Threads Across the Web

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

A Very Special Thread

My friend Jane has a special thread; a beautiful silver thread.

If I remember correctly, Jane purchased this thread in 1990/01 at an introductory course on Japanese embroidery. I don’t know if it would have been considered special at the time or if it was the standard silver thread available then. The silver thread available now is subtly different. Jane’s thread has a soft, warm sheen when compared to its modern counterpart but somehow it appears brighter.

Rather fittingly, Jane used this silver on Seeds of Nuido. The piece was designed for the late Mary-Dick Digges who Jane met at the introductory class where she purchased the thread. I believe that she also used it to stitch the silver elements on her Phase X, Kusadama.

Jane very graciously supplied me with a length of the precious silver thread to stitch the water on Loving Couple. I shall be eternally grateful to her and every time I look at Loving Couple, I shall think of her and the special thread that is friendship.

Happy Stitching

Friday, 26 November 2010

Neck Feathers, Take Three

I could see exactly what was wrong with the neck feathers - they were even skinnier that the first attempt and I had a hideous line were the two rows overlapped. I needed to figure out what I needed to do to get it right. I sent pictures to my sensei. Back came the reply “Although I don't like to have to say it, I think you need to take out these feathers ...”. No need to apologise, I had already decided they were coming out. Margaret, also suggested that I put in more feathers, “for every two neck feathers you have now, you need to have three feathers in their space” and also that I take the bottom row of feathers higher up if I still had gaps between the feathers in the top row. Armed with this advice I was ready for round three, starting with more reverse stitching.

Normally in Japanese embroidery you stitch the foreground first. That would indicate that the top row should be done first but the feathers in the top row actually overlap those in the bottom row so I have been stitching those first. This may be part of where I am going wrong but rather stubbornly I decided to do it that way around again. However, I took on board Margaret’s advice and took the feathers in the bottom row higher, especially those that fell into gaps in the top row. I deliberately staggered the tops of the feathers, thinking that this would give a less pronounced line when the top row was added. I increased the thread from 1 flat to 1.5 flat and I concentrated on making each feather wider. I’m not sure if they are a single diagonal layer yet but they are no longer definitely a line of staggered diagonals. I had intended to add more feathers, as Margaret suggested, but after stitching the first few feathers I could see that it would not be necessary.

When the bottom row was complete, I was beginning to feel confident that this attempt would be better. No, more than that, I was quite excited about them.

It is slightly strange stitching while feeling excited by what you are stitching. The temptation is to go faster so you can see the result but I made myself resist that urge and stitch the top row with the same care and attention.

When I finished the top row, I stood up to take a good look ... and I was delighted. This is where I do the happy dance. Not a pretty sight and perhaps not in keeping with the normally sombre and dignified pursuit of Japanese embroidery but after two horrible failures I felt pretty pleased with myself.

Mr Duck finally has neck feathers befitting a duck of his stature.

(Very) Happy Stitching

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Neck Feathers, Take Two

I stuck to my decision to leave the neck feathers in until Mrs Duck was fully stitched but truthfully my mind was already made up. This is no common or garden duck. This is a Mandarin duck, an emperor, a king, and these skimpy, wispy feathers simply did not cut the mustard. They had to go.

In Japanese embroidery, removing work is referred to as 'reverse stitching'. Sometimes, as I did on his stomach, it is possible to snip through all the layers then pull out the cut threads. The neck feathers are stitched on top of areas of embroidery that I wanted to preserve, so on this occasion 'reverse stitching' was an accurate description of the process as I carefully removed the feathers, stitch by stitch in the reverse order to how I stitched them. It was a slow and delicate operation.

With the offending feathers removed I decided to put in some guide lines to show more clearly the position of each feather; that would be one less thing to concentrate on while stitching. The box chart calls for the neck feathers to be stitched as a diagonal single layer. The stitches on my first attempt were more of a line of staggered diagonals. I couldn’t tell you at what point one becomes the other but mine were definitely the latter. I tried to make them a diagonal single layer this time but the first few feathers I stitched were just a mess.

More reverse stitching but not before I stitched some more feathers and I felt I was getting them right.

When you are stitching the same thing over and over, you do get into a rhythm and it took me much less time than I expected to redo the stitching (7 hours for the first attempt, just 2 hours for the second). As before, I lent the frame against the wall and stood back to take a good look.

Argh! They were worse than before. In fairness, I think my stitching was better but the overall effect was the duck equivalent of a Bad Hair Day!

This time, I did not even kid myself that I might feel better about them in a day or two but I decided not to do the reverse stitching straight away – I needed to figure out where I was going wrong.

Happy Stitching

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Meet the Missus

The next day was to prove even more challenging for me. Just when I thought I had grasped the notion of always stitching towards myself while always stitching in a clockwise direction, things got more complex. Mr Duck’s neck feathers all curve in the same direction, so each one is stitched in the same way. The curves on Mrs Duck change direction and on top of that, to maintain a feathery effect, the line of staggered diagonals switch between their normal top right/bottom left slant to top left/bottom right slant. All of these factors were nearly too much for my poor brain to handle but with Denise’s help and lots of sketches and pencil marks on my design sheet, I slowly began to get the hang of it.

Mr Duck is such a handsome fellow it is easy to overlook his wife. He is an extravagance of stitching effects; she is stitched almost entirely in staggered diagonals. He is a dazzling array of bright colours; she is a subtle selection of just three soft colours.

But when you start stitching her, you start to appreciate her understated beauty.

Her colours are very subtle and are combined with a strand of 0.8 gold that mingles with the flat silk to glint seductively here and there.

She may be little more than an outline but her lines are simple and elegant.

He is an flamboyant dandy, dressed in his finest but she is a timeless, classic beauty.

Happy Stitching

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

Neck Feathers

Way back in May, I had put Loving Couple away so that I could concentrate on my entry for the SEW Regional Show competition. I fully intended to get it out and resume stitching as soon as I returned from Amsterdam but my mojo went AWOL and I didn’t stitch anything for a while. Loving Couple stayed in the frame cover until the end of October when I attended a Japanese embroidery class in Garstang, Lancashire.

This is how LC looked the last time I wrote about it.

I did a little more stitching before packing it away, including the white under-tail feathers but I forgot to take a picture of that step.

I made a start on his neck feathers but was finding the technique difficult. While stitching in class my tutors (Denise and Jane) identified a couple of things that I was not doing correctly. First Denise noticed that I was stitching each feather in an anti-clockwise direction. Japanese embroidery has many rules, some are general for all techniques; others apply to specific techniques. When stitching a line of staggered diagonals, as I was, the rule is to stitch curves in a clockwise direction. When I changed direction, I immediately noticed the difference it makes to how the stitches lay.

It wasn’t long, however, until Jane observed that I was stitching away from myself. One of the general rules that apply to every stitch is that you stitch towards yourself. Now I was confused. Originally I was starting at the end of the feather furthest from me and was stitching towards myself but in an anti –clockwise direction. Now I was starting at the end of the feather closest to me so I was stitching in a clockwise direction, how could I also stitch towards myself? Jane explained that 'stitching towards yourself' refers to the direction of each individual stitch, not the order of the stitches – the needle should emerge at the end of the stitch furthest from you and travel towards you. It took a few feathers for me to 'get it' but the stitching did seem to flow more naturally once I got the hang of it.

There are two rows of neck feathers. They are the last part to be stitched on Mr Duck. When I had finished those I set my frame against the wall and stood back to take a good look ... and was disappointed! Mr Duck is such a handsome fellow but his neck feathers let him down. They were just too skinny and not all that well stitched.

In the room there were 4 others who had previously stitched Loving Couple. They all said that they had found the neck feathers challenging to stitch and none of them had been totally satisfied with their first attempt. This made me wonder if I was being too self-critical but I was still not sure about them. Sometimes your initial reaction to your own work can be on the negative side, especially at the end of a long class, I decided to re-evaluate the neck feathers after I have stitched Mrs Duck.

Happy Stitching

Friday, 29 October 2010

Kinsai Revisitied

The second workshop that I attended in September was a second kinsai class with Midori-san. This time we were doing the gold leaf work on Double Cherry Blossom Fan, a complimentary design to the Drooping Cherry Tree Fan that I did earlier in the year. The first was a two day workshop, this design was a one day workshop as there is less gold leaf work on it. First, Midori-san screen printed the design for the embroidery onto our fabric, which had been applied to foam board with 505 glue.

As before, we began by cutting out the sticky back plastic masks. The masks for this design are less complicated so it took less time to prepare them. We soon had the first masks in place and began to apply blue paste paint with a stippling brush. I had remembered that the pigment in this paste is very strong and took my time building up the colour little by little.

I liked the result much more than my first attempt with this technique. We then removed the first masks and put the second ones in place. We used a pallet to apply silver and gold paint to the gaps in the mask. Again, I had learnt from my previous experience and made sure that the edges of the mask were well pressed down so the paste would not bleed under it.

That mask was removed and the final one put in place for the last step, applying the flakes of gold and silver leaf. Although I remembered the importance of working quickly for this technique, and I though I did work quickly, I had the same problems with the glue drying very rapidly and my sprinkles did not all stick to the silk.

All in all, I think I did rather better than with the first class. I don't know if that was because this was a simpler design or because I had learnt from my first class. In some ways I would have liked to do this design first and had a little experience to bring to the more complex design. I still have the embroidery to do. This is Midori-san's finished fan. Of the two fans, I like this one best so hope that I will enjoy the embroidery more when I get to it.

Happy Stitching.

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

Flower Pounding

Despite a busy schedule, I attended two workshops during September. The first, arranged by the Oxford Branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild, was 'Flower Pounding' with Linda Rudkin. Earlier in the year Linda had given a talk to the branch on 'Colours from Nature'. I’d found the talk fascinating and had been looking forward to the workshop but as the day approached, I was so busy that I nearly didn’t go. In the end, I decided that if would do me some good to have a 'play' day so I went along.

I think this is the prettiest workshop that I have ever been to. Everyone had raided their own, and their neighbours’ gardens, for a good supply of plant material; the tables were covered in multicoloured flowers and foliage.

The process of Flower Pounding is relatively simple but Linda passed on all the tips and tricks that she has discovered that give the best results and soon we were merrily pounding our petals and leaves.

In the morning we sampled our materials to see which specimens worked best and in the afternoon we used what we had learned to make a small composition.

Linda also showed us how a method of flower trapping.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day and was glad that I had decided to go.

Happy Stitching.