As you may know if you are a regular reader, I go to
the home of Suzette ‘one pin’ Smart to do machine embroidery. I don’t have the
discipline to sit all day here at home working just with threads because I get
easily distracted back to my fabrics. So, armed with a sewing machine, a box of
threads and a few essential embroidery supplies, I take myself off to her house
and just sew. It is not a workshop as such but there is advice if I need it and
inspiration by the bucketful. Just being with other machine embroiderers is
inspirational; you can see what they are working on, enjoy their colour palette
and witness how they achieve their results.
The inspiration for my 3-D picture has been taken
from my garden where, this year, the butterflies have been wonderful! The buddleia
has been covered with them and on one occasion I have counted as many as 15 of
them. The two pictures below show their beautiful markings.
Small tortoiseshell
Red Admiral
At the first class, I decided I would try to draw
some vague replicas of common butterflies just using threads. I trapped a few
bits of sheer fabric between 2 layers of a vanishing medium. This was held in
an embroidery frame whilst the stitching was done. First I drew an outline for
each butterfly and then I filled them in with different coloured threads,
mainly scribbling to give a tangle of threads. The vanishing medium was soaked away
leaving the butterflies attached to the flimsy sheers which gave them a lovely
delicacy. They are going to be stiff enough to bend in the middle to give them
dimension to the picture.
Butterflies on sheer
At the second session, I started to work on a
background picture, dominated by a buddleia on which the butterflies will
eventually rest. I used layers, texture and stitch to compose it and I believe
I have laid down a good foundation as a base for more stitching and texture.
(ASIDE: Seeing it through the lens of a camera has
given me the distance I needed to appraise progress. There are a few things
that need attention which I hadn’t been aware of by just looking at it at arm’s
length! The camera shows just how the picture will look inside it’s frame and
the use of a camera cannot be under estimated.)
Foundation of picture
Buddleia detail
Textures
Layers
I have made a bit more progress on my painterly
piece, with only a couple more squares to do to give me the twelve I think I need
for this project.
Painterly background
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