The Accidental Embroiderer

From stone to thread...

One of the things I love about living in Aberdeenshire is that we're surrounded by the most spectacular examples of Celtic and Pictish art. Carved Pictish symbol stones are so common in parts of the countryside that some are just lying out on the ground, unprotected and open to all weathers. And of course they're the most wonderful inspiration for designs of all kinds

For example, here's a carved Pictish stone of a goose and a fish (although if you're a purist, it comes from Moray and not Aberdeenshire. Oh well, it's just a few miles further north)

 

The stone goose

 

And this is an embroidered version

The embroidered goose

 

I may have posted this particular goose a long time ago, although I can't find the post, so it might be new to the blog after all. In any case this is a new version of it. The stone carving is so simple and yet so graceful and well-observed that it's a natural to turn into embroidery - and indeed it would do well in many other media as well. It's one of a series of Pictish designs that I work on when I get the chance. I must get round to stitching them out some day

 

 

 

A Christmas freebie

Well, it's nearly That Time of Year again, and some people may be indulging in some festive embroidery to prepare for it. So here's a little Christmas tree embroidery, which you could perhaps use for Christmas cards, napkins, table runners or something like that. I embroidered the stars in a metallic thread, which does add a little festive glitter, but as usual the glitter doesn't show up in the scan. Also, because the embroidered stars are quite thick, the scan is a little out of focus in places

 

There's no worksheet for this, because it's just three colours - green for the tree, brown for the trunk, and silver for the stars. It's for the 4x4 inch (100 mm x 100 mm) hoop and there's no applique - it's just embroidery. Here it is (in .pes v.6), and good luck!

Two lapwings

I'm still working through the commissions I received at this year's NEOS exhibition, one of which involves lapwings. I'm not sure if there are lapwings anywhere outside the UK, but they are graceful, beautiful little birds of the shoreline and moorlands, with a very distinctive whistling call. At NEOS someone asked me if I had any designs of lapwings, and as it happened, I did have one at home, so I promised to send it to her. But when I examined it, it just looked wrong. For some inexplicable reason the head was in the wrong position and I felt that I couldn't really send it to my customer.

What on earth is going on with that head??

 

So I drew and digitised a second lapwing, which was a little better.

At least the head's OK this time

 

The feathers on a lapwing's back are an iridescent greenish-black, and it was difficult to get this effect in the stitchout, and even more difficult to reproduce it in the scan! But although neither version was perfect, I sent them both off to my customer and I hope she will like them

 

Children's art again

Children can make wonderful art, and some time ago I thought it would be fun to try to digitise some of it. However that was before I'd actually tried to do it! The problem is that children's art is loose and free and spontaneous, while digitising is a tightly disciplined and sophisticated technique, and somehow the two of them don't go together well. I did do a few things but they were never as good as the original artwork so I gave up the idea

But at NEOS this year a little girl came up to my table and trustingly handed me a drawing she'd done that was inspired by my embroideries. So - what's a digitiser to do! Anyway here's the original drawing

 

 

and here's the result.

I did change a few things - for one thing I edited the shape a bit so it would conveniently fit into a hoop, and I straightened out a few lines. I also added the plastic applique bottle shapes (those are the shiny things reflecting the camera flash) Actually this worked out a little better than many of my previous attempts, probably because the original drawing was slightly formal (rather than very loose), and because she used such interesting colours. But you can see the difference between the original spirited drawing by the child and the more formal digitised version by the adult. My version isn't all that bad, but it doesn't capture the energy of the original. So I think I'll slink back to digitising my own art!

Escher inspiration

For some reason I've been thinking that I'd already posted this, but I don't think I have yet, so it had better go up before I forget about it entirely. I've always been a huge admirer of the artist M. C. Escher, and his wildly imaginative tessellation drawings. I wish I had a fraction of his talent! But I still love using his ideas in embroideries.

For an Escher cushion

 

This is a recent design and it's not really tessellated, but it's done in sort of a general Escher style. I did it to use on a cushion cover, but it wasn't 100% successful. That was just because I did it as a BIG BIG design - something like 10 inches square - and I didn't really stabilise the fabric enough for such a wide expanse of fabric, as you can see from the scan. Oh well, I've learned my lesson and I'll try it again sometime. But I'd better post it now in case I forget about it yet again

Some free pansies for autumn

Doesn't time fly! We're into October already so it's time for yet another freebie. You may remember that a few weeks ago I reluctantly posted the picture of a project that I was NOT pleased with - a collection of seven pots with flowers. But the problem was with the way the I had organised the overall composition - there was nothing wrong with the individual designs. So I thought I might pass some on as freebies, and here is a pot with pansies

The first flower pot

There are a couple of things to be aware of. First, there are a lot of jumps between the various parts of the flowers, but this was necessary for technical reasons. Also this is not a perfectly symmetrical design. The pansies flop further over the right-hand side of the pot, which means that the pot isn't centred exactly in the frame. This may be important if you're using the design together with others, for example as part of a quilt. Finally, the pot is appliqueed, and there is then an area of overstitching and finally a satin stitch border around it all. However you can leave out the overstitching if you like and just use the satin stitch. Personally, I usually like the effect of overstitching, but if you're using an interesting fabric for the applique, you may not want to blur it with a layer of overstitching

Anyway, here is the design (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet

And another NEOS bites the dust...

Well, I've nearly recovered from spending last week at our annual NEOS (North East Open Studios) exhibition. I always spend the week at the exhibition with my embroidery machine, showing people how it works and explaining machine embroidery. It's always a lot of fun but I don't understand how just sitting and talking should be so exhausting!

One of the pieces I exhibited was a cheerful Mexican-inspired panel, which started life because of my friend Cherri's current fascination with sun faces. I designed a few suns for her to use in a quilt, and while I was doing it decided that they reminded me of sun faces in Mexican folk art. So I thought about using some of them myself in a Mexican panel. I'd already designed a lot of Mexican folk art-inspired designs, so I assembled four of the new suns into a small panel and surrounded them with bird designs from my old collection. Then, just in case it was looking too simple, I designed a further outside ring of plant and flower designs, and started to stitch everything out, intending to exhibit the finished panel at NEOS

However time began to catch up with me. Just the four suns and the 12 birds came to 16 squares to be stitched together, and if I'd added the outer ring of flowers it would have been 36 separate designs in total, and I just didn't have time to do all that. So I just left it at 16 birds and suns, and I might add the outer ring of flowers later

The Mexicana panel

The photo is of the unmounted panel, but here it is framed, along with another piece, a vase of flowers that I haven't yet posted here. So now all I have to do is find the time to do the final 20 squares and sew everything together...

 

The Mexicana at the exhibition

 

Finally - the last part of the free bird wallhanging

OK, here it is - part 9, the last part of birds-and-leaves wall hanging. If you're new to the blog and haven't yet seen this project, you can find a picture of the whole panel at https://theaccidentalembroiderer.typepad.com/the-accidental-embroiderer/2019/05/a-big-freebie-project-.html

I've been posting parts of it every month or so after that until now, when we have the final part of the panel. So that should be the whole panel passed over to you, and I hope you have good luck with it!

Now, do you perhaps have any good ideas for a freebie that you'd like me to do? I'm always open to suggestions for new designs! I can't promise definitely to do something specific but I'll certainly give any ideas serious thought

Meanwhile, here is the file for part 9 of the birds-and-leaves panel (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet. Good luck!

Back to the birds

At the moment I'm desperately trying to put together a collection of pictures for our annual NEOS (North East Open Studios) exhibition, which will open at the end of the month. If you're on Facebook, you can have a look at our exhibition preview

https://en-gb.facebook.com/ArtInTheBuchat

Anyway,  I've been going through some of my recent embroideries looking for things to exhibit, and have come across yet more of the good old familiar subjects - like for instance birds! I seem to do more birds than anything else, and here's a nice colourful one that's leaving bits of coloured light behind him. I haven't a clue what brought this idea on - probably watching the birds flying through the trees around our house and seeing flashes of light behind them as they broke through the thick leaves

A flying bird in colours

Anatomy of a less-than-success

Now - last week I wrote in a very depressed mood about a big panel that I'd spent a lot of time on and which didn't turn out very well. I had a lot of VERY kind comments from people who said it probably wasn't as bad as I thought, and a couple of them actually wanted to see it for themselves. Well, OK, you asked for it! (well, some of you did anyway!) so here's the prodigal panel

Could do better...

There are seven large designs, all stitched separately. The designs themselves aren't all that bad, if a bit ordinary, but I just didn't put them together right. For example, look at the top right-hand pot, with the blue flowers. The pot just seems to be floating in mid-air, and not standing together with the other pots. And the painted background is too "noisy" and complicated, so that it overwhelms the flowers. And then there are the technical problems. If you look at the fabric around the single red rose, you can see a lot of wrinkles where the background fabric is rucked up. And then there are...but I won't go on!

Oh well, you can't get everything right all the time, and I've learned a huge amount from this experience. And I'm really grateful to all those kind people who were so encouraging!