This was a great chapter. The final project (BARK) was quite a challenge and definitely needed a lot of thought and subsequently much stitching!!! I attempted to search for pictures of nature with a variety of textures illustrated in the next nine pages
Page 1
A variety of tree barks showing textures that are ridged, rutted, and rough. Some of the lines are regular and parallel while others irregular and craggy.
Page 2
This page also shows one tree trunk that is smooth with rough bits while the second one is even with blotched areas. The bark on the dark tree are crumpled pieces getting ready to leave the tree!!!
Page 3
Here the star shaped flowers have smooth, regular and pointed petals. The second picture shows flowers that are also smooth, regular and pointed but there are many more petals and they appear to be irregularly placed around the centre of the flower (also the plant could be some reeds!!!).
Page 4
The first picture shows a bumpy rough cone of some sort! The next plant has rounded scalloped leaves with smooth ridges running into the center. The last one has smooth regular shaped leaves that are pointed tips and serrated edges.
Page 5
The top two plants on this page are feathery and soft. The third plant has leaves that are downy and fuzzy.
Page 6
More plants that have soft, fuzzy and velvety leaves with rippled edges. Then there is the curly, crinkly kale leaves. The leaves on the bottom of the page are shiny, bouncy and bubbly!!!
Page 7
The Allium flower is a slightly irregular round shape with pointy star shaped flowers. The shiny smooth leaves at the top of the page have irregular serrated edges. The leaves in the plant at the bottom of the page are uneven and irregularly shaped!!
Page 8
All the plants on this page of sharp elongated pointy leaves. The cactus at the bottom of the page has spikey serrated edges with a smooth interior. The thistle shows thin pointed sharp needle like spines as well as thorny protrusions.
Page 9
The flower has smooth pebbly type blossoms. The leaf at the bottom of the page has a rough bumpy surface.
Page 10 Bridget Riley and visual texture.
Page 11
The first piece was reasonably effective in creating movement and is probably more like the smooth lines of Bridget Rileys work.
I preferred the second piece where I used a heavier thread in the bobbin.
For both pieces:
Fabric - white felt
Stabilizer – tear away
Stitch – cable. (I drew the design on the stabilizer)
Top thread in both cases - Gutterman – 100% polyester – black col #10
Bobbin threads - Piece #1 – black pearl cotton #8; Piece #2 - 8/2 black silk thread (similar in thickness to #5 pearl)
Page 12 Experiments with stitching textures
My first attempt at trying to stitch a cactus was not successful!! The design was too small.
I chose a simpler design (out of my head!!!) for my second piece and the result was definitely better!!
For both pieces:
Fabric – hand dyed piece of cotton polyester.
Stabilizer - tear away
Threads and stitches; green /aqua heavy boucle like silk thread in the bobbin and a Thread Studio variegated 100% rayon – colour Ironbark on the top. (stitched along the ridges of the cactus). For the spikes, stitched from the top with Thread Studio variegated 100% rayon – Ironbark. (pale green thread in the bobbin) – stitching on top of the cabled stitch.
Page 13
I used the thistle picture on page 8 for sketching and stitching this sample.
Fabric – 100% cotton - hand painted with setacolours
Stabilizer – tear away
Threads and stitches – Thistle head - 2 red threads in the needle – Wonderfil - metallic colour # MT7714 (bright red) and Wonderfil 100% rayon embroidery (Christmas red); bobbin thread – 100% polyester – wine red. These two colours did not blend as well as I had hoped. I was looking for a more shocking pink effect!!
Base of Flower – Cable stitched pointy bits with (a.) Treenway heavy silk - 8/2 – colour wine red. and (b.) boucle type heavy silk thread – colour wine red.
Then top stitched with (a.) Thread Studio - 100% rayon variegated – colour – pale yellow, yellow, green and beige. (b.) 2 threads in the needle – 100% rayon – wine red in colour #1155; plus Thread Studio 100% rayon colour ironbark.
These top stitches gave some definition to the spines!!!
Unopened Thistle – (a.) cable stitched with Treenway 100% silk size 8/2 – colour – forest green. (b.) cable stitched – 100% silk boucle - colour red. Top thread – Thread Studio – 100% rayon – colour Ironbark.
Stems – cable stitch – Treenway Silk – 8/2. Top thread Iron bark from Thread Studio.
Page 14
For the allium, I used the picture on page 7. I did not draw a sample!!! I like this flower’s stitching the best!! I used cable stitch with heavier threads and then a finer matching thread and stitched the “starbursts” from the top. The metallic Candlelight thread gives the flower a special sparkle. I like the layering of stitches to allow peep holes of what is underneath (including a bit of the background fabric)!!!
Fabric - 100% cotton - hand painted with setacolours (same as for the thistles).
Stabilizer – tear away
Threads and stitches – Flower – freeform starburst stitch in a variety of threads. Cable stitch – top thread Aurifil 40/2 weight 100% cotton – colour #2535 – red violet. Bobbin threads were (a.) Loops & Threads craft cord – variegated 100% cotton – from violet to pale violet; (b.) Candlelight metallic yarn – dark violet. Top stitch – Korean thread – 100% rayon – medium dark violet colour # 2083 and medium violet colour # 2081. Bobbin thread – Auriful 40/2 weight 100% cotton – colour #2535 – red violet. The back of the flower head was a bunch of star like stitches all in the same colour and thread (Aurifil).
Stem and leaves – cable stitch – bobbin thread – 2 shades of variegated green 100% silk boucle. Top thread – Thread studio – 100% rayon – colour Ironbark (variegated greens)
Page 15 A picture of holly from my garden.
The drawing!!
The stitching!! The stitching created a smooth texture and sharp points to the leaves. I should have probably used a shiny material like bridal satin. The pattern was traced on the fabric using a light table and a Frixon pen.
Fabric - hand painted silk dupioni
Stabilizer – white felt
Threads and Stitches – 2 threads in the needle – (a.) 100% rayon WonderFil embroidery thread ART 3142 – colour # 4125 emerald green AND (b.) 100% polyester embroidery thread – colour # 502 shiny tint of green.
Bobbin thread – Guttermann - 100% polyester – emerald green
Page 16 Mark making to create visual texture. I only used pencil and pen to accomplish the results of these emotions.
Struggling through a thorn bush!!
I chose a primarily red fabric and cable stitch in black. The beading of the thread helped to show the struggle as well as the image of seeing “red” in the background colour!!! . The pointy areas show some hesitation in trying to get through!! I think!!!
Fabric – 100% cotton – hand painted
Stabilizer – tear away
Thread and stitch – Cable stitch using Treenway 8/2 100% silk thread in the bobbin and top thread was 100% cotton Valdani #1 – colour black
Page 17 Foot prints in the snow!
This time I chose a crisp white dupioni silk and sparkly silver threads to depict crunches in the show.
Fabric – white dupioni silk
Stabilizer – white felt
Threads and stitches – free embroidery – top thread – 2 threads in the needle - (a.) Sulky metallic thread – colour # 7001 – silver and (b.) WonderFil Invisafil colour #103 – grey (thought the thread was a shiny grey 100% rayon but I was mistaken)
Bobbin thread – Guttermann 100% polyester white
Page 18 Whisper of a morning wind through the trees.
Fabric – hand painted dupioni silk
Stabilizer – white felt
Threads and stitches – free embroidery – top thread - Thread Studio – 100% rayon – variegated from green to yellow green to dark green. Bobbin thread – Guttermann 100% polyester – emerald green
Page 19 The fragrance of a red rose on a hot day!!
The piece is warm to hot with a hot red thread wafting through!!!
Fabric – hand painted 100% cotton with salt applied at the end of painting.
Stabilizer – white felt
Threads and stitches – free embroidery – top thread – Embroidery thread – 100% polyester – colour # 869 - dark red violet. Same for bobbin.
Page 20 Wrapping yourself in a cocoon of vine leaves.
The grape leaves are crinkly in the shape of a labyrinth. The background depicts images of grapes and more leaves!!!
Fabric – 100% cotton painted in violet and green colours
Stabilizer – tear away
Threads and stitches – cable stitch – bobbin thread – 100% silk boucle – variegated green/blue green. top thread – Aurifil 100% cotton #40 – colour 1114/2BD - medium yellow green
Page 21 Now my piece de resistance. I took a very long time to proceed with this part of the chapter. I took several pictures of the bark from a huge Garry Oak tree that sits outside the garage door of our house. I chose the following photo because it showed some dark passageways between the various raised elements. Also there were bits of orange brown and blue green and shades of green along with lots of shades of grey.
Page 22 The next problem was the mock up. Again a lot of time thinking and finally I put the glue and tissue paper to work. I am sorry I forgot to take a picture at this time. Then the paint job. That was fun but it took me a whole afternoon to complete (about 3 hours)!!! When I had finished I felt I had made a reasonably good representation of the tree bark photograph!! The size was one half a piece computer paper (5 1/2 inches by 8 1/8 inches). Now I had to transfer this into stitching.
Page 23 I was having trouble drawing these intricate shapes onto the tear away fabric for the final piece. So a took a photocopy of the mock up. I then cut out all the pieces that I was going to leave as black on my base fabric. And that is what you see below. This and the mock up became my working pieces for the final.
Page 24 I drew the pattern on the tear away and stitched the outline and the areas marking where the black bits were to be.
Fabric – black felt
Stabilizer – heavy tear away
Threads and stitches – Twicky thread (from my stash) – med grey – for top thread when using cable and bobbin thread for the above outline. 99% of the stitching was cable stitch (one of my favourite stitches). The feed dogs were lowered, the open toed embroidery foot was attached, the special bobbin holder with the reduced tension, loose top tension to create the bubbly effect of the bobbin thread. There was also some zigzagging on top to break some of the starkness of the white thread.
Page 25 The threads used through out the whole project. I did put together a very large group of threads and this is what I used in the end.
Most of the threads were solid colours. When I needed another colour I would stitch on top and usually it was a cable stitch ….. sometimes this was difficult to do because working backwards (or was it upside down) was not the easiest thing to do.
The Threads - 100% silk boucle in medium grey, shade of orange, off white with a greenish tinge, and a green/blue. Patina 100% rayon in greys – charcoal grey – colour PA 12 and medium grey – colour PA 25. Perle thread #5 in a light grey brown (colour 642)and a medium grey (colour 414) and a #8 thread medium grey brown Treenway 100% silk 8/2 – green black and medium dark green. Treenway 100% silk 20/2 in very pale light green, light green and medium green .
Page 27 Now to try and explain what I did. The piece shown here is all the bits I stitched on the base fabric before I started the 4 slips to be inserted. I stitched around each slip. Where the topography was relatively low relief, I did some stitching on the base. This is what you see below. I traced out each of the 4 slips separately on to paper and then trimmed off any pieces that had been stitched on the base (I hope you understand what I am trying to say!!) . What was left for that space was the slip which was stitched on a separate piece of felt. these pieces were a little bigger so that there would be some depth to the final piece.
Page 28 The back of the base fabric.
Page 29 The first three slips fit into the spaces from the right to the left (a bit difficult to see exactly where they go!!!)
The back of the above 3 slips.
Page 30 The fourth slip to go into the left side of the base piece. As you can probably see, there were two small areas that were supposed to remain black … I just stitched over them.
The back of the above fourth slip.
Page 31 I hand sewed each of the slips in place with quite a bit of manipulating of the piece to be inserted. Then I had to knot down areas in strategic places so that the “bumps” were not to evident!!! To cover an area, I over stitched with different threads to highlight a ridge.
This was definitely a challenging piece. After I had finished, I wondered if I should have stitched the black bits as well, but I really felt that they were more effective left as I had done them. There were areas between the rows of stitching that showed the background. These were left to again give a bit more depth to the final embroidery. In several places, the top thread shows where it catches the cable thread. I felt this added to the final outcome. I also removed the outline stitching which showed the perimeters of the piece.
I have found a black frame that enhances the embroidery (a miracle!!) and I will put it into our local fair. And see what happens. I will let you know!!!
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