News / satin stitch
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May 21, 2013
Atlas Moth…more progress
Read more →The Atlas Moth is really starting to take shape, with the left side almost complete! I’ll let the pictures do the talking, so I can get back to it :) Remember to click on the images for a closer look! And here’s the real thing again for comparison: Filed under: Thoughts Tagged: art, Atlas Moth, embroidery, french knots, Mother Eagle, Moths, My work, satin stitch, Work in Progress
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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 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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Feb 01, 2013
From Little Acorns – Part 2
Read more →I’m really sorry; sometimes I get a bit carried away when I’m sewing something and I forget to do more step by step pics. Oh well. So if you’ll remember I was feeling a bit ‘blobby’ about the acorn in it’s solo state and felt like i had just enough space to add an Oak leaf sitting behind it. It’s not how I usually plan designs – to have these kind of big changes at the late stages but that’s the evolution of design I guess. It’s kind of nice. Do you know of all the stitches I find the...
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Jan 28, 2013
From Little Acorns -Part 1
Read more →I was pleased, then a bit surprised, when Craft Gossip featered me on their blog last week. Only because they called my post on the Hawthorn flower a tutorial. I didn’t think about that when I wrote it (the pictures are rubbish for starters), it’s just my normal way of showing step-by-step as I make something. But if it works as a tutorial for you, then good stuff (but don’t go selling it or copying or anything uncool like that ;)). This week as you may deduce it is the Oak’s turn and it had to really be an acorn...
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Dec 11, 2012
One-Handed Embroidery
Read more →Obviously having a broken wrist WILL NOT DETER ME in my obsessive pursuit of needle arts. Whilst the swans were in progress, I was commissioned by a brilliant friend to make a brooch for her. A moth. She said if it COULD have a skull on the back that would be cool. I said it can’t NOT have a skull on the back, so this cheerful-in-a-harbinger-of-death-type-way fellow was begun. It’s a nice simple shape with lots of potential for complex colours and textures. I drew on some extra pattern guide lines freehand with a dressmaker’s pencil. I was using a...
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Dec 03, 2012
VIP Commission: Swan-a-thon is over!
Read more →THEY. ARE. DONE! Let’s go back a stage. So I knew the 2nd swan would be quicker to do than the first as all the decisions had been made and I was essentially copying. This first pic is actually what I did last Sunday after the mega stitchathon. Over Thursday, Friday and Saturday I did the rest: So it’s gone from this: To this: The finished pair. If it was mine, I would call it ‘Swans Kissing In The Snow’. I added just a sprinkling of french knots to prevent them looking like they were floating, like stickers. I’ll...