The Accidental Embroiderer

Art Nouveau meets Arts and Crafts

As I said a couple of weeks ago, I've recently been enjoying myself having a look through some of the design styles that have been popular in past years. First there were the clean, spare lines of the 1950s, then the sinuous tendrils of Art Nouveau. And recently I've been revisiting the solid Victorian values of the school of William Morris - the Arts and Crafts movement. I did a few sketches in the Morris style but I found that my recent attempts at Art Nouveau were having an influence - the lines of the designs were more fluid and curving than you usually find in Morris' work. But the results were OK, if not quite up to Morris' standards.

 

The stems are Art Nouveau, the roses are Morris

I'm not sure what you could do with it - maybe duplicate it and reverse the duplicate, and use it for a cushion cover? That would be suitable for a Morris design - he was heavily into tapestry and soft furnishings of various kinds. Oh well, it's not my immediate problem. I'll keep it for a while and see if any ideas present themselves on what to do with it

And more birdcages

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of birds from a new set that I'm working on - a series of colourful birds in birdcages. There are now 12 of them, and while I won't bore you with all of them, I will put up a few more. After the last posting I got some interesting messages from readers who were saddened by the idea of so many birds in cages. So for you, I've added one of a bird breaking free

 

Still caged...

 

Almost out...

 

Free at last!

Someone also suggested that these designs could be used in a long thin panel - that is, a bellpull. I'm a huge enthusiast of bellpulls so at the moment I'm working on this idea. The cages by themselves wouldn't be all that interesting, so I'm drawing a lot of lush foliage to surround all the cages. Both the drawing and the digitising, as well as the eventual stitching out - will be a lot of work, but I hope it will be worth it

Art nouveau style - then and now

 Some of my happiest hours have been spent leafing through the works of artists of past generations and trying to analyse past styles of painting. Of course, very few artists have ever designed for embroidery (and even fewer for computerised embroidery!) but that makes it all the more interesting to try and work out how styles from the past can be adapted to modern techniques. One of my favourite styles is Art Nouveau - to my mind it manages to be spontaneous, elegant and emotional all at the same time

 

I've recently discovered the work of the artist Arthur Mackmurdo, and here's one of his best-known works, the cover of a book on London churches

 

The work of Arthur Mackmurdo

 

Who could resist those wonderful sinuous lines! I certainly couldn't, so here's an interpretation in embroidery of his leaves and flowers.

 

A modern version

 

I would never put myself at his level - I still have too much to learn before I get that far! But I hope that he would at least be flattered at proving such an inspiration to future generations

Three Celtic freebies

Recently, when I asked for ideas of designs that I might post as future freebies, someone suggested Celtic knots. This really rang a bell with me, because a long time ago, in Another Life, I did a big series of Celtic knots, and I'd be only too happy to pass some of them on now.

I'm not doing worksheets for these, because there doesn't seem to be much need for them. Both designs are for the 4x4 (100mm x 100mm) hoop

 

Celtic knot 1

 

Celtic knot 2

 

Celtic knot 3

 

Now - WARNNG!! There are jump stitches in all of them, and numbers 1 and 3 have a HUGE number of jumps in the final colours. I've been puzzling for a long time over how to get rid of these, but I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the only way to do away with jumps involves the sacrifice of stitchout quality. So I'm afraid there's not a lot I can do about them - just think of them as part of the Celtic style

Here is number 1, here is number 2, and here is number 3. All are in .pes v.6