Life drawing is fun. Add embroidery into the mix to highlight some details, and it becomes brilliant.
We spent the day life drawing at school today. We didn’t have any professional models, so our tutors did that instead. These drawings are of Nikki, or Nicola Jarvis as the embroidery world know her.
I only used thread on the face, as I thought this was the most important area to work on.
And the back of the piece is quite interesting too.
Tech specs: Charcoal, calico, household thread
A long time ago now a friend asked me to embroider some ’swirly words’ on a shirt for her. The shirt in question is a beautiful whisper of a shirt- a little piece of ethereal pastel pink jersey knit. I hadn’t been told what shirt she’d decided on when I agreed. I’d still have agreed if I’d have known, I’d just have warned her it’d take me one million years and the likelihood of me ruining the shirt was quite high. Jersey is a tricky fabric to embroider on at the best of times, due to it stretching you have to be super delicate and you can’t use a hoop. The needle has to be as small as possible and the thread small too, so as not to tug on the weave of the fabric.
As you can see from this, it’s far from perfect:
The words are by Arthur Russell. Oh, Arthur Russell- how we love you.
http://open.spotify.com/track/3sRsI4rRJ6YzZwTUc0d7G7
I give it to her tonight. Because she’s beautiful I shall take a photo of her modelling it for you and you’ll like to see. Till then.
Here’s a quick present for a friend I stitched up last night
I like making presents for friends. I put lots of thought into them because my friends mean a lot to me and keeping friends is important. If there’s one thing that this year has taught me it is that friends are completely indispensable. I’ve also learnt to distinguish between genuine friends, and friends that are just there because no-one else is. I appreciate the latter, but I love the first.
This is a super girly present for a male friend. Who likes mime. But he also likes beautiful things, so I hope it’s well received.
The backing fabric is one I bought aaaaages ago and if I were a good blogger, which I’m not, I’d link you to a past post showing you the entire curtain. I made it into a dress, gave up halfway through the making of it, and that’s been hanging in my wardrobe for over a year now. No longer, I cut a rectangle from it so Pierrot could be reunited with his song.
I’m going back to Kingston this afternoon. Hopefully I will still update whilst over there. Fingers crossed!
Remember me? I don’t.
Life got a bit funny, things got a bit hard-The Royal School of Needlework suprised me a little. But I’m ok now. I’m living in a house with internet (this is like a dream!) and I’m happier. Since I’ve got the internet, I’m going to be around more, I promise.
The astute amongst you might notice I’ve changed my header. I’m re-doing this blog now. I’ve finally admitted to myself I’m not as twee as I like to think I am and I’m celebrating that. I wear boots and I swear. It’s fun, especially in the Royal School of Needlework.
This piece has a story or two- it was originally stitched for the NSFW Phat Quarter swap on Flickr. It’s based on a painting of Sappho (doing what she does best, other than writing poems) by Édouard-Henri Avril. I wanted to create something that whilst being NSFW for the easily offended, it’s less something dirty and more something to be celebrated. Sex isn’t bad or disgusting. It’s not something to be shyed away from- it’s beautiful. And so, I give you embroidered cunnilingus:
I embroidered this in many public places, on many trains- although perhaps I enjoyed this most on the tube train to the Knit and Stitch Show. Sat amongst school friends and a tutor it was a good way to introduce myself. A stranger, also on her way to the show, joined in with the fun and complimented me on my stitching too.
A little while after finishing, and whilst I was saving up the money for postage, my Mother laid her greedy eyes upon it and fell in love. After pleading me and guilt tripping me with such lines as “You wouldn’t be eating if it wasn’t for me. YOU WOULDN’T EVEN BE ALIVE IF IT WASN’T FOR ME!” I relented and agreed to give it to her and Dad for Christmas. And I wonder why I turned out weird. I’ve now got to make something else to send to Jojobooster, and I hope she forgives me.
Technical aspects:
Stitched on a pre stitched pillow case I bought from a charity shop, I only did the women and the ‘Sappho’. When have I ever bothered to stitch a flower? I matched the colours, in more ways than one. It’s a quilted piece and done in chain and backstitch.
I’ll leave you with that for a little while.
This weekend I’ve been preparing for next week’s move to West Molesey for my studies at Royal School of Needlework. I’m really excited, I definitely need to get away from here, from these memories, and start afresh. It was pointed out to me today that I’ve become a broken record of late- I need new things to talk about.
I made a couple of cushions today. I seem to be unable of making things without decoration on, but lacking in time I had to root through my things and find stuff to use. I ended up finding two of my very earliest embroidery projects that had been done for fun and not for college work. One was unfinished, I finished it. One was intended to become a purse… A cushion’s second best, right? It was odd, finding things that there were three years old… and that I still liked. I didn’t do much ‘crafting for fun’ back then, so all my three year old work, in my mind, is AS Level work- and therefore a dreadful bore.
The first, an Art Buchwald quote rendered in pretty poor chain stitch:
The second, some sort of screaming face in chain and satin stitch?:
I remember finding the second one to be a mammoth task. I wasn’t as quick as I am now, I didn’t know as many tricks as I do now. I guess that’s why I left it unfinished (although all I left was a bit of the nose and the eyebrows) I remember watching The Crystal Maze while I did it… well the re-runs anyway, it’s not that old. It also has the tell tale signs of being an early Rosa embroidery of the lines being drawn on with biro before I stitched. Oh, the wonders of washaway embroidery pens!
They will sit proudly on my bed as a reminder of my beginnings. Never forget.
What do you want first? The good news or the bad news?
I like to have the bad news first. The good news then helps nurse the pain of the bad.
So here it is;
At least the bad news looks pretty, eh? I stitched this while in Sydney as a present for a good friend. It’s a cross stitched rip off of this Turner Prize entry.
And the good news?
(Taken from Arlee Barr’s photostream)
Yes yes, I am now a guest poster at Mr X Stitch! One friday of every month I shall release secrets from The Royal School of Needlework to the world. I will keep you posted on my posting.
So, as I said in my last post- My big sister has tied the knot! Since she’s my one and only sibling, and therefore by default- my favourite sister, I knew I had to put in a lot of effort into the wedding present. Just buying her some quilt covers would not do.
I decided the whole ‘international’ theme would be a good one to go by- so I wanted to do something distinctly British. If she was going to be getting married to a foreigner, away from the homeland- then she’d sure as heck have to be reminded of the little island she grew up on with me. When the inspiration finally hit, I realised how obvious it was. Royal Weddings. You can’t get more British than Charles and Diana’s wedding memorabilia. A nation obsessed by one couple, every time you go into a charity shop over here, you can rely on finding at least a mug with a classic Chaz and Di wedding design on. I did a quick google search and found this; my starting point.
And this? My finishing:
As the astute amongst you can see- it’s very different from the inspiration, and not just because it’s embroidered. I decided I had to make it at least a little Australian… Didn’t want Mister Sister getting uppity.
I swapped all the standard leaves for Eucalyptus leaves, and I swapped a bouquet of thistles for a waratah, a native Austrlian flower. I made the mistake of using Bullion knots, and lots of them, to depict the bizarre texture of a waratah. It took me ages, but everyone who saw it recognised them straight away- so a little victory for me there.
One of the changes I was most happy with was changing The Prince of Wales feathers for Archaeopteryx feathers. Mister Sister is a palaeontologist, and loves Archaeopteryxs the most. I asked him what colour “Archeop-whatever feathers” were, but being big and clever he just sent me a text he’d written for Uni and basically just fobbed me off with the whole “your guess is as good as mine” excuse. Helpful. I went for dark blue and maroon.
I’m quite proud of my acorns. They’re pretty cute, huh?
And finally, on the original the words ‘Ich Dien’ are inscribed. I did a little research to find out what they meant, and according to Yahoo Answers, it means ‘I serve’. Well, as if that was getting by on a wedding present to my sister. I discovered it was derived from ‘Eich Dyn’ or ‘Your Man’. And yeah. That’ll do.
I embroidered it all on a table cloth I’d bought from a charity shop, that had already been embroidered by someone who really liked flowers and bows. The embroidery itself is about A2 size, but the table cloth is bigger. It was hung where the reception was taking place, and it became quite a talking point, and dancing-infront-of-point too. In the grand tradition of weddings, here’s Father of The Bride dancing. My excuse for posting this photograph is a size comparison shot.
But I don’t really need an excuse, do I?
I am in Australia right now, Melbourne to be precise!
My sister has found a fellow to dote on her every whim and so is marrying him as quick as can be. He and his family are Melbourne residents so our English based family have just had our air mile saving hearts broken by flying half way around the world. Holidays are exciting though, so we’re all having a lovely time.
The beauty of Melbourne is it is so damn crafty. Firstly, my craftivist idol is based here- Rayna Fahey AKA Radical Cross Stitch. She also co-runs the Craft Cartel nights (I believe) and I was upset to learn that alas, there was not one on whilst I’m over here… but hopefully I can meet the woman behind the cross stitched fences all the same.
There’s also Meet Me at Mikes, which is a shop I’m hoping to go check out tomorrow. They had a Brown Owls craft night the day I arrived but 24 hour journeying makes Rosa a crabby human being so it was to the apartment and to bed with me.
When I return I will have stitchery for your eyes.
A couple of pictures from indie tracks… they didn’t come out wonderfully and they were all of the same person anyway so it’d probably be quite a boring post if I did more than a few.
Lovely weekend.
A while ago I sent this piece to Valued Sony Customer, a fellow Phat Quarter lassy.
It upsets me that in this day and age, to keep yourself natural is courage… but I feel that those amongst us who do, with their heads held high, ought to be commended for it all the same. This one’s for you, ladies.
To further illustrate my point, a couple of bits:
Firstly, one of my favourite pieces of feminist grafitti activism:
http://jumpoffthebridge.com/2009/04/as-long-as-theres-no-hair.html
Secondly, a link to a frankly terrifying advert for a bikini trimmer and a very interesting thread of comments:
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