Birds in the bush

One frustrating thing about machine embroidery is the limitation it imposes on the size of work that you can do – even the largest hoops are too small for some ideas. So I’m always interested in finding new ways to piece together small embroideries to make large panels, and recently have been working on a different approach to piecing. I drew a large leafy tree and divided it up in such a way that the boundaries between pieces ran along natural boundaries of the design – that is, the branches and twigs of the tree. I then stitched each piece on a heavy felt which I'd painted with acrylics

The individual pieces of the panel were designed so that most of the boundaries ran across natural boundaries of the drawing

All the pieces were then assembled with loose zig-zag stitching

The pieces tacked together loosely

 

and finally the final stitching between the pieces was done with thread of appropriate colour

The final pieced panel, size 23 x 16 inches (approximately 60 x 42 cm)

There are some places where it wasn’t possible to run the stitching along natural boundaries of the design – for example, some stitching runs across the background. However with thoughtful choice of thread colours and a bit of retouching with acrylics the stitching recedes from the eye, and the overall shape of the tree and leaves takes over the attention

Technically this was a modest success - I've learned a lot from doing it and may try the technique again. Unfortunately the photo doesn't show the colours all that accurately - in reality they're a bit clearer and less muddy than you might think from the picture. However if I try this again I'll be particularly careful to keep the painting of the fabric very light and transparent, so that the painting of the background recedes a bit more, and the embroidery takes over

 

Comments

[Cherri]

I am blown away! It looks amazing! Good JOB! Love all the different leaves.