A Day in Paradise

Because of the warm spring sunshine ...

Because of the sweet fresh breeze drifting through the open patio door ...

Because of the bird song and Borodin’s "In The Steppes Of Central Asia" playing softly on the radio ...

Because of the wild plum blossoming in the hedge ...


30 minutes at my frame this morning felt like a day in Paradise.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Travelling Books - 9 January 2009

Close to where I work is a large cementary. Sometimes I take a walk there during my lunch break. In January we had a several days of freezing weather inculding a couple of days of freezing fog that left everything covered in a thick haw frost. I went to the cemetary to photograh the winter foliage encrusted in ice crystals.

While there I spotted a granite memorial with an ironwork surround. The ornate metalwork was festooned with frozen cobwebs. The contrast between the three elements really struct me. The fragile cobwebs, so easily destroyed by the weather, the iron slowing decaying after many years of exposure and the granite, ancient, and seemingly impervious to the elements.


This was the inspiration for the page in my first travelling book. I first sketched a design based on the iron work. I used the grainy fabric that I created on Play Days - Part 2 to represent the granite in the background and the fabric created in Play Days - Part 1 for the iron work.


After machine stitching around the design outline with metallic thread, I carefully cut away the top layer to expose the 'granite' fabric.


I then cut out the design and removed the tracing paper from the remaining areas.


With white Medeira metallic thread, I hand stitched cobwebs onto the ironwork.


Every photograph, every thought is a moment frozen in time. On that ice encapsulated day, even the cobwebs had an air of permenancy.


Happy Stitching

Workshop - Kathleen Laurel Sage

The beginning of March has been so busy. I have attended a workshop - organised by my branch of the Embroiderer's Guild, a 5 day Japanese Embroidery course, a 5 day course for work and an Embroiderer's Guild branch meeting.

*********

When Kathleen Laurel Sage was guest speaker at our Branch last June, members where so taken with her 'Extrav-Organza Delights' that they requested a workshop. Kathleen is a super tutor, relaxed, confident and good fun. She has spent a lot of time experimenting with her technique for layering and cutting back organza. Kathleen supplied kits at a discount for the class or assisted students in realising their own design. I chose to work from a kit as I wanted to spend my time learning the techniques rather than developing a design. I found it very difficult to choose between the beautiful designs but finally opted for the Chrysanthemum kit, partly because the orange and green colour scheme is an unusual one for me to work with and partly to chose a different one from everyone else.

The kit contains all the material required, except from machine sewing threads, to complete the design.

During the workshop, I nearly completed the design. It only took me a couple of hours the same evening to finish it off. That is quite unusual for me as I am such a slow worker.

A really enjoyable workshop, and a very pleasing finish.


Happy Stitching

Guest Speaker, Jan Beaney

I'm not terribly good at remembering names. It is not unusual for me to think that I have never heard of our guest speaker only to find that I am very familiar with their work. However, there are some 'names' in the world of embroidery that even I cannot fail to recognise. I had never met Jan Beaney before tonight but many of our branch members have, either at talks, or through workshops and courses; they hold her in high regard. From her talk tonight, it is easy to see why they find Jan so inspiring. Her observational skills are evident in her photographs, her sketchbooks and even in the very words she uses to describe her work. Her fascination with colour, light and texture is obvious and her ability to convey a sense of mood and place is remarkable.

Most of our branch meetings are well attended, but tonight we had the highest attendance of members and guests for some time. The ripple of excitement before Jan's talk was palpable. I don't think anyone left disappointed, I certainly didn't. I am doing a workshop with Jan later this year. I was already looking forward to it, now I can't wait to spend a day with this inspirational lady.

Happy Stitching

Play Days - Part 2

Over the weekend I also painted some habutae silk. I have tried this a couple of times before but I don’t really know what I am doing.

First I stretched the piece of silk onto a frame that J made for me a couple of years ago. I used Peboe SetaSilk Paint in three shades, caramel, magenta combined with a little yellow, and cyan combined with a tiny amount of black. All three were diluted with water.

On one half of the silk I dropped paint onto dry silk using a pipette. I began with caramel and added first the pink then the blue and finally added more caramel to fill any voids.

On the second half I used a sponge brush to paint the blue over the entire area. At this point I planned to let everything dry. I can be a very patient person. I can do the same task for hours on end, but I am not very good at just letting things be. After about an hour I decided to add some salt. On the spotty side I sprinkled salt everywhere; on the plain side I sprinkled salt only along the edges and left things to dry ...



... A little later I decided to add stripes to the plain half and used the pipette to drop a lines of caramel and pink paint ... and sprinkled rows of salt along the stripes. Then I left everything to dry.


Some interesting effects emerge when you add salt. In some places the colour streaked, I think this was where the paint was nearly dry.


In other places the colour has gone grainy, this seams to happen if the salt is applied to very wet paint.


I noticed also that salt crystals seem to have grown in places where no salt was applied.



When the paint was completely dry, I removed most of the salt. It had stuck to the fabric in places but was easily brushed off. I tried to leave small particles of salt, as I like the way it glistens. To set the colour, I ironed the silk with a hot iron for several minutes.



Happy Stitching

Play Days - Part 1

While J was playing bar billiards at tournaments Saturday and Sunday, I got some playtime of my own.

I took some scraps of brown lining fabric and began by applying gold acrylic paint and bronze wax. On the first sample I applied first the paint and then the wax to the fabric and spread it with a brush using a brushing action. This applied a thick, even layer of colour.


On the second sample I applied the paint to the brush and brushed this onto the fabric, again in a brushing action. I then applied the wax in the same manner. This gave a light application of paint/wax but with a similar appearance to sample 1.


For the third sample I again applied the paint to the brush but this time I applied it to the fabric by stippling and repeated this with the wax. This was the slowest method but produced a more textured effect. Of the three samples this is the one I like best.


I allowed the samples to dry over night before continuing. Using Markal Paintstiks in orange, yellow, purple, blue and two shades of green, I made random marks all over the surface. I tried to blend the lines with a dry brush, with out much success, so I applied dots of the gold acrylic and bronze wax used previously and stippling all over the fabric to blend the colours.




I can no longer distinguish between samples 1 and 2 but sample three remains my favourite.

Happy Stitching

Fabulous Fabrics

Japanese Embroidery is taught in Phases. You begin by learning the basis stitches and techniques, at each Phases you build on what you have already learnt and introduce more advanced techniques. While you are learning embroidery stitches, more subtly you are also learning about fabrics.

At Phase I, Hanayama, I was barely aware of the fabric. I know that it is a crepey fabric and vaguely remember thinking that it was a very forgiving fabric that readily healed whenever I removed stitches. I removed a lot of stitches during Phase I but the fabric withstood everything I could throw at it.

I noticed the fabric for Phase II, Suihiro, immediately. It has a crisper texture from the Phase I silk and has small, shiny splodges woven into it. Splodges is not a pretty enough word to describe the effect but I cannot think of a more appropriate one.

The fabric for Phase III, Venerable Friends, is much heavier. It needs to be to support the padding and superimposed stitches that are the techniques taught at this Phase.

Phases IV, gold work, also needs the support of a heavier fabric. My Karahana is stitched on red Shioze.

During the first 10 Phases to accreditation, the student is encouraged to us a metallic fabric at least once. Nishijin has narrow strips of gold-leafed paper alternating with silk threads for the weft. I have heard tales of how unforgiving Nishijin can be; the paper in the weft threads does not heal in the same way that silk fibers do. The stitcher cannot afford to make too many, nor too obvious, mistakes. I am stitching Phase V, Himotaba, on Nishijin<. When the fabric arrived, I was immediately struck by it's rich, smooth finish.


My piece of fabric comes from either the beginning or the end of the bolt. The weaver began with a section of pure silk before introducing the gold paper. On the plain silk I have placed a single strip of gold paper that frayed away from the raw edge.

It is a beautiful fabric but I am a little bit intimidated by it. I still have to remove a lot of stitching, sometimes more that one. Will the fabric withstand this? Now that I have begun stitch, albeit only the prep work, I like the feel of the fabric. I am finding it easier to place the stitches precisely than with any of the fabrics I have worked with before. I think this is because the needle pierces the paper where as the needle finds a path between the threads on purely silk fabrics.

I was horrified when I realised that I had couched the imitation gold in the wrong place. When I removed the threads, I could see what they mean about the fabric not healing; there was a clear stitching line left in the fabric. Fortunately this will be covered by stitching. Also, the original printed line was now barely visible. I decided to outline along this line with Japanese running stitch. Partly to make the line more visible when I come to do the stitching; partly to give more support to the stitching.


Despite taking great care, I removed a short section of paper along with the couched gold. I sticks out like a sore thumb, but again it is fortunate that it lies within the cord and will be covered by stitching.

Happy stitching.