Fragmented pebbles -

a favourite exercise from Dunnewold et al's 'Finding Your Own Visual Language'. The original is top right.



Although in the past I have always used designs like this in a repeated pattern, for some reason these remind me of 60's canvas work like that of Mary Rhodes - big, highly textured and often brown. I rather like the style [if not the colour] but then I rather enjoyed the sixties!

The machine embroidery has also made progress: here it is with the soluble stabiliser washed out, drying on a rather grubby radiator.

Short post because I spent most of the afternoon struggling to make a birthday card for ? I managed it at last after a lot of swearing. I hope ? likes it ...

More embroidery has been done -

by machine, this time. What are they? Watch this space...

I am prepared to reveal that this unlovely piece is my attempt to lessen the roundness of the pebble tracing, by cutting it up, rearranging it, and adding some straighter lines.

Using the L--shaped card thingies produced the two sections below - a sort of flower and a sort of person/duck. I wasn't actually trying to produce something representational - it just happened that way! I would like to play around with these a bit more some time.

Then I copied, and inverted, and flipped, and stuck the bits together - all digitally, no glue sticks were harmed in the process - to get two patterns - now named 'Ducks' and 'Hearts'. Possibly blackworky borders?

And serendipitously [blogging does test the spelling] my tracing of the original sections landed on top of a print out of 'Hearts'. Sort of digital doodling?

Lots of lovely eye candy ...

here. Great to see so many men included.

I am pleased to report that after a hiatus of some weeks, embroidery has been resumed chez Cheese. Last century I made a lot of Christmas stockings - mostly in canvas work but also in patchwork and crazy quilting. This one was the last one I started before getting bored with the whole idea. I think I last worked on it when we went to Helsinki in 1999!

It surfaced again when I had the big clear out. I was going to bin it but I decided to finish it because I like the colours. The motif isn't original, I'm afraid, and the outline of the stocking will need redrawing to balance the pattern, but I've added another 4 motifs since it came out of the heap. And I remember why I got frustrated with it - it is very easy to make a mistake ... Of course Babybel already has a Christmas stocking but that's a big one, so this may become a little girly one for her - especially if I can fit her name across the top ...

My design work today was inspired by the little book on illuminated initials I bought yesterday, although they are not as elaborate as the ones in the book. I started off using a stencil for the C's but then got brave and used Paint Shop Pro for the A&B. As you can see I am hooked on doodling, which seems to be all over the blogosphere at the moment - which reminds me of this.

I have a feeling that there as another LP cover with a similar design, but I can't remember what it was. Can you?

We had a busy day today

so I have used the lazy woman's design methods. The bonus [as long as you are not bored to tears with all this] is that you get several images , not just one.

The lazy method - for me - is doing simple things on the computer. So this was done in Picasa - I turned my original image to black and white, applied 'film grain' [I think!] several times, and then a graduated tint. Looks like someone had a very hot fire on the beach!

I think it might be interesting to try a Julia Caprera approach on this - lots of repeated stitch changing gradually from orange to grey.


This is the same image 'Hockneyized'. Possibly one for techniques from Maggie Grey's 'From Image to Stitch', for example weaving two copies of the same image through each other.

This is the image 'Warholized'. I love the colours here, especially the purple. It looks like layered resists - randomly applied batik wax, followed by dyeing, more wax, more dye etc. After all that it might not need much stitch!

The same image again, turned into an 'Amazing Circle. It reminds me of a glass paperweight. Like a lot of the images in this series, my first reaction is applique, possibly under sheers to get the shine.

So that is today's design exploration. The rest of the day was spent at the Stitch and Creative Crafts show at Sandown Park. This show probably appeals most to card makers, scrap bookers or cross stitchers and doesn't compare with the Knitting and Stitching Show but is the most local for us. As parking is easy I have made some big purchases there in the past, like sewing machines and embellishers, because we didn't need to carry them far. No expensive purchases today although I was very tempted by some beautiful devore jackets. At nearly £100 I decided I couldn't justify buying one - especially as the only occasion I could think of to wear it was to college - so I could try to persuade A. that I had made it myself. [A. does beautiful devore - I, as she very well knows. don't.]

I did buy this lot - well, almost all of it. The big book, 'Above the World' was a freebie for spending more than £15 with Yorkshire Books.

You will notice that there are no threads or fabrics in there [the pack at the bottom is paper.] Threads and fabrics were on offer, including Oliver Twists, but I stuck to my textile diet. [I did look for some red yarn to knit for Babybel but as all I could find was nasty bright acrylic or 'hand wash only' I passed']

There is no book diet though.

At the risk of sounding like a newsreader - and finally... one of my annual 'harbinger of spring' photos - some ratter tatty snowdrops. I post these more to encourage myself than anything else - I hate winter, although it is more tolerable now I don't have to go to work and come home in the dark.

The cherry tree isn't out yet, so it isn't really spring. And as the British Gas engineer has not been able to repair our gas fire due to a lack of the appropriate spare - there could be another cold spell. Once he has repaired it, all danger of snow will be over for this year.

Through the window

I have been playing around with my pebble tracing - not very successfully! I started with the usual L-shaped pieces of card - every book or person I come across seems to have a different name for them - but couldn't find a section I liked. Everything was just too round!

In one of her books Sandra Meech suggests cutting three parallel windows in a card - like a triptych. So as I like triptychs I tried that and this is the result - coloured with Derwent metallic pencils, which, I have just discovered, are water soluble. I like the slightly recessed look of the 'windows'. Could be stained glass, especially if there were arches at the top. Like a mini version of this ?

It also reminds me of the work of John Dahlsen which is what inspired the C&G wallhanging which led me to take the pebble photo in the first place. Having looked at Dahlsen's work again, I can see that my image could be worked in lots of textured stitches - as I don't have very much beach detritus lying around. Some, but not a lot ... The colour scheme, which I would never have thought of using if I hadn't started with that rather unprepossessing picture of pebbles, is growing on me.

It also reminds me of this window at the Weald and Downland Museum - which in turn inspired an image in my 'Creative Sketchbooks' book. Which I can't find.

Daily photo # 13 [!]

This is based on a section of the original pebble picture which I just filled in with doodles - very therapeutic! I borrowed ideas for some of the fillings from a lovely little Dover book by R.M. Proctor called 'Principles of Pattern Design'. One obvious way to translate this into stitch would be black work, or I could revert to the applique idea using some of my collection of black and white fabrics.

When not doodling I have been making these - 18 month size in case we get a summer this year. When I did the big stash sort I realised I had some remnants which would make toddler dresses, so despite my assertion that I didn't bother sewing for Babybel because it was cheaper to buy from charity shops - I've done a bit of sewing. The patterns came from a book I bought in Oxfam, so there has been a charitable donation involved!

Today's daily photo is a scan.

This is the grey scale version of the original - because when I looked at the sepia coloured original it occurred to me that it looked - er - a bit like the contents of a baby's nappy.

This came about because the pebble extract I traced reminded me of my recent BQL challenge quilt - so I wanted to try the design out in layered applique - or, at this stage, in layers of paper. I just chose the wrong colour supplement page to cut the paper out of ...


This is the negative scan which is much better, and reminds me of Mackintosh roses. If I were to turn this into an embroidery, I would want to keep the ethereal feeling - perhaps reverse applique using sheers?

I find it interesting that when I look at the image the other way up, that little piece sticking out at the right looks totally wrong - but this way up it works as a little leaf.

I have been re-reading Dunnewold, Benn and Morgan's 'Finding Your Own Visual Language' [strongly recommended for struggling designers] and they recommend turning a dubious piece round before you decide it really is a failure. Worked for me!

I have finally finished the last bag - it's very orange because that was the only piece of even vaguely suitable fabric I had which was big enough. I am determined not to buy any more fabric if I can possible avoid it -although I did buy some elastic today, as that is one thing I don't seem to have a stash of.

I needed elastic because I have been doing something I haven't done for ages - dress making. Not for me of course ...

Hopefully I will have something to show you tomorrow!