News
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May 14, 2013
Atlas Moth – Last Week’s Progress
Read more →Hello! I’m writing this post in a slight rush to get out the door for work but as I’m off tomorrow and will be doing more embroidery I didn’t want TOO much time to elapse before I shared more WIP pics! As you can see, as usual I am building this design up in stages, finer detail and blocking lines first. This has a dual purpose too, of giving me a line to anchor later satin stitch work to a sold line. If that makes sense! At this point I switched from split stitch to french knots as the wing...
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May 05, 2013
Phase 1: Atlas Moth
Read more →As always, the foundation of a piece like this is all. So this will be a relatively dry post full of boring preparation shots. But, y’know. This stuff matters. First of all, I knew how big the finished, framed size had to be, so I plotted this out on some brown paper, then added in the frame and mount sizes to give the aperture – the embroiderable (?) size. Then I laid out the individual moth patterns I made to get an idea of how they would fit on the piece. I will be embroidering the latin names of the...
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Apr 28, 2013
The Moon, the Elephant and the Atlas.
Read more →Hi everyone! Remember me? I’m still here, and I’ve not been idle. What I’m sharing with you today is some backgorund info on some amazing and beautiful creatures that I have the good fortune of having the pleasure to embroider for a lovely private commission I’ve landed. I am creating a framed piece depicting 3 of the most beautiful moths in nature. It’s funny – when I decided to start accepting commissions I was very clear I didn’t want to be an ‘embroiderer for hire’ and would only accept work on the basis that it inspired me; as such I...
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Apr 12, 2013
What a difference a day makes…
Read more →Well this is embarrassing. Ten days since my last post. Pfft. First of all lets deal with this here silk ribcage, which will go into the Midsummer Collection and which I completed on Wednesday. Then I gots some explaining to do. I filled in the rest of the shape with my fine fine machine weight silk, chose a couple of other warmer shades for the spine and added some french knot spiny processes and (you probably can’t see this but) some subtle shading lines on the under edge of each rib. Then I spent some time outlining the ribs in...
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Apr 02, 2013
Ribcage Redux
Read more →So I realise I’ve not been keeping up my one-new-design-a-week typical blogging schedule this last 2 weeks ish. This is not only because of the wonderful and long longed for distractions of things like this picture – the honestly really real life beach covered in snow and topped with azure sky scene at the (almost) bottom of my street WHERE I NOW LIVE. Sigh. It’s also not only because of distractions like Ice Cream Sundaes (yes capitalised because they are Sundaes of God-like status in my house), a soothing balm-slash-reward enjoyed slightly too frequently since moving to the seaside (FYI...
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Mar 25, 2013
Deadly Black Henbane…Part II
Read more →I have been a bit quiet this week, as far as blogging goes anyway. But the needle has been stitching away as ever, and I just finished the Black Henbane flower yesterday, so here is part 2! When I left you last week I had completed the 3 petals using detached wire slips techniques. So here is number 4; And here is the fifth and final one. In some ways this was the easy bit over, now plunging the wires into the black ground fabric one by one, to constuct the flower head. As each petal is pushed through the...
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Mar 18, 2013
Deadly Henbane – Stumpwork Part 1
Read more →This will be a post in two parts. I realised a funny thing the other day – that this (along with, I suppose, the Hawthorn Blossom) are not miniatures, but rather larger than life. This made by chuckle silently inside. I’m sad like that. Soooooo. Black Henbane. I think it is a GORGEOUS flower: And I wanted to capture all that lovely veiny detail, obvs. I decided to do a similar thing to the aforementioned Hawthorn Blossom and make detatched wired slips. And I got some nice heavy white cotton and using fine machine silk, couched it down: The little...
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Mar 15, 2013
Black Henbane – Herb Lore
Read more →The penultimate plant in this Midsummer collection! I asked my fans on Facebook which plant they would like to see next and most said Foxglove but quite honestly I haven’t figured out how I’m gonna make that yet so I’m going for this one. LOVELY, deadly stinking Black Henbane. This one gets me excited. It is reputedly SO poisonous, the smell alone can cause giddiness. It is not considered truly indigenous to Great Britain, but occurs fairly frequently in parts of Scotland, England and Wales, and also in Ireland, and has been found wild in sixty British counties, chiefly in...
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Mar 11, 2013
Procrastination, Distraction, and Getting On With It.
Read more →Procrastination is the art-killer. Who said that? I did, just then. I would believe it too, up until about 4pm yesterday I was having a very unfocused day, distracted, starting things, stopping, forgetting what I was doing. All quite annoying and not very me! But then I obviously got my shit together and did most of the Crab apple you see above. Other things I did/was distracted by: Moving house chaos in the spare room (AKA My office goddamit!). More tidy and lovely light-filled lounge. So much floor space! Fox in the garden! I never seen one before. We call...
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Mar 08, 2013
Crabapple – Herb Lore
Read more →So I chose the Crab Apple tree for the next one. In actual fact much (if not all) of the folklore for ordinary apples apply here – which is a lot – but I specify Crabapple as it is the original and only indigenous ancient apple tree of Britain, the wild ancestor from which all cultivated apple species come from. So that seems appropriate to my type o’ thang. Also other cool things about Crabapple is that it is a thorn bearing tree unlike modern apples, and produces beautiful blossoms that smell like honeysuckle. It doesn’t grow very big –...