Italian Holiday from Sketch to Stitch (part four)

back to playing with torn papers, this time influenced by mosaic floors.





these have yet to be transferred to fabric

Italian Holiday from Sketch to Stitch (part three)

Paint and stitch on fabric.
At this point I must say that if I do this again using this design, the end result would be very different but this was about 5 years ago!





This is the closest colour match that I could get, Fuji cameras always give me a problem with red. Finished item painted, hand embroidered and beaded. Confession-it has lived in a bag at the back od a cupboard since the collage exhibition as I simply didn't like it much!!

Italian Holiday from Sketch to Stitch (part two)

Ok, now I have a simple idea to play with.



more torn papers.
Next step was to find a simple motif from the original carving and make a print block.






Now to mix both ideas using paint, ink , bleach and some silk papers.







This is the one I liked, even more so once I changed the colour.


Next problem is to stitch it as a panel so I'll leave that for the next post.

Italian Holiday from Sketch to Stitch (part one)

In 2001, our motorcycle travels took us to lake Garda in Italy and we visited Sirmione at the southern part of the lake. Some background to the trip can be found here on Biker Teds blog. At the time I was looking for a subject to use for my city and guilds part two in creative embroidery so I took as many photos as I could (pre digital era!!) to use as inspiration.







These are the first pages in my sketch book and the jumping off point for design.





Easy steps first, just torn painted paper following the floor tile/brick design at the Roman Villa

What If? lace experiment continues

remember my little fish doodle, well now he is part way to being a lace pattern.I have some lovely big chunky bobbins which make life a lot easier and plenty of time so if I have to rest after just 5 mins then so be it.

a walk in the park

Yesterday, in desperate need of some exercise, I walked on from my Doctors to Woodthorpe Park which is a mile or so from where I live. I spent much of my early teen years in the park, meeting friends in the evening and school holidays so it was strange to revisit 30 years later in the daytime when the few visitors were walking their dogs. The pitch and putt was closed as the ground was frozen over, the swings empty but looking very different to the kind we got to play on.

Anyway, the point of the visit was to explore the Tropical House for inspiration.



Now, why is it that when I spend years playing with fibre manipulation, mother nature always wins hands down?


Shes a dab had at pattern as well!


and colour!!

Talking of texture and pattern, I'm going to sort out more of my past work soon, want to see it?

Also I tried to crochet but was unsuccessful so next stop is a one handed embellisher attempt, will keep you informed.

escaping from the sketchbook

this one is making a bid for freedom!!

just noticed my counter is showing 99 countries...how cool is that!!

geological design board, from sketch to stitch,finished bag

so, what did I end up with?




a bag.

geological design board, from sketch to stitch, part four

I printed and hand quilted it



I printed and hand stitched it


I then had to decided what to make from it, watch this space.......

geological design board, from sketch to stitch, part three

I made it as a rag rug sample




I tried cut back applique on black velvet


I stitched it as a tapestry using hand dyed wool

geological design board, from sketch to stitch, part two

So we have a design- then what? well I just play with it for a while................


machine stitch design onto layers of organza and cut back

free machine embroidery on soluble fabric

geological design board, from sketch to stitch, part one

this simple shell design provided plenty of inspiration for stitch.


selection of designs



my mother is calling round later today with soup and sympathy and a casserole for which Ian will be very grateful as he has been having to cook since I came out of hospital.

oh, and if you've not alredy seen it, Susan Lenz hs posted the CYBERFIBRE videos of postcards and ATCs here

sea and sky design board

well, you can tell that I have time on my hand, left hand only :-) So here is a design experiment from around 1999 involving over head projector sheets (the type that you can print onto), uhu glue and blue ink, Seem to remember just painting on ink and gluing together two sheets and squidging!

Maybe I should print this onto fabric sometime.

more living forms

For this exercise we were encouraged to select a selection of papers and bind them to make a book. This way you never encounter a stark, white page. The picture of tree bark is a combination of photo and painted black and white photocopy.

The most difficult thing about being incapacitated in this manner is learning to slow down and accept help!! I'm taking time out to watch Angel, the buffy the vampire spin off and browse my library of books for a design theme to develope next year.

Surfing and blog reading is filling the gaps even if I do look a bit daft with my arm in the air :-)

Daunting syllabus

So September 1997 saw me back in a class room for the first time in many years and faced with a huge list of work, most of which made very little sense. As well as the embroidery side of things, we had to complete 10 design boards for competence in preparing working designs.

The next few posts will rely on photos more than writing as this is easier for me at the moment.Also, if you are like me, eye candy is gentler at the end of a hard day at work.


work from desigh sheet "living forms" printing and stencil using paint and paper

Mulling it over

The bobbin lace in wire needs more thought so I'm making a narrow traditional edging just to keep my fingers moving whilst I think about the studio journal idea.
I have always fancied using fairgrounds a source of inspiration so hopefully I will be at the Chestnut Fair next weekend with camera in hand. Watch this space!!
No photo of lace at the moment as too narrow with too many pins for anything to show.


Nearly forgot, have you all noticed SharonB's new blog Pin Tangle? All the favourite archives have been moved to this site as well.

In disguise

I seem to be between projects and not sure what direction to head in next, definitely need to sort out and thin out my fabric stash. I don't keep an art/studio journal so maybe thats something I need to think about so I can keep a stock of design inspirations. Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Something I do want to follow up is my lace work as I took the plunge and rejoined the local bobbin lace society at the weekend and acquired 17 back issued of Lace magazine so I officially have more patterns than I will ever have time to make.

Anyway, here is a photo I found on Ians computer, taken on our lindisfane trip, I think I need to add some colour to this outfit!!

Take it Further Challenge (November)

Interesting result, not quite what I had in mind.

Take it Further Challenge (November)

Sharon said:-
This month the challenge is to use typography as inspiration for a piece. Many designers are inspired by letter forms in other words it is the forms of the letters and words themselves that they find visually stimulating. It is not using text, as in using a quote or a sentence that they find stimulating but the look of the letters as a design element.

scibbles and a piece of computer aided design
design based on 's's

a bit of machine stitch on organza and soluble paperpaper dissolvedorganza melted..............................still thinking about where to go next. Thought about 3d but not rigid enough even with starch, may apply to quilted background...........just need to mull it over for a few days.

October TIF

yes, I know I let September TIF slip by but I was sat by the computer yesterday evening waiting for the October topic ( being in the UK we tend to get it a few hours before the 1st)

This time, Sharon said "This month the challenge is to think about your textile work space. How do you feel about this space? What role does it play in your life?"

Thinking about this over a sandwich at work, I came up with the following : peace, quiet, solitude,escape,comfort,calm, but also chaos, creative, messy, disorder...help, I think I may have a problem :-)

I will mull this over for a few days and see what surfaces, in the meantime I hope to spending some time with Claire at the weekend looking at transferring images to cloth to see how many techniques we can come up with.


Anyway, back to the lace rescue!!