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First mend, then start stitching..
The first thing to do was to darn the holes. This isn’t something I’ve ever done, and it was a bit of a wild adventure. I didn’t manage to replicate the woven structure, which is I think a 2-over-1 twill. I pulled lengths of the thread out of offcuts of the fabric piece, so at least the darning uses exactly what was used in the fabric. But even with my magnifiers, reproducing the structure was a bridge too far!
Once that was done, I could get started on the embroidery. We are back to rows upon rows here, to give the front some of the impact of the back.
I decided that the bud would be very pale creamy greens, and slightly more silky threads than everywhere else, and I’ve left the enclosing calyx open. The thread for that actually is silk, one I think I bought for the Nefertiti Shawl, all those years ago.
Everywhere else, as you can see in the close up here, is the same variety of wool threads I’ve used on the back. A couple are slightly variegated, a couple of them heavy enough that I need to use them with caution. And as I looked them over, I noticed two with a much more blue tinge than the others. I’m going to introduce them to the front leaf to change the “ambience” of its colour, because otherwise I’m afraid that the edge between the two leaves might not work cleanly. A different colour effect might be just enough.
Thinking about a finish..
Tynemouth Priory has been in progress for what seems like forever. It was started when I was working on “Leaving The Tyne, 1915”, as part of the many experiments it took took to make that piece the success it eventually became. And it was: I am still very pleased with Leaving The Tyne, and extremely glad that my father saw it before he died, and maybe was able to see something of where my embroidery was headed.
I finished this version over lockdown giving it a new sky and a new river (rather sea-like, I admit, but if you know where the Priory stands on the headland, you’ll know that that isn’t unreasonable!). Then I stared at it perplexedly and put it in a box until Later. They say Tomorrow Never Comes, but the aphorism says nothing about the vaguer Later.
I have decided that Later is Now, if you follow me, and that since I am still quite pleased with it, I should mount it properly and send it out into the world for someone else to enjoy. That in turn means I need to decide how to deal with it.
Since the needlelace is raised, it can’t go in a frame, and in any case, I’m not keen on putting embroidery behind glass. So I’m trying to choose a fabric that I can mount it on.
Although having put all my photos in landscape orientation, I’m having second thoughts. I think I’ll turn the canvas into portrait orientation and then mount the picture above the centreline, giving a space of fabric at the bottom to lead in. I wonder whether that changes my decision?
Something different this week
Late last year, a local film-maker friend who had bought a copy of “Dreams of Amarna” said that it had revealed a whole new world to him, and he’d like to make a film about me and my work. To begin with it was going to be a standard documentary, with him doing the filming and me just being the subject, but then he realised just how difficult it would be to film the embroidery and painting that he wanted to under the constraints of our respective diaries. So apart from a couple of bits at the beginning and end, I became camerawoman as well as subject.
The film became a First in the annals of Swan Moviemakers, in that the direction happened entirely by email. Tony would ask questions, ask for footage of <something>, I would attempt to oblige, get it to him via some means or other, and we’d go around again. I found myself thinking quite hard about the whys and wherefores of what I do and how, in a more abstract way to the way I do it here on the blog, so I’m not sure how clearly I’ve expressed myself, or how much sense I make for anyone not involved with the art and craft of embroidery.
In the end, the film won two awards at Swan, and very definitely introduced the other members of the club to the idea that embroidery can be an art form and not “merely embellishment”. So that’s definitely a win.
It’s less than fifteen minutes long. I hope you’ll enjoy it too!
Planning the front..
I started to plan the design for the embroidery on the rest of the coat with a decision: there’ll be nothing on the sleeves. The whole thing will be utterly overpowering if I’m not careful.
Then, further, the idea of having a group of leaves, almost overlaid, or at the very least touching one another, and adding one small, pale, early bud. The paper cut outs look very scrappy, but I am finding that as I become more experienced, and more taken up with my ideas and how to embody them, I don’t need quite the same level of clarity and simplicity in what I’m looking at to make a decision as I used to. That’s encouraging!
However, that does, occasionally, turn out not to be the case. I was intending to have a bud on the upper front of the jacket.
Looking at this, I’m really not sure that it will work. I think I need to have the bit I am certain of in place, and worry about the rest of it later. I might even end up assembling the jacket and having to do any last embroidery with everything in place except the lining, which would be distinctly trying.
So, back to the simplicity of the leaf arrangement in the lower corner.
I do have a challenge next, in that there are a couple of small holes I need to darn before I get started on the embroidery.
The original pattern, by the way, has patch pockets. They are not going to be involved here. I’m not all that keen on pockets (I’m what Trinny and Susannah used to call a Bag Lady!) and in this case they would interfere with my plans. If I decide the garment does need pockets, they’ll be put in the lining.
Finishing the back of the Lotus Flower Coat
I did rather wonder about how densely to stitch the calyxes for the half-open flowers. I was bothered about stitch direction and stitch choice, and I was full of anxieties about making them work.
And then, lo and behold, I am surprised!
I don’t think I need to do more on these two. You can see that they aren’t by any means identical. The visual weight is in different places, the stems are different, the stitch choices are different. But they have the same “feel”, and when you look at the finished, pressed version, below, I think you’ll agree that it is working nicely.
Of course, now, I have to plan the front….
Starting on the Calyxes
Once I had my flowers in, I scattered every green thread I had over the pattern piece, and performed a triage.
I ended up with this. It’s not terribly informative, now I look at it, if you aren’t me, but it gives you a sense, perhaps, of a variety of tones and types of thread. Some of them are a little heavy and need to be deployed cautiously, some of them I don’t have much of and need to be careful with for other reasons.
There was much thought needed about the calyxes and stems. Did I want something contrasting, more solid? Did I continue in the same style, maybe tweaking my stitch choice? What about stitch direction? Should I keep to the verticals? Contours? Horizontals?
You can see here what I ended up with.
The two outer leaves have the stitch lines running horizontally, but a little echoing the contour.
The leaf that is curling out towards us has lines following the edges and lines following the central vein, and then I left gaps. I hope that creates a little the sense of the highlights on a strongly shaped leaf.
For the calyx itself, I have used colour and stitch direction to create the sense of the leaves wrapping around one another, and the dark colours of the major shape turn further and merge into the stem.
Yes, working so far, I think.
Stella’s Birds Finished
Once I got the design settled for Stella’s Birds, the principle elements remained pretty much unchanged when I got the stitching done. The details, not so much. The drawing shows where I intended to put most of the raised sections and the patterning. Note: intended!
I ended up not filling in any of the bodies of the birds, to leave the effect a little lighter and less blocky. Every time I tried to fill them in, they went grumpy at me, and if nothing else, I’ve learnt to pay attention when my embroidery shouts at me! Furthermore, Stabby has a leading edge, rather than a shoulder, and I simplified the structural details slightly, using the same stitch for all the curlicues, and another same stitch for all the stalks for the leaves.
If you recall, the idea was to create something that might evoke the idea of a light, carved wood, but using a technique reminiscent of Mountmellick Embroidery. It gave me a chance to use some well-beloved stitches, and to rejoice in the textural effects available from those stitches and the choice of threads to stitch them with.
I’m pleased with it.
The half-open flowers
Having got over that momentary wobble about the half open flowers on the Lotus Flower Coat, it was just a matter of carrying on, rows and rows of stitches in a variety of shades and thicknesses of thread.
I’ve kept to the same feather stitch and chain stitch variations for both of them, and I worked small facing sections in lighter shades – borrowed from the fully open flower – to suggest the inside of petals on the other side of the centre.
One of the flowers uses more purple and lilac tones, the other is more pinkish, still trying to create a certain balanced effect without symmetry. I worked a bit on each flower in turn until I was done, making the petals variations on each other, emphases not in quite the same place, patterns rippling slightly as they move across.
I’m very happy with the little channels of fabric showing around the edges of the petals. It’s a way of moving the design more towards a graphic and less towards naturalism – and let’s face it, there’s nothing very naturalistic about my stitchery! It also creates a lightness to the design which I think will be very suitable for a light spring and summer jacket.
I’m aware that the relatively dense stitching has created ripples in the fabric, but it’s quite loosely woven wool, and I’m pretty confident that once I’ve pressed or steamed it, all will be well.
I have to do the calyxes and the stems first, though. I have a few thoughts about that, but I’m not entirely sure it will work as I hope.
Watch this space, as they say….
Stella’s Birds – Shouty Bird
Shouty started off with basic herringbone stitch in the variegated thread. I do like the way the colours are shading here, but to be honest, I really didn’t think hard enough about the next few stages!
That’s been a bit of a theme with Stella’s Birds, there have been false starts and missteps galore, but I don’t mind too much. I am still learning to visualise the elements I want, and I don’t always see them clearly. Once I’ve stitched them, it’s much easier!
I’ve been keeping to the strongly raised leading edge of the wing, and I’m happy with that. But I’m not happy with the bird’s body – it’s either too textured, or not textured enough – neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring, as my Grandad used to say.
Furthermore, the two central lines of the tail are too bright, too white, shouting too loudly, louder than the bird himself. And the crest is untidy and coming undone.
So a lot of it came out. I’ve knocked back the tail – a cream pearl cotton, rather than white. That was already better.
Then I went back to the variegated thread for the rest of the bird’s body, and I’ve left it unfilled – in the end, all the birds are mostly just outlined, with the odd point of detail.
The flight feathers are just simple lines of stitching, nothing too fancy, just enough. I like it much better now.
Lotus Flower Coat – Reassured!
You may recall that I had a crisis of confidence over the lotus flower. Having decided I actively disliked my second thought, I persevered with version one, and I am Very Happy Indeed with how it has turned out.
So much so that I offer closer photographs below (click through to look at the stitching more closely and see what I’ve done). It is very simple in conception, just rows and rows of stitching in close shades of white/cream with a bit of pink and lilac, and a couple of the threads are variegated. Somehow it looks light, sunny, charming – and not at all like yet another version of the Jacket of Many Stitches!
And I’m making good use of Floral Feather Stitch, which is one of those delights I feel I don’t make adequate use of. I’m making up for it here – it’s one of my “hero” stitches, breaking up the density of stitching and allowing the tweed to show through. At some point I’ll do a little video of this one, as I’ve not seen many people mentioning it – I found it in Edith John’s Creative Stitches, I think.
But in the meantime – it’s Feather Stitch with an Up-&-Down Blanket Stitch beside each feather!