Thursday 13 November 2014

Sake Boxes - foundations

Before you can do lots of superimposed work you first have to stitch lots of foundations. There are different versions of Konbuin-no-fukusa- Sake Box, the full design has four vessels. The smaller Sake Box with Ladle design that I am stitching (see picture 13 in this gallery) has only two vessels, a sake box and a long handled ladle. The sake box has a black twisted silk foundation. It looks very stark at this stage but will look entirely different when all of the superimposed work is added.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Although a solid block of colour, the beautiful blue twisted silk foundation on the outside of the ladle does not look quite as stark as the sake box. This too will look completely different when the decoration is added.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

The lacquered inside of the ladle is also visible. There is no superimposed work on this part of the ladle but the handles, the spout and the rivets will be completed in gold work so it will not be one large orange area when it is finished.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I have never stitched such large foundations before. I was advised to make long twisted threads to minimise the amount of wasted thread. I spent an entire morning twisting threads before I started stitching. All three areas are weft valley foundation. I find this the easiest of the foundations. The weft threads in the fabric serve as a guide, helping to keep the stitches evenly spaced and parallel. I also find it much easier to keep long stitches parallel as small fluctuations in spacing are less noticeable over greater lengths.

Once completed, temporary holding is stitched over all three foundations. I used a 1->2 twist of the same colour silk on the blue and the black foundations. The superimposed work will stitch over the temporary holding so I think it will end up being permanent holding. Any parts of the lacquer interior not covered in gold work will require short stitch holding so here I did the temporary holding in white couching thread.

I will not do the super imposed work until all of the surrounding silk work has been completed even thought I am itching to get to that part.

Happy Stitching

4 comments:

Rachel said...

All this foundation work does give you a real sense of the scope of the piece - even if you are itching to get on with the twiddly bits!

Cath said...

The foundations do add colour to the piece relatively quickly but you must have been pleased to get the black completed. It's looking good.

H Gotts said...

My teacher MAS made several comments regarding superposition that I thought I'd mention for your consideration. First is do the SSH on the entire foundation before superposition, second is to remove the temporary holding stitches as soon as possible because they may leave permanent creases on the foundation. Then she recommended using quilting tissue paper for the transfer (in case you are not doing shell powder transfer), as these do not leave lint after removing them from the foundation.PS. Your foundation is gorgeously done!

Susan Elliott said...

Hey Friend!!! We are at the same point!! Woohoo! I just posted an update post similar to yours. Your foundations look beautiful and we're one step closer to next Fall. Let's keep each other honest!