Norma's band - revisited

Norma's band has now been completed and has arrived back safely with Norma herself. It has always been nervewracking to have a piece of work travelling through the post. However, since we live so very far apart there was no choice in the matter. The relief was enormous when I heard it had arrived.

The threads above were the collection I made to find suitable colours to work with the sampler as it was when I received it. I had thought of autumnal (Fall) colours and designs of leaves. I soon discarded this idea since another design was of acorns.



I came up with this design. I had toyed with the idea of using the lovely wing shapes used in the birds stitched by Sarah.



The stitching I used was basically Blackwork. The wing shapes have miniature figure twos inverted and in mirror image since the overall shape reminded me of the number. I trawled through my Blackwork books to find inspiration for the other shapes. I eventually discarded the idea in the lighter blue shape, finding something more appropriate in scale.

So now Norma's sampler looks like this.

Norma's band

This is Norma's band. It arrived in my hands yesterday morning.

The colours are richer than my photos can show. The base fabric is a lovely rich honey colour which shows the colours used to perfection. Norma describes this cloth as 28count Quaker Cloth pumpkin colour.



The top stitching above is Norma's own work, whilst the beaded work was added by Denise.



The enchanting birds, with their silk ribbon flowers were added by Sarah.

Beneath this comes Jenny's contribution. She added Wessex Stitching with a border of interlaced herringbone.

Then there is the gorgeous blue of Christine's blackwork.

The last section is Hungarian Cross Stitch stitched by Margaret.

I have not even started to put my own ideas together yet. However, I am going through a phase of looking at the developing autumnal colours. Picking these leaves up from the path in town before coming home to find the band sampler waiting for me.

I just loved the colours and the shapes of these leaves. Perhaps something will develop from here, but I shall have to keep you waiting and wondering for a little while as my brain begins to mull things over.

Jenny's Band for Margaret

Margaret's sampler now has another band. This one continues the pink & green theme that seems to be growing with this sampler. It took a while to think of a design to add, because I really wanted to open the fabric up. The fabric itself was an open weave & would pull beautifully. I had thought of pulled work, but could not quite settle for anything that made me happy. I then thought of drawn work, in particular the beautiful needleweaved patterns from northern Europe & Russia that we sometimes see in Schwalm work. I then thought that these might be a little too heavy for this sampler at this stage.

The end result is a combination of drawn & needleweaved channels edged with 4 sided stitch, combined with outlined large eyelets & radiating straight stitches.

This is the last sampler that I have to work on and I am a little sad that this is so. The RR has been such fun & the venturing out into colour combinations & new stitch combinations has certainly been an adventure that I hope to continue.

Margaret's Sampler

Margaret's sampler has just arrived in Australia. This is the sampler as it is today. The top row of tulips is by Margaret, the blackwork is by Mandy, & the final row by Norma.

Norma has used a combination of cross stitches & straight stitches in various DMC stranded, DMC perle 8 & over dyed straded threads.

The sampler is comming together beautifully, lots of pink shades with a touch of green & yellow/orange.

Mandy's Sampler

This is the latest work that has been done on Mandy's sampler. It is a mix of drawn thread work, pulled thread work, and blackwork. I have also used a mix of threads including DMC stranded ( 1 strand), DMC stranded (2 strands), and one of my own hand dyed DMC Perle 12's.

I have tried to be a little creative in using three colours in the drawn sections, and playing with what I could do with eyelets. The final blackwork row worked in a deep pink hopefully offers a stating point for the next person to work on this sampler. Full detais of how I worked this sampler can be read here. Mandy, I hope you like what I have done.

Jenny's Sampler.

Well, I have recently completed my piece on Jenny's sampler and here it is.



The picture below shows the whole sampler as it stands at this moment.




The beautiful Hardanger work is by Jenny herself. I really wish I could do justice to her work in a photograph. The orange band is by Margaret. It's a delightful design of sea horses and shells. My design simply had to follow on......... Not an easy task.



I was going through a phase of being fascinated by Chinese and Japanese art. So I trawled the books, including this rather good one.



The piece sat on my project board for what seemed like ages. Then I happened to find a website for Tattoo artists. I found it when I searched for Koi online. I had decided that it just had to be a pair of Koi, but I needed a starting point.
I had planned a trip to the local gardens and look at the Koi and draw them. I completed the search first. You can see the image I found at the bottom left. This was twisted, colour added and copied to produce two Koi.



I found the design work to be the easier part. What really got me in a mess was sorting out which stitches to use. I knew I wanted to use blackwork - or a modern variant. But which stitches. This took me literally months of trial and error.

What I found really interesting about the whole process was the recognition that Tattoo artists and embroiderers are looking for the same things when judging images. The images I saw on the Tattoo website were beautifully clear portrayals of an object - I shall look again for a similar website next time. I only wish I had had the foresight to keep the website in my favourites file!

Now the sampler is ready and waiting to be sent on the next stage of the journey.
I do hope you like it.

Affirmations for Artists -- Always a Good Thing!!

Here's a cool video, "Affirmations for Artists in Today's Economy", which I got from Alyson at artbizcoach.com:



If for some reason you can't connect on it, click here for the original. I always like Alyson's column -- she has a lot of good tips and tricks. Enjoy!

Christine's Lovely Sampler

The scan does not do this beautiful work justice, but my camera batteries just crapped out on me and going to the store is a pain in the *** now that I can't drive. So, for now we scan. I know what I'm going to do now, and although I'm going to use some of the threads provided, I'm adding a couple of my own touches as well. I'm so excited!

The Birds Have Flown the Coop...!!!

Since I had posted previously about the birds, I thought y'all might like to see the finished piece... I was going to post it here but the image link isn't working for me at the moment. However, the final picture is at both blogs, with an explanation of my choice of subject on my Tumbleweed Designs blog. Please leave me a comment there and tell me (GENTLY!!) what you think! Thanks so much, girls!

For the Birds...

This is what the birds are being appliqued onto; the piece will then be sent out by Thursday to Breaking Traditions 2008:

The dots on the hands aren't chicken pox (*grin*) -- they're the pins which I've used to hold the layers together for free-motion quilting on the black background. The birds will be appliqued so it looks like they're flying from out of the hands. The picture of the piece in final will be posted on my other blog by Thursday.

AND...BTW...Christine's sampler has arrived and I've started on my band already, that pic will be up in my next post; OMG everyone's work is SO beautiful!! Girls, you rock!!

My Two-Cents' Worth, Finally!

Everyone is posting pix of their work "outside" our RR, so here goes some of mine!

Since putting the birds on Norma's sampler, I have become fascinated with that particular stitch. Jenny's specializing in Drawn work, I'm leaning more and more towards Pulled-Thread work. So following is my next effort, to be appliqued onto a 12" sq. quiltlet which will be entered in the Breaking Traditions 2008 Exhibit.

I've posted in more detail on my other blogs, Ever Embellished and Tumbleweed Designs. In a few days, I'll post a pic of the whole thing. With this particular exhibition, we are allowed to present pictures prior to the exhibition date. I'm quite excited about this chance and look forward to getting this piece done and sent off shortly!

humph

I'm obscure??????????!!!

Sarah's Band Sampler

I have finally finished my band for Sarah. I must admit that this one was a little harder to think of than the previous ones I have worked on, but I think it fits in with the theme.

In the package for this sampler was a little book with a card as a cover. On this card is a wonderful picture of a Chinese Emperor standing in a garden in front of a building. So I decided to use this card as the inspiration for my band. On the Emperor's robe is border featuring a key pattern, so I took this key, mirrored it horizontally, then again vertically, to achieve my pattern.

I found single crossed eyelets ( a stitch I had not done before) in a pulled work book and I felt that this would work beautifully on the fabric supplied. At first I graphed it so the key pattern was 3 squares wide. I wanted to use the eyelets in a checkerboard effect, but when I started to graph it out, the design was too wide for the sampler. So then I graphed it only one square wide, so each square would be an eyelet.

The eyelets were worked in 2 strands of DMC stranded thread, & when finished it looked a little bland. I needed to add another colour to give it a lift. I tried to outline the key shape, but as it was 5 threads wide, backstitching over 2 threads did not work mathamateically. I tried over 1 thread & also over 5 threads, both of which did not look good either. So in the end I worked tiny cross stitches over the single cross in the center of each eyelet.

Norma's Sampler

Norma's Sampler now has another band to add to the collection. The stitching is a combination of Wessex Stitching & Interlaced Herringbone stitch.

The Wessex stitching is made up of long-armed lazy daisy stitch & needle-weaving. The background is one colour & the motifs are made up of a change in colour for the long armed lazy daisy with added needleweaving in a different colour. I interchanged the colours of the motifs to give added interest. This is the first time I have worked any Wessex stitching, something I have wanted to do for a long time.

The interlaced herringbone stitch border is one I was exposed to during my Intermediate Certificate studies at the EG here in Sydney about ten years ago, and have not worked since. It is a stitch which is found in common use on embroideries from Central Aisia & India. It comprises a double row of herringbone stitch, worked slightly differently to normal herringbone. Tricky to work, it must be worked correctly or the interlacing will not work. I have used one colour for the herringbone base & two different colours for the interlacing.

Norma, I hope you enjoy.

Look what's arrived in sunny Australia!

On Wednesday I rushed around to the post office to collect my registered international parcel, which could only have been the package from Sarah. Inside were 2 beautiful pieces of work, the pumpkin coloured linen you will recognise as Norma's while the ivory one is Sarah's first piece on her own band.

Norma's now has 3 people's work on it, and is starting to take on its own identity. Sarah's is a "newborn" and you can see she has stitched with an Oriental flavour. I've arranged with Jenny to take Norma's "out of turn", so she can have something to stitch on. It's not that she has nothing to do at the moment, with a wedding and a 21st birthday quilt AND an exhibition coming up, but you know how it is ! You need to have an alternate project to relax with from time to time, don't you? I have them both pinned on my design board at the moment, hoping inspiration will strike me. In the meantime, I have a few minor projects to work on as well, VBG.

Christine
http://missmuffettwo.blogspot.com/

Jenny's band ready for England

Last night I was able to finish my band on Jenny's sampler. Here is the sea shell to go with the seahorses. The sea horse chart came with the running stitch motif on an angle, but I only wanted one stright motif at the end of the band so I charted it into an upright position which seems to finish things off nicely.

And here is how the bands look together.

I've had a request to bring this to my EGA chapter meeting on the 19th, so I'll send it off to Mandy after that. I've never seen anyone bring in hardanger work like Jenny's so I'm sure they'll be very impressed.

I feel a bit of lunchbag let down now. After the feast of two samplers, I don't know when to expect the next one!

Adding to Jenny's Sampler

My lecture preparation and family activities took all my time over our long weekend (I shouldn't be surprised, it always happens) but I finally have a quiet hour to show you what I am working on.

To start with, here is the page from the Color Play book by Joen Wolfrom that I used to get an idea of what colours I should look for. I used the same book when I was trying to figure out a palate for Christine's sampler. Here is the aqua page - since that is the colour of Jenny's band.

Here are the flosses I found to go with the band. I just loved the way these colours looked together and decided I had to use them.

As I mentioned at some point, I wanted to do something to do with the sea, but then the colours I found weren't the colour of sea life. Then I remembered this great sea horse motif I found while researching Assisi work at
http://www.stitchstitch.info/english/designs%20small/seahorses.htm
so I used that. I have designed a shell motif to go above and below this, but I wanted you all to see the start.

Band RR - Celtic design

I have just completed the next section of Christine's Band. This will be sent on to the next member of the group in the morning.

It was really difficult to know how best to continue the Band RR. Margaret's gorgeous orange 8 star design, Jenny's amazing open-work design and the intricacy of Christine's original work each being a very difficult act to follow.

The one thing that I focussed on was Christine's liking for stylised plants. After this, I had a very lucky find. I found myself in a Charity shop. Not unusual for me - since I often go into Charity shops to donate items, or just to browse. This time I found this wonderful book:

The book is full of the most wonderful illustrations - photographs and page border designs. I found it to be full of inspiration , with so many textures as well as images.

I chose this photograph:

The eventual design was based around the 12th century stone-carved doorway. I let myself play around with colours using the palette set by the Band RR itself. The completed design changed a little from the original sketch, most notably in the use of colour.

I hope it is the right orange!

After consulting my favourite colour book and going through my favourite Hungarian pattern book I've added this row to Christine's band sampler. It seems to have the right mix of fine lines and blocks of colour to go with the rows above (or below depending on how it is used).

FYI my colour book is "Color Play:Easy Steps to Imaginative Color in Quilts" by Joen Wolfrom. The colour combinations in this book are based on the Ives colour wheel which I find much more pleasing that the usual wheel. The colour combinations are based on nature so the book is filled with photographs of flowers and such, and real quilts, as well as the usual colour palates. I love just looking through the book for inspiration.

Margaret

Happy Hallowen and Australia in Virginia

Happy Halloween. These were created by my DH and DDs at a pumpkin carving party (the birdhouse is not ours). On the left is the traumatic brain injury pumpkin, in the middle is the picking his nose with his tongue pumpkin, and on the right is the cannibal pumpkin. They were a hit in the neighbourhood. On to the stitching.

Here is Christine's sampler.

And here is Jenny's.

I've been staring at them regularly thinking about what I shall do. I'm teaching an Assisi work class on Nov. 13 and I've been having so much fun researching the history and finding patterns for the information and pattern brochure that will go with the class, so at first I was thinking only of Assisi bands, but now I'm not sure. And I was contemplating moving outside the starting colour schemes, but again, I'm not sure yet. I won't decide until after I've taught my class, but in the meantime, I've been pulling out various skeins and laying them over the samplers to decide on colours. I think that has shown me that a traditional Assisi band won't really work but an overdyed thread might. The think is, I've found this really great pomegranate pattern in an old book from my grandmother that I am dying to use, so I'll have to contemplate further.

Don't you find that contemplation is a big part of the process. I've had projects change completely during the contemplation phase, which is usually a good thing. I've thought out problems and colours and stitches and generally I'm happy with the final product. Case in point for not thinking things through is the stumpwork thistle I'm working on now which I'll add to my blog shortly but here it is for you- and I welcome comments. I picked a person for the December ornament exchange who like thistles and so I based this on the design on a scissor fob I stitched a couple of years ago. The problem is, not only have I not quite got it balanced, but this is a 5 inch hoop and I think even 4 inches is too big for an ornament. But except for the balance, I do like it so far, I just think a bud needs to be added.

So, do I keep this as a box top for myself, or as a gift, and try to stitch something smaller? Or do I try something completely different? Or do I just go for a big ornament?

BTW, as I've mentioned before, please excuse my lack of posting. I am keeping up with reading your blogs and messages, and I'm keeping up with my stitching, but my out of the house workload has increased considerably this fall. I'm actually quite excited by the work challenges and my projects have been well received professionally, but I do find it cuts into my computer time. I'm also finding that getting up every day before 6 am to get my older DD to high school before going to work means that I'm quite tired by 10 pm, so right now (10:40 pm) I'm seeing sort of fuzzy type. I've never been one to work well with less than 8 hours of sleep.