I've got to admit it's getting better ...

For a change. I've had a fairly successful day.



This is a piece of the transfer dyed satin I produced in the Creative Textiles Workshop. I knew I wanted to make book covers with the samples, which aren't very big, but I wasn't sure how to embroider them. In bed last night I browsed through Pamela Watts' book on machine embroidery, and read her suggestion for couching en masse by laying threads over the backing, covering them with chiffon and stitching over the top.


Good chance to get rid of some of those orange threads I don't like.


I didn't have any suitable chiffon but I have lots of net. I started by sewing a grid using Brenda Weekes' suggestion of triple stitch zig-zag at maximum length and width - it gives a nice wavy line and boy is it fast.


But then the thing said 'flames' to me - so I FME'd a few flames and some hot coals. That took a bit longer, but it got me over my thing about FME, though, as flames need to be wobbly. I actually found myself enjoying it!


I also finished a pair of socks - started during the snow when I felt I needed some thicker ones. So it will probably get warmer now.
And I even found time for two stamps - not that they are elaborate ones.

When I made the stamp from this, above, I decided too late that I would like to include that twisted cord running across the bottom - but there was no room for it on the eraser.

So this morning I drew 2 parallel lines on a small rectangular eraser, put in some slightly curved diagonals and carved the stamp. It looks like a ladder, which suggests open chain stitch - not my favourite as it is so easy to get uneven.

While I was making the first stamp I decided it would be even easier just to cut out the diagonals. So I turned the eraser over and carved the other side. For some reason it reminds me of bamboo, but could be couching over a lovely chunky thread.

There is no yellow on the original, the camera decided to add it.

In lieu of a proper daily photo for the stamp - here are some more of Salisbury Cathedral. Here is the exterior - you can see what a grey day it was. Although I have to confess I prefer the interior of Salisbury to the interior of Winchester - I like the plainer exterior of Winchester more than this. Bit of a Puritan really.

Wensleydale insisted on me photographing the thing below, despite the gloom and the camera shake. Modern art?

No - a stack of chairs.


These are the Mompesons - lots of lovely pattern there. Unfortunately by this stage our car park time was running out so I couldn't take as many photos as I would have liked.

A pillar from the Mompesons' tomb.

And finally - an upside down blurry picture of a window - which looks like stitch.

Actually it is a reflection in this. Which has to be the most amazing font I have ever seen. [That is 'font' as in baptism, not 'font' as in lettering!]

If you have an hour or so to spare, try the sculptor, William Pye's website. What that man can do with water!

Is this a stamp?

You may be seeing quite a lot of this image over the next few days. It is a section of the floor of Winchester Cathedral - which has, apparently, the largest area of medieval floor tiles in the UK, - all waiting to inspire stamps ...

Not surprising since they were made by pushing a stamp into red clay and filling the impression with white clay. [It is the glaze that makes them look yellow.]

I have been intending to do something with these patterns for a long time - so when I was looking for inspiration for today and found this photo - Bingo! [Sorry about the reflection - the tiles are shiny and the Cathedral dark so I had to use flash.]

I shall probably use more conventional stamp making methods on another day - but as I had papers painted with transfer dyes from the Creative Textiles Workshop last Friday - I decided to use them today. So my 'stamps' could also be called 'stencils' or 'resists'.

And as it's February - I'm into hearts.

I enlarged individual tiles from the photo and played around cutting out heart shaped stencils which incorporated part of the design of the tile. This is the one I liked best.

This is on Vilene interfacing - not the really heavy stuff, a firm sew-in type.

As you may know, when you iron the papers some of the paint will transfer to the stencil, which you can then turn over and iron off to get a print of the stencil. Which is what I did here - except that dye had also transferred to the baking parchment and that ironed off too to give a red background/fleur-de-lis. A happy accident, I think. This is on Evolon.

This is a similar effect but deliberate this time. I took the 'holes' from two stencils, the fleur-de-lis and another one, and ironed the dye off over them. Then I took the holes away, turned the dye paper upside down, and ironed off again, which gave this faint pattern on polyester satin. This is probably the one I like best, as it is as subtle as transfer dyes on poly satin can ever be. The texture comes from scrumpling the painted paper while it is still wet.

You will have deduced that Friday's workshop was mark making with transfer dyes [and crayons] We started by looking at some samples of embroidery and then chose stitches to replicate, I kid you not, by embroidering corrugated card with string. [My immediate reaction was 'book covers'!]

Mine was boring compared with other people's, who had the sense to choose more interesting stitches than straight and running.

We then used the card as rubbing boards, covering them with layout paper and rubbing with transfer crayons. We also rubbed over lace, which would have been much more interesting if it had worked - I think I was too light handed with the crayons, rare as it is for me to be light handed with anything. [I usually use copy paper for this - I don't think the layout paper worked any better and copy paper is much cheaper ...]

Then we painted over the crayoned pieces, and blank pieces, with transfer dyes, and had lunch while they dried.

We spent the afternoon cutting, tearing, layering and generally playing with the painted papers, and ironing off onto a variety of fabrics.

This final piece has no connection with the dally photo, but is here because I told A. you could do it. The idea came, of course, from Linda Kemshall's excellent book 'Colour Moves'. Well worth reading if you want to know more about transfer dyeing.

In the section on the right I used a feather as a resist - on the left I turned the feather over and ironed it off. It is faint [I have done it more successfully in the past] but it is there. On satin, as if you hadn't guessed.

Now it's officially official!

My C&G diploma arrived today. Well, actually - two of them did, each in a separate envelope with a unit certificate, one for Design and one for Embroidery. [This is the complicated way that C&G works.] I don't think I should have been sent two - but I'm not complaining!

That inspired me to get moving on my homework. We were asked to start a sketch book for the Creative Textiles course I am taking next term. We have to record words and images, including a study of two artists featured in exhibitions we have visited during the summer. We were told we could make our own sketchbook but I resisted the temptation as I have several impulse purchases to use up.

You may have noticed that I have been to several exhibitions this summer. By my reckoning we have been to 7 art exhibitions, as well as museums and other visits. I am finding it hard to limit myself to two artists. So far I have played around with images by Sisley, Hodgkin, Gormley and Lambie. [I have been very restrained about Klimt as I used him so much last year.]

Today I decided to stick all the postcards etc. from our visits into the sketch book. Of course I couldn't just stick them on plain white pages - I had to paint the pages first. Preferably with more than one colour. And paint the covers. All of which took time to dry.

When I began wielding the glue stick I realised that I will need a second book - although I haven't really started with playing around with the images yet.

I have had a play with this though:

http://www.krazydad.com/kaleido/

It is ever so slightly addictive ...

This is the original picture.

Finding words to go in the sketchbook has been more difficult. I can usually produce some sort of image [provided no-one expects me to actually draw anything!] but I have a harder time with words - odd when I enjoy writing so much. However a fellow student pointed me in the direction of this, on writing haiku:

http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog/archives/854

You may ask what writing haiku has to do with embroidery but I found it works almost like a mini-mind map, encouraging you to focus on the features of whatever you're writing about that are most important to you. And those are the features you need to think about in designing your image.

I wrote one this morning about an apple tree in the garden - which I may pluck up courage to post, when the weather improves enough for me to take a photo of the tree in question. [The brief spell of sunny weather which served to remind us what UK summers used to be like has ended, probably never to return.]