Stitch on it - 25

And this is the latest embroidery on paper.
Buttonhole Wheel Stitch - 25
Stitch on Paper



variations and exploring some ideas for design

Stitch on it - 24

I just realised I never posted the last Stitch on Paper sample. no. 24

Knotted Cretan stitch variations-embroidery stitch samples on paper. This kind of stitch sometimes takes a while to click!
Pardon for the stray threads! I did this around the 19th of October and took the photo with my phone. This was shortly after my cataract surgery, so I didn't notice them! 😕

Bead on 28 October-3 November

Week 44 - 2018

Bead on fabric

This week involved an end of month and a turning to the next line.

zoom out a bit to see that area

and then further...this is the whole work so far. 2 months to go.

As I have said before, I thought more of the cloth would be covered. But, even if I don't carry on next year, it is big enough to be a panel in something.

Something on Saturday

cow 95

Another whimsical piece I made.

"Cows in my Field"

Ramshackle ideas 22

Desert house. The look changes with the stitching.

Somehow enhances the character.

Now to deal with the threads. I have started stitching the forest section.

I like Thankful Thursday

I like the colours of fruit and veg in the autumn.

Every year for quite sometime now I have decorated the tables at the front of the church for our Harvest Service. This year, I wasn't sure how I'd be after the op on my eye. The Harvest Service was less than a week from my op. I didn't know if I could manage bobbing up and down to get bits and pieces out of the bags of produce people had brought for the display.

So, the other ladies did it! As I have been telling them, it is about putting one thing next to another and letting the colours God made do the work!

I really enjoyed seeing how other people put things together this year...(out of the random amount of eyes I could see from!)

(And if these photos are fuzzy, you know why!)

I like making bread, too. So that was my job. Put the stuff in the machine and let it work...only it wasn't that simple. Still, the end results looked good. (See if you can spot them amongst the display.) and then we sliced them up for the meal.

On Saturday, I went to a local SAQA meeting. We had the privilege of having input and guidance from Richard McVitis through a day long presentation and discussion about the professional side of being an artist - things like what you call yourself, marketing yourself, showing work, pricing work etc, etc. Very Good! I remember seeing his work at the Knitting and Stitching Show several years ago. I loved it.

front and back of a teaching sample...but which is which!

Quiet and sedate. But with obvious delight at the process of making stitches.

Richard also spoke about some of the artists he was inspired by. I loved the look of the work by Anne Wilson. There was a whole book about her work, so I snapped a few photos so I could remember it.

 Richard's work is minute - extremely small stitching. Much of it is about time. The visual connect with Anne's work is strong. 

Especially the work she did, at the time of writing the book, using human hair as thread.

Not so many I likes this week, but a lot of what is going on visually for me. ( not just because of my left and right eyesight!)

oh, and a bit of space!

 I gave this away to the ladies who run InStitches...to use with transfer printing. (We met at their studio workshop space for the SAQA meeting.)
Someone was getting rid of it a few years ago and I thought, "I will use it to do stuff with transfer paints!"
But I didn't.
So, I decided that since InStitches teaches that technique, but have been using an iron, they could do more with it than I could. and I have the added benefit of space behind my overlocker to do somethings with that! I had some ideas for Christmas presents. Whether I will do them? we shall see.

I am very thankful for aluminium foil! On Sunday, we came home to a cold oven and grey dust over the food that was meant to be cooking on automatic in the oven. SO glad everything was covered with aluminium foil!
The Thoughtful Man got to work cleaning the oven. (He loves cleaning and sorting! No, you can't have him!) And discovered it was the heating element...again.

So, he went upstairs and came back with a replacement. The heating element seems to go periodically, so last time he ordered 4! I told you he was Thoughtful. 😍
So, dinner was delayed, but the new element worked and the food cooked properly. I guessed it had been about 1/3 of the way through the time it was meant to cook. We ate, enjoyed it and haven't become ill. 😷

Go have a look at LeeAnna's blog where she has links to 'likes' others have posted.

Ramshackle Ideas 21

The 31st October would have been the deadline for this work if I entered it into SAQA Forced to Flee. But although the theme seems just made for me, there have been too many things that kept me from working on it as much as I like.
I have been doing the machine stitching, even though suffering with my back. and to be honest, was really stretching myself to my limit.
However, I know there must be another venue waiting for it, so I am going to carry on. I did take a few needed days off...well, they were full of other things!

But, here is a little more of what I was doing the past week.

Since I am not overlapping the sections, I needed to fill the space I had left. So, Extra houses for the desert section. The bits that look like croquet hoops are meant to be housing set up for refugees rescued from the sea.

I have given them doors of a sort to look more like a house. A bit like I have done for the housing in the forest for other sea rescuees. (That should be a real word!)

Bead on 21-27 October

week 43 - 2018

bead on fabric

It is becoming very clear that one year doesn't take up as much space as somehow I thought it would!
If I carry on with this, I will have to change some of the bead sets because I only have enough of some components to do one year's worth.
I want to do something with stitch, so maybe the carrying on will introduce stitch and beads combined. I always meant to come back through and add some stitching.
So, some thoughts running around in my mind about this project. Still plenty of time to decide.

Something on Saturday

Cow 94

"Cow Girls at Sunflower Branch"
I made piece a few years ago. A phrase in my head that wanted to come out in a bit of whimsy.

I like Thankful Thursday

So, here I am post-op

now I am recovered/recovering... wearing sewing glasses with one glass removed! for sewing it isn't so great, but reading and computer, not so bad. And for long distance - my long distance glasses with the right glass taken out. Although the eye is not yet at full strength, it is so much better than before the op it is amazing.
The surgeon wants to do the other because of my shortsightedness and a 'mild' cataract. So, when I see her in Dec, we will find out how and when. I do know the difference between the 2 eyes is like seeing with the brilliance of LED lights and seeing with incandescent lights. One has a blueish hue and the other is definitely yellow.
I am doing a lot of winking type of activity!

I like having a go. Here is an experiment I am trying.

seeing if I can grow an avocado plant. I know they don't produce avocados when they are houseplants, but I'm seeing if it will make a new houseplant!

I like random things. When I went to London with my friends, we had a bite to eat at this cafe. Not the greatest, but it has good food and will change your order (brioche instead of bun, etc).

Love, Love the name! and also the phrase on the menu!

I like seeing patterns when I am out and about. I took this photo because I saw a face in the knot in the tree.

But when I looked at the photo, I also saw a doggie waiting to go walkies!

I like WhatsApp.  Now my sisters and I can send random messages and photos and it doesn't cost.
This from one sister

and even a photo of a squirrel's hoard in the outhouse at their camp!


Right, now I need to get on with that Ramshackle project. I have been posting process photos during the week.

Go have a look at LeeAnna's blog where she has links to 'likes' others have posted.

Ramshackle Ideas 20

Design dilemma...
Now that the sea section is cut out, the dilemma is the fabric underneath that shows through the openings. Basically, I haven't got any more of the spotted fabric I used for the rest.

Here are some options I considered. I hadn't cut out all of the houses because I was afraid they would be lost!

underlying fabric choices

Left - the reverse of the wave fabric I bought for the project and realised it was too not going to work. It gives a light grey look which gives small glimpses of the waves.
Middle - the fabric I am using for the backing of the work
Right - a blue fabric with small print of curved leaf branch...could read as waves.

The middle was too yellow. The right was very good and would work in another situation, but it doesn't work with the colours in the desert, mountain and forest sections. It is quite a bit too different than the underlying fabric on those sections.
What I chose was the left one.

ready to fuse

When I originally chose it, thinking to use it for the sea section, one of the reasons was that it worked colour-wise with the other colours. (Later I found it was just too bold compared to them and the houses would blend into the waves.) So, what I mean is that the colour works. It gives a similar colour contrast in value as the other fabric does in the other sections. The waves aren't so overwhelming when glimpsed through the openings that make up the sketch.

So, by now I have also decided not to overlap the sections. So, I need to finish off part of the desert.

Ramshackle ideas 19

Now for the sea or water section

The chalk drawing


one of the capsized boats.

Ramshackle Ideas - 18

So, we are getting there!

The forest section ready for fusing.

some of the different houses
Normal houses, refugee housing, angry (militant?) houses, attacked village

Bead on 14-20 October

week 42 - 2018

bead on fabric

Something on Saturday

cow 93

another doorstop, but for the kitchen door. Not so much use. Just needed when all the windows and doors are open so it doesn't blow shut. (and cause Holly to fret.)

Ramshackle ideas 17

2 parts of the forest section have been cut.

parts will be tweaked before fusing.

This is the destroyed village I showed the other day when it was just a sketch on the fabric.

a bit overexposed
I am trying to decide what to do about the windows. I had in mind a small solid line. But I have used that for villages attacked but not destroyed. On the photo above, you can see them on the right of the section... windows not cut yet. I am debating the idea of drawing the 'window' for that with thread.

I like Thankful Thursday

On Monday, I had a cataract surgery on my right eye. 😵Depending the result, I will update this to let you know how I am! I need to give it a few days rest, so I am setting this up to post without me.

I like K+S! Last Thursday I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show with my friend. I did take a lot of photos, but many of them weren't intended to go on the Internet.

However, I always like to see what the fashion students at Kings Ely have made. Quite a bit of theatre about them, but interesting anyway.

Sometimes you can just see what technique they were focusing on or what unit of study.

But most of them have a good grasp of how to make something work 3D - which is really what garments are because they have to go round the 3D moving shape which is the body.

And here is a detail of the work of Natalya Aikens that was in the SAQA Gallery "Concrete and Grasslands". I really like her work!

Natalya works a lot with repurposed materials, often plastics built up and stitched with images of New York buildings or bridges, but this piece is one from her St. Petersburg series that repurposes old laces to make a wonderful image of one of the crumbling buildings of St. Petersburg, Russia where she was born.

and of course, when my brain is on inspiration or art alert, I like what I see with a different view.

Quick photo of these braces (or whatever) spotted through the open door on the Picadilly Line. We were on the way to the show. I like the pattern they make.

So, hopefully my eye will be rested for next week. Apologies if I am unable to post.
But either way, today or any other Thursday you can see more I likes via the links at LeeAnna's blog.

Ramshackle ideas 16

one of the villages cut out and the pieces put in place.

The houses in the forest section are on stilts...like in some of the rain forest areas of the world. I hope when you can see them altogether they don't look like TVs!

Ramshackle ideas 15

some of the trees which have been cut in the forest section.

  

wondering why I decided there needed to be so many!

Ramshackle Ideas 14

So to the forest section...drawing the houses in chalk.

The villages are surrounded by various trees.

This part represents one of the villages which has been attacked.

Bead on 7-13 October

week 41 - 2018
bead on fabric