The Silver Darlings part 1

Recently I’ve been working on ideas that combine machine embroidery with other crafts to make different kinds of decorative objects, and here’s one that's based on the unlikely idea of a string of herrings. The coast of the north-east of Scotland (where I live) has a strong tradition of herring fishing, and around here if you refer to the “silver darlings”, everyone will know that you’re talking about the herrings. So here is the first stage of a tribute to the little silvery fish I sketched several different versions of herring and digitised one to use in trying out various ways of making the fish. The fish itself was easy enough – I just stitched out the right and left halves and then stitched the two together, leaving a gap with which to turn the fish and stuff it with a little batting. The fins and tail were a trickier proposition, but eventually I worked out a way to add embroidered fins that were translucent and rigid (this technique is too long and complicated to describe here but if anyone’s interested, just drop me a line) The result is, I think, a modest success, and I will now go on to make more herrings from different fabrics with different embroidered details

The first of several herrings

Comments

[Embroidery designs]

Cool idea