuring the “taste” sense from a seller in the UK, which depicts a serving girl offering a sweet bowl to the lady. This one is a much more affordable price at around AU$30 including shipping (again around half the price of retail), but is it really what I want? The size is a stunning 51cm x 66.5cm, but really if I completed this one I would want a second matching one, and where would I find a second canvas.

Next on the debate is whether I should actually draw the design from the source book “The Unicorn Tapestries” by Margret Freeman which contains large stunning full colour fold out pages in the front. This book is out of print, but you can sometimes pick it up for around $15-30 second hand.

To be honest, I think I want "The Unicorn is Found" (also referred to as "The Unicorn at the Fountain"), which I was introduced to during the intro to the movie "The Last Unicorn" which captured my imagination as a child. The artwork during the intro (which is featured again later in the movie as frescoes on an internal wall of a castle) was always fascinating and it was not until a few years ago that I discovered they were a set of large tapestries housed at both the Cluny Museum in France and in The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Ideally I would like this to be sized at around 100x100cm or slightly larger (the original is 368 x 379 cm according to metmuseum.org).

The other option would be "A Mon Seul Desir" which is the 6th of the 6 famous Cluny Museum tapestries and is supposed to be a depiction of “love” as the banner (and the title of the piece) is “To My Only Desire”), which would be ideally between 110x85cm and 140x100cm. (Though of course the whole set would be nice as well)

Now we come to the next decision… Would it be cheaper and thus more sensible (though of course still completely insane) for me to trace off and enlarge by hand the piece that I want to adorn my wall and then to transfer this onto an 18 count aida cloth?

On Saturday I browsed the printed canvas and aida cloth in my local Spotlight as I wanted to get a feel for what I would be buying if I chose a canvas from ebay. The canvas which the designs are printed on is a little wide in my opinion for highly detailed work with say… DMC stranded cotton… and is really designed for use with the 8ply tapestry wool by DMC which I am not inspired by. If the world was fair and DMC’s medici range was still in production then I would probably be tempted to use that, however I believe that I will have to go with a high quality stranded cotton to achieve the small details that I would like as this is not a perfect world and there is no way to guarantee I can get the quantity and colours of DMC Medici that I would require. The 18 count aida cloth is ideal for a detailed counted needlepoint at $38 per metre, however I think I will have to check with a small test piece first to ensure complete coverage and detail. I really don’t want to go to an even weave linen at around $60 per metre as I feel this would be too small.

Now I am not an artist, but I can copy. I feel mildly confident about being able to trace and enlarge a design using the grid method, but it is the size that has me worried. I believe I want a design that is approximately a metre wide where either the width or the height will be limited to my largest floor frame. Perhaps I should pick a design and stick a sheet of paper that would be its finished size on my wall and see if it is too big. Of course I have a couple of larger wall spaces in my dining room if the finished piece really doesn’t seem to suit, but the opulence of a design of this calibre would be stunning in my lounge room which has beautiful green walls and a red exposed brick feature wall with an archway.

Unicorn and the Fountain

The other problem is getting it on to the canvas, though while I was in Lincraft the other day I noticed a new tool for quilters involving coloured crayons. According to the box you draw the design in reverse with the crayon, then place the paper over your material (crayon face down) and iron the back. The crayon then transfers to the material and is water soluble meaning it washes off in water afterwards. I think that if I was completing one of the Cluny Unicorn Tapestries a red would not be noticeable, or if one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art styles then a blue would not be too noticeable, especially as I plan to cover the entire canvas with stitches.

I am also unsure as to the complete coverage of the choice of DMC stranded cotton. I will have to do a test piece to see what the coverage is like and if the detail can be replicated to my liking. I am concerned that the reason a printed canvas works is that it is printed with the colour you will be stitching, so any areas that are not completely covered are not noticed as they are already the colour you are stitching.

Next is the fact that I have not done needlepoint before. That’s right, yet another project involving techniques that are completely new to me. I don’t necessarily see this as a handicap as with most of my work (especially in costumes) I have bitten off much more than I can chew with relatively pleasant results. In many ways I believe that you need to work on projects that are inspiring and fill you with a desire to get them finished in order to be successful at any new skill.

Is there anyone out there that has any tips and suggestions for this grand project? I will of course take progress shots as the work begins and may even be able to supply a pattern at the end and you know that now I have said it I am going to have to at least attempt this project!!

Nordic Santa Completed

2008-03-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

Some of the Details

The felt was backed onto some linen so that it wouldn’t stretch too much and then the snow was stitched on using white embroidery wool with buttonhole stitch. I used white cotton thread to apply the santa onto the felt.

Once that was complete the staff was embroidered straight onto the felt and the other decorations could be attached. Eight small tassles and two large tassles were created and applied. Then the ribbon was stitched through the backing, arranged and then tacked in place with red cotton thread.

Finished Piece

There are so many details in this embroidery, from the gold heart tied to the staff to the raised pocket and little bells hanging from the red tassle. Would you believe this was my first embroidery? I am really proud of this work, but I have set a high standard for myself!

Turkey Work and Applied Elements

2008-02-21T02:45:00.000-08:00

Turkey Work and Applied Elements

I had a couple of long sessions where I stitched well into the night which really made a difference to my progress. The turkey work around the hat, sleeve and bottom of the coat was very tedious. I have now been working on this embroidery for about 42 hours.

The pocket was a seperate piece which was embroidered and then attached only along the top side so that it forms a flap.

I had completely changed the original idea of making it into a stocking by now and bought some blue and white felt to apply the embroidery to. That also meant that I had to cut out the embroidery. I cut around it leaving about 1cm all around and then folded and stitched all the edges down to leave a nice edge that wouldn’t fray.

Surface Details

2008-01-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

Surface Details

The white is dragging me down again, but it is nearly finished and as soon as I have finished the flat colours I can see that it won’t be too much longer and the design will really take shape.

I had a sewing binge this weekend after having a break for quite a while and about 5 hours later I had finished the rest of the arm and all that white! I am looking forward to doing the decorative stitching on the white areas and then make the tassels and the raised areas.

Adding Colour

2008-01-10T02:38:00.000-08:00

Adding Colour

I am exited to realise I am probably a quarter of the way through with all that white done!

I realised last night that there are two different coloured reds in the design so I have to go back to the craft store today and find a deeper red. I received my heart charms in the mail as well and as yet I am unsure if they will be too big or not. I might keep looking and see if I can find a smaller one as I have plenty of time yet.

I am starting to add in some colour, with the red to be next, so it is a lot more interesting and rewarding to be stitching at the moment and my motivation is a lot higher. Still working on the flat colours...

Nordic Santa - A Beginning

2007-12-24T02:27:00.000-08:00

Brick Stitch

This embroidery is inspired by Mary Lou Legler. I absolutely love the style of the costume and it inspired me enough to give it a go. I have since discovered that the original embroidery is actually a printed canvas that has been embellished... Whoops! I think I took that to the next level!

My first challenge was printing out a nice copy and working out which types of stitches could be used. I doubled the size in my image editor and printed it in colour, which has given me a fairly good reference for stitching and was also traced on the back to give me a basic outline as a guide.

I chose white 100% linen as my ground and mounted it on my frame then transferred the outline onto my canvas using a light behind our large glass sliding doors and a lead pencil. I think next time I will try some carbon paper. It was going to be a stocking, but I changed my mind closer to the end as you will see.

And then the stitching began with the white... white thread on white canvas can be rather tedious, however as I progressed I realised that I was getting through the design a lot quicker than it felt.

I have mounted the fabric and prepared the design. I have finished most of the flat white areas.

Looking at the actual amount I have done I would say that it feels like a lot less than is actually complete and I am also realizing how ambitious I was, however I have now mastered brick stitch I think!

I bought myself a cheap book on needlework which has dozens of stitches and most importantly a great description of turkey work which I will need for the white puffy areas. I’m looking forward to adding some colour!