Finished, half finished and just begun.

Finished, just in time for the second meeting of 'Visual Marks' next week. The more stitch I added, the more soft and crumpled it became, but I like that feeling of wear and tear.

Half finished, because I intend to make four. I've soldered out lots of little organza circles to start the third one, a bunch of grapes, inspired by a photo in Margaret Swain's 'Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots'. A balance to the Tudor rose, perhaps. 

And this is just begun. This what I decided to do with my little bit of hand spun. There isn't enough to cover the whole surface, but it makes an interesting contrast to the papier maché. 

Is this a series?

If so, it's still a very experimental one.

The two at the bottom you have seen before, but without stitch - they also appear top right with one of their new siblings. The little one, which is now finished, was relatively easy to stitch into, but I discovered a drawback to making longer ones. I can get my hand inside and stitch right down at the bottom of it, but I cannot finish off the thread. I did think about cutting the cylinder down to a more manageable size, but decided it was better to perfect the art of very neat finishing off on the right side. Or leave dangling ends. 

The one with the black top is destined to become one/all of my 'Visual Marks' pieces, the response to the black and white drawing. I have plans for the colour piece, but they involve a lot more work, so may not happen.

This is the design for the cylinder. With great skill by sheer chance, I made a mould for the vessels which has the same circumference as the length of a piece of A4, which is very convenient. After discovering the drawbacks of a tall cylinder, I've reduced the height to about A4 size too. It remains to be seen if I can fasten off ends at that depth...

The marbled one is very experimental. The original cylinder, made with abaca tissue and bandage, was very soft, so I tried adding an extra layer of fabric, and this bit of marbled muslin fell out of my stash. I discovered that adding more glue to thin papier mâché makes it go very soft, so it was a bit of a struggle getting the extra layer on, but it did suggest that future cylinders could be deliberately distorted.

I'm not sure what is going to happen to it next, but one problem opportunity I shall have to explore is dealing with the area where the fabric overlaps, which is much more obvious with patterned fabric than with plain.

Half term next week, so life will be a little hectic in Cheese Acres. Babybel has planned the programme, and Granny and Granddad have fallen into line. The VHC is a little too young to make his opinion known as yet, but he is working very hard on getting this talking thing perfected!

Endings and Beginnings

After spending a lot of time odd minutes here and there wondering what to do with these...

I poured the remains of a bottle of blue-black Quink into the smaller one. As you do.

As you can see, it spread up the sides in an interesting way. Osmosis - I think. No idea why it looks green on the bottom, though - and it's not just the camera, it really is greeny blue. 

It may not be completely finished - do I add stitch?  Wensleydale says not, as it looks like ceramic, but that makes me wonder whether I should be even making things that look like ceramic in fabric? Isn't a bit like making plastic things that look like wood? 

Long time readers of this blog may remember me wittering on about Tamsin van Essen who has certainly influenced me in making these, as, of course, has Edmund de Waal. Maybe I'm a potter in embroidere's clothing?

The wonky brown paper one definitely doesn't look like ceramic. I'm thinking of making it a sinamay jacket, except that my bit of sinamay isn't quite big enough...

This really is finished - inspiration on the right, completed embroidery on the left, with 5p to show how small it is. Got to use up some of that fine gauge canvas before my eyes get too bad to see what I'm doing with it! 

The beginning that has followed that ending is another piece inspired by the Contemporary Textile Workshop session last week. As I'm sure you can see, this is tesselated birds and rabbits - although I've just realised that if you turn the birds upside down they become rabbits.

I drew out the pattern, painted the birds with transfer paint, and ironed it on to some polyester satin - the duller back side, I resisted the tempation to go for the full bling. Now it's going to get some quilting, which hopefully will make it more obvious what it is.

And finally - a finished subtitle-reading blanket, and the makings of another one. I think this is the last of my oddments of machine knitting wool, so this should be the last blanket.

Does anyone else find that you tend to finish different things that you are working on around the same time, or is it just me?

Whoops, forgot these.  I found this bit of card, which I haved obviously used under some painting, when I was having a clearout. I was going to chuck it away, but it said 'sketch book covers' to me, so that's what it became. So that's a beginning and an ending in one -or three.

Living in interesting times.

It's been a bad news/good news couple of weeks. We had some worrying news at the start - the sort of sitation in which, because it involves other people, all we can do is offer support and hope for the best.

For some reason, my frustration led, not to embroidery, but to patchwork - just throwing together scraps of the colours which reflected how I felt. Then I found myself squaring off the resulting polygon - perhaps habit, perhaps my need to try to control what was happening. That was followed by scraped-on paint and some very undisciplined machine quilting. It is stalled now, partly because I need a break from it, but more because, unusually for me, I have plans for more machine work on it and I can't machine sew and watch cycling at the same time.

Fortunately, a few days later we got some excellent news. Let's just say that Babybel, to her delight, will be a bridesmaid some time next year. I'm not sure she knows what a bridesmaid is, but she knows there will be a pretty dress and an important role for her!

What with cycling and stress, not much embroidery has taken place, but there has been a lot of knitting. The second using-up-the-leftovers blanket has made quite a lot of progress. 

Before all the excitement, I decided I could improve this.

Definitely better - amazing what a little paint can do. The paint has also stiffened it up, so much that I don't think it would take stitch now.

These are my other papier mâché experiments. Abaca tissue and muslin on the left, brown paper and muslin on the right. And yes, it. is wonky!

I'm pleased with the contrast between these, but I'm not sure what stitch to try, so I'm putting papier mâché on the back burner for a while. (Sounds a bit inflammatory.)

Over the last couple of days, I have done something other than knit and worry.

A bit of hand quilting - transfer dyes on polyester satin, left over from my initial explorations of  repetition.

And some more experimental stitching on metal mesh - which is difficult to photograph with all the reflections.

Mmm - I seem to have developed a taste for bling!

Circuits and Bumps

All circuits now complete, I'm glad to say. I've had enough of circles.  These are all the circle pages.

They are even bound, and labelled. 

Although I've been thinking that it's time to stop repeating myself, it hasn't quite happened yet. I made these Kandinsky-inspired shrink plastic 'bumps' when I was doing City & Guilds, but never used them. I came across them when I was looking for something else (story of my life really) and decided their repetitious time had come.

This was inspired by some bedtime reading. In Moyra McNeill's book on drawn thread embroidery, she suggests màking slits in non-fraying fabrics like felt or Vilene, and working drawn thread stitches through the slits. It sounded repetitious to me, so here is an apped photo of the wrong side of a stained glass window at Salisbury Cathedral, printed on Tyvek. I cut it and worked twisted border stitch using lace instead of thread - photos before and after ironing. I've got some Evolon, felt and PVC lined up for similar treatment, though probably without the ironing.

However, I have moved on from repetitions. During another bit of bedtime reading, Fibrefusion's 'Beyond Boundaries', I came across a recipe for papier mâché you can stitch into, using muslin and abaca paper. Ah, paper tubes! (Maybe I am being repetitious?)

This is my first attempt. The odd colour is because I was using up some brown abaca. The bandaged appearance is because I got bored with wrestling with wallpaper paste and little scraps of musin and resorted to strips. I didn't take a 'before' picture but Wensleydale said it looked like a bleeding stump.

As you can see, you can stitch into it, although it helps if you make the cylinder big enough to get your hand into. The odd pattern is because I ran the couching along the edges of the bandage muslin.

Today I got a bit carried away. The one on the left is abaca and muslin, the one on the right is brown paper and muslin. Now I have to wait about 24 hours for them to be dry enough to bring into the house, and another 24 for them to dry out properly. Good job I've got some undrawn thread work to do.

Obviously I haven't given up repeating myself at all!