Tag: experiments
Extending the Persian Fantasy – More Cacti
Cactus Extension Design 1
By this time I had run out of the fabric I used for the screen, and I was beginning to realize that if I wanted to continue to embroider in this sort of style I would need to find another suitable fabric. I’d enjoyed the Persian Fantasy so much that I didn’t want to do that…
So I designed two clusters of cacti, to use in experiments. The designs were inspired by the cacti in the Persian Fantasy, but not actually like them, and I worked them on a plain 28count linen intended for counted cross stitch.
I used chain and feather stitches, ornamental blanket stitches, and some isolated stitches as well, all to create variety and and texture. The designs themselves are very minimal, so all the interest in them lies in the combinations of the threads and the stitches.
Cactus Extension Design 2
It wasn’t easy – I wanted to use some of the ornamental stitches I had used in the original piece, but the fabric/thread combinations were very frustrating to work with. The linen threads were too closely set and rigidly finished to respond forgivingly to some of the heavier threads, but they did at least provide me with more opportunity for experimentation. Even if my conclusion had to be that I had to find another sort of fabric for this sort of embroidery!
The rocks in the second design were worked using wool as that provides a different quality of matte effect to the effect of a matte cotton.
Trying Stumpwork
Kiwi In Stumpwork
As I’ve already mentioned, almost every embroidery technique I have done has been learnt from a book, or just developed by guesswork based upon something I have read.
In this case, I had been reading about 17th Century stumpwork, and had just returned from a half-business trip, half-holiday in New Zealand. And I had some rather gorgeous overdyed silk threads and wanted to experiment with them!
The body is worked in layers of straight stitches, using several different colours of the overdyed silks. I worked a slip, slightly smaller than the body, on a separate piece of fabric, then applied that piece over some padding, and used more straight stitches to cover the join – very thoroughly!
The legs and the beak are both worked by stitching very closely over a trailing thread of soft cotton. The background fabric is a sturdy cotton damask upholstery fabric, so the close stitchery did no harm. The ground is worked using still more straight stitches, with scroll stitch, coral stitch and fern stitch to create the fragmentary undergrowth.
This was intended just as a piece of fun, but I was happy enough with the outcome to mount it in a flexihoop frame. I’ve bought a couple of books on Stumpwork since I stitched this, but I don’t know that I would have thought of doing the Kiwi this way if I had read the books first.