Stitch Sampling

This article from TextileArtist.org is a nice read if you have ever wondered about the value of sampling stitches or techniques before you start a project.

Sampling can be addictive.  It's all about the "What ifs" that keep popping up as you try one thing, then make some small alteration to the process or color or thread weight and try it again.  Even better is when you let one idea link to another and another . . .

The reward of all this curiosity spread across small pieces of fabric is that the samples are making your own encyclopedia of stitch and technique ideas as they begin to fill a box or a bin.  Notebooks with cloth pages (the holes are made with buttonholes) hold mine.  I've even used Pellon as a page, which keeps the pages from folding over in the thick binders.

If you searched the dark corners of your own studio space, how many samples could you collect?  Enough to fill your own ring-binder notebook?  Maybe two notebooks?  My favorite ones are where I start out a little loose and not so nice, but as the stitching continues, I can see the improvement I make.  Seeing where you came from is often a great teacher.  And mistakes might be the best teacher of all, because we learn more from mistakes than doing things perfectly the first time.

Don't forget other fabric techniques-- Felting experiments can lead to a new direction in wet or dry felting.  Fabric manipulation gives texture, whether perfectly or imperfectly worked.  What about painted Lutradur or Bond-A-Web, heat-manipulated surfaces . . .

Take a moment to read the article about sampling as a creative process.  It might be the impetus you need to start your next project!

Julie's Birthday: Ethan's Felted Flowers

This is another post that could not be put up until after the event, but I share the details with you because I am so proud of my eight-year old grandson.  Grandmothers can be silly ladies, sometimes, but I think his work is quite noteworthy.

Ethan has not done any felting for a long time, and I was surprised when he said he would like to make his mom a felted picture for her birthday.  He planned this piece out on the ride home from school on a Friday afternoon.  The colors were first.  He knew he wanted a purple background, and then the color of the vase. After going through the color wheel with its complementary colors and a few just for "pop," he decided on yellow.  By the time we'd had our snack and cleaned up the dishes, he had an image in his head of the piece he would make.

First afternoon's work:  ground cloth and vase with greenery.

After I cut him a purple-dyed piece of scrim for the base (he immediately asked for a 6" x 6" size, which will match his other two pieces), he went to the purple bin of roving and chose the deep, royal shade and began to draw the wool into long, thin streamers and laying it across the wispy fabric.  I cut him a piece of netting to use as a top for holding the batt together as he machine-felted.  He worked slowly, meticulously, and gave great attention to making the base even and flat.  He was so competent with the machine that I was able to work between himself and Bethy, who was picking her favorite beads from jars and bowls of them spread on the embroidery table nearby.

At each step, he asked for me to check his work before going on to the next.  He understood that we were building back-to-front, from background to vase then the leaves followed by flowers, so with that order in mind, the little guy worked very precisely.  Julie came to pick them up just as he was beginning to think of the flowers, so everything lay exactly as he left it, to be continued Monday afternoon when he has completed his homework.

Second afternoon's work:  flowers.

Together we sketched several ideas, and he developed three flower ideas from them.  Then, to the metallic thread case for the colors, and he was off.  I showed him a new stitch, the detached chain ("Lazy Daisy"), and he tried this on the blue flower, again on the orange.  On the red, he changed to straight stitch petals.  After one more assessment, the vase needed a touch more yellow roving, and he passed the finished piece to me.  Well, I thought, almost finished.  One more step.

Third afternoon's work:  wet felting.

To really finish a piece of needle-felted cloth, my personal opinion is that it should be wet-felted.  This neatens and tightens up the edges, which can go wild and wooly in a heartbeat with the embellisher, and it smoothes the surface and softens the punched look of the roving.  To that end, we worked in the kitchen and I showed him how to do this.  The folks at HeartFelt Silks Fiber Art Tools on Etsy make a palm washboard that is perfect for this kind of finishing.  I found it after I despaired of ever being able to wet-felt again when my hands began to change and draw up, and it is a wonderful tool.  Ethan and the beautifully-crafted wooden board are a perfect pair for this work.

When we had shocked the little square in hot and cold water, felted it some more, washed it and then did it all over again, it was time for the ten minutes in  the dryer that is the "finishing touch" for the surface.  Just a few more steps, now . . .

Creating the card was a lot of fun for him.  He worked at the drafting table with  jars of colored pencils to create a birthday card that was "still under construction."  Bulldozers and trucks are busily pushing and dropping the "Happy Birthday" letters in place.  He even included a note as to why the card was in the construction phase-- the workmen were out to lunch!

Such happy times in the studio with his booming little voice making announcements of his progress and asking occasional questions!  Why are he and Bethy growing up so fast?

Ethan's felted piece!

I could not publish this picture before Christmas because Ethan made this as a gift for his parents, but I can share this now.  Ethan finished his first machine felted landscape last month.  He was six years old.  He had asked repeatedly, always very politely, to be taught how to use "that machine" (always accompanied by a nod in the direction of the Embellisher), and finally, in October I listened to him explain his plan for how he would learn.  He had worked out a formula for learning!  The lovely part of working with Ethan is that he never forgets anything.  I think of his animal symbol as the elephant.  He is shown something once, and that becomes The Way.

We began to talk about felt tops and how the fibers interlock, how a felting needle is different from a sewing needle, then decided on a six inch square for our layout.  I cut out a piece of dyed scrim for him and as he began reaching for his favorite colors I was reminded of James Taylor singing, "Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose."   After making his choices of color and placement, I sat beside him, heart in throat, as he began to apply pressure to the foot pedal and use those small fingers to move through the felting process.  He had watched me do this for several years, and I suppose, with that incredible memory of his, he had been storing up information for this moment.  In all the time we spent on this, he did not break a needle-- which is a much better track record than my own!

Next, to add little chopped bits of wool thread for grass, some shaping of the tree and ponds, and after that the stitches.  Not any blue would do on the pond-- it had to be shiny silk, "to reflect the light," he explained very patiently. He chose sari silk metallic thread and bright green crewel wool for the tree foliage, with little bits of the green blowing across the soft wool base.

We worked on this in stages for several weeks.  On the days he stayed with us after school, he would have his snack, do his homework and then we would come to the studio until Julie came to pick them up.  He was very concerned that she not see it, and she so kindly complied with his wishes.

The most heart-melting moment was not to see the little piece finished, however, but to hear him say, "I can't believe I'm really making this piece, Grandma!"  The sad part came when I suggested he take it to share with his class when he was finished, but he quickly said no.  His mother told me, later, that he was afraid of the other boys making fun of him.  How can it be that a first grader can be bullied by his "friends" for his talent and perseverance?

This piece reveals a creative, imaginative side to Ethan that is very unlike the methodical, mathematics-oriented thinking he usually exhibits.  He helps Bethy with her third-grade multiplication tables and adds and subtracts faster than she, and he enjoys working out people's ages from the year they were born.  So glad he and I had these hours together to make this discovery.  Our next felting may be to incorporate wet felting into the process . . . Updates as this happens.

Reclaimed Silk Sari Ribbon

Reclaimed materials are always interesting to work with.  Silk Sari Ribbon is on the top of my list of these re-usables.  The strips are sometimes too wide to stitch with "as is," but most silks tear/rip very easily, and I can make several narrow strips of silk for stitching from a single length of the ribbon that comes in skeins for knit and crochet.

This example above is from a sample for a study of mosses that is part of a larger project (more to come on this over the next year, I hope).  Here you can see the grey and yellow silk ribbons couched in place, then surrounded by loopy, textured stitches in a variety of fibers.  Is it apparent that I am not too fussed by the restrictions of realistic color?

This next piece has been stitched on a ground of hand-made felt to make an impression of wind sweeping through the branches of a potted plant.  The heavier leaves are stitched with torn strips of ribbon, with mixed wool and silk threads used break up the blue with some scattered, less-solid leaf images.

 Silk, wool, and a little cotton scrim for good measure . . . It takes so little to pacify some folks!

Moss On Tree

This 6" square is my interpretation of moss growing on a tree, at v-e-r-y close range.  Stitched mostly in Walsh silk/wool yarn on a piece of hand-felted wool from dyed roving and scrim, it is layers of wool, silk, linen, and cotton, with tiny beads tucked in between the seeding stitches.

Mystery of the cloth, No. 1

Layers of meaning, giblets felted into a layer of roving and scrim and almost obscured, then stitching over and beside those marks, more felting, more stitching– the cloth becomes a palimpsest of present and former marks.

Part of a series of experiments with mark-making on different fabrics.

Three red trees

At the outset I must confess:  I do not like orange.

This landscape is built on a piece of nuno felt that has been stitched, unstitched, had portions of needle felted velvet unceremoniously ripped away, cut into two pieces and re-felted . . . All in an effort to make friends with the color orange. The green was a diversion, a way of using, by way of yellow, the complimentary blue of orange and the green of red to soften and tame the orange, with stitches in soft, chubby matte cottons and variegated silk flosses.  The two green trees stand by in wonder, gossiping about the entire process. They refuse to acknowledge their own painted silk cocoon origins.

To be further confessional:  Orange and I may no longer be enemies, but we are not exactly sitting down to tea and biscuits together.  Yet.

The final size is approximately 7” x 8”, and the framing is a bit of a puzzle.  I will keep this pinned to a board in the studio until lightning strikes with a grand idea.  Or, maybe I’ll ask Jordan to choose the framing for me!

Valley Farm

A visit to the farm in the valley.  A detail of one corner of larger embroidery.  From a memory of childhood, a visit to the farm of my mother’s sister.  The terraced fields seemed so tall to little legs, but the trip to pick fruit was worth the hike.

Note to the Autumn

Welcome, Autumn!

Although we thought you'd lost your way and would only find us some time after Christmas, you've put in brief appearances these past two weeks.  Acorns everywhere.   Crumbled and wrinkled leaves like old parchment, turning by slow degrees to colors in the warmth of an evening's fire.  Overturned pots where the squirrels and chipmunks have been unpacking the latest trip to the grocer.  Seed Pods collecting in low spots of the garden, drying and waiting to sleep deeply and dream of the spring . . .

So glad you found us!  Come in.  Stay a while.  Remind us of how beautiful you can be.

Playing With Wool

Once upon a time I made a felted cord (the musician in me resists typing "chord") and embroidered it, then made two felted and embroidered endings for it, adding some loopy knitting tapes to cap things off:

This cord was felted with roving, and a long piece of crewel wool was the center of it-- just in case the cord wanted to thin out and become many pieces.  I love the result, and combine it with a scarf and another felted neckpiece I found in Asheville (center of All Things Civilized) to wear with a blue wool jacket from Fall thru early spring.

Since that time, I have often thought about the process and how to vary it, how I might create another neckpiece that would be more interesting without slipping over the line into gaudiness, and this past week I began to work in earnest on the project.

First, I crocheted a cord of a lovely pale green and lavender heather wool, but ran out of the 3-ply yarn and found nothing with which to continue it, so at 30 inches, I set it aside and rumaged through the yarn to find a continuation.  No such luck.  Anything else I could find was not the right size, and was certainly much too soft.

Then I remembered a cone of ink bottle green Harrisville wool yarn meant for weaving.  Knitting and crochet threads have been fluffed and fulled after spinning, which is what makes them so appealing in a yarn store.  Yarns spun for weaving are left tight and unwashed so they are used first to weave piece then to full (wash or wet and agitate the yarn) the woven piece.  The fulling process is like a mini felting process, and it closes up the small spaces between the yarn in the cloth.

I started a second cord with the weaving yarn.  This Harrisville wool was a two ply, thin yarn, somewhere between a size 5 and 8 perle cotton, so the crochet was fraught with moments of searching for the correct swear word to express that particular situation.  After about ten or twelve inches, I realized that I could use that irregularity to my advantage, and I began to deliberately vary the thickness of the cord.  81 inches later, I was satisfied that I had enough cord to work with.

In this picture you see the cord and some of the irregularities I mentioned.

I decided to see what would happen if I began adding wool roving and wool stitching to the cord before it was felted.  Wow!!!  This was almost sinfully delightful, stuffing parts of the cord, wrapping other sections, needle felting the roving into the crocheted body, threading an especially large tapestry needle and stitching odd, random threads over the roving and around the crochet . . .  I should make dozens of these cords for my mental health!!!  Any frustrations I may have felt over the real or imaginary conflicts in my life were resolved with the work on the cord:

Gaudy?  I couldn't have cared if this cord ended up as a drapery tie-back in a bordello,  and I could have gone on for weeks this way except for the realization that as much fun as this was, the real fun would begin after the cord was felted and ready for embellishment.  I put the two pieces of cord in a mixing bowl and poured boiling water over them and stirred for a few moments.  The smell of wet animals filled the kitchen . . .  I wrinkled my nose and stirred some more.  Some of the blue dye released (probably from the roving), but when I drained the hot water off and changed to ice water, the color set.  A second bath of boiling water was clear, and after some more stirring the wool was ready for the washing machine.

Here I should explain that I cannot felt wool by hand any more because my palms are no longer flat, thank you Mr. Arthritis.  These days, I depend upon the washer for any felting that may happen around here.

Charles was glad to donate his yard-work clothes to the cause— denim is the best thing I have found to use with wool in the washer.  Denim is high-density, tightly-woven, and unless you are dealing with designer jeans, they have a pretty hard surface.  This is the perfect substitute for hands in agitating wool.

Into the wash.  I checked once to make sure things were not tangled, and the cord was shrinking nicely.  Maybe too nicely.

Out of the washing machine, the 81" cord now measured 76 inches!  And the pitiful pale green 30" cord came in at a whopping 32 inches!  The only explanation I could think of was that the pale greencord was beautifully uniform, but almost twice as fat as the second, longer cord.  In the shrinking process, the cord became thinner, but grew two inches longer, the way children enter puberty as chubby little buttons and come out tall and willowy . . . ???

Into the dryer.  Listening to the drum bang the clothes around, I wondered if the original 81inches of crocheted cord was going to be long enough to work with after all this processing!

The final measurements:  the 81" cord that shrank to 76"  now measures 68" long.  And little shrimp cord of 30" that grew to 32" is now 31" short.  I will set little shrimp aside and think of something for it to become, but not now.  The stitching and embellishing of the long cord begins this afternoon!