Arch Complete

It has been a slow process, but I am now finished with the arch.  Well, almost.  I am waiting for a canvas to arrive, so I can mount it.

I just love the frilly edges. 

As intended, this is quite a textural piece, using stitch, silk paper, and scrim lace. 

I've really enjoy this piece from start to finish.  Now to try and complete another page.

Finished

It's difficult to believe that the starting point for this project was a card.  Thanks to Karen's class, it's developed from a study in colour, until I've come to this point,

a completed cushion. 

The flowers have been hand painted, as well as the "stitched" border.  I've added the purple fabric, and then done some basic quilting.

The back is a simple envelope style.  Once that had been sewn on, I then went around the whole cushion with another quilting row, just inside the outer edge.  This forms a bound edge.

 

This is a very large cushion, and as I'm pleased with the way it turned out, I may do some more, but smaller, and maybe develop some of the ideas further.

Keep it Simple

The intention was always to keep this design simple and summery.

The stitch embellishment is comprised of clusters of french knots.  I've used colours that match the petals and flower centres.

 

At the moment, I'm contemplating the different options for finishing this.  Once I've decided, you'll be the first to know.

Progression

I'm still progressing on from work done in my Ledger.  This is taken from the first page.

I've used some white cotton, and have painted a "stitched" outline and flowers in the centre. 

 

The next stage is to add some hand stitched embellishments, but so far, I am enjoying looking at it draped over my airer.

Arch Progress

I've made some progress with my Arch page, but this time in stitch.

So far I've used wrapped scrim to back a cut out arch.  Around the edge, there are lots and lots of french knots and bullion knots. 

This layer is done, but there is more to come before this piece is finished.

An Embroiderer's Ledger

I'm still adding to the Ledger and making lists of things to do from each page.

This is the cover sheet for the first page.  Two strips of emulsion painted onto tissue, then water colour for the flowers and petals.

Added to the air brick page, is the arch that was cut out of the parchment.  I FME all over, and just in the bottom corner, I've embellished with hand stitch.  It's been mounted onto parchment vellum, and fixed below the watercolour.

For both these pages, I have a stitched project to follow, but it will take some time. In the meantime, I shall probably start on another page.

Paisley Page

Another element has been added to this page.

This is a piece of the source fabric, painted with emulsion, and embellished with stitch.  I think this is a technique I may try and extend further on another page.

It's been put onto the page, and I shall write my annotations under the painted fabric.

Paisley Update

Just a quick update on the paisley page.

On the painted strip, I've taken the flower and leave motif from the fabric and, using fine liner and watercolour pencils, I've repeated the motifs right across the page.

There is some more work to do on the fabric before it can be added.

A New Page

Do you remember this? 

I've taken it out of my sketch book, and put it into my Ledger.  I've decided I'll develop different ideas in here instead.

The first thing I did was a representation in paint.

Then there was emulsion on tissue paper with watercolour.  I've used shapes that make up the arches and the outline shape of the brick, in a very simplified form.

Inspired by the cobwebs in the original picture, I've used scrim lace on parchment.  I cut out an arch to mirror the holes in the air brick, and the scrim lace was attached using FME.

This has given me layers to my page, first glance it looks like this,

turn over to this,

Then finally, this. 

There will be further development to this page as time goes on, but it's fun trying out different techniques.

 

Cover Pages

The Ledger class may officially be over, but I am continuing to work on the pages already started, and will be doing more.

The first thing on my list, was to do some cover pages. 

First, was the peacocks.  All I've done here, is print a photo from the Internet onto parchment.  This means you can see through to the page underneath.

I did the same with a paisley pattern.  This time, I did a fainter print, so the underneath page is more visible.

As you can see, there is going to be an addition to the paisley page before it gets inserted into the ledger.

Cover Page

This is a continuation of the page trying different techniques with the tissue paper.

You last saw this page when I was waiting for it to dry.  The right panel is layers of tissue, then stitched.  The edge has blanket stitch lace, and then the page has been embellished with french knots, bullion and web stitches.

It's then been attached to the book as a cover sheet.  My next task, is to make cover pages for all the completed pages, using the different methods we've tried.

Page Progress

With lots going on in the background, a lot of things have come together at the same time and have been added to the ledger.

Based on the embroidery transfer, I drew and stitched a design onto silk, but it didn't stay like this,

It was used to fill in the cutouts on this piece of silk and an appliqued centre.

This was mounted in card, and forms a flap.

This is the page now, with it's fabric page and card flap.  I can't believe how much came from just one transfer.

Next it was time to turn to the peacock feathers.  The centre eyes are filled with french knots,

so a plain page has some textural interest.  This page isn't yet finished, but I like the idea of adding to it over a period of time.

Fabric swatches have now been added to the paisley page.

The tissue paper painting has been mounted in card and attached, so that's another piece safely inserted.  Now, I have lots of annotations and info to do and add to the pages.  I'm hoping to do that this week, and get them added to the appropriate pages.

Two new pages

I have two more pages in progress for my Ledger.

The first began with a cross stitch project I'm doing as a gift for a friend.  We were to look for simple shapes in different things for a page and I started looking at the shapes in this stitching.

This then reminded me of the picture of how peacocks "see", the colours are not what we see.  The peacock feathers I painted reflected the colours that peacocks see, combined with some we see.  There is stitching to be added to this page, but it's damp stretching at the moment.

As I used the peacock on the other page, I had to find something for my simple shapes page.  I used the black and white fabric as my inspiration.  I need to add swatches to this page, but of course, I had to wait for paint to dry.

Embroiderers Ledger

Although it's been a while since they appeared on the blog, there has been work on the Embroiderers Ledger, but it has taken time for things to dry.

Here are my glued and painted tissue paper pages which took hours to dry.  Instead of hot dry days, we've had cool, wet days, and it doesn't help things to dry.

Once they were dry, work could commence.  This edge has been FME, ready for hand embellishment.

This is the surface I shall be working with.

On this piece, you can see I am no artist.  I took motifs and shapes from the white cloth I did, and just "doodled" on the emulsion base to see the effect it had on different colour watercolour.  Now I know how it works, I shall have to come up with something artistic for the future.

This technique of sandwiching motifs in tissue and hand stitching around, has to be one of my favourites.  It's so easy, so simple, but it ends up being a really effective piece.  For this sample, I cut petal shapes from a beautiful card I received. 

The next stage will be to embellish the machine stitched paper with hand stitch, I shall be looking forward to that one.  Ideas were buzzing around my head for that one in the night.

Page Two continued

Page two has been progressed.  The hexagons have been stitched together and then attached to the page.

Then it was onto experimenting with fabric pages.

I used some of the cotton that I used to make the hexagons, then appliqued a flower shape and added some extra stitching, which doesn't really show up in the photo.  You may notice, an extra layer of cotton on the bottom left.  This wasn't intentional, but I liked it and it has stayed.

The page has then been stitched onto the right hand page.  There are some more ideas spring from this page, but it will take some time to do.

Hexagons

This time, in paint and ink, not fabric and stitch.

To the bottom corner of the first page, I painted half a hexagon flower, decorated with flowers, and dot flowers in the corners formed by the hexagons.

On  the extension page of page two, I did the opposite half of the hexagon flower in ink, and copied the flower centres, with crosses in the corners.

That means, you now turn page one, and it's extended onto page two.  Now to work on the fabric hexagons.

An Embroiderers Ledger

Page one of the ledger has undergone a bit of a change. 

I used fabric paints and added some french knots.  I couldn't get the colour I wanted, but it gave me an idea of how easy the paints were to work with.  All being well this will extend into a bigger project.

This meant the extension page just got bigger.  As you can see, the page isn't finished yet, there are spaces, so the thinking cap is on and somewhere along the line, I'll be revisiting these pages.

Page two has also been extended.  The original shapes have been coloured using ink.  Where the circles cross over, both colours, red and blue were used.

I've used the shape from the original transfer and stitched it onto silk.  The centre is made up of bullion knots and stands quite proud.  French knots surround the centre, and blanket stitch is used for the outline.

This is the start of the extension page, leaf shaped cutouts backed with the original transfers, flower centres painted in ink, and hexagons.  I iron transferred the pattern to some cotton, then cut it up to cover the hexagons.

At the moment, they've just been tacked, they may end up on the page like this, or it may change. Hopefully, I will know by the end of the day.